Starling House
Alix E. Harrow
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The small coal town of Eden, Kentucky is a bad-luck town if ever there was one. It's not just the poverty and poor living conditions from being so near the Gravely coal mines and power plants, but bad things seem to keep happening, accidents and deaths and explosions, often tied to the strange mists that rise in the night. Some think the town is cursed... and some look with suspicion on the secluded old Starling House, once the home of the late author Eleanor Starling, whose unsettling children's book The Underland still has a devoted following. It's been well over a century since Eleanor disappeared, but her reputation is still whispered in that way of small towns; if anyone cursed the good people of Eden, it must have been her and the strange string of successors who have inherited the place, culminating in the reclusive young man Arthur. None would believe the truth...
Opal and her teen brother Jasper have been stranded in Eden ever since a terrible accident sent their mother's car into the river over a decade ago. A high school dropout with a surly reputation, Opal struggles to earn enough money to at least save Jasper from this dead-end hole of a place. But she also is fascinated by Starling House, having been enthralled by The Underland since childhood. She even finds herself haunted by dreams of a sprawling mansion, a place that feels like the home she never had. But she never imagined she'd set foot in the place, until the night she has a fateful encounter with Arthur Starling himself. Beyond the threshold of Starling House is a place she recognizes too well from her dreams... and a dark secret worse than her deepest nightmares.
REVIEW: With the creepy Southern Gothic atmosphere and a gritty, hardscrabble heroine, Starling House looked like a great pick for October. Alix E. Harrow continues her streak of not disappointing me.
Opal is a young woman who should have given up years ago, fallen into drugs or alcohol or other traps - or simply given up on survival altogether. Her single mother didn't exactly provide a stable life before her untimely death, with neither child knowing who or where their fathers were, and Opal was in the car with the woman when they went off the bridge into the river. Things only got worse after that, as she dropped out of high school and learned to lie, cheat, steal, and grift to keep custody of her kid brother. Yet, while Opal isn't exactly the kindest or most mentally healthy person in Eden, adversity has made her dig in all the harder, made her all the hungrier and sharper, as she bends every fiber of her being and her pride toward getting her now-teen brother Jasper out and away to a better life - sacrificing herself and any potential for her own future or happiness in the process. Her quick temper and sarcastic tongue don't always help, but they're her defense mechanisms against a town that long ago branded her trouble, and against the parts of herself she deliberately buried because they were too broken and hurt to handle alone - and alone is the only way she knows how to handle anything. A small Southern town like Eden doesn't exactly go out of its way to help strangers, especially ones like Opal, though there are a few people who form a threadbare support net... people she doesn't learn to appreciate until it's nearly too late. Jasper, meanwhile, is becoming a teenager and pushing back against her mothering form of sisterhood; hard as she tries to shield him from the worst of small town hostility and the sacrifices she makes on his behalf, he's developing his own ideas of what his life will be, ideas that clash with her best intentions and efforts. This is yet another source of friction on the fraying ropes barely holding Opal together... and that's without the dreams and nightmares, some of which tie into the tale of The Underland and lead back, inevitably, to Eleanor Starling.
Arthur, meanwhile, has also sacrificed himself in his own way, as caretaker of Starling House and the legacy of Eleanor... and also the Warden working to protect a town that hardly deserves protection from a supernatural threat (not really a spoiler; this is a horror-fantasy, after all). He swore he'd be the last, that he'd die if need be to stop the cycle of new Wardens being "called" to Starling House to continue a fight that seemingly can never be won... until the redheaded young woman turns up and inadvertently offers blood to the wrought iron gates. Despite himself, he offers her a job as housekeeper to the sprawling estate, even knowing that he may not be able to save her from a fate like his own (especially not if she's already been called by the dreams), but he's denied himself so much, even companionship, for so long he can't help himself - plus he may need some assistance, as not only is the mist growing more malevolent and active, but enemies of an all too mortal variety - the wealthy, amoral Gravelys - are trying to steal Starling House (and its secrets) right out from under him.
As Opal and Arthur circle unspoken feelings for each other and their own agendas (both of which are facing increasing challenges as things get worse for them and for Eden), underlying secrets and the source of Eden's curse are slowly revealed, tied into festering wounds left generations ago by injustice, abuse, and trauma. The sins of the forefathers are compounded through the years, as the lack of consequences feeds into the entitlement and impunity of those who flout rules and common decency, while the habit of injustice becomes entrenched in a populace too willing to look the other way. All of this only makes the mist worse, building to a potentially catastrophic climax.
There are times when both Opal and Arthur let their emotions get in the way of intelligence and action; Opal in particular can break down and hole up in her own head and in the borrowed motel room that serves as a home. Her flexible morality (when it comes to people who aren't herself or Jasper; she will do anything, even sell herself out, if it means a chance at getting her brother out of Eden and away from their wretched existence) makes her a little tough to sympathize with as a main character, though Arthur can also be stubbornly obtuse and close-lipped. Still, they manage to grow, if unevenly, to confront the challenges placed before them. A few threads feel unresolved by the ending, though overall it's a satisfying and cathartic conclusion.
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The Witches of Lychford (Paul Cornell) - My Review
Griffin's Castle (Jenny Nimmo) - My Review
Gallant (V. E. Schwab) - My Review
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Friday, October 24, 2025
Bryony and Roses (T. Kingfisher)
Bryony and Roses
T. Kingfisher
Red Wombat Tea Company
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It never would've happened but for the rutabagas. But Bryony's garden keeps her and her two sisters fed, and she needed more vegetables, so she and the clumsy family pony Fumblefoot set off... never expecting to get caught in a snowstorm on the way back through the woods. When she stumbles upon a manor house deep in the forest, it seemed a stroke of luck, and if there seemed to be something uncanny and a touch magical about the way its doors opened and food appeared (even food for a hungry pony) with no sign of humans about, well, women on the edge of freezing to death can't exactly pick and choose their salvation. It's only when she tries to leave and finds herself facing a hulking Beast that she realizes the trap she's fallen into. But is it he who keeps her imprisoned here, or is it some other, more insidious force... and, if so, is there any way to escape the curse that's entangled her?
REVIEW: As one might expect, this is yet another retelling of the familiar "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale, but this "Beauty" is no helpless damsel traded away by a greedy father, nor is breaking the curse as easy as learning to love a hulking "monster" with a human heart. Bryony is a gardener down to her marrow; when her late father squandered the family name and fortune and left his three daughters nothing but an out-of-the-way cottage in an out-of-the-way little town, she felt more relieved than devastated, finally able to indulge her passion without being forever chided about dirt under her nails. She's not a classical "beauty", either; her sister Iris got the family good looks, as well as a flair for playing the victim/helpless damsel in distress, while Bryony and her no-nonsense sister Holly are more plain-faced. When she first realizes she can never leave the House in the woods, she misses her garden at least as much as her own kin. This gives her a more practical bent than many classic fairy tale heroines, though she's also not notably brave or a warrior by any means; more than once she lets her fear get the better of her, though generally (and especially later on) that fear is quite justified by the circumstances. The Beast, meanwhile, is rarely anything but a gentleman from the start, as much a prisoner as she herself is. He has long ago become resigned to his fate, and regrets that she, too, is trapped with him, but her presence also offers a slim and painful hope of escape and freedom - if she can figure out how; every time he tries to tell her the origins and conditions of their imprisonment, the forces behind it seem to hear and act to silence them by increasingly malevolent means. Thus they have to find roundabout ways to communicate, when they can talk of it at all. Bryony sometimes seems slightly slow on the uptake about a few points, but manages to come through when it counts, and she and the Beast have a genuine connection and chemistry. It all makes for a reasonably satisfying tale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Nettle and Bone (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
The Fire Rose (Mercedes Lackey) - My Review
For the Wolf (Hannah Whitten) - My Review
T. Kingfisher
Red Wombat Tea Company
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It never would've happened but for the rutabagas. But Bryony's garden keeps her and her two sisters fed, and she needed more vegetables, so she and the clumsy family pony Fumblefoot set off... never expecting to get caught in a snowstorm on the way back through the woods. When she stumbles upon a manor house deep in the forest, it seemed a stroke of luck, and if there seemed to be something uncanny and a touch magical about the way its doors opened and food appeared (even food for a hungry pony) with no sign of humans about, well, women on the edge of freezing to death can't exactly pick and choose their salvation. It's only when she tries to leave and finds herself facing a hulking Beast that she realizes the trap she's fallen into. But is it he who keeps her imprisoned here, or is it some other, more insidious force... and, if so, is there any way to escape the curse that's entangled her?
REVIEW: As one might expect, this is yet another retelling of the familiar "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale, but this "Beauty" is no helpless damsel traded away by a greedy father, nor is breaking the curse as easy as learning to love a hulking "monster" with a human heart. Bryony is a gardener down to her marrow; when her late father squandered the family name and fortune and left his three daughters nothing but an out-of-the-way cottage in an out-of-the-way little town, she felt more relieved than devastated, finally able to indulge her passion without being forever chided about dirt under her nails. She's not a classical "beauty", either; her sister Iris got the family good looks, as well as a flair for playing the victim/helpless damsel in distress, while Bryony and her no-nonsense sister Holly are more plain-faced. When she first realizes she can never leave the House in the woods, she misses her garden at least as much as her own kin. This gives her a more practical bent than many classic fairy tale heroines, though she's also not notably brave or a warrior by any means; more than once she lets her fear get the better of her, though generally (and especially later on) that fear is quite justified by the circumstances. The Beast, meanwhile, is rarely anything but a gentleman from the start, as much a prisoner as she herself is. He has long ago become resigned to his fate, and regrets that she, too, is trapped with him, but her presence also offers a slim and painful hope of escape and freedom - if she can figure out how; every time he tries to tell her the origins and conditions of their imprisonment, the forces behind it seem to hear and act to silence them by increasingly malevolent means. Thus they have to find roundabout ways to communicate, when they can talk of it at all. Bryony sometimes seems slightly slow on the uptake about a few points, but manages to come through when it counts, and she and the Beast have a genuine connection and chemistry. It all makes for a reasonably satisfying tale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Nettle and Bone (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
The Fire Rose (Mercedes Lackey) - My Review
For the Wolf (Hannah Whitten) - My Review
Thursday, October 23, 2025
The Greatest Nobodies of History (Adrian Bliss)
The Greatest Nobodies of History: Minor Characters from Major Moments
Adrian Bliss
Penguin
Nonfiction, History/Humorous Nonfiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Leonardo da Vinci, Charles II, "Buffalo" Bill Cody... these and other names are familiar figures from history books. But truth is often difficult to come by, when so much is lost to time, and what survives can be (and often is) colored by the biases and misconceptions of those recording it, and when so much focus is given to great names that the experiences of ordinary folk is all but forgotten. In a series of "recovered" documents, explore little-seen perspectives on great men and great moments from witnesses standing just to the side of history, with testimonies from such impeccable observers as Henry VIII's "groom of the stool" (tender of the royal chamber pot), a vestal virgin on trial for failure to tend the sacred temple flame of ancient Rome and bringing various "disasters" down upon the empire, the emu field marshal who led her troops through Australia's first war against the birds, and more.
REVIEW: I've seen some of Bliss's short online videos on a variety of subjects, and was curious how he'd come across in long-form writing. Drawing on what is known (or can be inferred) from history and adding a fair dollop of imagination and some humor, he presents ten unique, intriguing, satirical, and even sometimes touching stories, covering historical figures and events ranging from Ancient Greece to the early twentieth century.
As in most short story collections (which this more or less is), the tales vary a little in quality and tone, though none of them are outright clunkers. From the epistolary story of a nameless wealthy Athenian writing a series of complaints about the uncouth and shocking behavior of the philosopher Diogenes whose outlandish ideas spread like wildfire to the "war journal" of an emu field marshal, from the story of a Cromwell-supporting English oak tree's fateful encounter with a fleeing King Charles II, even through the stories of a Renaissance ferret's art modeling career and the eager young understudy of Buffalo Bill's aging horse in the showbiz years, Bliss never fails to find unique angles to approach his topics. He also doesn't fail to create decent characters and arcs within each story, so they work as historical fiction (or fantasy, if you need to stretch to account for anthropomorphism in your characters) in their own right. Once in a while they feel a little long, and occasionally the English humor threatens to be a trifle thick, but they never fail to interest or amuse, and some have unexpectedly emotional moments.
Following each story, Bliss offers the facts (or at least the facts as can best be known; in 2025, we're seeing real-time evidence how even events happening right in front of us, with unprecedented means of preservation at the fingertips of innumerable observers, can be warped and twisted, particularly by those with ulterior motives to ensure a particular version of reality is seen as the one and only true account. Just imagine how much worse that distortion becomes when far fewer people had the means to record their observations, and those observations have been handed down through innumerable retellings and/or translations like a centuries-long game of Telephone... only the original player is long gone and can't tell us how laughably twisted the message has become when it reaches the end of the chain). Some of the stories stick fairly close to known events, and others are more inventive, but all invite the reader to pursue further reading if any subject strikes their fancy, demonstrating how history can be as exciting and seemingly improbable as any fiction.
On the whole, I found it enjoyable, and Bliss did a decent job narrating the audiobook (with an expanded cast in a few of the tales).
You Might Also Enjoy:
How to Survive History (Cody Cassidy) - My Review
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (Terry Jones and Alan Ereira) - My Review
Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws (Adrienne Mayor) - My Review
Adrian Bliss
Penguin
Nonfiction, History/Humorous Nonfiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Leonardo da Vinci, Charles II, "Buffalo" Bill Cody... these and other names are familiar figures from history books. But truth is often difficult to come by, when so much is lost to time, and what survives can be (and often is) colored by the biases and misconceptions of those recording it, and when so much focus is given to great names that the experiences of ordinary folk is all but forgotten. In a series of "recovered" documents, explore little-seen perspectives on great men and great moments from witnesses standing just to the side of history, with testimonies from such impeccable observers as Henry VIII's "groom of the stool" (tender of the royal chamber pot), a vestal virgin on trial for failure to tend the sacred temple flame of ancient Rome and bringing various "disasters" down upon the empire, the emu field marshal who led her troops through Australia's first war against the birds, and more.
REVIEW: I've seen some of Bliss's short online videos on a variety of subjects, and was curious how he'd come across in long-form writing. Drawing on what is known (or can be inferred) from history and adding a fair dollop of imagination and some humor, he presents ten unique, intriguing, satirical, and even sometimes touching stories, covering historical figures and events ranging from Ancient Greece to the early twentieth century.
As in most short story collections (which this more or less is), the tales vary a little in quality and tone, though none of them are outright clunkers. From the epistolary story of a nameless wealthy Athenian writing a series of complaints about the uncouth and shocking behavior of the philosopher Diogenes whose outlandish ideas spread like wildfire to the "war journal" of an emu field marshal, from the story of a Cromwell-supporting English oak tree's fateful encounter with a fleeing King Charles II, even through the stories of a Renaissance ferret's art modeling career and the eager young understudy of Buffalo Bill's aging horse in the showbiz years, Bliss never fails to find unique angles to approach his topics. He also doesn't fail to create decent characters and arcs within each story, so they work as historical fiction (or fantasy, if you need to stretch to account for anthropomorphism in your characters) in their own right. Once in a while they feel a little long, and occasionally the English humor threatens to be a trifle thick, but they never fail to interest or amuse, and some have unexpectedly emotional moments.
Following each story, Bliss offers the facts (or at least the facts as can best be known; in 2025, we're seeing real-time evidence how even events happening right in front of us, with unprecedented means of preservation at the fingertips of innumerable observers, can be warped and twisted, particularly by those with ulterior motives to ensure a particular version of reality is seen as the one and only true account. Just imagine how much worse that distortion becomes when far fewer people had the means to record their observations, and those observations have been handed down through innumerable retellings and/or translations like a centuries-long game of Telephone... only the original player is long gone and can't tell us how laughably twisted the message has become when it reaches the end of the chain). Some of the stories stick fairly close to known events, and others are more inventive, but all invite the reader to pursue further reading if any subject strikes their fancy, demonstrating how history can be as exciting and seemingly improbable as any fiction.
On the whole, I found it enjoyable, and Bliss did a decent job narrating the audiobook (with an expanded cast in a few of the tales).
You Might Also Enjoy:
How to Survive History (Cody Cassidy) - My Review
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (Terry Jones and Alan Ereira) - My Review
Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws (Adrienne Mayor) - My Review
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Robert C. O'Brien)
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
The Rats of NIMH series, Book 1
Robert C. O'Brien
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, CH Fantasy/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Like many animals around the Fitzgibbon Farm in the English countryside, the widowed mouse Mrs. Frisby makes her winter home in the fallow fields, moving her four children to her summer house by the brook before the human plows the thawed earth. But this year, her young son Timothy has taken ill, and won't be well enough when an early thaw necessitates an early relocation. If she stays where she is, the plow will surely destroy her family. In desperation, she turns to an unlikely ally: the rats who live beneath the rose hedge. Even for their kind, these rats have a peculiar, secretive reputation, but they may be Mrs. Frisby's only chance to save her children... and she, in turn, might help them when they need it most.
