The month's ten reviews are now archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books website. (Given how this month has pretty much been terrible on numerous levels, I'm actually surprised I managed that many. Hopefully February is slightly less eventful.)
Enjoy!
Friday, January 31, 2020
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Bob (Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead)
Bob
Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead
Square Fish
Fiction, CH Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: When Olivia, her mother, and her baby sister come to her grandmother's house in rural Australia, she doesn't remember a thing about the place. After all, she was only five the last time she visited, and now she's practically eleven (well, nearly ten and a half.) How can she be expected to remember the old green stuffed elephant, or the big rock out back... or the little green creature in the chicken suit waiting in her closet?
Bob has waited very patiently for his friend Livy to return. He read his dictionary and played with his Legos and listened to Granny shouting on the telephone. Before she left all those years ago, the girl promised to help him remember who he was and where he came from so he can go home, but now she says she doesn't even remember meeting him. Still, a promise is a promise, and surely Old Livy still lurks inside this new, taller Livy - and now that she's bigger and older, surely she's smarter, too, which can only help.
As the two dust off old memories and try to follow a dusty trail to the past, they rediscover what friendship means - and find out how real magic can be, even to a sophisticated girl of nearly-eleven.
REVIEW: Bob is a fun, fast, light read, with colorful characters (literally, in the case of green-skinned Bob) and humor and just enough adventure. Livy feels torn over having forgotten something so important, even as her mother and grandmother don't seem to realize that, to a girl her age, five years ago might as well have been a lifetime; they keep insisting she should remember things and know people and seem subtly hurt when she doesn't. She's also balanced on the blurry border between young childhood and older childhood, where magical thinking starts to fade and a colder, more adult thought process tries to take hold... but she needs both if she's going to solve Bob's problem. For his part, Bob retains a childlike optimism that Livy will figure everything out, but is more than a simple caricature; he's a fun and dynamic character on his own. He was even able to look on the bright side of five years spent in a closet; he got most of the way through the dictionary, and got in touch with his "inner Bobness." There's a side story about the drought that's devastated the local farms and the neighbors, whose girl used to be Livy's best friend when she was five and feels just as awkward as Livy now that their parents insist they're still pals, for all that neither can really remember the other. The conclusion feels a little rushed, but it's sweet and leads to a nice little epilogue. The whole is a very enjoyable tale of a special friendship and the magic of childhood.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Crenshaw (Katherine Applegate) - My Review
The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Kelly Barnhill) - My Review
Pax (Sara Pennypacker) - My Review
Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead
Square Fish
Fiction, CH Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: When Olivia, her mother, and her baby sister come to her grandmother's house in rural Australia, she doesn't remember a thing about the place. After all, she was only five the last time she visited, and now she's practically eleven (well, nearly ten and a half.) How can she be expected to remember the old green stuffed elephant, or the big rock out back... or the little green creature in the chicken suit waiting in her closet?
Bob has waited very patiently for his friend Livy to return. He read his dictionary and played with his Legos and listened to Granny shouting on the telephone. Before she left all those years ago, the girl promised to help him remember who he was and where he came from so he can go home, but now she says she doesn't even remember meeting him. Still, a promise is a promise, and surely Old Livy still lurks inside this new, taller Livy - and now that she's bigger and older, surely she's smarter, too, which can only help.
As the two dust off old memories and try to follow a dusty trail to the past, they rediscover what friendship means - and find out how real magic can be, even to a sophisticated girl of nearly-eleven.
REVIEW: Bob is a fun, fast, light read, with colorful characters (literally, in the case of green-skinned Bob) and humor and just enough adventure. Livy feels torn over having forgotten something so important, even as her mother and grandmother don't seem to realize that, to a girl her age, five years ago might as well have been a lifetime; they keep insisting she should remember things and know people and seem subtly hurt when she doesn't. She's also balanced on the blurry border between young childhood and older childhood, where magical thinking starts to fade and a colder, more adult thought process tries to take hold... but she needs both if she's going to solve Bob's problem. For his part, Bob retains a childlike optimism that Livy will figure everything out, but is more than a simple caricature; he's a fun and dynamic character on his own. He was even able to look on the bright side of five years spent in a closet; he got most of the way through the dictionary, and got in touch with his "inner Bobness." There's a side story about the drought that's devastated the local farms and the neighbors, whose girl used to be Livy's best friend when she was five and feels just as awkward as Livy now that their parents insist they're still pals, for all that neither can really remember the other. The conclusion feels a little rushed, but it's sweet and leads to a nice little epilogue. The whole is a very enjoyable tale of a special friendship and the magic of childhood.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Crenshaw (Katherine Applegate) - My Review
The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Kelly Barnhill) - My Review
Pax (Sara Pennypacker) - My Review
Monday, January 27, 2020
Mythic Creatures (Richard Ellis, Laurel Kendall, and Mark A. Norell)
Mythic Creatures: And the Impossibly Real Animals Who Inspired Them
Richard Ellis, Laurel Kendall, and Mark A. Norell
Sterling Signature
Nonfiction, Mythology
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Birds large enough to carry off full-grown elephants, hybrid lion-eagles hoarding gold in the Gobi desert, monstrous serpents from beneath the seas... Humans have imagined all manner of wondrous and dangerous beasts and beings since long before history. Some were meant to be allegories or religious symbols, some were cases of mistaken identity or traveler tales, but all have inspired storytellers and artists for generations and continue to do so today. From a special exhibit by the American Museum of Natural History, explore mythical animals of the world.
