The month's reviews have been archived and cross-linked at the main Brightdreamer Books site.
And yet another year is coming to a close, so it's time for yet another reading year in review. My real life has been in a holding pattern (with a distinct downward glide, for various reasons - another year when "at least I'm not completely on fire yet" is about as close as I am to things being "good"), so reading provided a welcome escape.
January kicked off with V. E. Schwab's much-lauded The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which did not entirely live up to its own hype but was nevertheless a decent read. I also finally got around to the classic Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov, whose style and very retro-feeling future aged far worse than its general ideas. This is also the month when overtime at work and general burnout/lack of other viable employment options prompted me to either gnaw a limb off to escape or turn to audiobooks via the local library and Overdrive (appropriate, as I work at the local library shipping center) for distraction, with Becky Chambers's thought-provoking novella To Be Taught, If Fortunate as my successful test drive. High points of January included A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher, and Jordan Ifueko's impressive young adult fantasy Raybearer. The month's low point, unfortunately, was Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton, an initially fun and intriguing post-zombie-apocalypse animal odyssey that overstayed its welcome and overplayed its Message by the end.
February, though the shortest month of the year, ironically was my most prolific one insofar as reading, though the titles were a mixed bag. Standouts were Seanan McGuire's Across the Green Grass Fields, Wonderstorm's The Art of The Dragon Prince, and P. Djeli Clark's novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015. I also enjoyed the exploration of racial tensions during a city riot in I'm Not Dying With You Tonight, by Kimberley Jones and Gilly Segal, and the third volume of Jeff Lemire's Ascender graphic novels. February's biggest disappointment was Jenifer Ruff's tale of Arctic survival When They Find Us, which squandered its potential. Also, Amparo Oritz's Blazewrath Games lacked the fire that a dragon-themed story should have... not unlike Patrick Ness's overlong alternate history tale Burn.
March opened with a bang in Tochi Onyebuchi's brutally gripping sci-fi tale War Girls, about a future Nigerian civil war fought by mech pilots and cybernetically enhanced soldiers on an increasingly uninhabitable Earth. I also enjoyed Kelley Armstrong's middle-grade fantasy adventure A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying, and Daniel Abraham's slow-burn The Long Price Quartet showed the value in sticking out an iffy first volume for greater rewards down the line. Low points could be found in Diane Les Becquets's tale of a woman lost in the Colorado wilderness, Breaking Wild, Marie Brennan's listless Driftwood, and Timothy Zahn's Night Train to Rigel, which embraced the throwback vibe too heartily by including some of the cringier aspects of old sci-fi pulp adventures. I also finally tried the prolific Adrian Tchaikovsky with the self-narrated audiobook novella Walking to Aldebaran, which was enjoyable enough for me to keep an eye peeled for other works by him when scrolling through Overdrive.
April opened with an unfortunate dud, one of the worst of the year, in The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James, and ended with the decently adventurous (if inevitably dated) classic swashbuckler Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini. In between were several ups and downs, of which the top reads were P. Djeli Clark's horror fantasy Ring Shout, Margaret Owen's The Merciful Crow, and the final two books in Catherynne M. Valente's lyrical Fairyland series. Rob Hart's dystopian near future in The Warehouse was depressingly plausible (not just because I was listening to the audiobook while working in a warehouse, if not a big box store warehouse), and I was sadly disappointed in the first installment of the much-lauded Rivers of London series, Midnight Riot, by Ben Aaronovitch.
May was mostly a good reading month; even the lowest point (Heidi Heilig's The Girl From Everywhere) wasn't terrible, just meandering and with characters I never connected with. Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give tempted me out of my usual genre comfort zone, as did Jason Reynolds's free verse poem Long Way Down. An impulse buy of Suzanne Palmer's sci-fi adventure Finder proved an excellent choice. I also returned to Megan E. O'Keefe's exciting Protectorate space opera trilogy with Chaos Vector, and I finished off Margaret Owen's fantasy duology with The Faithless Hawk. Sarah Gailey's dark exploration of cloning and identity and generational abuse in The Echo Wife and Sarah Beth Durst's tale of monsters and reincarnation Race the Sands rounded things out.
June opened with the mildly disappointing Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, read after watching the Netflix series based on the Grishaverse. I ventured back to the classics with Joe Haldeman's landmark indictment of the perpetual human habit of combat in The Forever War, finally got to the second in Mira "Seanan McGuire" Grant's Newsflesh trilogy with Deadline, and enjoyed the middle-grade fantasy adventure of Have Sword, Will Travel, by Garth Nix and Sean Williams. Liane Moriarty's Nine Perfect Strangers, unfortunately, never lived up to the promise of its premise, and Valerie Valdes's Chilling Effect was an overlong sci-fi joke whose punchline failed to make me so much as chuckle.
July included one of my favorite audiobook surprises of the year, Libba Bray's searing satire Beauty Queens. I finally got around to the much-lauded Joe Hill with the appropriately terrifying Heart-Shaped Box, and I returned to the Finder Chronicles with Suzanne Palmer's fine follow-up Driving the Deep. Adrian Tchaikovsky's Made Things also impressed, though Greg van Eeekhout's promising premise of osteomancy in California Bones never quite came together for me, and S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders suffered somewhat with age.
With only three reviews, August was my least productive reading month, and while none were outright terrible, none were particularly great. Of the lot, the best would be Kit Rocha's sci-fi adventure/romance Deal with the Devil, which actually remembered to put the "danger" in its dangerous post-apocalyptic future.