REVIEW: Like many children of the 1980's, I saw the Don Bluth animated movie based on this book (at a drive-in, if memory serves)... and I confess that, as a kid, I found it boring enough I think I nodded off during it. (But, then, I found many of Don Bluth's animated movies overlong and boring as a kid, even if the animation was often beautiful.) Maybe if I'd been familiar with this 1971 book I'd have understood what the film was trying to do - but, then, I'd probably have found the book a little dull and over-talkative as a child as well. As a grown-up, I can appreciate what it was doing and how relatively groundbreaking it was, introducing sci-fi concepts into a talking-animal setting, though I also admit to wishing O'Brien had stopped talking over and around everything, particularly when filling in backstory.
It begins like many a classic anthropomorphic critter tale begins, with a mouse who is both a scurrying little farm animal, fearful of predators and the farm cat Dragon (which is indeed something of a "dragon" in the tale, a beastly hunter from which few escape), and also a widow who has a "house" in a cinder block and sits down at a table with her children for meals. From early on, death is an unspoken specter in the animal world; she is happy when she finds an unattended stash of food gathered by some other animal, even as she is saddened by acknowledging that it likely met its fate in one of the winter hunts by the humans. When her smallest son Timothy takes ill, she makes a dangerous trek to a wise mouse who is skilled in herbal medicines, but is warned that the boy must not be moved for at least a month - and the ground is already thawing, meaning her home will likely not be safe for even a week. Thus, her desperate quest to find help... a quest that inevitably leads to the rats (not a spoiler if it's in the title) and the tale of NIMH (again, not a spoiler if it's in the title).
This becomes O'Brien's excuse to infodump all over the frantic-mother-trying-to-save-her-children-from-death-by-plow-blade plot with the backstory of how the farm's rat population came to their unusual abilities and intelligence, including but far from limited to tapping the Fitzgibbons' electricity and water, constructing motors and machinery, and mastering reading and writing. It's enough for an entirely different book altogether, yet it's shoehorned in here, overshadowing Mrs. Frisby's plight before the two ideas come to a somewhat lopsided coexistence as the connection to her late husband is revealed.
The widow mouse is less meek and passive than some females in these kinds of stories (and some in this very story, to be honest; her own two daughters are dismissively described as the pretty one and the silly one, while female rats are shown to be minimal participants in the colony's projects and the one named girl rat is a shallow infatuated stereotype), forced by circumstance to bravery and resourcefulness not common in wild rodents. The fact that death is always shadowing the characters lends some genuine peril to their situation; it's always an acknowledged possibility that not everyone will make it out alive. Along the way, O'Brien just can't resist bogging the story down in side-tracks through pointless details and cul-de-sacs that add little to the tale itself except word count. The wrap-up has some strong moments, but feels a little abrupt and unfinished; apparently the two sequels were written by O'Brien's daughter after his death, so the dangling loose threads were not even intentional bridges to more tales.
There are several interesting ideas explored (if somewhat unevenly), concepts of intelligence and civilization and animal experimentation's potential ramifications. O'Brien also presents some nice imagery, and the story (when it's not weighted down by its own meandering loops) isn't bad. The parts don't always seem to mesh together, though; it's clear O'Brien was more interested in his rats, their origins and potential fate, than the somewhat cutesy and mildly mismatched tale of the country mouse widow and her children, who ultimately exist mostly to be awed by the rats and their amazing abilities and potential. It's still a classic in its way.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Watership Down (Richard Adams) - My Review
The Tale of Despereaux (Kate DiCamillo) - My Review
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
The Rats of NIMH series, Book 1
Robert C. O'Brien
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, CH Fantasy/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Like many animals around the Fitzgibbon Farm in the English countryside, the widowed mouse Mrs. Frisby makes her winter home in the fallow fields, moving her four children to her summer house by the brook before the human plows the thawed earth. But this year, her young son Timothy has taken ill, and won't be well enough when an early thaw necessitates an early relocation. If she stays where she is, the plow will surely destroy her family. In desperation, she turns to an unlikely ally: the rats who live beneath the rose hedge. Even for their kind, these rats have a peculiar, secretive reputation, but they may be Mrs. Frisby's only chance to save her children... and she, in turn, might help them when they need it most.
REVIEW: Like many children of the 1980's, I saw the Don Bluth animated movie based on this book (at a drive-in, if memory serves)... and I confess that, as a kid, I found it boring enough I think I nodded off during it. (But, then, I found many of Don Bluth's animated movies overlong and boring as a kid, even if the animation was often beautiful.) Maybe if I'd been familiar with this 1971 book I'd have understood what the film was trying to do - but, then, I'd probably have found the book a little dull and over-talkative as a child as well. As a grown-up, I can appreciate what it was doing and how relatively groundbreaking it was, introducing sci-fi concepts into a talking-animal setting, though I also admit to wishing O'Brien had stopped talking over and around everything, particularly when filling in backstory.
It begins like many a classic anthropomorphic critter tale begins, with a mouse who is both a scurrying little farm animal, fearful of predators and the farm cat Dragon (which is indeed something of a "dragon" in the tale, a beastly hunter from which few escape), and also a widow who has a "house" in a cinder block and sits down at a table with her children for meals. From early on, death is an unspoken specter in the animal world; she is happy when she finds an unattended stash of food gathered by some other animal, even as she is saddened by acknowledging that it likely met its fate in one of the winter hunts by the humans. When her smallest son Timothy takes ill, she makes a dangerous trek to a wise mouse who is skilled in herbal medicines, but is warned that the boy must not be moved for at least a month - and the ground is already thawing, meaning her home will likely not be safe for even a week. Thus, her desperate quest to find help... a quest that inevitably leads to the rats (not a spoiler if it's in the title) and the tale of NIMH (again, not a spoiler if it's in the title).
This becomes O'Brien's excuse to infodump all over the frantic-mother-trying-to-save-her-children-from-death-by-plow-blade plot with the backstory of how the farm's rat population came to their unusual abilities and intelligence, including but far from limited to tapping the Fitzgibbons' electricity and water, constructing motors and machinery, and mastering reading and writing. It's enough for an entirely different book altogether, yet it's shoehorned in here, overshadowing Mrs. Frisby's plight before the two ideas come to a somewhat lopsided coexistence as the connection to her late husband is revealed.
The widow mouse is less meek and passive than some females in these kinds of stories (and some in this very story, to be honest; her own two daughters are dismissively described as the pretty one and the silly one, while female rats are shown to be minimal participants in the colony's projects and the one named girl rat is a shallow infatuated stereotype), forced by circumstance to bravery and resourcefulness not common in wild rodents. The fact that death is always shadowing the characters lends some genuine peril to their situation; it's always an acknowledged possibility that not everyone will make it out alive. Along the way, O'Brien just can't resist bogging the story down in side-tracks through pointless details and cul-de-sacs that add little to the tale itself except word count. The wrap-up has some strong moments, but feels a little abrupt and unfinished; apparently the two sequels were written by O'Brien's daughter after his death, so the dangling loose threads were not even intentional bridges to more tales.
There are several interesting ideas explored (if somewhat unevenly), concepts of intelligence and civilization and animal experimentation's potential ramifications. O'Brien also presents some nice imagery, and the story (when it's not weighted down by its own meandering loops) isn't bad. The parts don't always seem to mesh together, though; it's clear O'Brien was more interested in his rats, their origins and potential fate, than the somewhat cutesy and mildly mismatched tale of the country mouse widow and her children, who ultimately exist mostly to be awed by the rats and their amazing abilities and potential. It's still a classic in its way.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Watership Down (Richard Adams) - My Review
The Tale of Despereaux (Kate DiCamillo) - My Review
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
Friday, October 17, 2025
One Way (S. J. Morden)
One Way
The Frank Kittridge series, Book 1
S. J. Morden
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, architect Frank Kittridge was an ordinary man, a husband and a father and a respectable citizen... until he took the law into his own hands and shot the untouchable dealer who hooked his son on drugs. He may have had his vengeance, but it cost him his marriage and his freedom; he's not eligible for parole until well after his natural lifespan. But then he receives a very unusual offer from the tech giant XO. In exchange for helping build the first outpost on Mars, he'll be allowed to live out the remainder of his days on the red planet - still technically a prisoner, but freed from prison on Earth, and a part of truly groundbreaking science. He accepts, as do several other inmates at Panopticon private prisons throughout California. All of them have committed crimes worth extreme sentences, so Frank knows better than to consider any of them friends, but only together can they achieve their goals and survive on a new world. But will Mars truly bring any semblance of freedom, or have Frank and the others only signed their own death warrants?
REVIEW: On the classic sitcom The Golden Girls, there's an episode where the four ladies are attending a "murder mystery" dinner, and the "detective" is presenting the evidence. The hopelessly naïve Rose pipes up with a helpful suggestion: "Maybe that bloody dagger will lead us to the murder weapon." I found myself thinking of that line, of someone who cannot or will not see the damning clues right in front of them for what they are, for a significant portion of the back end of One Way. I should not have been thinking that about a character who, unlike Rose, was not only confronting a real problem in life-or-death circumstances, but was supposed to be focused, a little jaded, and of above-average intelligence.
The story opens with Frank in prison, receiving the unusual offer from XO via a lawyer, before heading to the private training facility deep in the desert where Frank and his companions of circumstance must learn their jobs and figure out how to cooperate despite all of them being criminals. Each chapter opens with internal memos and conversations between XO executives and legal departments, showing the all-too-familiar greed and cruelty and downright sociopathic logic driving the whole project, information deliberately withheld from the test subjects. Even without that knowledge, though, I found it a little hard to believe that Frank wouldn't at least suspect some hinky behavior and motivation behind his "employer", given how brazen modern tech billionaires are about such things today; in Frank's near future, I can't imagine how they'd become any more discreet, especially considering the utter lack of significant consequences for their openness thus far. Those decisions shape the mission and its goals into something other than what the inmates are told... and that's before people start dying on Mars.
From shortly after they're woken from the suspended animation that made the trip through space cost-effective (as they weren't consuming resources on the journey - not that XO doesn't have the tech, but they didn't want to waste a penny more than they had to on mere prisoners), death is a constant companion to their efforts to build a permanent habitat for future missions. It is an inherently hostile and deadly environment, so one or two deaths might be expected, but soon enough questions start arising even in Frank's mind - questions he goes out of his way to dismiss, as, despite his experience on the wrong end of the law and years spent in prison, he seems almost impossibly naive. Not only are more than one of his fellow "Martians" violent offenders, but XO itself is hardly a holy church. Metaphoric bloody daggers are bristling all over the red planet before Frank begins to seriously entertain notions of murder, and even then the culprit is eye-rollingly obvious from early on, for all that Frank draws out the "investigation" overlong (leading to more collateral damage/death) before the final confrontation.
That said, there are some strong points in this book. The author is an actual rocket scientist, and his vision of a Martian outpost is full of technical details that bring the concept to life, as well as descriptions of the stark, alien landscape that's both forbidding and oddly beautiful. His ideas of how a private tech company, driven by profit (and personal megalomania) beyond all other considerations, would approach space colonization is also exceptionally plausible. But at some point I just got too frustrated with Frank's obtuseness in the face of evidence even a barely-educated idiot like myself could see clearly. The ending is suitably intense, though the final parts again have Frank underestimating just who and what he's dealing with in ways that are bound to stab him in the back in the next volume (which I'm not sure I'm interested enough in to pursue).
While I appreciated the hard science behind Morden's story and it had several interesting and exciting parts, the characters and plot itself had me grinding my teeth too much by the end for a solid four stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
Gunpowder Moon (David Perdreira) - My Review
The Martian (Andy Weir) - My Review
The Frank Kittridge series, Book 1
S. J. Morden
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, architect Frank Kittridge was an ordinary man, a husband and a father and a respectable citizen... until he took the law into his own hands and shot the untouchable dealer who hooked his son on drugs. He may have had his vengeance, but it cost him his marriage and his freedom; he's not eligible for parole until well after his natural lifespan. But then he receives a very unusual offer from the tech giant XO. In exchange for helping build the first outpost on Mars, he'll be allowed to live out the remainder of his days on the red planet - still technically a prisoner, but freed from prison on Earth, and a part of truly groundbreaking science. He accepts, as do several other inmates at Panopticon private prisons throughout California. All of them have committed crimes worth extreme sentences, so Frank knows better than to consider any of them friends, but only together can they achieve their goals and survive on a new world. But will Mars truly bring any semblance of freedom, or have Frank and the others only signed their own death warrants?
REVIEW: On the classic sitcom The Golden Girls, there's an episode where the four ladies are attending a "murder mystery" dinner, and the "detective" is presenting the evidence. The hopelessly naïve Rose pipes up with a helpful suggestion: "Maybe that bloody dagger will lead us to the murder weapon." I found myself thinking of that line, of someone who cannot or will not see the damning clues right in front of them for what they are, for a significant portion of the back end of One Way. I should not have been thinking that about a character who, unlike Rose, was not only confronting a real problem in life-or-death circumstances, but was supposed to be focused, a little jaded, and of above-average intelligence.
The story opens with Frank in prison, receiving the unusual offer from XO via a lawyer, before heading to the private training facility deep in the desert where Frank and his companions of circumstance must learn their jobs and figure out how to cooperate despite all of them being criminals. Each chapter opens with internal memos and conversations between XO executives and legal departments, showing the all-too-familiar greed and cruelty and downright sociopathic logic driving the whole project, information deliberately withheld from the test subjects. Even without that knowledge, though, I found it a little hard to believe that Frank wouldn't at least suspect some hinky behavior and motivation behind his "employer", given how brazen modern tech billionaires are about such things today; in Frank's near future, I can't imagine how they'd become any more discreet, especially considering the utter lack of significant consequences for their openness thus far. Those decisions shape the mission and its goals into something other than what the inmates are told... and that's before people start dying on Mars.
From shortly after they're woken from the suspended animation that made the trip through space cost-effective (as they weren't consuming resources on the journey - not that XO doesn't have the tech, but they didn't want to waste a penny more than they had to on mere prisoners), death is a constant companion to their efforts to build a permanent habitat for future missions. It is an inherently hostile and deadly environment, so one or two deaths might be expected, but soon enough questions start arising even in Frank's mind - questions he goes out of his way to dismiss, as, despite his experience on the wrong end of the law and years spent in prison, he seems almost impossibly naive. Not only are more than one of his fellow "Martians" violent offenders, but XO itself is hardly a holy church. Metaphoric bloody daggers are bristling all over the red planet before Frank begins to seriously entertain notions of murder, and even then the culprit is eye-rollingly obvious from early on, for all that Frank draws out the "investigation" overlong (leading to more collateral damage/death) before the final confrontation.
That said, there are some strong points in this book. The author is an actual rocket scientist, and his vision of a Martian outpost is full of technical details that bring the concept to life, as well as descriptions of the stark, alien landscape that's both forbidding and oddly beautiful. His ideas of how a private tech company, driven by profit (and personal megalomania) beyond all other considerations, would approach space colonization is also exceptionally plausible. But at some point I just got too frustrated with Frank's obtuseness in the face of evidence even a barely-educated idiot like myself could see clearly. The ending is suitably intense, though the final parts again have Frank underestimating just who and what he's dealing with in ways that are bound to stab him in the back in the next volume (which I'm not sure I'm interested enough in to pursue).
While I appreciated the hard science behind Morden's story and it had several interesting and exciting parts, the characters and plot itself had me grinding my teeth too much by the end for a solid four stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
Gunpowder Moon (David Perdreira) - My Review
The Martian (Andy Weir) - My Review
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Fallen Angels (Walter Dean Myers)
Fallen Angels
Walter Dean Myers
Scholastic
Fiction, YA Action/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Perry was never supposed to be in Vietnam at all, let alone on the front lines. He had a bad knee from a basketball injury, and was told that he'd be given a desk job for his year of military service, the Harlem boy's only option when his college prospects fell through. But a paperwork mix-up led to him being sent overseas - for a desk job, he's assured, just until his medical profile catches up to him and he's returned stateside. Yet somehow he finds himself in a "hooch" - barracks - with the rest of the soldiers, issued a weapon, and sent on patrols. Rumors keep insisting that the war's nearly over anyway, so Perry shouldn't see much, if any, action. If that's true, someone forgot to tell the Vietcong...
REVIEW: Another frequently challenged and banned book, Fallen Angels dives straight into the nightmare experience that was Vietnam. For all the talk and propaganda about patriotism and honor and justified force, for those with boots on the ground and blood on their hands, war is hell.
Perry just wanted to go to college and become a writer or even a philosopher, but when college plans fell through, the army seemed like a not-bad option for an income and life experience. He's told, more than once, that his profile will keep him out of harm's way, and learns the hard way that recruiters and superiors sometimes lie, just as countries lie to their own citizens, the first of many harsh lessons. Indeed, Perry ends up learning more about life, death, honor, cowardice, himself, and the world in his tour than he ever imagined, starting the moment he arrives in Vietnam; a fellow green recruit is killed right in front of him before they even reach the barracks, an early warning that death is all around, at all times, and can come for anybody at any time. From this inauspicious start, Perry's experience only gets grimmer. Even his own superiors can be at least as much of a threat as the enemy - and the enemy is often nebulous and seemingly ubiquitous. Efforts to win the favor of a local village by a goodwill visit one day transition almost seamlessly into a firefight in the same village's streets shortly afterwards, a whiplash that borders on the surreal but which is just another day in the madness of the war.