REVIEW: This would've been a great exhibit to see in person, but this book - full of many full-color photographs and reproduced images - is the next best thing. It covers a wide range of animals, venturing slightly beyond the "usual suspects" of mythological bestiaries, though in varying degrees of depth. It also seems to gloss over a few key traits (unicorns, for instance, had rather fierce roots - the embodiment of the intractable wilderness - before being" tamed" as a Christian symbol, for instance), though I suppose they had to pick and choose details to present unless they wanted to write a full-blown mythical encyclopedia set instead of one volume. Many of the images are new to me (some pictures get reproduced ad nauseum if you read enough books on mythical animals), and all are interesting, earning this book an extra half-star. It's a clearly-written and enjoyable addition to any library of mythical beasts and beings.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Here Be Dragons: A Fantastic Bestiary (Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne) - My Review
The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures (Jon and Caitlin Matthews) - My Review
Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were (Michael Page and Robert Ingpen) - My Review
Richard Ellis, Laurel Kendall, and Mark A. Norell
Sterling Signature
Nonfiction, Mythology
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Birds large enough to carry off full-grown elephants, hybrid lion-eagles hoarding gold in the Gobi desert, monstrous serpents from beneath the seas... Humans have imagined all manner of wondrous and dangerous beasts and beings since long before history. Some were meant to be allegories or religious symbols, some were cases of mistaken identity or traveler tales, but all have inspired storytellers and artists for generations and continue to do so today. From a special exhibit by the American Museum of Natural History, explore mythical animals of the world.
REVIEW: This would've been a great exhibit to see in person, but this book - full of many full-color photographs and reproduced images - is the next best thing. It covers a wide range of animals, venturing slightly beyond the "usual suspects" of mythological bestiaries, though in varying degrees of depth. It also seems to gloss over a few key traits (unicorns, for instance, had rather fierce roots - the embodiment of the intractable wilderness - before being" tamed" as a Christian symbol, for instance), though I suppose they had to pick and choose details to present unless they wanted to write a full-blown mythical encyclopedia set instead of one volume. Many of the images are new to me (some pictures get reproduced ad nauseum if you read enough books on mythical animals), and all are interesting, earning this book an extra half-star. It's a clearly-written and enjoyable addition to any library of mythical beasts and beings.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Here Be Dragons: A Fantastic Bestiary (Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne) - My Review
The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures (Jon and Caitlin Matthews) - My Review
Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were (Michael Page and Robert Ingpen) - My Review
Sunday, January 26, 2020
The Tea Master and the Detective (Aliette de Bodard)
The Tea Master and the Detective
Aliette de Bodard
Subterranean
Fiction, Mystery/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Among the floating habitats of the Scattered Pearls, the mindship The Shadow's Child struggles to get by, brewing specialized teas that enable humans to function in the depths of space. She used to be a military ship, but a traumatic accident destroyed her crew and left her physically and mentally scarred; now, the very thought of descending into the unreality of deep spaces - one of the primary functions of mindships - paralyzes her. Then the strange woman Long Chau walks into her rented office with a special request: to retrieve a body from the deep spaces. Against her better judgement, The Shadow's Child agrees to work with the abrasive lady... and finds herself pulled into a most unusual investigation, even as she's forced to confront her greatest fears.
