Last day of a short month, and February's eight reviews are now archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books site.
Enjoy!
Thursday, February 29, 2024
Friday, February 23, 2024
How to Survive Your Murder (Danielle Valentine)
How to Survive Your Murder
Danielle Valentine
Razorbill
Fiction, YA Thriller
*+ (Terrible/Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Halloween night, partying teens, a corn maze in Omaha... if anyone recognizes the ingredients to a horror movie, it's Alice Lawrence. The high school junior is obsessed with slasher films, and she and her two best friends are even contemplating starting a podcast about survival lessons one can learn from the "final girl" survivors of Hollywood killers. That's why she doesn't follow her older sister Claire into the maze. But Alice never expected to see her own sister stabbed in front of her eyes among the cornstalks.
One year later, at the trial, a strange woman turns up, implying that maybe Alice didn't see what she thought she saw... that maybe the man on trial is not the real culprit. Alice has been hearing this throughout the hellish year since the worst night of her life, a year in which everything - her dreams of college, her family, even her seemingly-unbreakable friendships - all went to Hell. She knows what she saw, and who she saw. But when Alice hits her head in the courthouse bathroom, she wakes up on that terrible Halloween night - and, this time, she's in the corn maze with her sister. This time, the murder doesn't happen... but another girl dies.
Alice has until midnight to unravel the mystery of what really happened in that corn maze. If she succeeds, she may save the life of her sister, but if she fails, she goes back to the future where Claire is dead and her life isn't worth living. With a murderer stalking the streets of Omaha, she'll have to use every trick she learned from her favorite movies to stay alive - but movies aren't reality, and being the final girl may take more than Alice can muster.
REVIEW: This book wants to be a self-aware thriller in the vein of the Scream franchise (and numerous others), where a teen girl thinks she knows how to survive a horror movie situation only to discover that what looks easy when you're shouting at a character on a screen - Don't put down the knife! Don't go into the basement! Don't split up! Just run, already! - is much more difficult when it's you stumbling over bodies and stalked by a killer or facing the realization that the monster may wear a very familiar face. It really, wants to be that. But either this is an exceptionally meta take on that concept, or Alice really is too ridiculously stupid to be a final girl. I lost track of how many times she stood there, frozen, because fear flooded through her/locked her legs/killed her voice/fill in the descriptor to explain why she doesn't actually do anything useful, or anything at all. She also is a remarkably inept investigator (if what she does counts remotely as an "investigation"), not really thinking through any of the wild conclusions she leaps upon almost at random. I kept thinking of the opening sequence to the parody Scary Movie (the only remotely amusing part of that film, in my opinion), where the girl kept being presented with choices and always took the wrong one: finding a table full of weapons such as a gun and a grenade, she confidently grabs a banana, and when she flees and comes to a fork with signs pointing to Freedom and Certain Death, she hardly pauses before racing to the latter... only this wasn't a parody or an opening sequence, it was the whole of the book, as Alice repeatedly grabs bananas and keeps tripping on her way down the wrong path. The plot helpfully leads her around by her nose, a nose that's often practically pushed into solutions time and again that Alice refuses to see (in addition to freezing up at almost any stressor, she also adopts the winning survival tactic of closing her eyes, because anyone in a survival situation knows that what you don't see can't hurt you). The real culprit's obvious by the halfway point, and most of the distractions and jump-scares feel manipulative and telegraphed even to someone who doesn't watch a ton of slasher movies. There are numerous things that just plain don't make sense by the end, as well as a few last-minute twists that I won't get into for spoiler reasons but which dropped it to the rating it received.
(As a closing note, I still maintain that Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th was a much funnier horror parody than Scary Movie, and that's a hill I'm willing to die on.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) - My Review
13 Minutes (Sarah Pinborough) - My Review
Danielle Valentine
Razorbill
Fiction, YA Thriller
*+ (Terrible/Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Halloween night, partying teens, a corn maze in Omaha... if anyone recognizes the ingredients to a horror movie, it's Alice Lawrence. The high school junior is obsessed with slasher films, and she and her two best friends are even contemplating starting a podcast about survival lessons one can learn from the "final girl" survivors of Hollywood killers. That's why she doesn't follow her older sister Claire into the maze. But Alice never expected to see her own sister stabbed in front of her eyes among the cornstalks.
