November's reviews have been archived and crosslinked on the main Brightdreamer Books site.
Enjoy!
(And I'm still stripping Amazon links from the blog, as they still refuse to clarify their new Associate rules. It's taking a while...)
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
November Site Update
Monday, November 29, 2021
Dragon's Green (Scarlett Thomas)
Dragon's Green
The Worldquake series, Book 1
Scarlett Thomas
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, MG Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Euphemia "Effie" Sixten Bookend Truelove used to have a happy life, until the worldquake happened. Around the world, electricity dimmed, the internet died, and hints of long-hidden magic began to creep back, though most people continue to deny its very existence. Worse, though, Effie's beloved mother Aurelia vanished in the cataclysm - taking her father's love with him and leaving a stern, cold man in his place, one who remarried to a woman with little love for Effie or anyone else in her tiny heart. The girl was even sent to the dismal Tusitala School for the Gifted, Troubled and Strange. The only light in her life is Griffin Truelove, Aurelia's eccentric father, though even he has become changed and closed off since the worldquake. Effie's sure the old man is really some sort of wizard, with his odd travels and house full of mysterious things she's not allowed to touch - and if he's a wizard, surely there's some spell he could work to fix things - but Griffin refuses to teach her so much as a smidgen of the stuff.
When Griffin is attacked in an alley, Effie has nobody left to turn to. And when her father tries to deny her her inheritance - Griffin's mysterious library - he tries to sell it off to the charity man before Effie can lay a hand on a single volume.
Piecing together bits of conversations and other clues, Effie realizes there's something much more sinister and dangerous going on than random thugs attacking an old man... something that smells of magic, and could lead her to her long-lost mother in another world, in a place known as Dragon's Green.
REVIEW: Yes, I'm still a sucker for dragons. And, yes, sometimes that love leads me astray. It certainly did here. The title promised dragons, and the cover blurb and general plot promised magical books and other worlds and fun, somewhat perilous adventures: solid ingredients for a fantasy title, especially a middle-grade fantasy title, all around... or so I thought. Instead, I got a confused jumble of characters, plot points, and ideas that don't so much flow together as crash randomly into one another like insane literary bumper cars, hurtling the reader this way and that. Magic is rare and elusive and considered a lie, we're told - only literally every character except Effie knows pretty much all about it, or learns it's real and the basic rules in a fraction of a time in which Effie manages to repeatedly be confused (and I mean repeatedly, in that she's prone to repeating things she doesn't understand) and bungle the simplest of instructions despite ostensibly being a heroine. The author goes out of her way to raise questions and refuse to answer them... then goes out of her way to make Effie and her associates incapable of even asking the questions, let alone listening to the answers (though, in their defense, the entire rest of the world seems incapable of answering a simple question). What was the worldquake? Who are the oft-mentioned, only-very-belatedly-clarified Diberi antagonists? Why did Effie's father turn into an emotionally abusive monster, allowing his new wife to torment both Effie and her own baby Luna? Why was the theoretically wise Griffin too blasted stupid to teach Effie things vital to her survival until it was far too late? Who is the Guild who keeps messing things up for everyone but never once is explained or revealed or given any motivation for their actions other than "screw things up for everyone to enable a plot"? What's the exchange rate for M-currency to dragon gold to krubles, why is it so complicated, and what the heck does any of this have to do with the ostensible plot of books as gateways to the Otherworld and an implied but never clarified conspiracy to crush creativity out of Earth? What are the rules, here, and why should I even care? The story can't even find a consistent tone, veering wildly from whimsy to darkness to light to deep... then it introduces mortal danger only to yank back so hard on the leash I almost felt the whiplash as it prevents so much as a smidgen of actual peril from drifting near our fragile protagonists - only they weren't nearly that fragile a moment ago when they got into peril to begin with. As for the dragon, there is a dragon of sorts, but I still felt somewhat cheated on this account. The whole book turned into a slog of wasted potential and pointless plot turns and cul-de-sacs, with characters too conveniently plot-shaped to come to life in their own right and too many questions that never got anything like a satisfactory answer despite the author repeatedly reminding me that the question was there and needed an answer that was being deliberately, irritatingly withheld.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The School for Good and Evil (Somani Chainani) - My Review
The Book Jumper (Mechthild Glaser) - My Review
The Forbidden Library (Django Wexler) - My Review
The Worldquake series, Book 1
Scarlett Thomas
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, MG Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Euphemia "Effie" Sixten Bookend Truelove used to have a happy life, until the worldquake happened. Around the world, electricity dimmed, the internet died, and hints of long-hidden magic began to creep back, though most people continue to deny its very existence. Worse, though, Effie's beloved mother Aurelia vanished in the cataclysm - taking her father's love with him and leaving a stern, cold man in his place, one who remarried to a woman with little love for Effie or anyone else in her tiny heart. The girl was even sent to the dismal Tusitala School for the Gifted, Troubled and Strange. The only light in her life is Griffin Truelove, Aurelia's eccentric father, though even he has become changed and closed off since the worldquake. Effie's sure the old man is really some sort of wizard, with his odd travels and house full of mysterious things she's not allowed to touch - and if he's a wizard, surely there's some spell he could work to fix things - but Griffin refuses to teach her so much as a smidgen of the stuff.
When Griffin is attacked in an alley, Effie has nobody left to turn to. And when her father tries to deny her her inheritance - Griffin's mysterious library - he tries to sell it off to the charity man before Effie can lay a hand on a single volume.
Piecing together bits of conversations and other clues, Effie realizes there's something much more sinister and dangerous going on than random thugs attacking an old man... something that smells of magic, and could lead her to her long-lost mother in another world, in a place known as Dragon's Green.