REVIEW: This story takes a very original, if somewhat surreal, setting, then forces it into a mold carved by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; yes, Long Chau is essentially Sherlock, and the mindship The Shadow's Child is a massive metal Watson, down to her inability to ever be a step ahead of the infallible (and often cold) detective. The result is a jerky, uneven story that perpetually had me convinced I'd missed a prologue or previous book. The mindships needed more exploration, as did the deep spaces, a form a hyperspace where reality itself - inside a vessel and out - melts and warps, where bodies twist in impossible ways and are transformed into jewel-like stones, and only the drugs of the "teas" enable anything resembling normal mental functioning at all. The world of the Scattered Pearls, with its Asian roots and the ubiquitous miniature bots and other trappings, never quite came into focus as more than a confusing blur, if a confusing blur with bright colors and intriguing shapes. The mystery, therefore, is difficult to care about, let alone solve, with a culture I could barely penetrate and possibilities and motives that seem opaque from the outside. Forcing a Sherlockian framework did not help, and in fact distracted me when I was trying to figure out the unique aspects of de Bodard's invented world. I never got a sense of the chemistry that existed between Holmes and Watson, either, making the partnership awkward and lopsided (even moreso than Doyle's characters.) Eventually, things wrap up and the expected hint of a sequel or series is left dangling at the end. If there are more books, though, I won't be reading on. Despite the intriguing ideas at play, I never developed any real interest in the characters, and their world never felt remotely welcoming. In the end, this is another case of "not a bad story, but not my cup of cocoa."
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Study in Scarlet (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) - My Review
The Ship Who Sang (Anne McCaffrey) - My Review
Velocity Weapon (Megan O'Keefe) - My Review
Aliette de Bodard
Subterranean
Fiction, Mystery/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Among the floating habitats of the Scattered Pearls, the mindship The Shadow's Child struggles to get by, brewing specialized teas that enable humans to function in the depths of space. She used to be a military ship, but a traumatic accident destroyed her crew and left her physically and mentally scarred; now, the very thought of descending into the unreality of deep spaces - one of the primary functions of mindships - paralyzes her. Then the strange woman Long Chau walks into her rented office with a special request: to retrieve a body from the deep spaces. Against her better judgement, The Shadow's Child agrees to work with the abrasive lady... and finds herself pulled into a most unusual investigation, even as she's forced to confront her greatest fears.
REVIEW: This story takes a very original, if somewhat surreal, setting, then forces it into a mold carved by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; yes, Long Chau is essentially Sherlock, and the mindship The Shadow's Child is a massive metal Watson, down to her inability to ever be a step ahead of the infallible (and often cold) detective. The result is a jerky, uneven story that perpetually had me convinced I'd missed a prologue or previous book. The mindships needed more exploration, as did the deep spaces, a form a hyperspace where reality itself - inside a vessel and out - melts and warps, where bodies twist in impossible ways and are transformed into jewel-like stones, and only the drugs of the "teas" enable anything resembling normal mental functioning at all. The world of the Scattered Pearls, with its Asian roots and the ubiquitous miniature bots and other trappings, never quite came into focus as more than a confusing blur, if a confusing blur with bright colors and intriguing shapes. The mystery, therefore, is difficult to care about, let alone solve, with a culture I could barely penetrate and possibilities and motives that seem opaque from the outside. Forcing a Sherlockian framework did not help, and in fact distracted me when I was trying to figure out the unique aspects of de Bodard's invented world. I never got a sense of the chemistry that existed between Holmes and Watson, either, making the partnership awkward and lopsided (even moreso than Doyle's characters.) Eventually, things wrap up and the expected hint of a sequel or series is left dangling at the end. If there are more books, though, I won't be reading on. Despite the intriguing ideas at play, I never developed any real interest in the characters, and their world never felt remotely welcoming. In the end, this is another case of "not a bad story, but not my cup of cocoa."
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Study in Scarlet (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) - My Review
The Ship Who Sang (Anne McCaffrey) - My Review
Velocity Weapon (Megan O'Keefe) - My Review
Terminal Alliance (Jim C. Hines)
Terminal Alliance
The Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse series, Book 1
Jim C. Hines
DAW
Fiction, Humor/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When the Krakau came to Earth, humanity's dream of first contact finally came true. Unfortunately, a mutant virus had turned the populace into cannibalistic, nearly-indestructible zombies before then. But the Krakau managed to find a cure of sorts; though the restored humans aren't quite what they used to be, intellectually or otherwise, they can at least think and learn and are far less likely to snack on superior officers. Under the protection of the Krakau-led Alliance, they form the Earth Mercenary Corps, becoming galactic shock troops protecting the peace of countless worlds and species. Even among mercenaries, though, not every job requires a gun...