One year later, at the trial, a strange woman turns up, implying that maybe Alice didn't see what she thought she saw... that maybe the man on trial is not the real culprit. Alice has been hearing this throughout the hellish year since the worst night of her life, a year in which everything - her dreams of college, her family, even her seemingly-unbreakable friendships - all went to Hell. She knows what she saw, and who she saw. But when Alice hits her head in the courthouse bathroom, she wakes up on that terrible Halloween night - and, this time, she's in the corn maze with her sister. This time, the murder doesn't happen... but another girl dies.
Alice has until midnight to unravel the mystery of what really happened in that corn maze. If she succeeds, she may save the life of her sister, but if she fails, she goes back to the future where Claire is dead and her life isn't worth living. With a murderer stalking the streets of Omaha, she'll have to use every trick she learned from her favorite movies to stay alive - but movies aren't reality, and being the final girl may take more than Alice can muster.
REVIEW: This book wants to be a self-aware thriller in the vein of the Scream franchise (and numerous others), where a teen girl thinks she knows how to survive a horror movie situation only to discover that what looks easy when you're shouting at a character on a screen - Don't put down the knife! Don't go into the basement! Don't split up! Just run, already! - is much more difficult when it's you stumbling over bodies and stalked by a killer or facing the realization that the monster may wear a very familiar face. It really, wants to be that. But either this is an exceptionally meta take on that concept, or Alice really is too ridiculously stupid to be a final girl. I lost track of how many times she stood there, frozen, because fear flooded through her/locked her legs/killed her voice/fill in the descriptor to explain why she doesn't actually do anything useful, or anything at all. She also is a remarkably inept investigator (if what she does counts remotely as an "investigation"), not really thinking through any of the wild conclusions she leaps upon almost at random. I kept thinking of the opening sequence to the parody Scary Movie (the only remotely amusing part of that film, in my opinion), where the girl kept being presented with choices and always took the wrong one: finding a table full of weapons such as a gun and a grenade, she confidently grabs a banana, and when she flees and comes to a fork with signs pointing to Freedom and Certain Death, she hardly pauses before racing to the latter... only this wasn't a parody or an opening sequence, it was the whole of the book, as Alice repeatedly grabs bananas and keeps tripping on her way down the wrong path. The plot helpfully leads her around by her nose, a nose that's often practically pushed into solutions time and again that Alice refuses to see (in addition to freezing up at almost any stressor, she also adopts the winning survival tactic of closing her eyes, because anyone in a survival situation knows that what you don't see can't hurt you). The real culprit's obvious by the halfway point, and most of the distractions and jump-scares feel manipulative and telegraphed even to someone who doesn't watch a ton of slasher movies. There are numerous things that just plain don't make sense by the end, as well as a few last-minute twists that I won't get into for spoiler reasons but which dropped it to the rating it received.
(As a closing note, I still maintain that Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th was a much funnier horror parody than Scary Movie, and that's a hill I'm willing to die on.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) - My Review
13 Minutes (Sarah Pinborough) - My Review
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Age of Swords (Michael J. Sullivan)
Age of Swords
The Legends of the First Empire series, Book 2
Michael J. Sullivan
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, the humans of Rhuneland looked to the Fhrey as gods, and godlike indeed they seemed to be: tall, elegant, often living three thousand years, masters of all manner of unknowable arts, and bearing both unstoppable metal blades and unbeatable magicks. That was before the coming of the God Killer, the young man Raithe who, helped by an escaping slave, killed a Fhrey lord. He fled to the walled hilltop village of Dhal Rhen, and it was here that humans, a band of renegade outcast Fhrey, a friendly giant, and a young mystic girl who had somehow learned the trick of elven magic threw back the forces of Fane Lothian of the Forest Throne.
That insult will not be allowed to stand unchallenged.
When the fane's reprisal levels the village and calls for genocide against the whole human race, Raithe, newly risen clan leader Persephone, and the rest of Dhal Rhen's surviving citizens flee southward. There, Persephone means to do something no chieftain has managed before: unite all the human clans, even the wild northern warriors, under one keening. It's their only chance against the coming war. But they'll need more than numbers and a leader to win against Fhrey magic and Fhrey weapons. There's not much they can do about the former - only the wildborn girl Suri has ever managed Fhrey-like magic - but the latter may have a solution, across the waters in the stony halls of the dwarfs. But they are a mistrustful race that already lost a war with the elven Fhrey, and handing over armaments to humans will almost certainly bring the wrath of the fane down upon them again. It will take daring, cleverness, bravery, and more than a little deception to get them to part with their treasures.