REVIEW: Yes, I'm still a sucker for dragons. And, yes, sometimes that love leads me astray. It certainly did here. The title promised dragons, and the cover blurb and general plot promised magical books and other worlds and fun, somewhat perilous adventures: solid ingredients for a fantasy title, especially a middle-grade fantasy title, all around... or so I thought. Instead, I got a confused jumble of characters, plot points, and ideas that don't so much flow together as crash randomly into one another like insane literary bumper cars, hurtling the reader this way and that. Magic is rare and elusive and considered a lie, we're told - only literally every character except Effie knows pretty much all about it, or learns it's real and the basic rules in a fraction of a time in which Effie manages to repeatedly be confused (and I mean repeatedly, in that she's prone to repeating things she doesn't understand) and bungle the simplest of instructions despite ostensibly being a heroine. The author goes out of her way to raise questions and refuse to answer them... then goes out of her way to make Effie and her associates incapable of even asking the questions, let alone listening to the answers (though, in their defense, the entire rest of the world seems incapable of answering a simple question). What was the worldquake? Who are the oft-mentioned, only-very-belatedly-clarified Diberi antagonists? Why did Effie's father turn into an emotionally abusive monster, allowing his new wife to torment both Effie and her own baby Luna? Why was the theoretically wise Griffin too blasted stupid to teach Effie things vital to her survival until it was far too late? Who is the Guild who keeps messing things up for everyone but never once is explained or revealed or given any motivation for their actions other than "screw things up for everyone to enable a plot"? What's the exchange rate for M-currency to dragon gold to krubles, why is it so complicated, and what the heck does any of this have to do with the ostensible plot of books as gateways to the Otherworld and an implied but never clarified conspiracy to crush creativity out of Earth? What are the rules, here, and why should I even care? The story can't even find a consistent tone, veering wildly from whimsy to darkness to light to deep... then it introduces mortal danger only to yank back so hard on the leash I almost felt the whiplash as it prevents so much as a smidgen of actual peril from drifting near our fragile protagonists - only they weren't nearly that fragile a moment ago when they got into peril to begin with. As for the dragon, there is a dragon of sorts, but I still felt somewhat cheated on this account. The whole book turned into a slog of wasted potential and pointless plot turns and cul-de-sacs, with characters too conveniently plot-shaped to come to life in their own right and too many questions that never got anything like a satisfactory answer despite the author repeatedly reminding me that the question was there and needed an answer that was being deliberately, irritatingly withheld.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The School for Good and Evil (Somani Chainani) - My Review
The Book Jumper (Mechthild Glaser) - My Review
The Forbidden Library (Django Wexler) - My Review
Thursday, November 25, 2021
A Dead Djinn in Cairo (P. Djeli Clark)
A Dead Djinn in Cairo
A Dead Djinn Universe novella
P. Djeli Clark
Tor.com
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In a 1912 Egypt where old magic has returned and beings like djinns and self-proclaimed angels mingle with the mortal populace, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities is a vital resource, helping keep the peace when crimes cross the line from mundane to supernatural... but even Agent Fatma el-Sha’arawi, no neophyte to her badge, is daunted by what she uncovers while investigating a djinn's apparent suicide. Strange glyphs at the crime scene hint at ritual sacrifice, and the presence of an artificial feather ominously points to one of the entities who call themselves angels. Soon, it's apparent the case is far bigger - and more dangerous - than any she's encountered before.
REVIEW: I actually think I would've enjoyed this novella better had I read it before A Master of Djinn, Clark's novel-length debut. This is where the author first introduces both the universe and the distinctive character of Fatma, with a few descriptors being copied almost verbatim in the novel. The latter, however, goes into much greater depth, and has (for lack of a better word) a polish to it that makes this entry, fine and interesting as it is, look a bit tarnished by comparison. It's a solid, decent tale in its own right, but A Master of Djinn covers much of the same material and more, making reading this after the novel feel redundant, save filling in a bit of backstory on how Fatma encountered a few characters. As an introduction, though, A Dead Djinn in Cairo and its companion novella (The Haunting of Tram Car 015, which is less rehashed in the novel) are still good stories in a world that has enormous potential.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Finder (Emma Bull) - My Review
The Black God's Drums (P. Djeli Clark) - My Review
Devil's Tower (Mark Sumner) - My Review
A Dead Djinn Universe novella
P. Djeli Clark
Tor.com
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In a 1912 Egypt where old magic has returned and beings like djinns and self-proclaimed angels mingle with the mortal populace, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities is a vital resource, helping keep the peace when crimes cross the line from mundane to supernatural... but even Agent Fatma el-Sha’arawi, no neophyte to her badge, is daunted by what she uncovers while investigating a djinn's apparent suicide. Strange glyphs at the crime scene hint at ritual sacrifice, and the presence of an artificial feather ominously points to one of the entities who call themselves angels. Soon, it's apparent the case is far bigger - and more dangerous - than any she's encountered before.
REVIEW: I actually think I would've enjoyed this novella better had I read it before A Master of Djinn, Clark's novel-length debut. This is where the author first introduces both the universe and the distinctive character of Fatma, with a few descriptors being copied almost verbatim in the novel. The latter, however, goes into much greater depth, and has (for lack of a better word) a polish to it that makes this entry, fine and interesting as it is, look a bit tarnished by comparison. It's a solid, decent tale in its own right, but A Master of Djinn covers much of the same material and more, making reading this after the novel feel redundant, save filling in a bit of backstory on how Fatma encountered a few characters. As an introduction, though, A Dead Djinn in Cairo and its companion novella (The Haunting of Tram Car 015, which is less rehashed in the novel) are still good stories in a world that has enormous potential.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Finder (Emma Bull) - My Review
The Black God's Drums (P. Djeli Clark) - My Review
Devil's Tower (Mark Sumner) - My Review
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
The Tiger and the Wolf (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
The Tiger and the Wolf
The Echoes of the Fall series, Book 1
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Pan Books
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In a wild world of ancient gods and shapeshifting tribes, Maniye is a girl torn in two. Her father, Akrit Stone River, is the ambitious chieftain of the Winter Runner clan of the Wolf people; when he made war against the Tiger people, he took their queen captive and forced a daughter on her, then had the woman killed to leave her matriarchal kin leaderless and lost in their eastern refuges. Maniye's childhood has been one of deprivation and resentment, harried by her father and the clan's priest Kalameshi Takes Iron (holder of the secret Wolf-gifted knowledge of forging weapons stronger than stone or bronze), but she holds a secret: she can step - change shape - into both wolf and tiger, having two animal souls within her own instead of the one of most people of the world. But tiger and wolf are natural enemies, and the rival spirits will tear her apart unless she chooses one and cuts out the other. Even as she faces this fate, she discovers Stone River's terrible plan for her. Fleeing the clan with an imprisoned priest of the Snake people, intended for sacrifice in the jaws of the Wolf god, Maniye sets out across the wide, cold crown of the world... crossing paths with a southern prince Asmander, a Champion of the southern Sun River Kingdom with a stepped form from another age, and his companions. A great change is coming to the whole world, a time that could see the many tribes and gods united against a common enemy - or see them fall, torn apart by men like Stone River, until all people die.
REVIEW: This was another audiobook that I downloaded to kill time at work, but I enjoyed it enough to listen even on my days off. Tchaikovsky creates a prehistoric world with traces of our own ancient traditions, but mixed and melded into its own thing, a world of endless wilderness and cruel nature and ever-watchful gods and tribal rivalries that spill over onto neighbors. Nor is the shapeshifting confined to ordinary animals; Asmander's Champion is a velociraptor, and other Champions include ancient eagles and saber-toothed cats, part of the animal spirit-based cosmology of the fantastic world. Shifting even absorbs clothing and weapons to strengthen the animal form; a shifted Wolf hunter wearing iron mail has a near-impenetrable hide, while a Tiger warrior's bronze knife can become gleaming claws or teeth. It's a little thing, but adds a nice dimension to the shapeshifter concept, opening up interesting possibilities while also dealing with the eternal question of what happens to a werewolf's clothes.