September kicked off with Django Wexler's Hard Reboot, a tale of battling mechs that didn't quite land its punches for me, and ended with the unexpectedly intriguing tale of haves, have-nots, prejudice, and plague in Sparkers by Eleanor Glewwe. In between, I enjoyed the harrowing young adult survival tale Adrift by Paul Griffin and the quirky, surprisingly dark middle-grade fantasy Cold Cereal by Adam Rex (after which you'll never look at a cartoon cereal mascot the same way again). I returned to Seanan McGuire's Ghost Roads with The Girl in the Green Silk Gown and enjoyed the trip... something I could not say, unfortunately, for my time with Zach Jordan's The Last Human.
October began and ended with horror, first with T. Kingfisher's chilling story of another world behind the walls of a small-town curiosity museum in The Hollow Places, and last with the conclusion to the original Newsflesh trilogy in Mira Grant's Blackout. I also wrapped up the excellent, fast-paced Protectorate sci-fi trilogy with Megan E. O'Keefe's Catalyst Gate, and was delightfully surprised by Beth Bernobich's imaginative fantasy Fox and Phoenix (which sadly has yet to see a sequel). Adrian Tchaikovsky again proved the range of his imagination with The Doors of Eden, examining alternate evolutionary paths.
November brought me back to P. Djeli Clark's marvelous alternate-1912 Cairo (which I first visited in the novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015) with one of my favorite reads of the year, A Master of Djinn, and the novella A Dead Djinn in Cairo, which was good, but which I probably would've enjoyed a little more had I read it before the novel. (Clark's prose seemed more polished in the novel, and there was more time to explore the great ideas.) The dystopian future New York City of Lincoln Michel's The Body Scout was unexpectedly gripping and depressingly plausible, and I returned to Adrian Tchaikovsky yet again with the first volume of his Bronze Age shapeshifter fantasy Echoes of the Fall series with The Tiger and the Wolf. I finally got to the fourth of Marie Brennan's A Natural History of Dragons series with In the Labyrinth of Drakes, and mostly enjoyed TJ Klune's ghostly love story Under the Whispering Door. I was less impressed, unfortunately, with Teagan Hunter's modern romance Let's Get Textual and Scarlett Thomas's middle-grade fantasy Dragon's Green.
December saw me returning to Tchaikovsky (what can I say? He has several audiobook titles through my library on Overdrive, so one is almost always bound to be available) to finish off Echoes of the Fall with The Bear and the Serpent and The Hyena and the Hawk. Mira Grant's Rolling in the Deep crossed mermaid lore with deep sea predators and sensationalist "documentary" network ethos for a terrifying tragedy. James S. A. Corey wrapped up the landmark Expanse space opera series in a suitably epic fashion with Leviathan Falls (even as the criminally overlooked televised adaptation kicked off its final six-episode season on Amazon Prime), and Neil Gaiman sent an unnamed narrator on a surreal trip down memory lane in The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
Overall, there were some great reads and discoveries this year, along with the disappointments. I hope 2022 offers some pleasant surprises in my reading, too (because, to be honest and with apologies for the grammar, it ain't lookin' great on the reality front, and not just because of the lingering pandemic).
Friday, December 31, 2021
Thursday, December 23, 2021
The Hyena and the Hawk (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
The Hyena and the Hawk
The Echoes of the Fall series, Book 3
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Pan Books
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: With the Plague People - soulless foreigners with strange weapons and translucent wings whose very presence drives away the gods and spreads soul-stripping terror - colonizing the shores and spreading rapidly inland, the end of the True People is nigh. As former enemies unite in the face of this new threat, they quickly realize that all the spears and arrows in the world, every god and stepped animal or Champion form the people can take, will be as smoke in the wind before the Plague People's destruction... and the invaders don't even realize they're destroying anything but animals, unable to comprehend the True People, their souls or shapes or gods or ways. The northern Champion Maniye Many Tracks, the Serpent priest Hesprec, the southern Champion Asman of the Sun River Nation, the Bear man Loud Thunder, and others - including unlikely allies in the Pale Shadow People, who came to this land many generations ago in flight from their cousins, the Plague People, and long now for souls of their own - race to discover a weakness, a way to fight back... but it may already be too late, and soon the only god of this world or any other may be the monstrous bone-gnawing Rat of death.
REVIEW: The conclusion to the (probable) trilogy of shapeshifting Bronze Age tribes fighting soulless faelike invaders maintains the epic sweep and active pacing of the first two installments. The battles grow bigger and more desperate, even as Maniye and the others learn that there is more to their enemy than meets the eye. Victories are few and far between, increasingly meaningless as the overall war (which the Plague People hardly see as a war, as the majority of them simply do not understand that the True People are in fact people - a clear parallel with real world colonizing forces sweeping away native tribes and practices without truly acknowledging the humanity of those they exterminate, or rationalizing the loss to insignificance) tilts against the tribes, spawning a despair from which a new threat arises: the cult of the Rat, who might kill the tribes as surely as any Plague weapon or magic. Worse, their tame arachnid and insectoid beasts of burden are escaping, an ecological disaster in the making as they spread across a land where they have no native predators or checks on their numbers. But the characters are not the same as they were when we met them, all tested by combat and the gods Themselves many times over. It all comes down to an epic confrontation on two fronts: the mortal plane and the realm of the gods, now a devastated wasteland. Significant sacrifices mark a satisfactory conclusion that leaves hints of future installments in the series, or at least the potential for them; the characters and the world are plenty big enough to support more adventures. It made an enjoyable, imaginative diversion.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Range of Ghosts (Elizabeth Bear) - My Review
The Jaguar Princess (Clare Bell) - My Review
The Cloud Roads (Martha Wells) - My Review
The Echoes of the Fall series, Book 3
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Pan Books
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: With the Plague People - soulless foreigners with strange weapons and translucent wings whose very presence drives away the gods and spreads soul-stripping terror - colonizing the shores and spreading rapidly inland, the end of the True People is nigh. As former enemies unite in the face of this new threat, they quickly realize that all the spears and arrows in the world, every god and stepped animal or Champion form the people can take, will be as smoke in the wind before the Plague People's destruction... and the invaders don't even realize they're destroying anything but animals, unable to comprehend the True People, their souls or shapes or gods or ways. The northern Champion Maniye Many Tracks, the Serpent priest Hesprec, the southern Champion Asman of the Sun River Nation, the Bear man Loud Thunder, and others - including unlikely allies in the Pale Shadow People, who came to this land many generations ago in flight from their cousins, the Plague People, and long now for souls of their own - race to discover a weakness, a way to fight back... but it may already be too late, and soon the only god of this world or any other may be the monstrous bone-gnawing Rat of death.