More than once, Perry must ask himself what he's doing here and why he's fighting; the answers he comes up with never seem adequate to justify the horrors he sees and the death he deals to total strangers. His bonds with his bunkmates keep him sane, if just barely at times, bonds that don't spare the rough, dark humor and crudity of soldiers in high-stress situations. None of them are perfect men, and none are any more guaranteed survival than Perry himself is, especially as numbers dwindle and his unit finds itself on a suspicious number of dangerous assignments, particularly the non-white members of the unit; racism is alive and well in the ranks. Some grumble about protesters back home, especially as the flow of new recruits to fill empty bunks slows to a trickle, but the longer the war drags on (despite peace being perpetually just a few weeks away) and the higher the body count (a body count that American news somehow never mentions when it talks about the war at all), the more Perry and the others start to wonder whether they have a point. The end result is a brutal, visceral look at the true face of war, an ugly thing even when necessary and worse when the reasoning is (generously described as) ambiguous.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Forever War (Joe Haldeman) - My Review
Monster (Walter Dean Myers) - My Review
Guns of the Dawn (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
Sunday, October 12, 2025
The Complete Maus (Art Spiegelman)
The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale
The Maus series, Volumes 1 and 2
Art Spiegelman
Pantheon
Nonfiction, Graphic Novel/History/Memoir
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: Art Spiegelman always had a troubled relationship with his father, Vlatek. He knew that the man, like Art's mother Anja, had experienced terrible things during Hitler's reign in Europe, but still Vlatek could be so very, very difficult to be around. It wasn't until much later that a grown Art, now a successful cartoonist and writer, decided to try recording his father's experiences in graphic novel form. Thus, in a series of interviews and encounters spanning several years, the story unfolds, the story of how a successful young Jewish man in Poland saw the world he knew destroyed and witnessed horrors no human should ever have to experience again.
This edition includes Volume I: My Father Bleeds History and Volume II: And Here My Troubles Began.
REVIEW: I've heard of this book for many years, a Pulitzer Prize-winning record of one of history's greatest modern atrocities through the eyes of one survivor, but it never quite ventured onto my reading radar. In recent times, as efforts to censor and outright ban books gain more traction (and disturbing signs of history repeating itself play out in broad daylight, to the unheeded warnings of many and the cheers of those too ignorant to know how this story always goes and those gleefully aware and spurring it on), I decided it was high time to give it a try; anything they're trying that hard to silence must be necessary reading. I finally manged to secure a used copy... and I only wish I'd gotten to it sooner.
The tale opens with a brief glimpse of a young Art - portrayed as a mouse, all characters in the book being anthropomorphic animals - out roller skating with friends only to fall behind when his skates break. He goes home to his father, but if he was expecting sympathy, he gets none. "Friends? Your friends?" Vlatek tells his son cynically. "If you could lock them together in a room with no food for a week... then you could see what it is, friends!" This moment sets the stage for the unfolding tale, which takes up again when Art is a grown man, his relationship with Vlatek best described as "complicated"... as are Vlatek's relationships with many people, particularly Mala, the woman he married after Anja's death by suicide. The two snipe at each other ceaselessly, driving one another to their wit's end (with Art too often caught in the middle). Even many years later, Vlatek still mourns Art's mother, herself also a survivor of the camps, a pain that often expresses itself in anger and helpless frustration, not helped by failing health. Art's efforts to record Vlatek's memories are as much about trying to bridge the gap with his father and reconnect with memories of his mother (whose own memoirs Vlatek burned in his grief, a tragedy Art struggles to forgive) as documenting a vital part of world history as experienced by one man. In this way, Art develops both himself and his father as full characters, in the present and the past, not just hollow placeholders to parrot facts and figures about the Holocaust experience. This lends the story more weight than anything I recall reading in history class, driving home that these were people, real people, warts and all, who thought and dreamed and loved and feared, not statistics and not some dismissable "other" from long ago and far away. In the present, Art and Vlatek meet several times, visits often ending in frustration and arguments, while Vlatek's past - starting from just before the young man met his future wife and Art's mother Anja (daughter of a wealthy and influential man who learned too late that money was no shield against evil) and wending through the buildup to Hitler's invasion of Poland and the relentless stripping down of rights and basic humanity on the way to the camps themselves. The illustrations sometimes bleed into surreality, the only way to effectively render the terrible events unfolding. Through it all, Vlatek persisted then as he persists in modern times, through a mix of resourcefulness, luck, and sheer stubbornness, traits Art comes to understand (even if he still can't help but find the old man difficult to the point of exasperation).
Spiegelman's simple, expressive renderings and heavy lines are surprisingly eloquent and effective, and the story as it unfolds in both past and present comes together splendidly, as much a tribute to one man's endurance as a testimony of an ugly time that should never be repeated (and yet, unfortunately, has been and is and most likely will be; I'd call these times and events "inhuman" if they weren't so often the flame to which humanity seems to keep fluttering like a moth, time again and again). This is a book that only becomes more important and even necessary as witnesses to World War II fade in the rear view mirror just as fresh new horrors appear through the mists ahead, a dire warning sign as well as a tiny glimmer of grim hope that maybe, eventually, these new evils too might fall and light return to a darkened world.
You Might Also Enjoy:
All Blood Runs Red (Phil Keith with Tom Clavin) - My Review
They Called Us Enemy (George Takei et al.) - My Review
The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead) - My Review
The Maus series, Volumes 1 and 2
Art Spiegelman
Pantheon
Nonfiction, Graphic Novel/History/Memoir
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: Art Spiegelman always had a troubled relationship with his father, Vlatek. He knew that the man, like Art's mother Anja, had experienced terrible things during Hitler's reign in Europe, but still Vlatek could be so very, very difficult to be around. It wasn't until much later that a grown Art, now a successful cartoonist and writer, decided to try recording his father's experiences in graphic novel form. Thus, in a series of interviews and encounters spanning several years, the story unfolds, the story of how a successful young Jewish man in Poland saw the world he knew destroyed and witnessed horrors no human should ever have to experience again.
This edition includes Volume I: My Father Bleeds History and Volume II: And Here My Troubles Began.
REVIEW: I've heard of this book for many years, a Pulitzer Prize-winning record of one of history's greatest modern atrocities through the eyes of one survivor, but it never quite ventured onto my reading radar. In recent times, as efforts to censor and outright ban books gain more traction (and disturbing signs of history repeating itself play out in broad daylight, to the unheeded warnings of many and the cheers of those too ignorant to know how this story always goes and those gleefully aware and spurring it on), I decided it was high time to give it a try; anything they're trying that hard to silence must be necessary reading. I finally manged to secure a used copy... and I only wish I'd gotten to it sooner.
The tale opens with a brief glimpse of a young Art - portrayed as a mouse, all characters in the book being anthropomorphic animals - out roller skating with friends only to fall behind when his skates break. He goes home to his father, but if he was expecting sympathy, he gets none. "Friends? Your friends?" Vlatek tells his son cynically. "If you could lock them together in a room with no food for a week... then you could see what it is, friends!" This moment sets the stage for the unfolding tale, which takes up again when Art is a grown man, his relationship with Vlatek best described as "complicated"... as are Vlatek's relationships with many people, particularly Mala, the woman he married after Anja's death by suicide. The two snipe at each other ceaselessly, driving one another to their wit's end (with Art too often caught in the middle). Even many years later, Vlatek still mourns Art's mother, herself also a survivor of the camps, a pain that often expresses itself in anger and helpless frustration, not helped by failing health. Art's efforts to record Vlatek's memories are as much about trying to bridge the gap with his father and reconnect with memories of his mother (whose own memoirs Vlatek burned in his grief, a tragedy Art struggles to forgive) as documenting a vital part of world history as experienced by one man. In this way, Art develops both himself and his father as full characters, in the present and the past, not just hollow placeholders to parrot facts and figures about the Holocaust experience. This lends the story more weight than anything I recall reading in history class, driving home that these were people, real people, warts and all, who thought and dreamed and loved and feared, not statistics and not some dismissable "other" from long ago and far away. In the present, Art and Vlatek meet several times, visits often ending in frustration and arguments, while Vlatek's past - starting from just before the young man met his future wife and Art's mother Anja (daughter of a wealthy and influential man who learned too late that money was no shield against evil) and wending through the buildup to Hitler's invasion of Poland and the relentless stripping down of rights and basic humanity on the way to the camps themselves. The illustrations sometimes bleed into surreality, the only way to effectively render the terrible events unfolding. Through it all, Vlatek persisted then as he persists in modern times, through a mix of resourcefulness, luck, and sheer stubbornness, traits Art comes to understand (even if he still can't help but find the old man difficult to the point of exasperation).
Spiegelman's simple, expressive renderings and heavy lines are surprisingly eloquent and effective, and the story as it unfolds in both past and present comes together splendidly, as much a tribute to one man's endurance as a testimony of an ugly time that should never be repeated (and yet, unfortunately, has been and is and most likely will be; I'd call these times and events "inhuman" if they weren't so often the flame to which humanity seems to keep fluttering like a moth, time again and again). This is a book that only becomes more important and even necessary as witnesses to World War II fade in the rear view mirror just as fresh new horrors appear through the mists ahead, a dire warning sign as well as a tiny glimmer of grim hope that maybe, eventually, these new evils too might fall and light return to a darkened world.
You Might Also Enjoy:
All Blood Runs Red (Phil Keith with Tom Clavin) - My Review
They Called Us Enemy (George Takei et al.) - My Review
The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead) - My Review
Friday, October 10, 2025
A Week in the Woods (Andrew Clements)
A Week in the Woods
Andrew Clements
Atheneum Books
Fiction, CH Adventure
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For over a decade, the highlight of the fifth grade year at Hardy Elementary has been A Week in the Woods, five days and nights camping out in a national forest and learning about the natural world. Mr. Maxwell, the science teacher, is the organizer and greatest proponent of the outing, being an avid woodsman and environmentalist. He loves sharing his passion for the wilderness with young minds, always eager to learn... but one thing he cannot stand is slackers, or spoiled, entitled, wealthy kids whose families make their money off destroying the planet. So it was inevitable that he'd take a dislike to the new kid in his class, Mark Chelmsley (the Fourth). The boy's parents spent more renovating a local historic farm house and acreage than the entire town sees in a year, and the kid himself is every bit as disengaged and even snotty as one would expect from a wealthy boy "slumming" with commoners. A kid like that might even ruin A Week in the Woods - and Mr. Maxwell is determined not to let that happen.
Mark is tired of bouncing around the world from house to house, his parents gone on business trips more often than not. He loves his caretakers, and isn't neglected by any means, but he misses Mom and Dad and doesn't really feel attached to anyone or anywhere... until he arrives in the Chelmsleys' latest home in New Hampshire. The wooded hills seem to call to him, and he develops a love of the land beyond anything he's experienced before. The only real drawback is his school - a public school, for the first time in his life - and the science teacher Mr. Maxwell. The man seems to dislike him from the start, the two developing a rivalry that only barely stays civil. But when Mr. Maxwell lets his grudge go too far, Mark finally snaps. He sets out to prove himself to the teacher and everyone... never expecting things to go so wrong.
REVIEW: Many children's books reduce adults to caricatures, mere obstacles that must be either avoided or overcome by the young protagonists. Clements never cheapens his stories like that. Here, both Mr. Maxwell and young Mark are well rounded, with clear roots and motivations for their behavior and their rivalry. The science teacher comes from a love of both teaching and the environment, and has seen what entitled people do to the planet... and what an unmotivated, slacker student can do to a classroom. Mark, meanwhile, has been told time and again that his brief foray in public school is a chance to relax; it won't really count, after all, for a boy already assured entry into an elite private boarding school, and besides his own schools covered most of the curriculum at least a year or two before so it's all old news. His disengagement masks a loneliness even the boy doesn't quite acknowledge, but which comes across to Mr. Maxwell as something else entirely. When young Mark discovers his own love of the woods, this could be a means to connect with the standoffish teacher, especially when he realizes himself how his attitude is contributing to his social isolation and he tries to change, but by then the faculty has made up its mind, especially Mr. Maxwell, who only digs in harder as the boy tries to establish a truce. It all culminates in the promised school camping trip, where Mr. Maxwell leaps to a conclusion and harsh judgement and pushes Mark too far. Given that the title and blurb center this camping trip as a main plot point, it feels like Clements drags his feet in getting there, wandering through backstory and Mark's earlier excursions into the woods on his family's property as he builds confidence and skills (helped by one of his caretakers, who has experience camping from his childhood in Russia). That said, the story does a decent job letting both Mark and Mr. Maxwell earn their lessons (it's not just the child who has something to learn, here). Despite the slower, wandering start, its portrayal of a boy's sense of wonder as he discovers a new world outdoors, how easily miscommunication between teachers and students can start, and the lasting ramifications of classroom grudges rings true.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Janitor's Boy (Andrew Clements) - My Review
My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Andrew Clements
Atheneum Books
Fiction, CH Adventure
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For over a decade, the highlight of the fifth grade year at Hardy Elementary has been A Week in the Woods, five days and nights camping out in a national forest and learning about the natural world. Mr. Maxwell, the science teacher, is the organizer and greatest proponent of the outing, being an avid woodsman and environmentalist. He loves sharing his passion for the wilderness with young minds, always eager to learn... but one thing he cannot stand is slackers, or spoiled, entitled, wealthy kids whose families make their money off destroying the planet. So it was inevitable that he'd take a dislike to the new kid in his class, Mark Chelmsley (the Fourth). The boy's parents spent more renovating a local historic farm house and acreage than the entire town sees in a year, and the kid himself is every bit as disengaged and even snotty as one would expect from a wealthy boy "slumming" with commoners. A kid like that might even ruin A Week in the Woods - and Mr. Maxwell is determined not to let that happen.
Mark is tired of bouncing around the world from house to house, his parents gone on business trips more often than not. He loves his caretakers, and isn't neglected by any means, but he misses Mom and Dad and doesn't really feel attached to anyone or anywhere... until he arrives in the Chelmsleys' latest home in New Hampshire. The wooded hills seem to call to him, and he develops a love of the land beyond anything he's experienced before. The only real drawback is his school - a public school, for the first time in his life - and the science teacher Mr. Maxwell. The man seems to dislike him from the start, the two developing a rivalry that only barely stays civil. But when Mr. Maxwell lets his grudge go too far, Mark finally snaps. He sets out to prove himself to the teacher and everyone... never expecting things to go so wrong.
REVIEW: Many children's books reduce adults to caricatures, mere obstacles that must be either avoided or overcome by the young protagonists. Clements never cheapens his stories like that. Here, both Mr. Maxwell and young Mark are well rounded, with clear roots and motivations for their behavior and their rivalry. The science teacher comes from a love of both teaching and the environment, and has seen what entitled people do to the planet... and what an unmotivated, slacker student can do to a classroom. Mark, meanwhile, has been told time and again that his brief foray in public school is a chance to relax; it won't really count, after all, for a boy already assured entry into an elite private boarding school, and besides his own schools covered most of the curriculum at least a year or two before so it's all old news. His disengagement masks a loneliness even the boy doesn't quite acknowledge, but which comes across to Mr. Maxwell as something else entirely. When young Mark discovers his own love of the woods, this could be a means to connect with the standoffish teacher, especially when he realizes himself how his attitude is contributing to his social isolation and he tries to change, but by then the faculty has made up its mind, especially Mr. Maxwell, who only digs in harder as the boy tries to establish a truce. It all culminates in the promised school camping trip, where Mr. Maxwell leaps to a conclusion and harsh judgement and pushes Mark too far. Given that the title and blurb center this camping trip as a main plot point, it feels like Clements drags his feet in getting there, wandering through backstory and Mark's earlier excursions into the woods on his family's property as he builds confidence and skills (helped by one of his caretakers, who has experience camping from his childhood in Russia). That said, the story does a decent job letting both Mark and Mr. Maxwell earn their lessons (it's not just the child who has something to learn, here). Despite the slower, wandering start, its portrayal of a boy's sense of wonder as he discovers a new world outdoors, how easily miscommunication between teachers and students can start, and the lasting ramifications of classroom grudges rings true.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Janitor's Boy (Andrew Clements) - My Review
My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Straight (Chuck Tingle)
Straight
Chuck Tingle
Chuck Tingle, publisher
Fiction, Horror/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It started three years ago, when Earth first encountered a tear in the cosmos. For nearly twenty-four hours, a large segment of the population turned into homicidal maniacs, nearly unstoppable, only to completely forget everything they'd done afterward. It didn't take long to figure out the common factor: the monsters were straight cisgendered heterosexuals, and their targets were anyone who deviated even slightly from strict sex and gender norms. Parents and children and loved ones even turned on those closest to them, mindless as zombies and far more gruesome. Last year, as Earth's orbit passed through the tear again, a vaccine helped reduce the carnage. This year, most everyone predicts things will be even better; after all, now people know to expect "Saturation Day" and take precautions, and as scientists learn more about the phenomenon, surely it's only a matter of time until the threat is neutralized entirely. In the meantime, if people just hide away or lock themselves up, that should reduce the destruction and body count.