Maniye starts out a somewhat weak character, undersized and beaten down, full of resentment and anger yet still determined to prove herself to the very people who hurt her, and to the Wolf god who knows her to be of mixed heritage. Try as she might, though, her dual nature cannot be denied, as the tiger and the wolf start quarreling within her for dominance. Her encounter with the Snake priest Hesprec sets her on a new path, if one that initially extends no further than escaping the Winter Runners and the stalking lone wolf Broken Axe, who may sometimes share her father's fire but is his own man with his own motivations. Meanwhile, Asmander has his own journey, a quest to secure the legendary "iron wolves" from the north as mercenaries in a looming war of succession in his native Sun River Kingdom, and the Snake priest Hesprec follows a hidden agenda. There are frequent battles, some bursts of levity, several reversals of fortune, and a few stretches of dialog that border on being too grandiose and weighty, but overall it's a decent story in a unique and interesting world, one I wouldn't mind revisiting in the sequels.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Leopard's Daughter (Lee Killough) - My Review
Saturday, the Twelfth of October (Norma Fox Mazer) - My Review
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (Nghi Vo) - My Review
The Echoes of the Fall series, Book 1
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Pan Books
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In a wild world of ancient gods and shapeshifting tribes, Maniye is a girl torn in two. Her father, Akrit Stone River, is the ambitious chieftain of the Winter Runner clan of the Wolf people; when he made war against the Tiger people, he took their queen captive and forced a daughter on her, then had the woman killed to leave her matriarchal kin leaderless and lost in their eastern refuges. Maniye's childhood has been one of deprivation and resentment, harried by her father and the clan's priest Kalameshi Takes Iron (holder of the secret Wolf-gifted knowledge of forging weapons stronger than stone or bronze), but she holds a secret: she can step - change shape - into both wolf and tiger, having two animal souls within her own instead of the one of most people of the world. But tiger and wolf are natural enemies, and the rival spirits will tear her apart unless she chooses one and cuts out the other. Even as she faces this fate, she discovers Stone River's terrible plan for her. Fleeing the clan with an imprisoned priest of the Snake people, intended for sacrifice in the jaws of the Wolf god, Maniye sets out across the wide, cold crown of the world... crossing paths with a southern prince Asmander, a Champion of the southern Sun River Kingdom with a stepped form from another age, and his companions. A great change is coming to the whole world, a time that could see the many tribes and gods united against a common enemy - or see them fall, torn apart by men like Stone River, until all people die.
REVIEW: This was another audiobook that I downloaded to kill time at work, but I enjoyed it enough to listen even on my days off. Tchaikovsky creates a prehistoric world with traces of our own ancient traditions, but mixed and melded into its own thing, a world of endless wilderness and cruel nature and ever-watchful gods and tribal rivalries that spill over onto neighbors. Nor is the shapeshifting confined to ordinary animals; Asmander's Champion is a velociraptor, and other Champions include ancient eagles and saber-toothed cats, part of the animal spirit-based cosmology of the fantastic world. Shifting even absorbs clothing and weapons to strengthen the animal form; a shifted Wolf hunter wearing iron mail has a near-impenetrable hide, while a Tiger warrior's bronze knife can become gleaming claws or teeth. It's a little thing, but adds a nice dimension to the shapeshifter concept, opening up interesting possibilities while also dealing with the eternal question of what happens to a werewolf's clothes.
Maniye starts out a somewhat weak character, undersized and beaten down, full of resentment and anger yet still determined to prove herself to the very people who hurt her, and to the Wolf god who knows her to be of mixed heritage. Try as she might, though, her dual nature cannot be denied, as the tiger and the wolf start quarreling within her for dominance. Her encounter with the Snake priest Hesprec sets her on a new path, if one that initially extends no further than escaping the Winter Runners and the stalking lone wolf Broken Axe, who may sometimes share her father's fire but is his own man with his own motivations. Meanwhile, Asmander has his own journey, a quest to secure the legendary "iron wolves" from the north as mercenaries in a looming war of succession in his native Sun River Kingdom, and the Snake priest Hesprec follows a hidden agenda. There are frequent battles, some bursts of levity, several reversals of fortune, and a few stretches of dialog that border on being too grandiose and weighty, but overall it's a decent story in a unique and interesting world, one I wouldn't mind revisiting in the sequels.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Leopard's Daughter (Lee Killough) - My Review
Saturday, the Twelfth of October (Norma Fox Mazer) - My Review
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (Nghi Vo) - My Review
A Master of Djinn (P. Djeli Clark)
A Master of Djinn
The Dead Djinn Universe series, Book 1
P. Djeli Clark
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy/Historical Fiction
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: 1912 Cairo is a thriving metropolis, where ancient traditions meet new technology - and returned magic. Ever since the mysterious sage al-Jahiz tapped the otherworldly domain of lost powers, djinns and other magical beings have flowed into the world, bringing strange new powers and devices... and, of course, dangers. Agent Fatma el-Sha’arawi, one of a handful of women field agents in Egypt's Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, has had more than her share of danger already, but Cairo never sleeps, and neither do its criminals, human or otherwise.
When an eccentric English tycoon, head of a crackpot cult dedicated to al-Jahiz, is found burned alive with the rest of his cult companions, the only remaining witnesses point the finger at a stranger garbed in black with a shifting golden mask: a figure who claims to be the lost mystic al-Jahiz, returned. Neither Fatma nor her rookie partner Hadia believe it - but the man has uncanny abilities, a supernatural guardian, and even appears to have tamed an untameable fiery Ifrit. As rumors and riots spread, Cairo stands on the brink of disaster... and if Fatma fails to unmask the imposter and his scheme, the whole world might fall to the self-proclaimed Master of Djinn.
REVIEW: I have read one of Clark's two novellas set in this alternate history, The Haunting of Tram Car 015, and enjoyed it so much I grabbed this title before I'd even gotten around to reading the other one, A Dead Djinn in Cairo. In retropspect, I should have reversed that order; while the novella I read introduced me to the world and one of the Ministry's dedicated agents, A Dead Djinn in Cairo introduces the singular Fatma, one of those characters who just leaps to life from the page in her fine Western-style suits and bowler hats, as she deals with a crime that forms a key part of this book's backstory. However, it is not at all necessary to have read either novella to enjoy this book; Clark does an excellent job backfilling information from the novellas as needed (if with potential spoilers).
The alternate Cairo leaps to life as a vibrant, dynamic, and diverse city, one where the promise of progress and equality constantly jostles with holdover prejudices and superstitions, exacerbated rather than soothed by the return of powers and beings once relegated to old poems and stories. The djinn are fantastical and wildly magical, but ultimately just people, prone to the same personality faults and vices and prejudices as any mere human. There are also wonderful mind's-eye-candy details, like "boilerplate eunuch" brass robot servants and automated vehicles and even new twists on old architectural styles - and even mundane touches, such as a thriving proto-jazz scene made of expatriate American musicians fleeing Jim Crow's killing grasp, that add richness and texture. Through this amazing setting wends a collection of distinctive characters pursuing a tantalizingly twisted mystery and a dangerous, devious villain who exploits the city's underlying inequalities and unrest for their own gains. Glimpses of a wider world where magic has returned and either been rejected or embraced are offered via an attempt at a peace conference to head off what would be this world's Great War. The whole creates a great story, as Fatma chases leads, survives risky scrapes, runs into numerous dead ends and setbacks, and ultimately arrives at a final confrontation with the fate of the city at stake. I couldn't help thinking that, in the right hands, it would make an absolutely wonderful streaming series; the world and the characters could easily carry more adventures, and the visuals would be amazing.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to get back to my kindle to read the novella I skipped, while I wait for future installments of Fatma and the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (P. Djeli Clark) - My Review
The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
Alif the Unseen (G. Willow Wilson) - My Review
The Dead Djinn Universe series, Book 1
P. Djeli Clark
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy/Historical Fiction
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: 1912 Cairo is a thriving metropolis, where ancient traditions meet new technology - and returned magic. Ever since the mysterious sage al-Jahiz tapped the otherworldly domain of lost powers, djinns and other magical beings have flowed into the world, bringing strange new powers and devices... and, of course, dangers. Agent Fatma el-Sha’arawi, one of a handful of women field agents in Egypt's Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, has had more than her share of danger already, but Cairo never sleeps, and neither do its criminals, human or otherwise.