REVIEW: The conclusion to the (probable) trilogy of shapeshifting Bronze Age tribes fighting soulless faelike invaders maintains the epic sweep and active pacing of the first two installments. The battles grow bigger and more desperate, even as Maniye and the others learn that there is more to their enemy than meets the eye. Victories are few and far between, increasingly meaningless as the overall war (which the Plague People hardly see as a war, as the majority of them simply do not understand that the True People are in fact people - a clear parallel with real world colonizing forces sweeping away native tribes and practices without truly acknowledging the humanity of those they exterminate, or rationalizing the loss to insignificance) tilts against the tribes, spawning a despair from which a new threat arises: the cult of the Rat, who might kill the tribes as surely as any Plague weapon or magic. Worse, their tame arachnid and insectoid beasts of burden are escaping, an ecological disaster in the making as they spread across a land where they have no native predators or checks on their numbers. But the characters are not the same as they were when we met them, all tested by combat and the gods Themselves many times over. It all comes down to an epic confrontation on two fronts: the mortal plane and the realm of the gods, now a devastated wasteland. Significant sacrifices mark a satisfactory conclusion that leaves hints of future installments in the series, or at least the potential for them; the characters and the world are plenty big enough to support more adventures. It made an enjoyable, imaginative diversion.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Range of Ghosts (Elizabeth Bear) - My Review
The Jaguar Princess (Clare Bell) - My Review
The Cloud Roads (Martha Wells) - My Review
Thursday, December 16, 2021
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
William Morrow
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: After a funeral brings an aging man back to his childhood hometown, he finds his steps wandering to the old Hempstock farm at the end of an unpaved lane. It's the sort of place immune to the passage of time... the sort of place where a man might remember things long forgotten. He was seven years old the first time he met Lettie Hempstock and her family - a meeting with profound consequences, yet which he struggles to recall. How could he have forgotten the peculiar Hempstocks, who are something both less and more than they appear? How could he have forgotten the thing in the woods, or the cruel Ursula? And how could he have forgotten that the small duck pond behind the old farmhouse was no pond at all, but an ocean... or was it?
REVIEW: Another audiobook to make work somewhat tolerable, I was initially on the fence about trying it. Much as I appreciate Gaiman's writing, I find his works a bit hit-and-miss for my tastes. But this one looked relatively short, and I'd heard interesting things about it (and, to be honest, the pickings are a bit slim on Overdrive these days, probably because everyone's stocking up library loans for holidays), so I gave it a shot, and was pleasantly impressed.
This is, ultimately, a story about the lost magic of childhood, the cruelty of adults, and the ephemeral nature of memory. The narrator, who is unnamed but admittedly based on Gaiman's youth, is an ordinary enough boy, if not necessarily a happy one; his memories of the Hempstocks start after a seventh birthday party where none of his classmate "friends" bothered to show up, though he's just as happy losing himself in a book or wandering the neighborhood wilds rather than playing with peers. Even the small joys he manages, though, are inevitably trodden on by unthinking grown-ups; he loses his bedroom when his parents need money and must take in boarders, forced to move in with his younger sister, and then the taxi of one of those boarders accidentally kills his pet cat. (But he's supposed to be okay with an entirely unfriendly and unsuitable substitute, because it was just a cat to everyone but him; it's this sort of casual disregard for his feelings, the way adults can be mean and hurtful without even quite realizing it or even having to realize it, because the power flows one way, that lies at the heart of much of this story.)
It's the suicide of that boarder, down the lane near the Hempstock farm, that kicks off the days of magic and terror which shape the rest of his life, yet which slide out of his memory so easily. Like the Hempstocks, those memories simply do not fit into the mundane human world, and can only be glimpsed briefly from the corner of the eye; to linger among them too long is to be forced to ask questions about the very nature of reality itself, questions the human brain is ill-equipped to handle and rejects given half a chance to forget. There's a surreal air to the boy's adventure, how he is mesmerized by the magic of Lettie Hempstock and the wonders he sees around her and her family, and subsequently terrorized by a thing not from this world (yet which is no more inherently evil than the average adult; Ursula does evil things, but seems to lack a basic understanding of morality that would be required to be truly and consciously evil, not particularly caring whether her actions have bad consequences - save for a dislike of the boy who wants to send her back where she belongs and out of his life). For all that he does not consciously remember what happened during those days, they nevertheless leave a lasting mark on the man's life. It's a beautiful story with more than a touch of poetry about it, strong dashes of old-school magic and ancient myths and faerie lore, and a certain sadness for things lost to time and memory.