This Saturation Day, rather than shell out the exorbitant fees for a walled-off compound like Palm Springs or lock themselves in basements or attics, four friends on the rainbow spectrum - bisexual Issac, homosexual Jason, trans Nora, and lesbian Hazel - decide to head out to the California desert and a remote rental cabin, far away from any presumed would-be zombielike killers... and also far, far away from help when their isolated retreat becomes a death trap.
REVIEW: It's hardly a secret in late 2025 that a rabid anti-LGBTQIA+ agenda has rampaged through decades of fragile gains in equality, education, and understanding, sparks of ignorance and fear and hatred deliberately fanned into political wildfires that threaten far, far more than the ostensible target populations. This novella crystallizes the mindless violence behind that agenda that lies just barely beneath the surface of everyday civility, how marginalized voices crying out for help and justice are too often dismissed, how the collateral damage of inherently hostile cultural and legal norms is brushed aside as acceptable sacrifices, and how allies cannot always be relied upon when knives are out and blood is drawn. Even when Saturation Day brings the horrors out of the shadows and forces the majority to confront the fear and violence that non-straight, non-majority populations endure every second of every waking day, the blood literally glistening on the hands of straight perpetrators, it's too often treated as a minor inconvenience, something to be brushed aside and downplayed or a thing that someone else will surely fix soon, so in the meantime it just has to be tolerated. Tingle also addresses the internal schisms that fracture what should be a united front against the horrors perpetuated against them, as some within the community question whether bisexuals or transgenders or others "count" or should be ostracized to their own ends of the rainbow to fend for themselves.
From the very beginning, the sense of impending doom and madness is quickly established; as Isaac is packing up to flee the city, he encounters an elderly neighbor, a normally nice and liberal-minded woman on her way to be locked up by her son; she's too old for the vaccine, she explains, though she surely means him no harm... until she offers him a fresh-baked cookie with a "surprise" inside. (Signs of mental instability in the affected show up several hours before Earth enters the rift itself.) This establishes the paranoia inherent in the tale, where nobody can be considered safe - not even those who got the shot (which doesn't work on everyone) or are ordinarily more accepting in daily life. Isaac and his friends think they've found a way to outsmart Saturation Day - avoid people, avoid problems - but underestimate just how many people can be in a seemingly uninhabited desert, and just how determined the affected are to find and eliminate target populations. The metaphor's as sharp and obvious as a bloody pitchfork to the neck, though even in the midst of the carnage Isaac tries to resist and deny his own rage at his helplessness and the ineffectiveness of those who insist they'll help the foursome escape. Tingle does an excellent job evoking the terror, tension, and jump-scares of a horror movie, along with some truly gory and gruesome moments. The ending stumbles a bit, but the points it makes shine clearly.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Feed (Mira Grant) - My Review
The City We Became (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
Camp Damascus (Chuck Tingle) - My Review
Chuck Tingle
Chuck Tingle, publisher
Fiction, Horror/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It started three years ago, when Earth first encountered a tear in the cosmos. For nearly twenty-four hours, a large segment of the population turned into homicidal maniacs, nearly unstoppable, only to completely forget everything they'd done afterward. It didn't take long to figure out the common factor: the monsters were straight cisgendered heterosexuals, and their targets were anyone who deviated even slightly from strict sex and gender norms. Parents and children and loved ones even turned on those closest to them, mindless as zombies and far more gruesome. Last year, as Earth's orbit passed through the tear again, a vaccine helped reduce the carnage. This year, most everyone predicts things will be even better; after all, now people know to expect "Saturation Day" and take precautions, and as scientists learn more about the phenomenon, surely it's only a matter of time until the threat is neutralized entirely. In the meantime, if people just hide away or lock themselves up, that should reduce the destruction and body count.
This Saturation Day, rather than shell out the exorbitant fees for a walled-off compound like Palm Springs or lock themselves in basements or attics, four friends on the rainbow spectrum - bisexual Issac, homosexual Jason, trans Nora, and lesbian Hazel - decide to head out to the California desert and a remote rental cabin, far away from any presumed would-be zombielike killers... and also far, far away from help when their isolated retreat becomes a death trap.
REVIEW: It's hardly a secret in late 2025 that a rabid anti-LGBTQIA+ agenda has rampaged through decades of fragile gains in equality, education, and understanding, sparks of ignorance and fear and hatred deliberately fanned into political wildfires that threaten far, far more than the ostensible target populations. This novella crystallizes the mindless violence behind that agenda that lies just barely beneath the surface of everyday civility, how marginalized voices crying out for help and justice are too often dismissed, how the collateral damage of inherently hostile cultural and legal norms is brushed aside as acceptable sacrifices, and how allies cannot always be relied upon when knives are out and blood is drawn. Even when Saturation Day brings the horrors out of the shadows and forces the majority to confront the fear and violence that non-straight, non-majority populations endure every second of every waking day, the blood literally glistening on the hands of straight perpetrators, it's too often treated as a minor inconvenience, something to be brushed aside and downplayed or a thing that someone else will surely fix soon, so in the meantime it just has to be tolerated. Tingle also addresses the internal schisms that fracture what should be a united front against the horrors perpetuated against them, as some within the community question whether bisexuals or transgenders or others "count" or should be ostracized to their own ends of the rainbow to fend for themselves.
From the very beginning, the sense of impending doom and madness is quickly established; as Isaac is packing up to flee the city, he encounters an elderly neighbor, a normally nice and liberal-minded woman on her way to be locked up by her son; she's too old for the vaccine, she explains, though she surely means him no harm... until she offers him a fresh-baked cookie with a "surprise" inside. (Signs of mental instability in the affected show up several hours before Earth enters the rift itself.) This establishes the paranoia inherent in the tale, where nobody can be considered safe - not even those who got the shot (which doesn't work on everyone) or are ordinarily more accepting in daily life. Isaac and his friends think they've found a way to outsmart Saturation Day - avoid people, avoid problems - but underestimate just how many people can be in a seemingly uninhabited desert, and just how determined the affected are to find and eliminate target populations. The metaphor's as sharp and obvious as a bloody pitchfork to the neck, though even in the midst of the carnage Isaac tries to resist and deny his own rage at his helplessness and the ineffectiveness of those who insist they'll help the foursome escape. Tingle does an excellent job evoking the terror, tension, and jump-scares of a horror movie, along with some truly gory and gruesome moments. The ending stumbles a bit, but the points it makes shine clearly.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Feed (Mira Grant) - My Review
The City We Became (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
Camp Damascus (Chuck Tingle) - My Review
Thursday, October 9, 2025
The Goblin Emperor (Katherine Addison)
The Goblin Emperor
The Chronicles of Osreth series, Book 1
Katherine Addison
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Maia Drahzar is woken one morning to learn that he has become the elven emperor. He never, in all his 18 years, expected to inherit the crown; for one thing, he's been the least favorite royal offspring of Varenechibel IV since he was born to his goblin mother out of a political marriage and showed too clearly the dark skin of her people, and for another he's spent most of his life in exile on a remote estate to keep him out of the way, without even a royal tutor to instruct him in the ways of court and leadership. But an airship accident claimed his father and all three of his pureblood elven sons, leaving Maia the next in line. From before he sets foot in the palace at Cetho, he has enemies hoping to end his reign before it begins. Even he isn't sure he can fill the role thrust upon him, utterly ignorant of the generations-long alliances and rivalries that fill the vast halls of his new home. But Maia has no choice but to try... and if he can't be the same cold-blooded emperor that his late father was, maybe he can learn a better way to rule.
REVIEW: I'd heard about this story now and again, but not until I was intrigued by the premise of a spinoff series did I decide to give it a try. Set in a world of elves and goblins and steeped in rich cultures and history that stretches far beyond the pages, The Goblin Emperor offers a slightly different angle on high fantasy, centered on one shy, reluctant young man thrust into a role he was (intentionally) not prepared to take and having to learn on the fly what takes most leaders their whole lives to master. This can be a strength, as the tighter focus and limited setting allow the reader to more fully experience Maia's trial-by-fire immersion into palace politics and scheming. It can also be a drawback, as Addison has to spend a fair bit of page time relating the histories and tangled relationships of various key ruling houses, the political stances of various provinces, the roles of innumerable committees and personages and other functionaries, and the deep history of the grounds themselves, among other things - almost all of which has its own long elven name and title and special connotation that the reader must become familiar with to make sense of the unfolding plot.
From the start, Maia is a young man with no true friends, let alone allies, deliberately cast aside by a father who never thought a halfblood boy from an unwanted marriage would ever be useful, let alone necessary for his legacy. His elevation to the throne is a shock to himself and his minder, an older man whose anger and resentment at being stuck in the middle of a marsh looking after the least favored princeling leads to a twisted, abusive dynamic. He never wanted to be the emperor, having little but bad memories of his one and only meeting with his father, and finds the obligations of office suffocating, but escape is not an option, especially not when the next in line is a boy who would be putty in the hands of any "regent" appointed to oversee the throne. Thus, the shy, thoughtful, and sensitive boy bearing scars from a lifetime of neglect and bullying must learn to swim quickly in the quicksand he's been cast into... which he does, but not without some stumbles and setbacks. Along the way, he must finally grapple with some traumas of his childhood and the people who caused them, and determine what sort of leader he means to be. Just being half-goblin among elves who often think of goblins as barbaric cannibals (for all that halfbloods are far from rare) is enough of a challenge, without adding in his utter lack of connections among the courtiers and officials who make the machinery of the empire work (or fail to work). Even the first letter from the lord chancellor in Cetho - the letter informing him of his elevation in status and summoning him "home" for the funeral - contains traps that Maia is too naïve to recognize until they're pointed out; navigating them becomes the first test of his nascent reign. It would, he learns quickly, be quite easy to become a vengeful tyrant given his life until now and the opposition he faces from the start, but he deliberately picks an imperial name that will remind him to seek more peaceful means rather than following in Varenechibel IV's heavy footsteps. His efforts to stay true to the parts of himself that he most cherishes while growing into his robes makes for interesting reading (or listening, as this was an audiobook version)... for the most part.
What weighs the tale down is the very intricacy that gives The Goblin Emperor its depth. Addison slings innumerable names, titles, locations, and concepts at the reader, and while for the most part one can (as in many epic fantasies) sit back and let them wash past as the generalities fall into place, it can get quite confusing when particulars become plot relevant. This may have been easier for me to sort out on a printed page, as names that sound so similar when spoken may have had a distinct enough look to help me sort them better in my head. As it was, I'd be lying if I could keep even half of everyone straight, meaning there were several times when I just felt lost and was letting words go by until I could regain my bearings.
The drawbacks were just barely enough to shave a half-star off the rating, in the end. I enjoyed it more than I didn't, and could appreciate the portrait of a young man learning how to rule and make his mark in defiance of those who would dismiss or destroy him. (And, as I originally tried this to see if I'd enjoy that spinoff series, I will say it successfully convinced me to give those a try; I'm hoping it will be like my experience reading Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows and being blown away after having a mixed reaction to Shadow and Bone, though I definitely liked The Goblin Emperor more than the first Grishaverse novel.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Long Price Quartet (Daniel Abraham) - My Review
The Grace of Kings (Ken Liu) - My Review
Shadowmarch (Tad Williams) - My Review
The Chronicles of Osreth series, Book 1
Katherine Addison
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Maia Drahzar is woken one morning to learn that he has become the elven emperor. He never, in all his 18 years, expected to inherit the crown; for one thing, he's been the least favorite royal offspring of Varenechibel IV since he was born to his goblin mother out of a political marriage and showed too clearly the dark skin of her people, and for another he's spent most of his life in exile on a remote estate to keep him out of the way, without even a royal tutor to instruct him in the ways of court and leadership. But an airship accident claimed his father and all three of his pureblood elven sons, leaving Maia the next in line. From before he sets foot in the palace at Cetho, he has enemies hoping to end his reign before it begins. Even he isn't sure he can fill the role thrust upon him, utterly ignorant of the generations-long alliances and rivalries that fill the vast halls of his new home. But Maia has no choice but to try... and if he can't be the same cold-blooded emperor that his late father was, maybe he can learn a better way to rule.
REVIEW: I'd heard about this story now and again, but not until I was intrigued by the premise of a spinoff series did I decide to give it a try. Set in a world of elves and goblins and steeped in rich cultures and history that stretches far beyond the pages, The Goblin Emperor offers a slightly different angle on high fantasy, centered on one shy, reluctant young man thrust into a role he was (intentionally) not prepared to take and having to learn on the fly what takes most leaders their whole lives to master. This can be a strength, as the tighter focus and limited setting allow the reader to more fully experience Maia's trial-by-fire immersion into palace politics and scheming. It can also be a drawback, as Addison has to spend a fair bit of page time relating the histories and tangled relationships of various key ruling houses, the political stances of various provinces, the roles of innumerable committees and personages and other functionaries, and the deep history of the grounds themselves, among other things - almost all of which has its own long elven name and title and special connotation that the reader must become familiar with to make sense of the unfolding plot.
From the start, Maia is a young man with no true friends, let alone allies, deliberately cast aside by a father who never thought a halfblood boy from an unwanted marriage would ever be useful, let alone necessary for his legacy. His elevation to the throne is a shock to himself and his minder, an older man whose anger and resentment at being stuck in the middle of a marsh looking after the least favored princeling leads to a twisted, abusive dynamic. He never wanted to be the emperor, having little but bad memories of his one and only meeting with his father, and finds the obligations of office suffocating, but escape is not an option, especially not when the next in line is a boy who would be putty in the hands of any "regent" appointed to oversee the throne. Thus, the shy, thoughtful, and sensitive boy bearing scars from a lifetime of neglect and bullying must learn to swim quickly in the quicksand he's been cast into... which he does, but not without some stumbles and setbacks. Along the way, he must finally grapple with some traumas of his childhood and the people who caused them, and determine what sort of leader he means to be. Just being half-goblin among elves who often think of goblins as barbaric cannibals (for all that halfbloods are far from rare) is enough of a challenge, without adding in his utter lack of connections among the courtiers and officials who make the machinery of the empire work (or fail to work). Even the first letter from the lord chancellor in Cetho - the letter informing him of his elevation in status and summoning him "home" for the funeral - contains traps that Maia is too naïve to recognize until they're pointed out; navigating them becomes the first test of his nascent reign. It would, he learns quickly, be quite easy to become a vengeful tyrant given his life until now and the opposition he faces from the start, but he deliberately picks an imperial name that will remind him to seek more peaceful means rather than following in Varenechibel IV's heavy footsteps. His efforts to stay true to the parts of himself that he most cherishes while growing into his robes makes for interesting reading (or listening, as this was an audiobook version)... for the most part.
What weighs the tale down is the very intricacy that gives The Goblin Emperor its depth. Addison slings innumerable names, titles, locations, and concepts at the reader, and while for the most part one can (as in many epic fantasies) sit back and let them wash past as the generalities fall into place, it can get quite confusing when particulars become plot relevant. This may have been easier for me to sort out on a printed page, as names that sound so similar when spoken may have had a distinct enough look to help me sort them better in my head. As it was, I'd be lying if I could keep even half of everyone straight, meaning there were several times when I just felt lost and was letting words go by until I could regain my bearings.
The drawbacks were just barely enough to shave a half-star off the rating, in the end. I enjoyed it more than I didn't, and could appreciate the portrait of a young man learning how to rule and make his mark in defiance of those who would dismiss or destroy him. (And, as I originally tried this to see if I'd enjoy that spinoff series, I will say it successfully convinced me to give those a try; I'm hoping it will be like my experience reading Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows and being blown away after having a mixed reaction to Shadow and Bone, though I definitely liked The Goblin Emperor more than the first Grishaverse novel.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Long Price Quartet (Daniel Abraham) - My Review
The Grace of Kings (Ken Liu) - My Review
Shadowmarch (Tad Williams) - My Review
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Voyage of the Damned (Frances White)
Voyage of the Damned
Frances White
Mira
Fiction, Fantasy
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: For generations, the twelve provinces of Concordia have held a sometimes-fragile peace between them, united by the threat of the outcast Crabs to the south, the benevolent Dragon emperor to the north, and the powerful, secret Blessings of each provincial leader. Passing down through bloodlines for generations, each dux's Blessing helps their realm to thrive and keeps potential rivals in check, but the magic comes at the cost of a shortened lifespan. Now, in honor of one thousand years of (relative) peace, the twelve Blessed have been gathered for a voyage to the sacred mountain where the Goddess first passed Her magic to mortals, to renew Concordia's ties and remind everyone of the might of the emperor.
Ganymedes Piscero, Blessed of the lowly Fish Province, would rather be anywhere else... because Ganymedes has no magic. That must have gone to one of the other byblows of his unfaithful father. But Fish Province is already looked down upon enough without having to admit that some unknown bastard child is likely running around with a Goddess's power, so it was agreed that Ganymedes would be presented as the true and Blessed heir. So long as he kept away from the others, who always bullied him anyway for his lowly province and his girth, it was a farce he could put up with. But twelve days trapped aboard a boat, surrounded by real Blessed and all their insufferable arrogance - he'd rather die.