When an eccentric English tycoon, head of a crackpot cult dedicated to al-Jahiz, is found burned alive with the rest of his cult companions, the only remaining witnesses point the finger at a stranger garbed in black with a shifting golden mask: a figure who claims to be the lost mystic al-Jahiz, returned. Neither Fatma nor her rookie partner Hadia believe it - but the man has uncanny abilities, a supernatural guardian, and even appears to have tamed an untameable fiery Ifrit. As rumors and riots spread, Cairo stands on the brink of disaster... and if Fatma fails to unmask the imposter and his scheme, the whole world might fall to the self-proclaimed Master of Djinn.
REVIEW: I have read one of Clark's two novellas set in this alternate history, The Haunting of Tram Car 015, and enjoyed it so much I grabbed this title before I'd even gotten around to reading the other one, A Dead Djinn in Cairo. In retropspect, I should have reversed that order; while the novella I read introduced me to the world and one of the Ministry's dedicated agents, A Dead Djinn in Cairo introduces the singular Fatma, one of those characters who just leaps to life from the page in her fine Western-style suits and bowler hats, as she deals with a crime that forms a key part of this book's backstory. However, it is not at all necessary to have read either novella to enjoy this book; Clark does an excellent job backfilling information from the novellas as needed (if with potential spoilers).
The alternate Cairo leaps to life as a vibrant, dynamic, and diverse city, one where the promise of progress and equality constantly jostles with holdover prejudices and superstitions, exacerbated rather than soothed by the return of powers and beings once relegated to old poems and stories. The djinn are fantastical and wildly magical, but ultimately just people, prone to the same personality faults and vices and prejudices as any mere human. There are also wonderful mind's-eye-candy details, like "boilerplate eunuch" brass robot servants and automated vehicles and even new twists on old architectural styles - and even mundane touches, such as a thriving proto-jazz scene made of expatriate American musicians fleeing Jim Crow's killing grasp, that add richness and texture. Through this amazing setting wends a collection of distinctive characters pursuing a tantalizingly twisted mystery and a dangerous, devious villain who exploits the city's underlying inequalities and unrest for their own gains. Glimpses of a wider world where magic has returned and either been rejected or embraced are offered via an attempt at a peace conference to head off what would be this world's Great War. The whole creates a great story, as Fatma chases leads, survives risky scrapes, runs into numerous dead ends and setbacks, and ultimately arrives at a final confrontation with the fate of the city at stake. I couldn't help thinking that, in the right hands, it would make an absolutely wonderful streaming series; the world and the characters could easily carry more adventures, and the visuals would be amazing.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to get back to my kindle to read the novella I skipped, while I wait for future installments of Fatma and the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (P. Djeli Clark) - My Review
The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
Alif the Unseen (G. Willow Wilson) - My Review
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Let's Get Textual (Teagan Hunter)
Let's Get Textual
The Texting series, Book 1
Teagan Hunter
CreateSpace
Fiction, Humor/Romance
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: College senior Delia just broke up with her long-time boyfriend Caleb, and though it was an amicable and mutual split, it never feels great to go back to sleeping alone. Maybe that's why, when a stranger mistakenly texts her, she chose to reply instead of simply deleting it... which is how she "met" Zach. Their text exchanges soon become the highlight of her days. He's clever. He's nerdy. He shares her sense of humor. But will their sizzling chemistry translate to the real world, or is this strictly a textual relationship?
REVIEW: This was a quick audiobook, a bit of a palate-cleanser between my usual genre reads. Romances can have some great dialog and character interactions, and Let's Get Textual delivers some truly fun exchanges between Delia and Zach... and if the power imbalance between the two (he's a young, wealthy, successful entrepreneur already, while she's a struggling college senior with zero clue what she's going to do with the degree she's a semester away from earning) becomes a bit glaring, they both seem mature enough to actually be capable of an adult relationship, instead of giggling teens forever playing games or leaping to ridiculous conclusions... at least, at first. There also, oddly enough, doesn't seem to be much in the way of a story, the usual complications and greater goals outside the relationship that drive the average (or average in my limited reading experience, at least) romance plot; for the most part, it's just Zach and Delia getting to know each other and developing their connection - and, yes, there's heat and innuendo almost from the start, but they're both adults about it and capable of waiting until they're more sure of their relationship before making that leap.
Not long after that progression, though, Delia takes a serious nose-dive in intelligence and maturity, when a cardboard villain character and a manufactured crisis (which is barely hinted at until it reaches said crisis point) creates a manufactured response that completely flies in the face of how she behaved toward Zach earlier and made me seriously doubt whether she was, in fact, mature enough to handle a relationship after all. How she deals with that setback becomes increasingly ridiculous - as her own friends point out - and also turns a pet into a pawn in a relationship, which is an automatic ratings knock. (I was already somewhat iffy about the pet baby goat subplot; just because an animal's "cute" doesn't mean it's an ideal pet, let alone an ideal impulse purchase... especially since she's the one fawning over baby goat pics and Zach's the one who goes and buys one because her apartment doesn't allow pets. There's just something about treating a living animal, especially an animal that's not really meant to be a cuddly housepet and will undoubtedly outgrow its "cute" phase very quickly, as a toy or prop - then turning that prop into an object in a stupid emotional tug of war between grown adults - that really rubs me the wrong way.) So, while I enjoyed the fun interplay between Delia and Zach and almost laughed out loud at some of their text exchanges, I found myself very put off by the final stretch of the story, enough to drive the rating down significantly.
You Might Also Enjoy:
This Is Our Song (Samantha Chase) - My Review
The Fix Up (Tawna Fenske) - My Review
You Slay Me (Katie MacAlister) - My Review
The Texting series, Book 1
Teagan Hunter
CreateSpace
Fiction, Humor/Romance
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: College senior Delia just broke up with her long-time boyfriend Caleb, and though it was an amicable and mutual split, it never feels great to go back to sleeping alone. Maybe that's why, when a stranger mistakenly texts her, she chose to reply instead of simply deleting it... which is how she "met" Zach. Their text exchanges soon become the highlight of her days. He's clever. He's nerdy. He shares her sense of humor. But will their sizzling chemistry translate to the real world, or is this strictly a textual relationship?