This audiobook version includes an excerpt from an online interview with Neil Gaiman, talking about the inspirations of the book and themes and such. While somewhat interesting, I have to wonder why it was included, except to pad out the length.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
Coraline (Neil Gaiman) - My Review
It (Stephen King) - My Review
Neil Gaiman
William Morrow
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: After a funeral brings an aging man back to his childhood hometown, he finds his steps wandering to the old Hempstock farm at the end of an unpaved lane. It's the sort of place immune to the passage of time... the sort of place where a man might remember things long forgotten. He was seven years old the first time he met Lettie Hempstock and her family - a meeting with profound consequences, yet which he struggles to recall. How could he have forgotten the peculiar Hempstocks, who are something both less and more than they appear? How could he have forgotten the thing in the woods, or the cruel Ursula? And how could he have forgotten that the small duck pond behind the old farmhouse was no pond at all, but an ocean... or was it?
REVIEW: Another audiobook to make work somewhat tolerable, I was initially on the fence about trying it. Much as I appreciate Gaiman's writing, I find his works a bit hit-and-miss for my tastes. But this one looked relatively short, and I'd heard interesting things about it (and, to be honest, the pickings are a bit slim on Overdrive these days, probably because everyone's stocking up library loans for holidays), so I gave it a shot, and was pleasantly impressed.
This is, ultimately, a story about the lost magic of childhood, the cruelty of adults, and the ephemeral nature of memory. The narrator, who is unnamed but admittedly based on Gaiman's youth, is an ordinary enough boy, if not necessarily a happy one; his memories of the Hempstocks start after a seventh birthday party where none of his classmate "friends" bothered to show up, though he's just as happy losing himself in a book or wandering the neighborhood wilds rather than playing with peers. Even the small joys he manages, though, are inevitably trodden on by unthinking grown-ups; he loses his bedroom when his parents need money and must take in boarders, forced to move in with his younger sister, and then the taxi of one of those boarders accidentally kills his pet cat. (But he's supposed to be okay with an entirely unfriendly and unsuitable substitute, because it was just a cat to everyone but him; it's this sort of casual disregard for his feelings, the way adults can be mean and hurtful without even quite realizing it or even having to realize it, because the power flows one way, that lies at the heart of much of this story.)
It's the suicide of that boarder, down the lane near the Hempstock farm, that kicks off the days of magic and terror which shape the rest of his life, yet which slide out of his memory so easily. Like the Hempstocks, those memories simply do not fit into the mundane human world, and can only be glimpsed briefly from the corner of the eye; to linger among them too long is to be forced to ask questions about the very nature of reality itself, questions the human brain is ill-equipped to handle and rejects given half a chance to forget. There's a surreal air to the boy's adventure, how he is mesmerized by the magic of Lettie Hempstock and the wonders he sees around her and her family, and subsequently terrorized by a thing not from this world (yet which is no more inherently evil than the average adult; Ursula does evil things, but seems to lack a basic understanding of morality that would be required to be truly and consciously evil, not particularly caring whether her actions have bad consequences - save for a dislike of the boy who wants to send her back where she belongs and out of his life). For all that he does not consciously remember what happened during those days, they nevertheless leave a lasting mark on the man's life. It's a beautiful story with more than a touch of poetry about it, strong dashes of old-school magic and ancient myths and faerie lore, and a certain sadness for things lost to time and memory.
This audiobook version includes an excerpt from an online interview with Neil Gaiman, talking about the inspirations of the book and themes and such. While somewhat interesting, I have to wonder why it was included, except to pad out the length.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
Coraline (Neil Gaiman) - My Review
It (Stephen King) - My Review
Saturday, December 11, 2021
Leviathan Falls (James S. A. Corey)
Leviathan Falls
The Expanse series, Book 9
James S. A. Corey
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The many star systems of humanity linger in disarray after the rebellion, spearheaded by Naomi Nagata, effectively crippled the Laconian forces... but the empire is far from fallen. Even as forces trade blows, the extradimensional entities that once wiped out the original architects of the ring gates continue their incursions, testing the limits and weaknesses of the upstart primates. Now, Laconia's ruler Duarte, transformed by the protomolecule into something other than fully human, wakes from his long stupor, determined to end the threats to his eternal rule - within this universe and without - once and for all. To do it, he will need to pick up the weapons left behind by the fallen builders... and reforge humanity into a new shape to wield it. Once more, James Holden and the crew of the old gunship Rocinante will be all that stands between humanity's freedom and annihilation - assuming there will be anything left to save.
REVIEW: This has been a truly epic ride, on so many levels: not just through the books, but through the television series and (tangentially, admittedly) fandom. Even as I type this, the first episode of the (presumably) final sixth season of the TV adaptation has premiered on Amazon Prime. So I'm carrying many emotions into this book, and carrying many out, and it's impossible to fully untangle the various threads from each other at this point.