Lieutenant Marion "Mops" Adamopoulos leads a crew of janitors as head of Shipboard Hygiene and Sanitation aboard the EMCS Pufferfish. It's a dirty job, but life's a dirty business, and a pipe leak or blocked sewage line in the wrong place can mess up a spaceship just as easily as an enemy weapon. She never actually thought she'd have to fight for her life, let alone take command. But when an attack by hostile Prodryans takes out the Krakau commanders and reverts the rest of the human crew to their zombie native state, only her team - sealed in personal air hoods for a clean-up job - is spared. Now four human janitors and one low-ranking Glacidae technician may be the only ones standing between the Alliance and a devastating new bioweapon that could forever alter the galactic balance of power.
REVIEW: With faint echoes of the classic Britcom Red Dwarf (where a Liverpudlian loser becomes the last human alive aboard a derelict mining vessel three million years in the future) and Quark (a short-lived Mel Brooks comedy about a spacegoing garbage scow), Terminal Alliance takes a cast of misfit characters and turns them into improbable heroes. The crew can be irritatingly bumbling at times as they struggle to figure out how to even use their ship ("helped" by the annoying computer assistant program Puffy, in a joke for those of us who endured Clippy's antics in older versions of Word.) These antics can get old, persisting long past the point had been made about how woefully unprepared (and undertrained) they are even as it tends to reduce character depth to cartoonish shallowness at times, but they manage to come together and figure things out, and the tale moves well enough despite the sidetracks into goofiness. Beneath the light exterior, the plot has some depth and heft to it: from their initial goal of mere survival against feral crewmates, Marion and the others find themselves forced to question the very nature of the Krakau Alliance and the zombie plague itself (some aspects of which were easy to guess early on, but others being decently clever twists, especially in a genre that still tends to somewhat monolithic alien races.) While it sometimes was a little silly for my tastes, Terminal Alliance turns out to be an enjoyable, action-filled diversion, a nice change of pace in a genre that can take itself too seriously.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Galaxy Quest (Terry Bisson) - My Review
Old Man's War (John Scalzi) - My Review
Red Dwarf: The Complete Collection
- Amazon DVD link
The Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse series, Book 1
Jim C. Hines
DAW
Fiction, Humor/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When the Krakau came to Earth, humanity's dream of first contact finally came true. Unfortunately, a mutant virus had turned the populace into cannibalistic, nearly-indestructible zombies before then. But the Krakau managed to find a cure of sorts; though the restored humans aren't quite what they used to be, intellectually or otherwise, they can at least think and learn and are far less likely to snack on superior officers. Under the protection of the Krakau-led Alliance, they form the Earth Mercenary Corps, becoming galactic shock troops protecting the peace of countless worlds and species. Even among mercenaries, though, not every job requires a gun...
Lieutenant Marion "Mops" Adamopoulos leads a crew of janitors as head of Shipboard Hygiene and Sanitation aboard the EMCS Pufferfish. It's a dirty job, but life's a dirty business, and a pipe leak or blocked sewage line in the wrong place can mess up a spaceship just as easily as an enemy weapon. She never actually thought she'd have to fight for her life, let alone take command. But when an attack by hostile Prodryans takes out the Krakau commanders and reverts the rest of the human crew to their zombie native state, only her team - sealed in personal air hoods for a clean-up job - is spared. Now four human janitors and one low-ranking Glacidae technician may be the only ones standing between the Alliance and a devastating new bioweapon that could forever alter the galactic balance of power.
REVIEW: With faint echoes of the classic Britcom Red Dwarf (where a Liverpudlian loser becomes the last human alive aboard a derelict mining vessel three million years in the future) and Quark (a short-lived Mel Brooks comedy about a spacegoing garbage scow), Terminal Alliance takes a cast of misfit characters and turns them into improbable heroes. The crew can be irritatingly bumbling at times as they struggle to figure out how to even use their ship ("helped" by the annoying computer assistant program Puffy, in a joke for those of us who endured Clippy's antics in older versions of Word.) These antics can get old, persisting long past the point had been made about how woefully unprepared (and undertrained) they are even as it tends to reduce character depth to cartoonish shallowness at times, but they manage to come together and figure things out, and the tale moves well enough despite the sidetracks into goofiness. Beneath the light exterior, the plot has some depth and heft to it: from their initial goal of mere survival against feral crewmates, Marion and the others find themselves forced to question the very nature of the Krakau Alliance and the zombie plague itself (some aspects of which were easy to guess early on, but others being decently clever twists, especially in a genre that still tends to somewhat monolithic alien races.) While it sometimes was a little silly for my tastes, Terminal Alliance turns out to be an enjoyable, action-filled diversion, a nice change of pace in a genre that can take itself too seriously.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Galaxy Quest (Terry Bisson) - My Review
Old Man's War (John Scalzi) - My Review
Red Dwarf: The Complete Collection
- Amazon DVD link
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