Then the Dragon heiress is found hanging from the chandelier above the banquet table - the first murder on a voyage that will soon be awash in blood, mayhem, and danger. And the only one who can solve the murders and save Concordia may be the only "Blessed" with no Blessing - or allies - to call his own... assuming Ganymedes doesn't end up a victim, too.
REVIEW: I admit it - I was lured in again by a shiny cover, though in my defense the early pages seemed fun, a little snarky and intriguing. It also promised an interesting locked-room murder mystery, isolated on a boat with nearly a dozen magic wielders. But it wasn't long before the snark that lured me in became tiresomely obnoxious, the main character degenerated into a useless "investigator" who seemed uninterested in actually investigating anything, the suspects/victims turned out to have less depth, integrity, and believability than a Scooby Doo villain, and the whole thing just collapsed in on itself into a tangled mess.
From the start, the world is on shaky ground with Ganymedes's narration, a voice that sounds too modern and Earthbound to belong in the fantasy world of Concordia; he even shoots "finger guns" at a young couple he's flirting with, in a world where it's never clear that guns actually exist, let alone the casual use of "finger guns" gestures as a mark of interest or approval. He also came across as a teenager, not a man in his twenties, enough that I wondered whether this book was originally intended for a Young Adult audience but had been aged up with the addition of copious cursing, possibly for marketing reasons. Still, I was willing to suspend disbelief for a while, as well as suspending my irritation with his selfish immaturity (partly ameliorated when he sidesteps his selfishness in order to help a bullied child), as it was early in the book and there were some nice, interesting tidbits that promised better things and smoother sailing ahead. But it didn't take long for me to realize that, no, it's rough waters all the way to the horizon. Ganymedes only gets more obnoxious and jerky, and also food-obsessed, because of course the self-loathing jerk in the tale is also overweight for comic relief purposes. He also wastes far too much time, in the book and for the reader, stubbornly refusing to do anything, even when he ostensibly decides to play detective and solve the mystery. What good is an investigator that refuses to investigate? His efforts too often amount to little more than scribbling on a useless "detective board" in his cabin (which even he doesn't take seriously, from the flippant and frivolous notes he pens - it's not like he's in danger himself or anything, to focus his attention - and if the narrator/main character isn't taking multiple murders seriously, why should I as a reader?), and avoiding actually asking useful questions or untangling motives. When he does interact with his fellow Blessed/potential suspects, his abrasive personality and refusal to take anything seriously completely undermines any investigative value before five words have left his mouth. As for his allies, he has the unpromising sidekicks of a sickly teenager and a precocious/pushy six-year-old girl who turns invisible when stressed (her recently-manifested Blessing, after the previous heir to her province passed) and eats far too much page count not contributing anything except being a cutesy distraction from the murder mystery (but, then Ganymedes was already deliberately not investigating the murders, so she could hardly be blamed for that). Again, her presence really made me wonder if this book had originally been intended for a younger audience, one where six-year-olds running around stuffing their face with candy and being in everyone's face while spouting cutesy non sequiturs wouldn't have clashed so blatantly with the whole grisly-murder vibe it intermittently tried to project.
As mentioned previously, the other Blessed - and the world itself - become too surreally cartoonish and flat to take seriously. The magic-powered ship is so expansive and full of so much handwaved, plot-convenient things (cabins so big and transformed that they might as well not even be on a boat, for instance, and cutesy plush dragon servants who mostly exist to be cutesy and plush and provide a convenient way to explain a lack of serving staff, or even how food is prepared), while the people of each province can be readily identified by colored hair and particular traits that would not be out of place in a half-baked off-brand comic book. Eventually, the author gets around to introducing something like character depth and reasons behind Ganymedes's behavior (far too little too late to make me actually enjoy his company as narrator, but I did appreciate the effort), though the ultimate unmasking and explanation happen less because of Ganymedes's dogged determination to find the truth and more because he fails so utterly that the villain more or less monologues their plot just before the final bits. Another late game twist cut the legs out from under a subplot in a way I won't discuss (to avoid spoilers) but which completely undermined one of the few seemingly genuine bits of conflict and character growth of the ostensible protagonist. The last stretch has Ganymedes forced to actually do something, though by then I was long past caring whether Concordia or any of the characters still living in it survived.
I wanted to enjoy this one. It had potential, and it promised something a little fresh and a little different. Unfortunately, the bits I enjoyed (and there were a handful) were too few and far between.
You Might Also Enjoy:
City of Stairs (Robert Jackson Bennett) - My Review
The Flaw in All Magic (Ben S. Dobson) - My Review
Blue Moon Rising (Simon R. Green) - My Review
Frances White
Mira
Fiction, Fantasy
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: For generations, the twelve provinces of Concordia have held a sometimes-fragile peace between them, united by the threat of the outcast Crabs to the south, the benevolent Dragon emperor to the north, and the powerful, secret Blessings of each provincial leader. Passing down through bloodlines for generations, each dux's Blessing helps their realm to thrive and keeps potential rivals in check, but the magic comes at the cost of a shortened lifespan. Now, in honor of one thousand years of (relative) peace, the twelve Blessed have been gathered for a voyage to the sacred mountain where the Goddess first passed Her magic to mortals, to renew Concordia's ties and remind everyone of the might of the emperor.
Ganymedes Piscero, Blessed of the lowly Fish Province, would rather be anywhere else... because Ganymedes has no magic. That must have gone to one of the other byblows of his unfaithful father. But Fish Province is already looked down upon enough without having to admit that some unknown bastard child is likely running around with a Goddess's power, so it was agreed that Ganymedes would be presented as the true and Blessed heir. So long as he kept away from the others, who always bullied him anyway for his lowly province and his girth, it was a farce he could put up with. But twelve days trapped aboard a boat, surrounded by real Blessed and all their insufferable arrogance - he'd rather die.
Then the Dragon heiress is found hanging from the chandelier above the banquet table - the first murder on a voyage that will soon be awash in blood, mayhem, and danger. And the only one who can solve the murders and save Concordia may be the only "Blessed" with no Blessing - or allies - to call his own... assuming Ganymedes doesn't end up a victim, too.
REVIEW: I admit it - I was lured in again by a shiny cover, though in my defense the early pages seemed fun, a little snarky and intriguing. It also promised an interesting locked-room murder mystery, isolated on a boat with nearly a dozen magic wielders. But it wasn't long before the snark that lured me in became tiresomely obnoxious, the main character degenerated into a useless "investigator" who seemed uninterested in actually investigating anything, the suspects/victims turned out to have less depth, integrity, and believability than a Scooby Doo villain, and the whole thing just collapsed in on itself into a tangled mess.
From the start, the world is on shaky ground with Ganymedes's narration, a voice that sounds too modern and Earthbound to belong in the fantasy world of Concordia; he even shoots "finger guns" at a young couple he's flirting with, in a world where it's never clear that guns actually exist, let alone the casual use of "finger guns" gestures as a mark of interest or approval. He also came across as a teenager, not a man in his twenties, enough that I wondered whether this book was originally intended for a Young Adult audience but had been aged up with the addition of copious cursing, possibly for marketing reasons. Still, I was willing to suspend disbelief for a while, as well as suspending my irritation with his selfish immaturity (partly ameliorated when he sidesteps his selfishness in order to help a bullied child), as it was early in the book and there were some nice, interesting tidbits that promised better things and smoother sailing ahead. But it didn't take long for me to realize that, no, it's rough waters all the way to the horizon. Ganymedes only gets more obnoxious and jerky, and also food-obsessed, because of course the self-loathing jerk in the tale is also overweight for comic relief purposes. He also wastes far too much time, in the book and for the reader, stubbornly refusing to do anything, even when he ostensibly decides to play detective and solve the mystery. What good is an investigator that refuses to investigate? His efforts too often amount to little more than scribbling on a useless "detective board" in his cabin (which even he doesn't take seriously, from the flippant and frivolous notes he pens - it's not like he's in danger himself or anything, to focus his attention - and if the narrator/main character isn't taking multiple murders seriously, why should I as a reader?), and avoiding actually asking useful questions or untangling motives. When he does interact with his fellow Blessed/potential suspects, his abrasive personality and refusal to take anything seriously completely undermines any investigative value before five words have left his mouth. As for his allies, he has the unpromising sidekicks of a sickly teenager and a precocious/pushy six-year-old girl who turns invisible when stressed (her recently-manifested Blessing, after the previous heir to her province passed) and eats far too much page count not contributing anything except being a cutesy distraction from the murder mystery (but, then Ganymedes was already deliberately not investigating the murders, so she could hardly be blamed for that). Again, her presence really made me wonder if this book had originally been intended for a younger audience, one where six-year-olds running around stuffing their face with candy and being in everyone's face while spouting cutesy non sequiturs wouldn't have clashed so blatantly with the whole grisly-murder vibe it intermittently tried to project.
As mentioned previously, the other Blessed - and the world itself - become too surreally cartoonish and flat to take seriously. The magic-powered ship is so expansive and full of so much handwaved, plot-convenient things (cabins so big and transformed that they might as well not even be on a boat, for instance, and cutesy plush dragon servants who mostly exist to be cutesy and plush and provide a convenient way to explain a lack of serving staff, or even how food is prepared), while the people of each province can be readily identified by colored hair and particular traits that would not be out of place in a half-baked off-brand comic book. Eventually, the author gets around to introducing something like character depth and reasons behind Ganymedes's behavior (far too little too late to make me actually enjoy his company as narrator, but I did appreciate the effort), though the ultimate unmasking and explanation happen less because of Ganymedes's dogged determination to find the truth and more because he fails so utterly that the villain more or less monologues their plot just before the final bits. Another late game twist cut the legs out from under a subplot in a way I won't discuss (to avoid spoilers) but which completely undermined one of the few seemingly genuine bits of conflict and character growth of the ostensible protagonist. The last stretch has Ganymedes forced to actually do something, though by then I was long past caring whether Concordia or any of the characters still living in it survived.
I wanted to enjoy this one. It had potential, and it promised something a little fresh and a little different. Unfortunately, the bits I enjoyed (and there were a handful) were too few and far between.
You Might Also Enjoy:
City of Stairs (Robert Jackson Bennett) - My Review
The Flaw in All Magic (Ben S. Dobson) - My Review
Blue Moon Rising (Simon R. Green) - My Review
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
September Site Update
Another month appears to have elapsed, and things keep going from bad to worse everywhere... In any event, September's reviews have been archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books site.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
A City On Mars (Kelly and Zach Weinersmith)
A City On Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Penguin
Nonfiction, Humor/Science
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: Few things epitomize the Space Age dream like visions of cities on distant worlds, a future where humanity expands through the final frontier of the solar system. The challenges appear daunting, but so did the challenge of a manned moonflight, and we ticked that box decades ago. Surely, in this age of supercomputers and AI and swarms of satellites, with tech billionaires throwing money and resources at bringing down the cost of space travel, we'll see the first permanent human presence on another world in a matter of decades, at most... right?
Maybe not quite.
While it's true we've come a long way from the days of Sputnik, there are numerous problems to be solved - from thorny legal matters of who owns space and its resources to the practical matters of survival, let alone reproduction, in environs inherently hostile to life - before anyone rolls out the welcome mat on their Martian home. In this book, these obstacles are explored, with speculations on what a space-bound future might actually entail.
REVIEW: From The Jetsons to Star Trek, from space fantasy like Star Wars to grittier takes like 2001 and The Expanse, sci-fi and popular culture are steeped in visions of orbital habitats, space stations, and otherworldly colonies, a seemingly-inevitable next step for the wandering ape that emerged from Africa to spread to essentially every habitable corner of the Earth, adapting to wildly different conditions along the way. Successes like the 1960's moonshot and the International Space Station help keep the dream alive, further fueled by boasts from billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and their races to build a better rocket, with exploitation of off-world resources and/or Martian colonies as the stated end goal. But the actual logistics of building and maintaining a human presence on another world, let alone a self-sustaining one, are immense. With humor and some interesting asides, the Weinersmiths break down the challenges confronting any would-be space colonizing civilization, a fair bit of which involves research that hasn't even been adequately done, such as how reproduction in a low-gravity environment would work and what the long-term effects of space radiation would be on an average population (our sample size, and sample specimens, of humans spending significant amount of time off-planet being statistically minuscule and based on trained specialists who had gone through rigorous pre-mission screening). Experiments to create entirely self-sustaining biomes are also not nearly robust enough to tell us what we'd need for a truly independent colony over the long term. Even finding a place to colonize is fraught with problems, from the limited prime real estate on the Moon (only a tiny fraction of locales are ideal) to the toxic "soil" of Mars to the technological challenges of that old staple of sci-fi, the spinning habitat that generates its own gravity. And that's not even getting into the psychological challenges, legal dilemmas, or potential security risks of sending people out into space who could potentially fling rocks down at our planet and re-enact the dinosaur-killer asteroid impact.
Does that mean that space colonization, even in orbital stations, is entirely impossible and will never happen? No, it does not, but the authors make some very valid points as they argue that we're going to have to do some very hard work, some very hard science, and some very deep thinking before we're ready to step offworld.
The whole makes for a fascinating, interesting, and occasionally amusing exploration of a fascinating concept. I'll still enjoy my sci-fi and space operas, of course, but I'm not so blinded by shiny fictional objects as to not understand that the reality, if it ever happens (exceptionally unlikely in my lifetime, or the lifetime of anyone reading this review), will be something far different, if equally as awe-inspiring and fascinating (again, in theory and concept, if unlikely to be fact anytime soon). I couldn't find any down sides or nitpicks, so I awarded this book top marks.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Beyond: Our Future in Space (Chris Impey) - My Review
Vacation Guide to the Solar System (Olivia Koski and Jana Grcevich) - My Review
Soonish (Kelly and Zach Weinersmith) - My Review
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Penguin
Nonfiction, Humor/Science
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: Few things epitomize the Space Age dream like visions of cities on distant worlds, a future where humanity expands through the final frontier of the solar system. The challenges appear daunting, but so did the challenge of a manned moonflight, and we ticked that box decades ago. Surely, in this age of supercomputers and AI and swarms of satellites, with tech billionaires throwing money and resources at bringing down the cost of space travel, we'll see the first permanent human presence on another world in a matter of decades, at most... right?
Maybe not quite.
While it's true we've come a long way from the days of Sputnik, there are numerous problems to be solved - from thorny legal matters of who owns space and its resources to the practical matters of survival, let alone reproduction, in environs inherently hostile to life - before anyone rolls out the welcome mat on their Martian home. In this book, these obstacles are explored, with speculations on what a space-bound future might actually entail.
REVIEW: From The Jetsons to Star Trek, from space fantasy like Star Wars to grittier takes like 2001 and The Expanse, sci-fi and popular culture are steeped in visions of orbital habitats, space stations, and otherworldly colonies, a seemingly-inevitable next step for the wandering ape that emerged from Africa to spread to essentially every habitable corner of the Earth, adapting to wildly different conditions along the way. Successes like the 1960's moonshot and the International Space Station help keep the dream alive, further fueled by boasts from billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and their races to build a better rocket, with exploitation of off-world resources and/or Martian colonies as the stated end goal. But the actual logistics of building and maintaining a human presence on another world, let alone a self-sustaining one, are immense. With humor and some interesting asides, the Weinersmiths break down the challenges confronting any would-be space colonizing civilization, a fair bit of which involves research that hasn't even been adequately done, such as how reproduction in a low-gravity environment would work and what the long-term effects of space radiation would be on an average population (our sample size, and sample specimens, of humans spending significant amount of time off-planet being statistically minuscule and based on trained specialists who had gone through rigorous pre-mission screening). Experiments to create entirely self-sustaining biomes are also not nearly robust enough to tell us what we'd need for a truly independent colony over the long term. Even finding a place to colonize is fraught with problems, from the limited prime real estate on the Moon (only a tiny fraction of locales are ideal) to the toxic "soil" of Mars to the technological challenges of that old staple of sci-fi, the spinning habitat that generates its own gravity. And that's not even getting into the psychological challenges, legal dilemmas, or potential security risks of sending people out into space who could potentially fling rocks down at our planet and re-enact the dinosaur-killer asteroid impact.
Does that mean that space colonization, even in orbital stations, is entirely impossible and will never happen? No, it does not, but the authors make some very valid points as they argue that we're going to have to do some very hard work, some very hard science, and some very deep thinking before we're ready to step offworld.
The whole makes for a fascinating, interesting, and occasionally amusing exploration of a fascinating concept. I'll still enjoy my sci-fi and space operas, of course, but I'm not so blinded by shiny fictional objects as to not understand that the reality, if it ever happens (exceptionally unlikely in my lifetime, or the lifetime of anyone reading this review), will be something far different, if equally as awe-inspiring and fascinating (again, in theory and concept, if unlikely to be fact anytime soon). I couldn't find any down sides or nitpicks, so I awarded this book top marks.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Beyond: Our Future in Space (Chris Impey) - My Review
Vacation Guide to the Solar System (Olivia Koski and Jana Grcevich) - My Review
Soonish (Kelly and Zach Weinersmith) - My Review
Friday, September 19, 2025
The Full Moon Coffee Shop (Mai Mochizuki)
The Full Moon Coffee Shop
The The Full Moon Coffee Shop series, Book 1
Mai Mochizuki, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
Ballantine Books
Fiction, Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: A schoolteacher turned screenwriter feels past her prime when her hot career turns to dust almost overnight, even as her latest relationship fizzles out. A movie director feels romantically stuck after breaking off an affair. A hairstylist enjoys her work but can't understand why it's been so draining lately. A tech entrepreneur keeps having things go wrong around him, threatening his business and his future. All four Kyoto residents need help... and all find themselves in a strange pop-up cafe under the light of the full moon, where the waitstaff are talking cats who may or may not be embodiments of the planets that influence fates. Here, they may find the insights they need to move forward, if they're willing to listen and learn.