The book starts about a year after the last one left off, with Holden's jailbreak from Laconia (with Duarte's daughter Teresa and her dog Muskrat), and things are going about as well as one might expect for them. The decades the characters have lived (excepting the newcomers, of course) and the eight previous volumes of adventures written (plus numerous implied but unwritten) have all taken their toll, but inside they are still the same fighters they have always been, stronger for their experience, transformed in various ways (literally, in the case of Amos Burton). There is, however, an overall sense of ending hanging over everything: the enemy incursions - both Laconinan and extradimensional - are increasing, the resistance is being chipped away (or wholesale slaughtered), and it's all coming down to a breaking point that will literally determine the future of the species, and possibly the universe as a whole. As the scientist Okoye and the transformed children Xan and Cara explore the encoded racial memories in a planet-sized diamond for the origins of the builders (and any clues as to what killed them and is currently trying to kill everyone), Holden and crew find themselves pursued by Tanaka, a Laconian soldier tasked with recovering the missing Duarte by any means necessary... and she has determined the recovery of Duarte's daughter Teresa, the only one known to have reached him in his catatonic state, as the necessary means. Meanwhile, Duarte pursues his own agenda, so secure in his belief that he alone is in the right, is to be trusted with the salvation of humanity, that he is willing to destroy the species to do it. Sacrifices are made, assumptions turned on their heads, and tension is raised to a fever pitch by the truly epic climax, which pits our heroes against the extradimensional invaders, Duarte's Laconia, and basic human nature itself.
I had to think a while about how I felt when I closed the book. Some threads and plot points still felt loose or forgotten, though the overall storytelling runs smoother than it may have at the start (where it could clunk notably now and again). A couple resolutions, I had mixed feelings about, for all that they worked okay in the telling. There is bleakness and despair, and much is lost (or so permanently transformed as to amount to the same thing as loss), but underneath it runs a thread of hope, that humanity - despite its perpetual tendency to grasp at things it cannot understand and toys best left untouched, despite its short-sighted nature and retreats to rationalization and violence as problem-solvers - can possibly carve itself a future with brighter and wider horizons, if in spite of itself. For that hope, and for the overall way the whole series - novels and novellas and even televised adaptations - successfully cohered to become so much more than the sum of its already-solid parts, it earns a near-top rating.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Dennis E. Taylor) - My Review
A Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge) - My Review
The Expanse series, Book 9
James S. A. Corey
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The many star systems of humanity linger in disarray after the rebellion, spearheaded by Naomi Nagata, effectively crippled the Laconian forces... but the empire is far from fallen. Even as forces trade blows, the extradimensional entities that once wiped out the original architects of the ring gates continue their incursions, testing the limits and weaknesses of the upstart primates. Now, Laconia's ruler Duarte, transformed by the protomolecule into something other than fully human, wakes from his long stupor, determined to end the threats to his eternal rule - within this universe and without - once and for all. To do it, he will need to pick up the weapons left behind by the fallen builders... and reforge humanity into a new shape to wield it. Once more, James Holden and the crew of the old gunship Rocinante will be all that stands between humanity's freedom and annihilation - assuming there will be anything left to save.
REVIEW: This has been a truly epic ride, on so many levels: not just through the books, but through the television series and (tangentially, admittedly) fandom. Even as I type this, the first episode of the (presumably) final sixth season of the TV adaptation has premiered on Amazon Prime. So I'm carrying many emotions into this book, and carrying many out, and it's impossible to fully untangle the various threads from each other at this point.
The book starts about a year after the last one left off, with Holden's jailbreak from Laconia (with Duarte's daughter Teresa and her dog Muskrat), and things are going about as well as one might expect for them. The decades the characters have lived (excepting the newcomers, of course) and the eight previous volumes of adventures written (plus numerous implied but unwritten) have all taken their toll, but inside they are still the same fighters they have always been, stronger for their experience, transformed in various ways (literally, in the case of Amos Burton). There is, however, an overall sense of ending hanging over everything: the enemy incursions - both Laconinan and extradimensional - are increasing, the resistance is being chipped away (or wholesale slaughtered), and it's all coming down to a breaking point that will literally determine the future of the species, and possibly the universe as a whole. As the scientist Okoye and the transformed children Xan and Cara explore the encoded racial memories in a planet-sized diamond for the origins of the builders (and any clues as to what killed them and is currently trying to kill everyone), Holden and crew find themselves pursued by Tanaka, a Laconian soldier tasked with recovering the missing Duarte by any means necessary... and she has determined the recovery of Duarte's daughter Teresa, the only one known to have reached him in his catatonic state, as the necessary means. Meanwhile, Duarte pursues his own agenda, so secure in his belief that he alone is in the right, is to be trusted with the salvation of humanity, that he is willing to destroy the species to do it. Sacrifices are made, assumptions turned on their heads, and tension is raised to a fever pitch by the truly epic climax, which pits our heroes against the extradimensional invaders, Duarte's Laconia, and basic human nature itself.
I had to think a while about how I felt when I closed the book. Some threads and plot points still felt loose or forgotten, though the overall storytelling runs smoother than it may have at the start (where it could clunk notably now and again). A couple resolutions, I had mixed feelings about, for all that they worked okay in the telling. There is bleakness and despair, and much is lost (or so permanently transformed as to amount to the same thing as loss), but underneath it runs a thread of hope, that humanity - despite its perpetual tendency to grasp at things it cannot understand and toys best left untouched, despite its short-sighted nature and retreats to rationalization and violence as problem-solvers - can possibly carve itself a future with brighter and wider horizons, if in spite of itself. For that hope, and for the overall way the whole series - novels and novellas and even televised adaptations - successfully cohered to become so much more than the sum of its already-solid parts, it earns a near-top rating.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Dennis E. Taylor) - My Review
A Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge) - My Review
Friday, December 10, 2021
City of Ghosts (Victoria Schwab)
City of Ghosts
The City of Ghosts series, Book 1
Victoria Schwab
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: One year ago, Cass's ordinary childhood ended with a plunge off a bridge into an icy river. She was found on the bank, soaked but otherwise unharmed... but what her parents never knew, and would never believe, is that she actually died, only to be saved by the ghost boy Jacob. Ever since, she's been able to sense the presence of ghosts, parting the Veil between our world and theirs, where they live eternal loops of their final moments. And ever since then, Jacob has been her companion and best friend, so real she sometimes forgets he's a ghost and she's the only one who can see and hear him. She doesn't wonder why, doesn't wonder if perhaps there's a deeper reason for her new sensitivities, until she finds herself in Edinburgh, Scotland. If she thought New York had ghosts, the centuries-old city has her home beat hands down on the haunting front. She also finds out that she's not the only girl with her unusual spirit detection skills - just when she comes face to face with the most terrifying ghost she's ever encountered, a cunning predator of Edinburgh's children who has set her sights on Cass.