REVIEW: This was a quick audiobook, a bit of a palate-cleanser between my usual genre reads. Romances can have some great dialog and character interactions, and Let's Get Textual delivers some truly fun exchanges between Delia and Zach... and if the power imbalance between the two (he's a young, wealthy, successful entrepreneur already, while she's a struggling college senior with zero clue what she's going to do with the degree she's a semester away from earning) becomes a bit glaring, they both seem mature enough to actually be capable of an adult relationship, instead of giggling teens forever playing games or leaping to ridiculous conclusions... at least, at first. There also, oddly enough, doesn't seem to be much in the way of a story, the usual complications and greater goals outside the relationship that drive the average (or average in my limited reading experience, at least) romance plot; for the most part, it's just Zach and Delia getting to know each other and developing their connection - and, yes, there's heat and innuendo almost from the start, but they're both adults about it and capable of waiting until they're more sure of their relationship before making that leap.
Not long after that progression, though, Delia takes a serious nose-dive in intelligence and maturity, when a cardboard villain character and a manufactured crisis (which is barely hinted at until it reaches said crisis point) creates a manufactured response that completely flies in the face of how she behaved toward Zach earlier and made me seriously doubt whether she was, in fact, mature enough to handle a relationship after all. How she deals with that setback becomes increasingly ridiculous - as her own friends point out - and also turns a pet into a pawn in a relationship, which is an automatic ratings knock. (I was already somewhat iffy about the pet baby goat subplot; just because an animal's "cute" doesn't mean it's an ideal pet, let alone an ideal impulse purchase... especially since she's the one fawning over baby goat pics and Zach's the one who goes and buys one because her apartment doesn't allow pets. There's just something about treating a living animal, especially an animal that's not really meant to be a cuddly housepet and will undoubtedly outgrow its "cute" phase very quickly, as a toy or prop - then turning that prop into an object in a stupid emotional tug of war between grown adults - that really rubs me the wrong way.) So, while I enjoyed the fun interplay between Delia and Zach and almost laughed out loud at some of their text exchanges, I found myself very put off by the final stretch of the story, enough to drive the rating down significantly.
You Might Also Enjoy:
This Is Our Song (Samantha Chase) - My Review
The Fix Up (Tawna Fenske) - My Review
You Slay Me (Katie MacAlister) - My Review
Sunday, November 14, 2021
Under the Whispering Door (TJ Klune)
Under the Whispering Door
TJ Klune
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: By the measures of his profession, lawyer William Price is an unqualified success. Sure, he sacrificed his marriage, his friends, and any frivolities like joy or leisure, but he built his own law firm from the ground up, and nobody in his office fails to fear his gaze. It takes dying for him to realize that, while he may have succeeded at law, he failed at truly living. Collected from his funeral by the eccentric Reaper woman Mei, William is brought to a small mountain village and a tea shop called Charon's Crossing to meet his ferryman, the mortal charged with helping him make the transition to the other side: the handsome Hugo Freeman. Here, away from his job and the city and the cold existence he built for himself, the former lawyer finally learns what it means to live... and to love. But he cannot linger forever; there is a door on the fourth floor of the tea shop that whispers to him of what is to come - a passage he cannot avoid forever, even when he finally discovers a reason to stay on Earth.
REVIEW: First off, the official description for this book is way off. It mentions plot points that don't come up until the final fourth or so of the tale, and set up false expectations for the story as a whole. Secondly, this is the second book by Klune I've read... and I can't help but think I would've enjoyed it more had it been first. Like The House in the Cerulean Sea, it starts with a man firmly entrenched in an inherently heartless bureaucracy, one who doesn't think to question the emptiness of his life or the machinery he perpetuates, until he travels to a remote location where a kindly, handsome eccentric and other colorful locals teach him the true meaning of life and love. William, however, is initially a far less likable main character, a man who hasn't been so much numbed to his heart as one who willfully sliced it out as a potential impediment to his career and doesn't think to question his choice until it's literally too late. He overreacts to his situation terribly, far past the point of caricature, and stays in surly denial far too long, making his transition a little hard to swallow. Side characters could be irritating on occasion, too, as could the repetitious Lessons about the meaning of life and the afterlife and what makes living worthwhile, which make the story itself feel overlong and slow as it wends slowly between plot points on its way to the stuff teased by the official description and cover blurb. It does ultimately come together, with some sweet and sobering moments along the way, and barely pulled out of its drifting freefall enough to avoid losing another half-star, but I must say I expected a little more after the high bar set by The House in the Cerulean Sea.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Halloween Tree (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) - My Review
The House in the Cerulean Sea (TJ Klune) - My Review
TJ Klune
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: By the measures of his profession, lawyer William Price is an unqualified success. Sure, he sacrificed his marriage, his friends, and any frivolities like joy or leisure, but he built his own law firm from the ground up, and nobody in his office fails to fear his gaze. It takes dying for him to realize that, while he may have succeeded at law, he failed at truly living. Collected from his funeral by the eccentric Reaper woman Mei, William is brought to a small mountain village and a tea shop called Charon's Crossing to meet his ferryman, the mortal charged with helping him make the transition to the other side: the handsome Hugo Freeman. Here, away from his job and the city and the cold existence he built for himself, the former lawyer finally learns what it means to live... and to love. But he cannot linger forever; there is a door on the fourth floor of the tea shop that whispers to him of what is to come - a passage he cannot avoid forever, even when he finally discovers a reason to stay on Earth.
REVIEW: First off, the official description for this book is way off. It mentions plot points that don't come up until the final fourth or so of the tale, and set up false expectations for the story as a whole. Secondly, this is the second book by Klune I've read... and I can't help but think I would've enjoyed it more had it been first. Like The House in the Cerulean Sea, it starts with a man firmly entrenched in an inherently heartless bureaucracy, one who doesn't think to question the emptiness of his life or the machinery he perpetuates, until he travels to a remote location where a kindly, handsome eccentric and other colorful locals teach him the true meaning of life and love. William, however, is initially a far less likable main character, a man who hasn't been so much numbed to his heart as one who willfully sliced it out as a potential impediment to his career and doesn't think to question his choice until it's literally too late. He overreacts to his situation terribly, far past the point of caricature, and stays in surly denial far too long, making his transition a little hard to swallow. Side characters could be irritating on occasion, too, as could the repetitious Lessons about the meaning of life and the afterlife and what makes living worthwhile, which make the story itself feel overlong and slow as it wends slowly between plot points on its way to the stuff teased by the official description and cover blurb. It does ultimately come together, with some sweet and sobering moments along the way, and barely pulled out of its drifting freefall enough to avoid losing another half-star, but I must say I expected a little more after the high bar set by The House in the Cerulean Sea.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Halloween Tree (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) - My Review
The House in the Cerulean Sea (TJ Klune) - My Review
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
In the Red (Christopher Swiedler)
In the Red
Christopher Swiedler
HarperCollins
Fiction, MG Action/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Someday, Michael Prasad can visit his father at the north pole of Mars, working on the quantum magnetic system responsible for the colony world's protective magnetosphere. Someday, his mother will stop hovering over him. Someday, when he no longer has his "condition", the panic attacks that seize him whenever he dons a suit to step outside the colony domes onto the Martian surface. Someday, he'll be normal.