REVIEW: Early on, this was a fun cozy fantasy novel with a nice central gimmick, if a strange one. The many lavish visual descriptions made me wonder if it was an adaptation of a manga or anime, while the flavors of each concoction offered by the friendly cats add another layer of immersion. None of the characters are facing epic life-or-death decisions, but are stuck and frustrated in the ways many can relate to: careers going nowhere (or actively going backwards), trouble finding romance, just generally something being very wrong but unable to pin down what, let alone what to do about it. Using the power of astrology and natal charts, the cats offer insights into each character's personalities and where/why they're experiencing troubles, as well as hints about how to move forward. What started as a nice little cozy idea soon slides into something between brow-beating and a sales pitch for astrology as a vital tool to better one's life, to the point where I half expected business cards for an astrologist to be stuck in print editions of the book. This also makes some elements feel repetitive. The wrap-up tale also feels a little long, overexplaining itself and how it ties all of the characters together. While there was some nice imagery and it had a few enjoyable moments, I tired of this brew long before I finished drinking.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Star Cats: A Feline Zodiac (Lesley Ann Ivory) - My Review
Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Toshikazu Kawaguchi) - My Review
The Dragon Slayer with a Heavy Heart (Marcia Powers) - My Review
The The Full Moon Coffee Shop series, Book 1
Mai Mochizuki, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
Ballantine Books
Fiction, Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: A schoolteacher turned screenwriter feels past her prime when her hot career turns to dust almost overnight, even as her latest relationship fizzles out. A movie director feels romantically stuck after breaking off an affair. A hairstylist enjoys her work but can't understand why it's been so draining lately. A tech entrepreneur keeps having things go wrong around him, threatening his business and his future. All four Kyoto residents need help... and all find themselves in a strange pop-up cafe under the light of the full moon, where the waitstaff are talking cats who may or may not be embodiments of the planets that influence fates. Here, they may find the insights they need to move forward, if they're willing to listen and learn.
REVIEW: Early on, this was a fun cozy fantasy novel with a nice central gimmick, if a strange one. The many lavish visual descriptions made me wonder if it was an adaptation of a manga or anime, while the flavors of each concoction offered by the friendly cats add another layer of immersion. None of the characters are facing epic life-or-death decisions, but are stuck and frustrated in the ways many can relate to: careers going nowhere (or actively going backwards), trouble finding romance, just generally something being very wrong but unable to pin down what, let alone what to do about it. Using the power of astrology and natal charts, the cats offer insights into each character's personalities and where/why they're experiencing troubles, as well as hints about how to move forward. What started as a nice little cozy idea soon slides into something between brow-beating and a sales pitch for astrology as a vital tool to better one's life, to the point where I half expected business cards for an astrologist to be stuck in print editions of the book. This also makes some elements feel repetitive. The wrap-up tale also feels a little long, overexplaining itself and how it ties all of the characters together. While there was some nice imagery and it had a few enjoyable moments, I tired of this brew long before I finished drinking.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Star Cats: A Feline Zodiac (Lesley Ann Ivory) - My Review
Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Toshikazu Kawaguchi) - My Review
The Dragon Slayer with a Heavy Heart (Marcia Powers) - My Review
Extinction (Douglas Preston)
Extinction
The Cash and Colcord series, Book 1
Douglas Preston
Forge Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: At Erebus Resort, a private valley in Colorado, wealthy visitors can see resurrected giants from a lost age. Thanks to a team of scientists, cutting-edge technology, and the investment of a billionaire backer, mammoths, glyptodonts, and more roam freely for the first time in thousands of years. Each creation has been carefully gene-edited to lack aggression, making them as safe as any domestic animal to be around.
Until two visitors disappear while on a high-country honeymoon backpacking excursion through the park, leaving behind pools of blood large enough that nobody doubts their fate.
At the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Agent Frances Cash is eager to finally take the lead on a major case. Along with county sheriff James Colcord, she sets out to uncover what happened and if the culprit is animal or human. But it quickly becomes apparent that the Erebus staff knows more than they're letting on, that their cooperation has limits... and that the dead honeymooners are just the start of a far more dangerous spree.
REVIEW: With clear (and acknowledged) influence from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, Extinction explores the pitfalls of de-extincting lost species, particularly the slippery slope when arrogance crossbreeds with scientific breakthroughs and the brakes of ethics are cut by greed (to mix and mangle a metaphor).
Opening with the doomed honeymooners, the story then establishes its heroes, CBI Agent Cash and Sheriff Colcord. Each is initially a little skeptical of the other due to interdepartmental rivalries and the politics of the situation (in addition to some internal personnel friction, Erebus Resort is a political hot potato, a major revenue source for the state and backed by people too powerful to ignore but opposed by numerous very vocal groups, some of which have rather good points), but they share a dedication to the job and a determination to see it through, no matter whose toes get stepped on and how inconvenient the truth might ultimately be. The head of Erebus security, Maximilian, promises full cooperation and appears shocked by the murder, but it's clear early on that the company has more going on than they're revealing, and that their boss ultimately values the survival of the park and continuation of his de-extinction work over the safety of human beings. Meanwhile, the culprits grow bolder and more violent, their attacks more depraved, their ultimate plan expanding in scale, putting everyone in danger. In thriller fashion, events escalate through various action pieces and setbacks to an explosive finale that sets up the next installment (which has yet to be published).
What cost it in the ratings was a sense of needless plot and character sprawl, some people and elements never really justifying their page time by the end, their fates a little too predictable. I guessed early on what was behind the attacks, though some bits of the reveal still worked well. I also expected a little more to come of the mammoths and a few other resurrected creatures, which had brief sense-of-awe moments after a big deal was made of their presence but ultimately might as well have been just advanced animatronics or not even been there at all, which is not something I should be thinking after I was promised a park full of Ice Age creatures; it's a bit like thinking the dinosaurs might as well have not been in Jurassic Park.
Other than those nitpicks, it's a decent enough thriller with sci-fi trappings. I didn't mind the heroes, though I don't know if I need to read any more in the series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton) - My Review
The Tusks of Extinction (Ray Nayler) - My Review
Tyrannosaur Canyon (Douglas Preston) - My Review
The Cash and Colcord series, Book 1
Douglas Preston
Forge Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: At Erebus Resort, a private valley in Colorado, wealthy visitors can see resurrected giants from a lost age. Thanks to a team of scientists, cutting-edge technology, and the investment of a billionaire backer, mammoths, glyptodonts, and more roam freely for the first time in thousands of years. Each creation has been carefully gene-edited to lack aggression, making them as safe as any domestic animal to be around.
Until two visitors disappear while on a high-country honeymoon backpacking excursion through the park, leaving behind pools of blood large enough that nobody doubts their fate.
At the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Agent Frances Cash is eager to finally take the lead on a major case. Along with county sheriff James Colcord, she sets out to uncover what happened and if the culprit is animal or human. But it quickly becomes apparent that the Erebus staff knows more than they're letting on, that their cooperation has limits... and that the dead honeymooners are just the start of a far more dangerous spree.
REVIEW: With clear (and acknowledged) influence from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, Extinction explores the pitfalls of de-extincting lost species, particularly the slippery slope when arrogance crossbreeds with scientific breakthroughs and the brakes of ethics are cut by greed (to mix and mangle a metaphor).
Opening with the doomed honeymooners, the story then establishes its heroes, CBI Agent Cash and Sheriff Colcord. Each is initially a little skeptical of the other due to interdepartmental rivalries and the politics of the situation (in addition to some internal personnel friction, Erebus Resort is a political hot potato, a major revenue source for the state and backed by people too powerful to ignore but opposed by numerous very vocal groups, some of which have rather good points), but they share a dedication to the job and a determination to see it through, no matter whose toes get stepped on and how inconvenient the truth might ultimately be. The head of Erebus security, Maximilian, promises full cooperation and appears shocked by the murder, but it's clear early on that the company has more going on than they're revealing, and that their boss ultimately values the survival of the park and continuation of his de-extinction work over the safety of human beings. Meanwhile, the culprits grow bolder and more violent, their attacks more depraved, their ultimate plan expanding in scale, putting everyone in danger. In thriller fashion, events escalate through various action pieces and setbacks to an explosive finale that sets up the next installment (which has yet to be published).
What cost it in the ratings was a sense of needless plot and character sprawl, some people and elements never really justifying their page time by the end, their fates a little too predictable. I guessed early on what was behind the attacks, though some bits of the reveal still worked well. I also expected a little more to come of the mammoths and a few other resurrected creatures, which had brief sense-of-awe moments after a big deal was made of their presence but ultimately might as well have been just advanced animatronics or not even been there at all, which is not something I should be thinking after I was promised a park full of Ice Age creatures; it's a bit like thinking the dinosaurs might as well have not been in Jurassic Park.
Other than those nitpicks, it's a decent enough thriller with sci-fi trappings. I didn't mind the heroes, though I don't know if I need to read any more in the series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton) - My Review
The Tusks of Extinction (Ray Nayler) - My Review
Tyrannosaur Canyon (Douglas Preston) - My Review
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
The Cursed Cloak of the Wretched Wraith (Rob Renzetti)
The Cursed Cloak of the Wretched Wraith #3
The Horrible Bag series, Book 3
Rob Renzetti
Penguin Workshop
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Zenith Maelstrom never wanted to go back to the world of GrahBag after escaping the first time; he only returned to rescue his sister, and inadvertently became tangled up in a rebellion against the remnants of the Wurm's forces and the Wurm's last vestiges, the ravenous cloak known as the Wraith. Still, that was a problem for the people of GrahBag, not two outsiders from Earth, both of whom are just children. Only Apogee betrayed him, literally throwing him out of the nightmare world and sealing the gates. Worse, his parents are convinced that something terrible happened to him when he witnessed his sister's "abduction"; they discovered his journal recounting his earlier trips to GrahBag and think it's a record of nightmares triggered by the trauma. Zenith is running out of ways to stall them, and is growing more desperate to find a way back to GrahBag, especially as days on Earth are months or years there... only the portals in the bag are still sealed up tight.
Unexpectedly, one day he finds his chance when a new portal opens in an alley - a salty mouth spewing monster-filled seawater (and foul language). Zenith has nothing on him but the clothes on his back, but he knows better than to wait for a better opportunity, so he leaps through... only to find that things have gone from bad to worse. The world of GrahBag is literally coming apart at the seams, and while Apogee's rebellion is still fighting, the Wraith's minions have seized control of the Collectary tree whose chalk-slate leaves literally write (or erase) reality... and it won't be long before there isn't even a world for them to fight over.
REVIEW: The third and (presumed) final installment of the Horrible Bag series pulls the story back on track after a somewhat weaker middle book, delivering an action-packed, intense finale to a series that, for a middle-grade title, pulls off some surprisingly dark moments as Zenith and Apogee finally confront the Wraith and the consequences of their own actions.
Unlike the previous book, Zenith remembers full well what happened to his (once older, now younger) sister and the world of GrahBag, in part because he took a page from Apogee's book and carefully writes recollections down every day, with a doodle of the bag itself; if he doesn't see the bag, after a while the memories slip away to be replaced with a more mundane version of events. He hates seeing his parents devastated by his sister's disappearance, just as he blames himself for not getting her and his best friend home safely, but there's nothing he can do except make himself remember and wait for a chance to get back - only to find himself in literal hot water, emerging in GrahBag's notorious Scalding Sea. Things only get worse from there, as he learns he and his sister are in no small part responsible for why the world is falling into chaos around them; the Scribe of the Collectary has found Apogee's old physics book and is haphazardly inserting whatever scientific concepts strike his fancy into GrahBag's reality. Zenith encounters the personification of the Grandfather Paradox of time travel (who is, understandably, rather paranoid) and Shrödinger's Cat (complete with the box in which it both is and is not alive), the latter of which becomes a surprisingly helpful companion. Zenith tries once more to rescue his sister - refusing to listen when she tells him she does not need rescuing - but his efforts backfire terribly, leading to some interesting plot developments that ultimately expose the roots of the Maelstrom siblings' ties to GrahBag and the origins of the Wurm itself. Things come together for a rather satisfying conclusion that doesn't erase all the damage done or losses incurred, one which leaves just enough of a crack in the door for future installments.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher) - My Review
The Circus of Stolen Dreams (Lorelei Savaryn) - My Review
Nightbooks (J. A. White) - My Review
The Horrible Bag series, Book 3
Rob Renzetti
Penguin Workshop
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Zenith Maelstrom never wanted to go back to the world of GrahBag after escaping the first time; he only returned to rescue his sister, and inadvertently became tangled up in a rebellion against the remnants of the Wurm's forces and the Wurm's last vestiges, the ravenous cloak known as the Wraith. Still, that was a problem for the people of GrahBag, not two outsiders from Earth, both of whom are just children. Only Apogee betrayed him, literally throwing him out of the nightmare world and sealing the gates. Worse, his parents are convinced that something terrible happened to him when he witnessed his sister's "abduction"; they discovered his journal recounting his earlier trips to GrahBag and think it's a record of nightmares triggered by the trauma. Zenith is running out of ways to stall them, and is growing more desperate to find a way back to GrahBag, especially as days on Earth are months or years there... only the portals in the bag are still sealed up tight.
Unexpectedly, one day he finds his chance when a new portal opens in an alley - a salty mouth spewing monster-filled seawater (and foul language). Zenith has nothing on him but the clothes on his back, but he knows better than to wait for a better opportunity, so he leaps through... only to find that things have gone from bad to worse. The world of GrahBag is literally coming apart at the seams, and while Apogee's rebellion is still fighting, the Wraith's minions have seized control of the Collectary tree whose chalk-slate leaves literally write (or erase) reality... and it won't be long before there isn't even a world for them to fight over.
REVIEW: The third and (presumed) final installment of the Horrible Bag series pulls the story back on track after a somewhat weaker middle book, delivering an action-packed, intense finale to a series that, for a middle-grade title, pulls off some surprisingly dark moments as Zenith and Apogee finally confront the Wraith and the consequences of their own actions.
Unlike the previous book, Zenith remembers full well what happened to his (once older, now younger) sister and the world of GrahBag, in part because he took a page from Apogee's book and carefully writes recollections down every day, with a doodle of the bag itself; if he doesn't see the bag, after a while the memories slip away to be replaced with a more mundane version of events. He hates seeing his parents devastated by his sister's disappearance, just as he blames himself for not getting her and his best friend home safely, but there's nothing he can do except make himself remember and wait for a chance to get back - only to find himself in literal hot water, emerging in GrahBag's notorious Scalding Sea. Things only get worse from there, as he learns he and his sister are in no small part responsible for why the world is falling into chaos around them; the Scribe of the Collectary has found Apogee's old physics book and is haphazardly inserting whatever scientific concepts strike his fancy into GrahBag's reality. Zenith encounters the personification of the Grandfather Paradox of time travel (who is, understandably, rather paranoid) and Shrödinger's Cat (complete with the box in which it both is and is not alive), the latter of which becomes a surprisingly helpful companion. Zenith tries once more to rescue his sister - refusing to listen when she tells him she does not need rescuing - but his efforts backfire terribly, leading to some interesting plot developments that ultimately expose the roots of the Maelstrom siblings' ties to GrahBag and the origins of the Wurm itself. Things come together for a rather satisfying conclusion that doesn't erase all the damage done or losses incurred, one which leaves just enough of a crack in the door for future installments.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher) - My Review
The Circus of Stolen Dreams (Lorelei Savaryn) - My Review
Nightbooks (J. A. White) - My Review
The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie (Freida McFadden)
The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie: A Satirical Novella
Freida McFadden
Hollywood Upstairs Press
Fiction, Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: She had the perfect marriage - until it was over. It's been weeks since Grant died in a fiery crash, and Alice still can't get his face out of her mind... because she's still seeing him everywhere, quite literally. In the grocery store, following her in traffic, walking down the street - everywhere. Either his ghost is haunting her in a bad plot twist, or something sinister is going on. To figure out what, Alice will have to unravel the secrets, the lies, and the secret lies of their life together, all without revealing her own deceptions, or ending up dead herself.