REVIEW: Another quick audiobook to pass time at work, City of Ghosts delivers what it promises: a spooky middle-grade tale of a girl doing some amateur ghost-busting in Edinburgh with her spirit companion and a new friend. Cass isn't a bad heroine, though she seems a little too prone to messing up and needing rescue. When she discovers an English girl touched by her own gift, she's thrilled at first... until she discovers what that girl does with her gift, and possibly what she's expected to do, too. Cass's parents, co-authors of a popular series on the supernatural that is being turned into a documentary series (her mother thrives on ghost stories, while her professor father loves the history, though neither truly seems to believe in the spirit world despite their daughter claiming to have a ghostly pal), are vaguely supportive but not really involved in the girl's increasingly fractious relationship with the spirits and the Veil. Things ratchet up at a decent pace, with several encounters, until things go disastrously wrong with the red-cloaked ghost and Cass must figure out how to avoid a second, more permanent death before her time and luck run out. The whole has a certain pilot-episode feel to it, establishing Cass and Jacob and the "rules" while leaving several threads dangling for the next installment of their adventures, and indeed it does kick off a series. Not a bad story, all in all, spooky and fast-paced.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Ghost in the Third Row (Bruce Coville) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
The Shadows (Jacqueline West) - My Review
The City of Ghosts series, Book 1
Victoria Schwab
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: One year ago, Cass's ordinary childhood ended with a plunge off a bridge into an icy river. She was found on the bank, soaked but otherwise unharmed... but what her parents never knew, and would never believe, is that she actually died, only to be saved by the ghost boy Jacob. Ever since, she's been able to sense the presence of ghosts, parting the Veil between our world and theirs, where they live eternal loops of their final moments. And ever since then, Jacob has been her companion and best friend, so real she sometimes forgets he's a ghost and she's the only one who can see and hear him. She doesn't wonder why, doesn't wonder if perhaps there's a deeper reason for her new sensitivities, until she finds herself in Edinburgh, Scotland. If she thought New York had ghosts, the centuries-old city has her home beat hands down on the haunting front. She also finds out that she's not the only girl with her unusual spirit detection skills - just when she comes face to face with the most terrifying ghost she's ever encountered, a cunning predator of Edinburgh's children who has set her sights on Cass.
REVIEW: Another quick audiobook to pass time at work, City of Ghosts delivers what it promises: a spooky middle-grade tale of a girl doing some amateur ghost-busting in Edinburgh with her spirit companion and a new friend. Cass isn't a bad heroine, though she seems a little too prone to messing up and needing rescue. When she discovers an English girl touched by her own gift, she's thrilled at first... until she discovers what that girl does with her gift, and possibly what she's expected to do, too. Cass's parents, co-authors of a popular series on the supernatural that is being turned into a documentary series (her mother thrives on ghost stories, while her professor father loves the history, though neither truly seems to believe in the spirit world despite their daughter claiming to have a ghostly pal), are vaguely supportive but not really involved in the girl's increasingly fractious relationship with the spirits and the Veil. Things ratchet up at a decent pace, with several encounters, until things go disastrously wrong with the red-cloaked ghost and Cass must figure out how to avoid a second, more permanent death before her time and luck run out. The whole has a certain pilot-episode feel to it, establishing Cass and Jacob and the "rules" while leaving several threads dangling for the next installment of their adventures, and indeed it does kick off a series. Not a bad story, all in all, spooky and fast-paced.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Ghost in the Third Row (Bruce Coville) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
The Shadows (Jacqueline West) - My Review
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Rolling in the Deep (Mira Grant)
Rolling in the Deep
Mira Grant
Subterranean Press
Fiction, Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The captain, crew, and scientists aboard the chartered cruise ship Atargatis thought they knew what they were getting into when they signed on for the Imagine Network's latest faux documentary, seeking "evidence" of mermaids in the most remote reaches of the Pacific Ocean. For the scientists, it's a way to get funds and some actual research on the side. For the ship's crew, it's a paycheck. And for the camera crew and host, it's just how they make a living. Imagine even sends along a team of real "mermaids", professionals who swim in custom tails at water parks and other aquatic events, so the cameras can be sure to catch "glimpses" of something in the water. A few blurry shots here, some vague scientific jargon there, add some interpersonal shipboard drama (mostly scripted), and that'll be the next Imagine ratings blockbuster in the can. Everyone sails home happy and well paid, regardless of what they actually "discover".
Nobody expected the probes to find something in the waters over the Mariana Trench. And nobody expected that something to follow the probes to the Atargatis... something with claws and teeth...