Someday is never going to happen, and even at twelve, Michael knows it.
Sick of waiting for "someday", and being the only kid in the sixth grade without his basic rating for venturing beyond the airlocks, Michael sneaks out to try the test once more... and, again, is seized by crippling anxiety. It doesn't matter that he can do math in his head that most adults need computers (or at least pens and paper) to work out. It doesn't matter that he's read the field manuals backwards and forwards. If he can't conquer his panic attacks, he'll forever be stuck in the safety of the colony, cut off from countless career paths through the solar system - not to mention forever being the butt of his classmates' jokes. With the help of a rebellious friend, Earthborn girl Lilith, he sets off on an impetuous and ill-advised night trip to his father's polar station... just as a deadly solar flare strikes the red planet and something goes catastrophically wrong with the artificial magnetosphere, frying communications satellites and turning the daylight deadly with lethal doses of radiation. Stranded in the hostile wilds with dwindling supplies and limited air, Michael and Lilith must find a way to signal for help - or find a way to get back home.
REVIEW: Another quick audiobook "read", In the Red is a middle-grade survival thriller set on the surface of a futuristic Mars, where colonies may thrive but where the planet itself is still every bit as hostile to life as it is today, with dust storms and a toxic atmosphere and deadly solar radiation only barely held at bay by human ingenuity - ingenuity which can, as demonstrated in devastating detail, fail at any time. Even as a middle-grade title, the stakes are grim and not danced around; at more than one point, the characters openly acknowledge the dangerous nature of Martian existence and the many ways one can die, and when threatened by the possibility of a drawn-out death by solar radiation they readily accept the need for a "cleaner" and quicker way out by way of a lethal pill. Within this setting, Michael's book skills and prodigal grasp of science and mathematics, which should take him to the stars (literally and figuratively), never seem enough unless he can also spend five minutes in a suit without vomiting and passing out from panic; he considers himself a fraud and a failure, convinced his own father is ashamed of him, and thus behaves rather recklessly to prove to himself and others that he can be more than his "condition". This starts to get a bit over the top, when even in fraught survival conditions Michael keeps haring off on his own to do risky things (and fail as often as not) just to punch back against the inherently unpunchable reality of his panic attacks, endangering himself and his companions in the process. This is where the book first started losing its full fourth star, for all that the story moves fast and the characters are generally not stupid. The rest of that full fourth star was lost by the ending, which draws itself out a touch too long, particularly the bits after the climax. For the most part, though, In the Red is a fairly smart and science-based thrill ride of survival against overwhelming odds, on the surface of a world inherently inhospitable to human life.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Canyon's Edge (Dusti Bowling) - My Review
Vacation Guide to the Solar System (Olivia Koski and Jana Grcevich) - My Review
The Martian (Andy Weir) - My Review
Christopher Swiedler
HarperCollins
Fiction, MG Action/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Someday, Michael Prasad can visit his father at the north pole of Mars, working on the quantum magnetic system responsible for the colony world's protective magnetosphere. Someday, his mother will stop hovering over him. Someday, when he no longer has his "condition", the panic attacks that seize him whenever he dons a suit to step outside the colony domes onto the Martian surface. Someday, he'll be normal.
Someday is never going to happen, and even at twelve, Michael knows it.
Sick of waiting for "someday", and being the only kid in the sixth grade without his basic rating for venturing beyond the airlocks, Michael sneaks out to try the test once more... and, again, is seized by crippling anxiety. It doesn't matter that he can do math in his head that most adults need computers (or at least pens and paper) to work out. It doesn't matter that he's read the field manuals backwards and forwards. If he can't conquer his panic attacks, he'll forever be stuck in the safety of the colony, cut off from countless career paths through the solar system - not to mention forever being the butt of his classmates' jokes. With the help of a rebellious friend, Earthborn girl Lilith, he sets off on an impetuous and ill-advised night trip to his father's polar station... just as a deadly solar flare strikes the red planet and something goes catastrophically wrong with the artificial magnetosphere, frying communications satellites and turning the daylight deadly with lethal doses of radiation. Stranded in the hostile wilds with dwindling supplies and limited air, Michael and Lilith must find a way to signal for help - or find a way to get back home.
REVIEW: Another quick audiobook "read", In the Red is a middle-grade survival thriller set on the surface of a futuristic Mars, where colonies may thrive but where the planet itself is still every bit as hostile to life as it is today, with dust storms and a toxic atmosphere and deadly solar radiation only barely held at bay by human ingenuity - ingenuity which can, as demonstrated in devastating detail, fail at any time. Even as a middle-grade title, the stakes are grim and not danced around; at more than one point, the characters openly acknowledge the dangerous nature of Martian existence and the many ways one can die, and when threatened by the possibility of a drawn-out death by solar radiation they readily accept the need for a "cleaner" and quicker way out by way of a lethal pill. Within this setting, Michael's book skills and prodigal grasp of science and mathematics, which should take him to the stars (literally and figuratively), never seem enough unless he can also spend five minutes in a suit without vomiting and passing out from panic; he considers himself a fraud and a failure, convinced his own father is ashamed of him, and thus behaves rather recklessly to prove to himself and others that he can be more than his "condition". This starts to get a bit over the top, when even in fraught survival conditions Michael keeps haring off on his own to do risky things (and fail as often as not) just to punch back against the inherently unpunchable reality of his panic attacks, endangering himself and his companions in the process. This is where the book first started losing its full fourth star, for all that the story moves fast and the characters are generally not stupid. The rest of that full fourth star was lost by the ending, which draws itself out a touch too long, particularly the bits after the climax. For the most part, though, In the Red is a fairly smart and science-based thrill ride of survival against overwhelming odds, on the surface of a world inherently inhospitable to human life.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Canyon's Edge (Dusti Bowling) - My Review
Vacation Guide to the Solar System (Olivia Koski and Jana Grcevich) - My Review
The Martian (Andy Weir) - My Review
Monday, November 8, 2021
In the Labyrinth of Drakes (Marie Brennan)
In the Labyrinth of Drakes: A Memoir by Lady Trent
A Natural History of Dragons series, Book 4
Marie Brennan
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: As a girl in her native Scirland, Isabella could never have imagined that her "unladylike" interest in the natural sciences and dragons would take her so far, figuratively or literally, but it has not been a journey without costs or setbacks, even disregarding the scientific community's ongoing reluctance to accept her as a member, let alone an equal. Already, she has lost a husband, been abducted, and suffered innumerable hostilities and slanderous rumors, but nothing that has shaken her resolve or her faith that what she is doing matters, not just to science but to the survival of her world's dragon species. That work becomes even more vital now that the secret of preserving dragon bone as an ultralight building material - ideal for military airships - has been stolen by her nation's enemies. Long skeptical of her work and her person, now the military enlists her aid in a grand project, in partner with desert-dwelling allies: learning to breed dragons in captivity, an endeavor that has eluded every civilization save possibly the long-lost Draconeans. Little as she likes the idea of raising magnificent beasts for slaughter like pigs or cattle, Isabella cannot resist the challenge, nor the opportunity to explore the habits of the desert-dwelling drakes. But, as always, with new dragons come new complications, and new dangers.