REVIEW: I've never actually read anything by McFadden before (though, ironically, I saw several of her books go through the library shipping center as I listened to this audiobook), but satires can be fun and the length filled a dead spot in my day. From the title and first words of the prologue, it's pretty clear that McFadden is presenting a satire of her own genre (and even her own works, as Alice is reading a Freida McFadden novel when her best friend comes over with yet another condolence casserole), offering up a trawler's worth of red herrings via an unreliable narrator and false starts and plot twists that may not make a lick of sense but make for catchy chapter break hooks. As Alice struggles to deal with seeing Grant everywhere and second-guessing her own memories, McFadden puts genre tropes through their paces, clearly having a blast while doing it. At one point she even slips in a reference to Spaceballs, which helped boost the short tale over some uneven pacing to a solid Good rating. The plot is a bit flimsy and the characters paper-thin, but it wasn't written to be a gripping, taut thriller. It set out to be a satire, and it made me chuckle, which is all a satire has to do. Anyone looking for more than that needs to lighten up.
You Might Also Enjoy:
My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) - My Review
Meddling Kids (Edgar Cantero) - My Review
Lord of the Fly Fest (Goldy Moldavsky) - My Review
Freida McFadden
Hollywood Upstairs Press
Fiction, Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: She had the perfect marriage - until it was over. It's been weeks since Grant died in a fiery crash, and Alice still can't get his face out of her mind... because she's still seeing him everywhere, quite literally. In the grocery store, following her in traffic, walking down the street - everywhere. Either his ghost is haunting her in a bad plot twist, or something sinister is going on. To figure out what, Alice will have to unravel the secrets, the lies, and the secret lies of their life together, all without revealing her own deceptions, or ending up dead herself.
REVIEW: I've never actually read anything by McFadden before (though, ironically, I saw several of her books go through the library shipping center as I listened to this audiobook), but satires can be fun and the length filled a dead spot in my day. From the title and first words of the prologue, it's pretty clear that McFadden is presenting a satire of her own genre (and even her own works, as Alice is reading a Freida McFadden novel when her best friend comes over with yet another condolence casserole), offering up a trawler's worth of red herrings via an unreliable narrator and false starts and plot twists that may not make a lick of sense but make for catchy chapter break hooks. As Alice struggles to deal with seeing Grant everywhere and second-guessing her own memories, McFadden puts genre tropes through their paces, clearly having a blast while doing it. At one point she even slips in a reference to Spaceballs, which helped boost the short tale over some uneven pacing to a solid Good rating. The plot is a bit flimsy and the characters paper-thin, but it wasn't written to be a gripping, taut thriller. It set out to be a satire, and it made me chuckle, which is all a satire has to do. Anyone looking for more than that needs to lighten up.
You Might Also Enjoy:
My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) - My Review
Meddling Kids (Edgar Cantero) - My Review
Lord of the Fly Fest (Goldy Moldavsky) - My Review
Friday, September 12, 2025
The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment (Ron Renzetti)
The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment #2
The Horrible Bag series, Book 2
Rob Renzetti
Penguin Workshop
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Prepare for Battle! reads the note on Zenith Maelstrom's nightstand, but for the life of him he can't remember why he wrote it. Did it mean a game with his friend Kevin Churl? They've spent much of their summer together, except when Zenith has to watch his kid sister Apogee... but something in the back of his mind bothers him, like he's forgotten something very important. It's not until he finds Apogee in the basement trying to open an ugly old leather bag that he remembers about their terrible journey through the land of GrahBag - and how it's his fault that his sister is four years old instead of fourteen. He promised her when they left that he'd fix it, that they'd go back, but for some reason it's hard to hold onto that thought when he's in the real world and away from the horrible bag. Then Apogee forces his hand; she sneaks back through to the other world while he's asleep. With Kevin tagging along, he reluctantly goes back into the realm of monsters, only to find it's even worse than before. The Wurm lives on as a soul-sucking Wraith, and the very land seems to be dying. He and Apogee only barely escaped with their lives last time, and this time they may not be so lucky...
REVIEW: Taking up a short while after the previous volume ended, it also wastes little time getting going, though Zenith dithers a bit overlong once he realizes that he can't even trust his memories when he's out of sight of the horrible bag that's the portal to GrahBag. He also finds that he has two memories of the past, one in which Apogee is his protective kid sister and another where she's always been a little kid (the latter of which being the reality that their parents and the rest of the world accept)... which is he to believe? Which does he want? Part of him likes being the older sibling for once, while another doesn't feel at all prepared to protect a young kid as a big brother should (and as Apogee did when she was the big sister, as irritating as he sometimes found her). Worse, he realizes that, by abandoning GrahBag after their confrontation with the Wurm, he and his sister inadvertently made a bad place even worse; those who were loyal to the Wurm were outraged at the loss of their leader, while those who opposed it tried at last to revolt but lacked a leader, the instigator of the attack having fled their world after throwing it into utter chaos. What kind of person, let alone brother, is Zenith if he can't even face the consequences of his actions, however unintentional? As he reunites with old companions (and some old enemies), he finds new dangers and problems to solve; the titular Eternal Tower is a truly diabolical prison with mind-warping and devious traps. As before, there's a sense of very real danger for the kids, and Zenith has to take his lumps and learn lessons the hard way.
The story barely lost a half star for a sense of it being rushed, for Kevin's involvement feeling extraneous (he's sidelined pretty quickly and hardly mentioned afterwards), and for ending on an actual cliffhanger this time. I also get a bit irked by plot points that feel drawn out because people won't spit out what they know or what they need despite ample opportunity (regardless of target age). Still, I'm invested enough to finish off the trilogy.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Tamora Carter, Goblin Queen (Jim C. Hines) - My Review
Story Thieves (James Riley) - My Review
100 Cupboards (N. D. Wilson) - My Review
The Horrible Bag series, Book 2
Rob Renzetti
Penguin Workshop
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Prepare for Battle! reads the note on Zenith Maelstrom's nightstand, but for the life of him he can't remember why he wrote it. Did it mean a game with his friend Kevin Churl? They've spent much of their summer together, except when Zenith has to watch his kid sister Apogee... but something in the back of his mind bothers him, like he's forgotten something very important. It's not until he finds Apogee in the basement trying to open an ugly old leather bag that he remembers about their terrible journey through the land of GrahBag - and how it's his fault that his sister is four years old instead of fourteen. He promised her when they left that he'd fix it, that they'd go back, but for some reason it's hard to hold onto that thought when he's in the real world and away from the horrible bag. Then Apogee forces his hand; she sneaks back through to the other world while he's asleep. With Kevin tagging along, he reluctantly goes back into the realm of monsters, only to find it's even worse than before. The Wurm lives on as a soul-sucking Wraith, and the very land seems to be dying. He and Apogee only barely escaped with their lives last time, and this time they may not be so lucky...
REVIEW: Taking up a short while after the previous volume ended, it also wastes little time getting going, though Zenith dithers a bit overlong once he realizes that he can't even trust his memories when he's out of sight of the horrible bag that's the portal to GrahBag. He also finds that he has two memories of the past, one in which Apogee is his protective kid sister and another where she's always been a little kid (the latter of which being the reality that their parents and the rest of the world accept)... which is he to believe? Which does he want? Part of him likes being the older sibling for once, while another doesn't feel at all prepared to protect a young kid as a big brother should (and as Apogee did when she was the big sister, as irritating as he sometimes found her). Worse, he realizes that, by abandoning GrahBag after their confrontation with the Wurm, he and his sister inadvertently made a bad place even worse; those who were loyal to the Wurm were outraged at the loss of their leader, while those who opposed it tried at last to revolt but lacked a leader, the instigator of the attack having fled their world after throwing it into utter chaos. What kind of person, let alone brother, is Zenith if he can't even face the consequences of his actions, however unintentional? As he reunites with old companions (and some old enemies), he finds new dangers and problems to solve; the titular Eternal Tower is a truly diabolical prison with mind-warping and devious traps. As before, there's a sense of very real danger for the kids, and Zenith has to take his lumps and learn lessons the hard way.
The story barely lost a half star for a sense of it being rushed, for Kevin's involvement feeling extraneous (he's sidelined pretty quickly and hardly mentioned afterwards), and for ending on an actual cliffhanger this time. I also get a bit irked by plot points that feel drawn out because people won't spit out what they know or what they need despite ample opportunity (regardless of target age). Still, I'm invested enough to finish off the trilogy.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Tamora Carter, Goblin Queen (Jim C. Hines) - My Review
Story Thieves (James Riley) - My Review
100 Cupboards (N. D. Wilson) - My Review
Thursday, September 11, 2025
The Teller of Small Fortunes (Julie Leong)
The Teller of Small Fortunes
Julie Leong
Ace
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: The Shinn woman Tao travels far and wide across the land of Eshtera in her mule-drawn wagon, using her gifts of seeing to tell fortunes to farmers and villagers... but small fortunes only. Seeing big events carries too great a burden, and draws too big a price - something she has only tried once, and something she vows never to do again. This is part of why she travels; the royal Guild of Mages would love to get their hands on a seer, and they wouldn't care about the cost. The other part is that she never feels like she truly belongs in this land, her Shinn features marking her as a foreigner among the pale Eshterans for all that she barely remembers her native language. It is a lonely life, forever on the road and on the run, but at least she is free.
A chance encounter on the road lands her in the company of a pair of roving ex-mercenaries, one a "reformed" thief and the other desperately searching for the young daughter who disappeared while he was away on campaign. Tao doesn't want traveling companions, and if she did, she likely wouldn't have picked these two, but fate seems to have other ideas. Like it or not, Tao's solo journeys will have to wait, as she becomes more entangled in the lives of these strangers, and others encountered with them, than she ever intended... so entangled that her past, and the guild, may finally catch up to her.
REVIEW: This one was advertised as a "cozy fantasy", riding a current wave of the subgenre's popularity. It is, indeed, cozy, with fairly low stakes, a focus on characters and found family, and no real baddies or scary stuff. At some point, though, the blunted edges and rosy golden glow become a little tiresome, and fail to hide some weaknesses underneath the story.
Things start well and cozy enough, as Tao rides into a village and resolves her first crisis - missing goats - with minimal fuss, while establishing the world and how the people view "exotic" foreigners like herself, an Asian-analog race from across the sea, with whom relations have been fraught lately. Tao herself has an ambivalent relationship with her own heritage. On the one hand, she loves her memories of childhood and the father she lost too soon, while on the other she sees it as one more barrier between herself and the people around her, her features a permanent brand marking her as different and other, no matter how well she speaks the local tongue. Tao may lean into the trappings of her Shinn blood to promote her small fortune-telling business, but can't help regretting and resenting how it creates a barrier... though, of course, she tells herself she doesn't need or even want companionship anyway. It's only when given no other choice that she reluctantly accepts Mash and Silt, a solid soldier/little thief pair cut from the (over)familiar genre cloth as Leiber's classic duo Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, as fellow travelers. They, too, don't intend to become close to the fortune-teller, but nevertheless they wind up warming up to each other as friends, each finding in the group something they were missing in their lives before. Tao strives to keep herself separate even as she works to help the others, but can't hold herself aloof forever, and is surprised to realize that she has wants and needs in her life as well - and that, much as she tries to embrace the lonely traveler life, she could really use a friend.
There is, from the outset (and throughout), a soft, warm glow of "cozy" about the whole story and the characters. Some lip service is given to rough pasts and inequalities and other grounding elements, but overall the world feels vague and hazy and bubble-wrapped, to the point where one can predict that, even when things look slightly bad, nothing will ever be particularly unpleasant or even vaguely discomfiting for very long. Some elements are too predictable early on, and others feel like pointless, page-eating tangents that never really deliver. The whole eventually started feeling like someone constantly hugging and coddling the reader, force-feeding them warm tea, always reassuring them that things will be all right even when it may look momentarily like it's not... and there are a few "surprises" where, honestly, nobody in the cast should've been that stupid for that long, even in a world this fuzzy-slipper cozy. By the end, it just felt too puffy and insubstantial and forcibly "feel all good all the time" to be really satisfying to me, though that probably says more about me than the story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Bookshops and Bonedust (Travis Baldree) - My Review
A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Becky Chambers) - My Review
Under the Whispering Door (TJ Klune) - My Review
Julie Leong
Ace
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: The Shinn woman Tao travels far and wide across the land of Eshtera in her mule-drawn wagon, using her gifts of seeing to tell fortunes to farmers and villagers... but small fortunes only. Seeing big events carries too great a burden, and draws too big a price - something she has only tried once, and something she vows never to do again. This is part of why she travels; the royal Guild of Mages would love to get their hands on a seer, and they wouldn't care about the cost. The other part is that she never feels like she truly belongs in this land, her Shinn features marking her as a foreigner among the pale Eshterans for all that she barely remembers her native language. It is a lonely life, forever on the road and on the run, but at least she is free.
A chance encounter on the road lands her in the company of a pair of roving ex-mercenaries, one a "reformed" thief and the other desperately searching for the young daughter who disappeared while he was away on campaign. Tao doesn't want traveling companions, and if she did, she likely wouldn't have picked these two, but fate seems to have other ideas. Like it or not, Tao's solo journeys will have to wait, as she becomes more entangled in the lives of these strangers, and others encountered with them, than she ever intended... so entangled that her past, and the guild, may finally catch up to her.
REVIEW: This one was advertised as a "cozy fantasy", riding a current wave of the subgenre's popularity. It is, indeed, cozy, with fairly low stakes, a focus on characters and found family, and no real baddies or scary stuff. At some point, though, the blunted edges and rosy golden glow become a little tiresome, and fail to hide some weaknesses underneath the story.
Things start well and cozy enough, as Tao rides into a village and resolves her first crisis - missing goats - with minimal fuss, while establishing the world and how the people view "exotic" foreigners like herself, an Asian-analog race from across the sea, with whom relations have been fraught lately. Tao herself has an ambivalent relationship with her own heritage. On the one hand, she loves her memories of childhood and the father she lost too soon, while on the other she sees it as one more barrier between herself and the people around her, her features a permanent brand marking her as different and other, no matter how well she speaks the local tongue. Tao may lean into the trappings of her Shinn blood to promote her small fortune-telling business, but can't help regretting and resenting how it creates a barrier... though, of course, she tells herself she doesn't need or even want companionship anyway. It's only when given no other choice that she reluctantly accepts Mash and Silt, a solid soldier/little thief pair cut from the (over)familiar genre cloth as Leiber's classic duo Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, as fellow travelers. They, too, don't intend to become close to the fortune-teller, but nevertheless they wind up warming up to each other as friends, each finding in the group something they were missing in their lives before. Tao strives to keep herself separate even as she works to help the others, but can't hold herself aloof forever, and is surprised to realize that she has wants and needs in her life as well - and that, much as she tries to embrace the lonely traveler life, she could really use a friend.
There is, from the outset (and throughout), a soft, warm glow of "cozy" about the whole story and the characters. Some lip service is given to rough pasts and inequalities and other grounding elements, but overall the world feels vague and hazy and bubble-wrapped, to the point where one can predict that, even when things look slightly bad, nothing will ever be particularly unpleasant or even vaguely discomfiting for very long. Some elements are too predictable early on, and others feel like pointless, page-eating tangents that never really deliver. The whole eventually started feeling like someone constantly hugging and coddling the reader, force-feeding them warm tea, always reassuring them that things will be all right even when it may look momentarily like it's not... and there are a few "surprises" where, honestly, nobody in the cast should've been that stupid for that long, even in a world this fuzzy-slipper cozy. By the end, it just felt too puffy and insubstantial and forcibly "feel all good all the time" to be really satisfying to me, though that probably says more about me than the story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Bookshops and Bonedust (Travis Baldree) - My Review
A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Becky Chambers) - My Review
Under the Whispering Door (TJ Klune) - My Review
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things (Rob Renzetti)
The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things #1
The Horrible Bag series, Book 1
Rob Renzetti
Penguin Workshop
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The ugly old black leather bag on the doorstep moaned; Zenith is sure of it. He doesn't know where it came from or who it was for or why it was left in front of the house, but he knows that it moaned when he first saw it. When he tries to pick it up, it pricks his finger - and seems to wake up, disgorging a monstrous thing of slime and hair and too many legs around a darkly beating heart. This is the last thing a boy who's already been grounded for mischief-making needs... and when the "shlurp" grabs his older sister and babysitter, Apogee, and pulls her back into the bag, Zenith has to get her back. Thus he finds himself leaping into the land of GrahBag, a world of surreal horrors, where every monster is worse than the last and even "friends" may turn out to be foes.
REVIEW: I needed a palate cleanser after the previous disappointing audiobook, and this looked like a quick way to fill out the rest of a work shift, having a great title that promised spooky shenanigans. Happily, it delivers in full.