REVIEW: This short, chilling horror tale foretells doom from the very opening, when the Atargatis is revealed to be the star of another Imagine Network documentary on modern ghost ships, after having been found adrift and devoid of surviving crew. Even with that premonition of disaster, one can't help getting to know and even like the various characters thrust together on the ship, all of whom have their own reasons for taking part in a "mockumentary" all too reminiscent of many "reality" shows and events on popular cable channels these days. Grant's mermaids are rooted in biological plausibility, terrifyingly effective predators of the deep waters who bear only tangential (at best) connection with the common popular perception of happy, beautiful singing ladies in shell-top bikinis with technicolor fins. The collision of whitewashed fiction with cold-blooded reality - a collision in which reality inevitably wins - is at the heart of the story, and everyone who went into the Imagine contract believing they could somehow gain tangible benefit from an admitted deception pays dearly. It's also a culture clash, even if one of the cultures is so utterly alien that one is never quite sure how "human" or animalistic it is... not unlike many animal attacks, in truth, where mixed messages and inability to comprehend the other mind leads to tragedy. The action and danger ratchet up nicely, building to a horrific finale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Stormsinger (Stephanie A. Cain) - My Review
Tangled Tides (Karen Amanda Hooper) - My Review
Lagoon (Nnedi Okorafor) - My Review
Mira Grant
Subterranean Press
Fiction, Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The captain, crew, and scientists aboard the chartered cruise ship Atargatis thought they knew what they were getting into when they signed on for the Imagine Network's latest faux documentary, seeking "evidence" of mermaids in the most remote reaches of the Pacific Ocean. For the scientists, it's a way to get funds and some actual research on the side. For the ship's crew, it's a paycheck. And for the camera crew and host, it's just how they make a living. Imagine even sends along a team of real "mermaids", professionals who swim in custom tails at water parks and other aquatic events, so the cameras can be sure to catch "glimpses" of something in the water. A few blurry shots here, some vague scientific jargon there, add some interpersonal shipboard drama (mostly scripted), and that'll be the next Imagine ratings blockbuster in the can. Everyone sails home happy and well paid, regardless of what they actually "discover".
Nobody expected the probes to find something in the waters over the Mariana Trench. And nobody expected that something to follow the probes to the Atargatis... something with claws and teeth...
REVIEW: This short, chilling horror tale foretells doom from the very opening, when the Atargatis is revealed to be the star of another Imagine Network documentary on modern ghost ships, after having been found adrift and devoid of surviving crew. Even with that premonition of disaster, one can't help getting to know and even like the various characters thrust together on the ship, all of whom have their own reasons for taking part in a "mockumentary" all too reminiscent of many "reality" shows and events on popular cable channels these days. Grant's mermaids are rooted in biological plausibility, terrifyingly effective predators of the deep waters who bear only tangential (at best) connection with the common popular perception of happy, beautiful singing ladies in shell-top bikinis with technicolor fins. The collision of whitewashed fiction with cold-blooded reality - a collision in which reality inevitably wins - is at the heart of the story, and everyone who went into the Imagine contract believing they could somehow gain tangible benefit from an admitted deception pays dearly. It's also a culture clash, even if one of the cultures is so utterly alien that one is never quite sure how "human" or animalistic it is... not unlike many animal attacks, in truth, where mixed messages and inability to comprehend the other mind leads to tragedy. The action and danger ratchet up nicely, building to a horrific finale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Stormsinger (Stephanie A. Cain) - My Review
Tangled Tides (Karen Amanda Hooper) - My Review
Lagoon (Nnedi Okorafor) - My Review
Saturday, December 4, 2021
The Bear and the Serpent (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
The Bear and the Serpent
The Echoes of the Fall series, Book 2
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Pan Books
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, the girl Maniye was torn between the tribe of her mother - the Tiger people - and the tribe of her father - the Wolf's disciples. She was chased across the crown of the world, forming unlikely alliances with a traveling snake priest and visitors from the distant southern lands, even spending time among the taciturn Bear folk, before finding her destiny as a Champion: one who, in addition to taking the animal forms of her parents' tribes, also holds the soul of a creature from ages past, a hulking carnivore of black fur and sharp teeth. But the northern tribes merely turned her from unwanted outcast to potential pawn in their eternal squabbles, even as the priests and wise folk talk of a coming doom that will destroy those who cannot unite to face it. Maniye decided to head south with the warrior Champion Asmander while she learns her new strength (and gives the crown of the world time to come to grips with the first Champion in their midst in untold generations - a Champion who cannot be used as a simple tool to address petty grievances or advance personal ambitions). With her travels a small war band, outcasts from their clans seeking to make a name for themselves in a distant land, as well as the Hyena woman Shayari, the reborn Serpent priest (now priestess) Hesprec - and, unexpectedly, the Wolf priest Kalameshi Takes Iron. What Maniye finds among the River Lords is a world as different from her own as night from day, the realm of Old Crocodile and chaotic Dragon and tribes and gods she has no names for, all embroiled in politics she does not understand. She soon finds herself plunged into a struggle that may best even her great Champion soul.
Meanwhile, in the far north, Loud Thunder of the Bear tribe struggles to fulfill the burden placed on him by his wise mother: a war leader charged with uniting the feuding tribes and clans of the crown of the world. But when word comes that the foretold threat has arrived - their ancient enemies from across the sea, the soulless Plague People, who destroy all they touch - the north is more divided than ever. He never wanted the mantle of war leader, but now he has no choice, not if he wants to save his land and his gods from these invaders.