REVIEW: The fourth installment of Lady Trent's memoirs maintains the same adventurous air of exploration and wonder and excitement as the previous volumes, even as the world grows bigger and more politically complex. Isabella remains a clever, if occasionally impetuous, character, one who still sometimes struggles with social niceties and resents the encroachment of politics and archaic ideas of propriety and "a woman's place" upon her work, but she is maturing and learning through the series. An unexpected reunion with Suhail, the stranger who helped and tantalized her in the previous volume before vanishing under mysterious circumstances, adds fresh complications both personal and political, when he turns out to be the brother of the sheik whose somewhat reluctant help is vital to the success of the dragon breeding pilot program. Needless to say, innumerable adventures await the lady scientist in the deserts, and more discoveries about both dragons and the long-lost Draconeans, whose ruins have long mystified experts; understanding the ancient worldwide civilization may be the ultimate key to understanding dragons, and she comes several steps closer in this volume. The title, though, feels like a bit of a misnomer, as the Labyrinth is only mentioned until very close to the end of the book, and then the final scenes feel a trifle rushed. Some of the world's place names, the political alliances and rivalries, can still feel a bit like name soup, too. Still, I'm enjoying the series and its world, and intend to finish at least the original five-volume memoirs.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Natural History of Dragons (Marie Brennan) - My Review
His Majesty's Dragon (Naomi Novik) - My Review
The Waking Fire (Anthony Ryan) - My Review
A Natural History of Dragons series, Book 4
Marie Brennan
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: As a girl in her native Scirland, Isabella could never have imagined that her "unladylike" interest in the natural sciences and dragons would take her so far, figuratively or literally, but it has not been a journey without costs or setbacks, even disregarding the scientific community's ongoing reluctance to accept her as a member, let alone an equal. Already, she has lost a husband, been abducted, and suffered innumerable hostilities and slanderous rumors, but nothing that has shaken her resolve or her faith that what she is doing matters, not just to science but to the survival of her world's dragon species. That work becomes even more vital now that the secret of preserving dragon bone as an ultralight building material - ideal for military airships - has been stolen by her nation's enemies. Long skeptical of her work and her person, now the military enlists her aid in a grand project, in partner with desert-dwelling allies: learning to breed dragons in captivity, an endeavor that has eluded every civilization save possibly the long-lost Draconeans. Little as she likes the idea of raising magnificent beasts for slaughter like pigs or cattle, Isabella cannot resist the challenge, nor the opportunity to explore the habits of the desert-dwelling drakes. But, as always, with new dragons come new complications, and new dangers.
REVIEW: The fourth installment of Lady Trent's memoirs maintains the same adventurous air of exploration and wonder and excitement as the previous volumes, even as the world grows bigger and more politically complex. Isabella remains a clever, if occasionally impetuous, character, one who still sometimes struggles with social niceties and resents the encroachment of politics and archaic ideas of propriety and "a woman's place" upon her work, but she is maturing and learning through the series. An unexpected reunion with Suhail, the stranger who helped and tantalized her in the previous volume before vanishing under mysterious circumstances, adds fresh complications both personal and political, when he turns out to be the brother of the sheik whose somewhat reluctant help is vital to the success of the dragon breeding pilot program. Needless to say, innumerable adventures await the lady scientist in the deserts, and more discoveries about both dragons and the long-lost Draconeans, whose ruins have long mystified experts; understanding the ancient worldwide civilization may be the ultimate key to understanding dragons, and she comes several steps closer in this volume. The title, though, feels like a bit of a misnomer, as the Labyrinth is only mentioned until very close to the end of the book, and then the final scenes feel a trifle rushed. Some of the world's place names, the political alliances and rivalries, can still feel a bit like name soup, too. Still, I'm enjoying the series and its world, and intend to finish at least the original five-volume memoirs.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Natural History of Dragons (Marie Brennan) - My Review
His Majesty's Dragon (Naomi Novik) - My Review
The Waking Fire (Anthony Ryan) - My Review
Saturday, November 6, 2021
The Body Scout (Lincoln Michel)
The Body Scout
Lincoln Michel
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In a future where body upgrades, cybernetics, and other enhancements are commonplace (if expensive), scouting for major league baseball takes on whole new dimensions. The corporations treat their players as experiments, and it's all about who can collect the best scientists with the weakest morals, a job that requires some flexible morality itself. Kobo may not necessarily like who he's become, but it keeps the creditors off his back (more or less), and after decades of cyber enhancements and upgrades, he's in debt deeper than the lowest subterranean apartments of New York City. Besides, he still loves the game. When a pair of cloned Neanderthals working for the Monsanto Mets poach a scientist Kobo has been courting for his clients, the Yankees, he thinks it's just business as usual in his cutthroat line of work... but when his old friend and current Mets star J. J. Zunz calls him late at night out of the blue, sounding confused, he starts to realize something bigger's afoot - especially when Zunz collapses at his next game, blood streaming from every orifice. He and J. J. grew up together, two poor New York boys dreaming of baseball superstardom under smog-choked skies; they became brothers after Kobo's family died in an apartment collapse. Now, as Kobo sets out to investigate his death, he learns just how far apart the two grew over the years... and how twisted and amoral the great American pastime and modern life have become.
REVIEW: There's a reason dystopian sci-fi is so common these days; their futures, unfortunately, seem far more plausible than not. Here, Michel explores a gritty, violent, depressingly recognizable near future where corruption at all levels consistently wins out over morality and integrity, at least at the macro level. At the micro level, there's still a little (very little) wiggle room for even a jaded man like Kobo to attempt to pursue the truth and some form of justice... but what truth or justice could possibly exist in a dying world where every (patented and expensive) hope or breakthrough or cure comes saddled with at least a dozen negating drawbacks and costs for some future generation to reckon with? It's a well-realized world of complex and ever-shifting morality and points of contention, much like our own, and Kobo finds himself forced to ask uncomfortable questions about his life, his city, his friends and enemies, and even the sport that carried him out of one poverty only to land him neck-deep in another. For all the bleakness, though, the characters and setting are compelling and relatable, and while the ending (skirting spoilers) isn't the resounding, edifice-toppling revolution one might hope for given the rotten power structures driving everyone's lives and choices, it fits the tale and offers a slim possibility of a slightly better, if no less complicated, future. (I probably would've gotten more out of it if I were a baseball fan.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Warehouse (Rob Hart) - My Review
The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
Altered Carbon (Richard K. Morgan) - My Review
Lincoln Michel
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In a future where body upgrades, cybernetics, and other enhancements are commonplace (if expensive), scouting for major league baseball takes on whole new dimensions. The corporations treat their players as experiments, and it's all about who can collect the best scientists with the weakest morals, a job that requires some flexible morality itself. Kobo may not necessarily like who he's become, but it keeps the creditors off his back (more or less), and after decades of cyber enhancements and upgrades, he's in debt deeper than the lowest subterranean apartments of New York City. Besides, he still loves the game. When a pair of cloned Neanderthals working for the Monsanto Mets poach a scientist Kobo has been courting for his clients, the Yankees, he thinks it's just business as usual in his cutthroat line of work... but when his old friend and current Mets star J. J. Zunz calls him late at night out of the blue, sounding confused, he starts to realize something bigger's afoot - especially when Zunz collapses at his next game, blood streaming from every orifice. He and J. J. grew up together, two poor New York boys dreaming of baseball superstardom under smog-choked skies; they became brothers after Kobo's family died in an apartment collapse. Now, as Kobo sets out to investigate his death, he learns just how far apart the two grew over the years... and how twisted and amoral the great American pastime and modern life have become.