Kicking off from the first sentence of the first page, the boy Zenith finds himself with a monstrous bag to deal with... and, soon, a monster from within the monstrous bag. Almost as bad is Apogee, the sister he used to be close to until an incident a few years back that transformed her from his comrade-in-mischief to a preteen prison guard/third parent who would rather lecture him about responsibility than play. As creeped out as Zenith is by the bag and the "shlurp" monster, he's initially more worried about how letting a horrible bag into the house will affect his grounding sentence, even as he wishes he could still confide in his sister. Before long, the matter is taken out of her hands when Apogee is abducted. Zenith wastes little time jumping into the bag afterward... and if he found the outside creepy, with its mismatched assortment of hides and leathers, the inside is even worse... and that's before he makes the transition to GrahBag proper, a place that makes nightmares seem downright quaint. Zenith tries to outwit and outthink the place, but the land of the sickly green skies and red sun always seems to have another twisted trick up its sleeve, and even when he thinks he's getting ahead, he may be digging himself into more trouble. He picks up a companion of sorts in the form of a little gargoyle, but he can't expect others to fight his battles or solve his problems. Nor is Apogee entirely helpless or stupid. The pacing's pretty quick (as one would expect from a middle grade title) and there are a few fun moments (and a few bits of crude humor - again, as one comes to expect from middle grade), but it also has genuinely creepy encounters and moments where Zenith must confront his own mistakes and fallibility. The ending sets up the conflict for the second book nicely, doing a good enough job baiting the hook that I've already downloaded the next two titles in the trilogy.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Game of Sunken Places (M. T. Anderson) - My Review
Small Spaces (Katherine Arden) - My Review
The Shadows (Jacqueline West) - My Review
The Horrible Bag series, Book 1
Rob Renzetti
Penguin Workshop
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The ugly old black leather bag on the doorstep moaned; Zenith is sure of it. He doesn't know where it came from or who it was for or why it was left in front of the house, but he knows that it moaned when he first saw it. When he tries to pick it up, it pricks his finger - and seems to wake up, disgorging a monstrous thing of slime and hair and too many legs around a darkly beating heart. This is the last thing a boy who's already been grounded for mischief-making needs... and when the "shlurp" grabs his older sister and babysitter, Apogee, and pulls her back into the bag, Zenith has to get her back. Thus he finds himself leaping into the land of GrahBag, a world of surreal horrors, where every monster is worse than the last and even "friends" may turn out to be foes.
REVIEW: I needed a palate cleanser after the previous disappointing audiobook, and this looked like a quick way to fill out the rest of a work shift, having a great title that promised spooky shenanigans. Happily, it delivers in full.
Kicking off from the first sentence of the first page, the boy Zenith finds himself with a monstrous bag to deal with... and, soon, a monster from within the monstrous bag. Almost as bad is Apogee, the sister he used to be close to until an incident a few years back that transformed her from his comrade-in-mischief to a preteen prison guard/third parent who would rather lecture him about responsibility than play. As creeped out as Zenith is by the bag and the "shlurp" monster, he's initially more worried about how letting a horrible bag into the house will affect his grounding sentence, even as he wishes he could still confide in his sister. Before long, the matter is taken out of her hands when Apogee is abducted. Zenith wastes little time jumping into the bag afterward... and if he found the outside creepy, with its mismatched assortment of hides and leathers, the inside is even worse... and that's before he makes the transition to GrahBag proper, a place that makes nightmares seem downright quaint. Zenith tries to outwit and outthink the place, but the land of the sickly green skies and red sun always seems to have another twisted trick up its sleeve, and even when he thinks he's getting ahead, he may be digging himself into more trouble. He picks up a companion of sorts in the form of a little gargoyle, but he can't expect others to fight his battles or solve his problems. Nor is Apogee entirely helpless or stupid. The pacing's pretty quick (as one would expect from a middle grade title) and there are a few fun moments (and a few bits of crude humor - again, as one comes to expect from middle grade), but it also has genuinely creepy encounters and moments where Zenith must confront his own mistakes and fallibility. The ending sets up the conflict for the second book nicely, doing a good enough job baiting the hook that I've already downloaded the next two titles in the trilogy.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Game of Sunken Places (M. T. Anderson) - My Review
Small Spaces (Katherine Arden) - My Review
The Shadows (Jacqueline West) - My Review
Mindswap (Robert Sheckley)
Mindswap
Robert Sheckley
Dell
Fiction, Humor/Sci-Fi
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: College student Marvin grows bored with his life in a quaint town in upstate New York, a place so backwards in the intergalactic age that the people still travel by jet plane. He wants to see the wider worlds, but the only affordable way for someone of his limited means is a mindswap: transferring his consciousness instantaneously into another body on another planet, while the inhabitant of that body enters his own. What better way to experience another planet than in a body adapted to live there? Despite the warnings of his conservative family and friends, Marvin answers an ad from a Martian who wants an Earth vacation... but his plans go awry almost from the moment he arrives on the red planet. Ze Craggash was a crook who simultaneously sold his body to multiple travelers and has absconded with Marvin's Earth body in the confusion. Ordered to vacate his new host - a death sentence if he can't find another body to swap into - he turns to a down-on-his-luck Martian detective. Thus begins a series of increasingly desperate swaps, each taking him further and further from his home across the vastness of space.
REVIEW: As one might expect from a story originally published in 1966, Mindswap shows its age, even as it plays with some fun ideas and presents some moments of timeless satire and absurdity in the vein of Gulliver's Travels.
From the start, Marvin lets his enthusiasm and desperation to do something bold and adventurous before he gets too old and settled (and too much like the people around him in his backwards town) blind him to the potential drawbacks of mindswaps. To the rest of the world and the galaxies, mindswapping is as casual a means of travel as taking a plane or riding the subway; the odds of something going on are supposed to be infinitesimally small. So, of course, everything that can go wrong eventually does. Losing his human body and place on Earth is the least of his troubles before long, as he finds himself faced with numerous ridiculous situations that have potentially dire consequences for his survival. At some point, the absurdity starts overtaking the (admittedly thin) plotline, especially when his mind starts to crack from numerous swaps and he begins seeing his increasingly alien environs as caricatured, surreal locales from Earth... displaying at the same time some rather cringeworthy class, gender, and racial stereotypes that can't really be swept under the lumpy "author of his time" rug. (The audiobook narrator did not help with this, leaning hard into overdone accents to emphasize just what culture and ethnic group Sheckley was caricaturing.) It also starts to feel like Sheckley gave up all pretense of story and even satire to show off just how utterly bizarre he could get, to the point of completely derailing the final leg of Marvin's adventure and making this reader wonder what the point of it all was, as it ended up feeling like a waste of time.
While I could appreciate Sheckley's deadpan delivery of a strange far future and stranger situations, I just plain didn't enjoy it or care by the end, by which point even the laughs had dried up.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Nonexistent Knight (Italo Calvino) - My Review
Midnight at the Well of Souls (Jack L. Chalker) - My Review
Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift) - My Review
Robert Sheckley
Dell
Fiction, Humor/Sci-Fi
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: College student Marvin grows bored with his life in a quaint town in upstate New York, a place so backwards in the intergalactic age that the people still travel by jet plane. He wants to see the wider worlds, but the only affordable way for someone of his limited means is a mindswap: transferring his consciousness instantaneously into another body on another planet, while the inhabitant of that body enters his own. What better way to experience another planet than in a body adapted to live there? Despite the warnings of his conservative family and friends, Marvin answers an ad from a Martian who wants an Earth vacation... but his plans go awry almost from the moment he arrives on the red planet. Ze Craggash was a crook who simultaneously sold his body to multiple travelers and has absconded with Marvin's Earth body in the confusion. Ordered to vacate his new host - a death sentence if he can't find another body to swap into - he turns to a down-on-his-luck Martian detective. Thus begins a series of increasingly desperate swaps, each taking him further and further from his home across the vastness of space.
REVIEW: As one might expect from a story originally published in 1966, Mindswap shows its age, even as it plays with some fun ideas and presents some moments of timeless satire and absurdity in the vein of Gulliver's Travels.
From the start, Marvin lets his enthusiasm and desperation to do something bold and adventurous before he gets too old and settled (and too much like the people around him in his backwards town) blind him to the potential drawbacks of mindswaps. To the rest of the world and the galaxies, mindswapping is as casual a means of travel as taking a plane or riding the subway; the odds of something going on are supposed to be infinitesimally small. So, of course, everything that can go wrong eventually does. Losing his human body and place on Earth is the least of his troubles before long, as he finds himself faced with numerous ridiculous situations that have potentially dire consequences for his survival. At some point, the absurdity starts overtaking the (admittedly thin) plotline, especially when his mind starts to crack from numerous swaps and he begins seeing his increasingly alien environs as caricatured, surreal locales from Earth... displaying at the same time some rather cringeworthy class, gender, and racial stereotypes that can't really be swept under the lumpy "author of his time" rug. (The audiobook narrator did not help with this, leaning hard into overdone accents to emphasize just what culture and ethnic group Sheckley was caricaturing.) It also starts to feel like Sheckley gave up all pretense of story and even satire to show off just how utterly bizarre he could get, to the point of completely derailing the final leg of Marvin's adventure and making this reader wonder what the point of it all was, as it ended up feeling like a waste of time.
While I could appreciate Sheckley's deadpan delivery of a strange far future and stranger situations, I just plain didn't enjoy it or care by the end, by which point even the laughs had dried up.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Nonexistent Knight (Italo Calvino) - My Review
Midnight at the Well of Souls (Jack L. Chalker) - My Review
Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift) - My Review
Friday, September 5, 2025
The Wolf in the Whale (Jordanna Max Bordsky)
The Wolf in the Whale
Jordanna Max Bordsky
Redhook
Fiction, Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Since the oldest times, the Inuit have lived in the land of the caribou and the white bear, telling stories of the ancestors and the spirits of the world around them. Omat, child of a fallen hunter, was born with the late man's spirit and the blessing of the great Wolf, a clear sign that she will become the next angakkuq, the shaman, of their small band, invoking the powers and guidance of the spirit world to keep the people safe. But even in their isolated settlement on the very eastern edge of the land, there are some who doubt her destiny; her soul is male, but her body female, and there are taboos about the roles of men and women that could threaten retribution from the spirit world if violated. She must prove herself always, even to her own milk-brother Kiasik, if she is to fulfill her destiny... but when she is ripped from her family and drug to the very edge of the vast open waters, Omat encounters a threat beyond anything she has imagined: a strange, pale-skinned people with gleaming blades and hair like fire, who bring their own warlike pantheon of gods to her shores. She will do anything to save her people... but the Inuit spirits and the Norse gods have already marked her as the herald of the end of days.
REVIEW: The Wolf in the Whale is inspired by the explorations of the Viking Leif Erickson and his warlike daughter, Freydis, who briefly established a settlement in what they called Vinland before abandoning the "New World" for over five centuries... a settlement whose time frame coincided with the eastward expansion of the Inuit. There is evidence that indiginous resistance was involved in Vinland's abandonment, though of course concrete details are almost impossible to ascertain over a thousand years after the events in question. From these historic threads and copious research into Norse and Inuit cultures, Bordsky deftly weaves in elements of religion and magic and very human culture clashes, turning the encounter into something worthy of a saga.
From the moment of her birth, Omat's grandfather Ataata recognizes the signs of a future shaman and heir to his position as leader and liaison with the spirits - a position that brings very real powers, but also carries great burdens, for the spirits of the Inuit can be fickle and tricky and even cruel. What Ataata doesn't realize is that Taqqiq, the Moon man, has foreseen Omat's destiny and already harbors great anger toward her from her first breaths. Meanwhile, Omat grows up raised as a boy and a man-to-be; it is only several chapter in that she and the reader realize that, though her soul is that of her father, her body is female. (She narrates her tale in the first person, concealing this as she sees herself as a boy.) This is not unheard of in their people, according to Ataata - after all, it is known that the souls of the dead return to be reborn in the living, so of course sometimes "boy" and "girl" souls end up in a different body - but it is rare enough that the others in her small, struggling settlement are uncomfortable at times with the arrangement, worried about breaking one of the strict taboos that could bring ill luck and doom upon them all when they are already much dwindled from when they first arrived in this new territory. Still, Omat is confident she can win her kin over, even successfully completing her vision quest to receive her spirit guides and shaman powers... until strangers arrive to destroy everything she has worked towards, and the spirits themselves betray her. Even that devastation pales in comparison to what she finds when she is essentially traded away to the cruel strangers, the coming of the Norsemen and the slaughter that changes everything. Even then, things might have been different if the men in the blue cloaks and great boats hadn't taken her milk-brother Kiasik captive when they sailed off, driving Omat to undertake a dangerous, even epic journey far from the lands and spirits she knows to find him again. Along the way, she encounters an outcast Norseman, Brandr, who challenges everything she thinks she knows about the strangers... and herself. Meanwhile, the spirits and gods play their own games, as usual thinking nothing of the mortals they use as game tokens and tools (even the Inuit spirits don't exactly coddle their humans, particularly the powerful entities behind the Moon and the Sun and the sea), while myths and stories form a framework for sharing knowledge.
There are times when the story threatened to slip in the ratings, some moments where I was prepared for the story to go one way and disappoint me, only for it to ultimately go another and pleasantly surprise me. That said, I'd definitely include a trigger warning for sexual assault, and one for canine fates. But Omat remains a strong, compelling hero/heroine throughout (she sees herself as both man and woman throughout, straddling the line between genders as a shaman straddles the line between the waking world and the spirit realm), far from flawless but rarely giving up for long and willing to learn from mistakes. Bordsky does a superb job bringing the world of the Inuit to life, as well as the Norse culture she so unexpectedly and violently encounters, making the people more than simple caricatures. It makes for a solid story of mythic proportions with ideas and images that linger well in the memory.
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Jordanna Max Bordsky
Redhook
Fiction, Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Since the oldest times, the Inuit have lived in the land of the caribou and the white bear, telling stories of the ancestors and the spirits of the world around them. Omat, child of a fallen hunter, was born with the late man's spirit and the blessing of the great Wolf, a clear sign that she will become the next angakkuq, the shaman, of their small band, invoking the powers and guidance of the spirit world to keep the people safe. But even in their isolated settlement on the very eastern edge of the land, there are some who doubt her destiny; her soul is male, but her body female, and there are taboos about the roles of men and women that could threaten retribution from the spirit world if violated. She must prove herself always, even to her own milk-brother Kiasik, if she is to fulfill her destiny... but when she is ripped from her family and drug to the very edge of the vast open waters, Omat encounters a threat beyond anything she has imagined: a strange, pale-skinned people with gleaming blades and hair like fire, who bring their own warlike pantheon of gods to her shores. She will do anything to save her people... but the Inuit spirits and the Norse gods have already marked her as the herald of the end of days.
REVIEW: The Wolf in the Whale is inspired by the explorations of the Viking Leif Erickson and his warlike daughter, Freydis, who briefly established a settlement in what they called Vinland before abandoning the "New World" for over five centuries... a settlement whose time frame coincided with the eastward expansion of the Inuit. There is evidence that indiginous resistance was involved in Vinland's abandonment, though of course concrete details are almost impossible to ascertain over a thousand years after the events in question. From these historic threads and copious research into Norse and Inuit cultures, Bordsky deftly weaves in elements of religion and magic and very human culture clashes, turning the encounter into something worthy of a saga.
From the moment of her birth, Omat's grandfather Ataata recognizes the signs of a future shaman and heir to his position as leader and liaison with the spirits - a position that brings very real powers, but also carries great burdens, for the spirits of the Inuit can be fickle and tricky and even cruel. What Ataata doesn't realize is that Taqqiq, the Moon man, has foreseen Omat's destiny and already harbors great anger toward her from her first breaths. Meanwhile, Omat grows up raised as a boy and a man-to-be; it is only several chapter in that she and the reader realize that, though her soul is that of her father, her body is female. (She narrates her tale in the first person, concealing this as she sees herself as a boy.) This is not unheard of in their people, according to Ataata - after all, it is known that the souls of the dead return to be reborn in the living, so of course sometimes "boy" and "girl" souls end up in a different body - but it is rare enough that the others in her small, struggling settlement are uncomfortable at times with the arrangement, worried about breaking one of the strict taboos that could bring ill luck and doom upon them all when they are already much dwindled from when they first arrived in this new territory. Still, Omat is confident she can win her kin over, even successfully completing her vision quest to receive her spirit guides and shaman powers... until strangers arrive to destroy everything she has worked towards, and the spirits themselves betray her. Even that devastation pales in comparison to what she finds when she is essentially traded away to the cruel strangers, the coming of the Norsemen and the slaughter that changes everything. Even then, things might have been different if the men in the blue cloaks and great boats hadn't taken her milk-brother Kiasik captive when they sailed off, driving Omat to undertake a dangerous, even epic journey far from the lands and spirits she knows to find him again. Along the way, she encounters an outcast Norseman, Brandr, who challenges everything she thinks she knows about the strangers... and herself. Meanwhile, the spirits and gods play their own games, as usual thinking nothing of the mortals they use as game tokens and tools (even the Inuit spirits don't exactly coddle their humans, particularly the powerful entities behind the Moon and the Sun and the sea), while myths and stories form a framework for sharing knowledge.
There are times when the story threatened to slip in the ratings, some moments where I was prepared for the story to go one way and disappoint me, only for it to ultimately go another and pleasantly surprise me. That said, I'd definitely include a trigger warning for sexual assault, and one for canine fates. But Omat remains a strong, compelling hero/heroine throughout (she sees herself as both man and woman throughout, straddling the line between genders as a shaman straddles the line between the waking world and the spirit realm), far from flawless but rarely giving up for long and willing to learn from mistakes. Bordsky does a superb job bringing the world of the Inuit to life, as well as the Norse culture she so unexpectedly and violently encounters, making the people more than simple caricatures. It makes for a solid story of mythic proportions with ideas and images that linger well in the memory.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Eagle Drums (Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson) - My Review
The Leopard's Daughter (Lee Killough) - My Review
The Tiger and the Wolf (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
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