REVIEW: Picking up not long after the first book (The Tiger and the Wolf) ended, The Bear and the Serpent departs from the first tale by splitting the action into two theaters, the south and the north. Maniye Many Tracks must grow into her Champion role, leading an unlikely band into foreign territory and foreign politics that nonetheless carry a certain similarity to the politics and squabblings she left the north to escape. The Sun River Nation stands poised on the brink of civil war as the son and daughter of the old Kasra both claim the title of their dead father - and River Lords like Asmander's scheming father show more loyalty to their own fortunes than either potential ruler. Securing the services of the legendary Iron Wolves of the north was supposed to be a political coup for Tecuman, the son (and for Asman, Asmander's father), but Tecumah, the daughter, has made many gains while Asmander was away in the crown of the world... and the southern Champion himself, raised as friend and near-kin to both rulers, despairs as his own heart and loyalties are torn between them. Meanwhile, Hesprec returns to a priesthood he no longer recognizes, one that has inserted itself into the political wheels of the kingdom in ways that seem counter to the teachings of the Serpent... and they have made strange, potentially treasonous alliances. Up in the north, reluctant leader Loud Thunder finds himself in over his head as he tries - and initially fails - to pull the fragmented people together despite an endless list of internal feuds and rivalries, even as the true depth and horror of the threat becomes terribly clear by the arrival of a traumatized survivor of the ravaged Seal people. There's a nice twist to the nature and identity of the invaders, and Tchaikovsky continues to grow the shapeshifter world and its complex political and mythological landscape in interesting ways, and the characters do a fair bit of growing, if not without stumbles. As before, sometimes the dialog and tangle of alliances and rivalries can get a trifle dense and stilted, and some side characters seem a bit underdeveloped, but overall it remains just as intriguing and action-filled as the first volume. This one, however, ends on something closer to a cliffhanger, whereas the first one wrapped itself up reasonably well. I suppose I'll have to see if the third and (presumed) final installment is available on Overdrive now, to see how it all ends.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Pride's Run (Cat Kalen) - My Review
Wolf Brother (Michelle Paver) - My Review
The Tiger and the Wolf (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
The Echoes of the Fall series, Book 2
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Pan Books
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, the girl Maniye was torn between the tribe of her mother - the Tiger people - and the tribe of her father - the Wolf's disciples. She was chased across the crown of the world, forming unlikely alliances with a traveling snake priest and visitors from the distant southern lands, even spending time among the taciturn Bear folk, before finding her destiny as a Champion: one who, in addition to taking the animal forms of her parents' tribes, also holds the soul of a creature from ages past, a hulking carnivore of black fur and sharp teeth. But the northern tribes merely turned her from unwanted outcast to potential pawn in their eternal squabbles, even as the priests and wise folk talk of a coming doom that will destroy those who cannot unite to face it. Maniye decided to head south with the warrior Champion Asmander while she learns her new strength (and gives the crown of the world time to come to grips with the first Champion in their midst in untold generations - a Champion who cannot be used as a simple tool to address petty grievances or advance personal ambitions). With her travels a small war band, outcasts from their clans seeking to make a name for themselves in a distant land, as well as the Hyena woman Shayari, the reborn Serpent priest (now priestess) Hesprec - and, unexpectedly, the Wolf priest Kalameshi Takes Iron. What Maniye finds among the River Lords is a world as different from her own as night from day, the realm of Old Crocodile and chaotic Dragon and tribes and gods she has no names for, all embroiled in politics she does not understand. She soon finds herself plunged into a struggle that may best even her great Champion soul.
Meanwhile, in the far north, Loud Thunder of the Bear tribe struggles to fulfill the burden placed on him by his wise mother: a war leader charged with uniting the feuding tribes and clans of the crown of the world. But when word comes that the foretold threat has arrived - their ancient enemies from across the sea, the soulless Plague People, who destroy all they touch - the north is more divided than ever. He never wanted the mantle of war leader, but now he has no choice, not if he wants to save his land and his gods from these invaders.
REVIEW: Picking up not long after the first book (The Tiger and the Wolf) ended, The Bear and the Serpent departs from the first tale by splitting the action into two theaters, the south and the north. Maniye Many Tracks must grow into her Champion role, leading an unlikely band into foreign territory and foreign politics that nonetheless carry a certain similarity to the politics and squabblings she left the north to escape. The Sun River Nation stands poised on the brink of civil war as the son and daughter of the old Kasra both claim the title of their dead father - and River Lords like Asmander's scheming father show more loyalty to their own fortunes than either potential ruler. Securing the services of the legendary Iron Wolves of the north was supposed to be a political coup for Tecuman, the son (and for Asman, Asmander's father), but Tecumah, the daughter, has made many gains while Asmander was away in the crown of the world... and the southern Champion himself, raised as friend and near-kin to both rulers, despairs as his own heart and loyalties are torn between them. Meanwhile, Hesprec returns to a priesthood he no longer recognizes, one that has inserted itself into the political wheels of the kingdom in ways that seem counter to the teachings of the Serpent... and they have made strange, potentially treasonous alliances. Up in the north, reluctant leader Loud Thunder finds himself in over his head as he tries - and initially fails - to pull the fragmented people together despite an endless list of internal feuds and rivalries, even as the true depth and horror of the threat becomes terribly clear by the arrival of a traumatized survivor of the ravaged Seal people. There's a nice twist to the nature and identity of the invaders, and Tchaikovsky continues to grow the shapeshifter world and its complex political and mythological landscape in interesting ways, and the characters do a fair bit of growing, if not without stumbles. As before, sometimes the dialog and tangle of alliances and rivalries can get a trifle dense and stilted, and some side characters seem a bit underdeveloped, but overall it remains just as intriguing and action-filled as the first volume. This one, however, ends on something closer to a cliffhanger, whereas the first one wrapped itself up reasonably well. I suppose I'll have to see if the third and (presumed) final installment is available on Overdrive now, to see how it all ends.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Pride's Run (Cat Kalen) - My Review
Wolf Brother (Michelle Paver) - My Review
The Tiger and the Wolf (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)