REVIEW: There's a reason dystopian sci-fi is so common these days; their futures, unfortunately, seem far more plausible than not. Here, Michel explores a gritty, violent, depressingly recognizable near future where corruption at all levels consistently wins out over morality and integrity, at least at the macro level. At the micro level, there's still a little (very little) wiggle room for even a jaded man like Kobo to attempt to pursue the truth and some form of justice... but what truth or justice could possibly exist in a dying world where every (patented and expensive) hope or breakthrough or cure comes saddled with at least a dozen negating drawbacks and costs for some future generation to reckon with? It's a well-realized world of complex and ever-shifting morality and points of contention, much like our own, and Kobo finds himself forced to ask uncomfortable questions about his life, his city, his friends and enemies, and even the sport that carried him out of one poverty only to land him neck-deep in another. For all the bleakness, though, the characters and setting are compelling and relatable, and while the ending (skirting spoilers) isn't the resounding, edifice-toppling revolution one might hope for given the rotten power structures driving everyone's lives and choices, it fits the tale and offers a slim possibility of a slightly better, if no less complicated, future. (I probably would've gotten more out of it if I were a baseball fan.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Warehouse (Rob Hart) - My Review
The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
Altered Carbon (Richard K. Morgan) - My Review
Thursday, November 4, 2021
NOS4A2 (Joe Hill)
NOS4A2
Joe Hill
William Morrow
Fiction, Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Victoria McQueen, better known as Vic (or "the brat"), had one escape from her rough childhood and unhappy parents, on the wheels of her bicycle through the woods and down to the old covered bridge... a bridge that has a way of taking her where she needs to be to find things that have been lost. As she grows up, she tries to dismiss the bridge as a childhood fantasy - until she runs out of her home as a teen and straight across the bridge to the lair of serial child killer Charlie Manx.
Manx is no ordinary killer. With his classic Rolls Royce Wraith, one of only a handful in America, he prowls the country in search of children to "rescue" from unhappy homes. Like Vic, he can navigate roads that don't exist in normal space and time, through the "inscapes" of imagination - but his lead somewhere far less wholesome than a covered bridge. His lead to Christmasland, a throwback amusement park inside his own imagination, where his victims live on as monstrous wraiths stripped of their humanity. When he meets Vic, he recognizes another "creative", one who can change reality with the force of their imaginaton and will... but Vic is a mentally fragile girl, growing into a damaged woman, while Manx is an old pro. When she escapes and Manx is finally arrested, his reign of terror should be over. Instead, it's just beginning - and only Vic can stop him.
REVIEW: Having enjoyed Heart-Shaped Box, I thought I'd give another Joe Hill book a try. He presents some interesting and inherently chilling concepts in the "inscapes" and Christmasland, though they ultimately would be cheap cardboard props without the characters who bring them to life. Everyone in the story is damaged in some way, physically or mentally or emotionally (or multiple choice), and most are trying - if often failing - to do best with the imperfect tools and worldview they have. Even Manx has rationalized his monstrous predation on children, and his henchman and protege, a child-minded serial rapist named Bing, was broken long before he got in touch with the man behind the wheel of the Wraith. Vic is particularly shattered, first by being the product of a dysfunctional marriage and later by her own choices and struggles over the existence of the bridge. She often seemed undercut as a heroine, though, repeatedly dismissing her own experiences as delusions only to repeatedly be devastated to discover that the covered bridge is real - as is the danger of Charlie Manx. When Vic has a child of her own, she learns some of what her own parents went through, and even as she tries to keep her son from feeling as lost and often rejected as she herself felt, she seems doomed to fail. The horror elements build nicely throughout the tale, with several scary and gruesome moments (and more than one Easter egg nod to his own works and his father Stephen King's creations), though once in a while it feels a slight bit drawn out, like it could've lost a few chapters in revision. For the most part, though, I enjoyed it, and expect I'll be reading (or listening, rather, as this was another audiobook) to more of Hill's works in the future.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill) - My Review
It (Stephen King) - My Review
Sparrow Hill Road (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Joe Hill
William Morrow
Fiction, Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Victoria McQueen, better known as Vic (or "the brat"), had one escape from her rough childhood and unhappy parents, on the wheels of her bicycle through the woods and down to the old covered bridge... a bridge that has a way of taking her where she needs to be to find things that have been lost. As she grows up, she tries to dismiss the bridge as a childhood fantasy - until she runs out of her home as a teen and straight across the bridge to the lair of serial child killer Charlie Manx.
Manx is no ordinary killer. With his classic Rolls Royce Wraith, one of only a handful in America, he prowls the country in search of children to "rescue" from unhappy homes. Like Vic, he can navigate roads that don't exist in normal space and time, through the "inscapes" of imagination - but his lead somewhere far less wholesome than a covered bridge. His lead to Christmasland, a throwback amusement park inside his own imagination, where his victims live on as monstrous wraiths stripped of their humanity. When he meets Vic, he recognizes another "creative", one who can change reality with the force of their imaginaton and will... but Vic is a mentally fragile girl, growing into a damaged woman, while Manx is an old pro. When she escapes and Manx is finally arrested, his reign of terror should be over. Instead, it's just beginning - and only Vic can stop him.
REVIEW: Having enjoyed Heart-Shaped Box, I thought I'd give another Joe Hill book a try. He presents some interesting and inherently chilling concepts in the "inscapes" and Christmasland, though they ultimately would be cheap cardboard props without the characters who bring them to life. Everyone in the story is damaged in some way, physically or mentally or emotionally (or multiple choice), and most are trying - if often failing - to do best with the imperfect tools and worldview they have. Even Manx has rationalized his monstrous predation on children, and his henchman and protege, a child-minded serial rapist named Bing, was broken long before he got in touch with the man behind the wheel of the Wraith. Vic is particularly shattered, first by being the product of a dysfunctional marriage and later by her own choices and struggles over the existence of the bridge. She often seemed undercut as a heroine, though, repeatedly dismissing her own experiences as delusions only to repeatedly be devastated to discover that the covered bridge is real - as is the danger of Charlie Manx. When Vic has a child of her own, she learns some of what her own parents went through, and even as she tries to keep her son from feeling as lost and often rejected as she herself felt, she seems doomed to fail. The horror elements build nicely throughout the tale, with several scary and gruesome moments (and more than one Easter egg nod to his own works and his father Stephen King's creations), though once in a while it feels a slight bit drawn out, like it could've lost a few chapters in revision. For the most part, though, I enjoyed it, and expect I'll be reading (or listening, rather, as this was another audiobook) to more of Hill's works in the future.
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Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill) - My Review
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