Meanwhile, back in the Fhrey capital, Prince Manwyndule, the spoiled son of Lothian, chafes under the thumb of a father who still sees him as a child. He longs to exact revenge upon the whole of the human race for striking down his friend and mentor at the battle of Dhal Rhen, even as he seethes over how his former teacher turned traitor to help the upstarts. When he encounters a secret society of other young men and women of his kind who feel, as he does, that the magic-wielding Miralyith tribe are truly the superior of all the Fhrey, akin to the gods themselves, and should be worshiped as such, he faces choices and temptations that could deliver everything he dreams of - or turn into his worst nightmare.
REVIEW: This year, I'm making a conscious effort to follow through on some series I keep telling myself I'll get back to "someday". Having enjoyed Sullivan's Age of Myth (despite not having previously read any of his Riyria books, which this series is evidently a prequel to), I figured this is one of those "get back to it" series worth following up on. I was also in the mood for a nice epic fantasy. Fortunately, this book both scratched that epic itch and lived up to the first volume, making for an enjoyable read (or listen, this being another audiobook).
It picks up more or less where the previous book left off - just as Fhrey magic (and attacking giants) deliver the fane's answer to the battle in the previous book, with lightning and hail and tornadoes. In the aftermath, with barely one stone left atop another in what was Dhal Rhen, chieftain Persephone - who, by chance, encountered a trio of dwarfs while fleeing for her life - only grows more determined that the only way to save her people is to rally the rest of her species against the Fhrey. Several familiar faces return, with a few new ones picked up along the way, as the clan treks southward to the coastal village of Dhal Tirre... but what they find is not the welcome they had hoped, and uniting the clans seems almost impossible from the start, even without the fractious northern clans involved (yet). It doesn't help that most won't take her seriously as a chieftain because of her gender. They'd rather have the God Killer, Raithe, as their keening... but he still rejects all efforts to drop big responsibilities onto his shoulders. As far as he's concerned, the war is already as good as lost: few among the humans even have so much as copper blades, no match at all for the bronze of the Fhrey, even disregarding the problems presented by Fhrey magic. Persephone, however, refuses to give up, a drive that leads her into the forbidden stronghold of the dwarfs with a group of young women, the Fhrey woman Arion (still endeavoring to teach the young mystic Suri how to use her unexpected abilities), and the trio she met earlier, who were not as honest as perhaps they should have been about what awaits the humans. Meanwhile, back among the Fhrey, the spoiled young princeling seethes at still being treated like the child he so often behaves like, making him the perfect patsy when targeted by schemers with their own ideas on the future of the ancient race.
As before, the story doesn't have too much down time, moving along almost from the first page with plenty of action and intrigue, punctuated by moments of emotion and humor and wonder. As in the first volume, there are familiar tropes at play, but for the most part they're interesting and work here, though some of the side characters can feel a bit flat. Overall, though, it makes for a solid continuation of the series, retaining that nice, old-school epic fantasy feel and sense of wonder without feeling at all stale. I'll be looking forward to the third installment.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Elvenbane (Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton) - My Review
Age of Myth (Michael J. Sullivan) - My Review
The Tiger and the Wolf (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
The Legends of the First Empire series, Book 2
Michael J. Sullivan
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, the humans of Rhuneland looked to the Fhrey as gods, and godlike indeed they seemed to be: tall, elegant, often living three thousand years, masters of all manner of unknowable arts, and bearing both unstoppable metal blades and unbeatable magicks. That was before the coming of the God Killer, the young man Raithe who, helped by an escaping slave, killed a Fhrey lord. He fled to the walled hilltop village of Dhal Rhen, and it was here that humans, a band of renegade outcast Fhrey, a friendly giant, and a young mystic girl who had somehow learned the trick of elven magic threw back the forces of Fane Lothian of the Forest Throne.
That insult will not be allowed to stand unchallenged.
When the fane's reprisal levels the village and calls for genocide against the whole human race, Raithe, newly risen clan leader Persephone, and the rest of Dhal Rhen's surviving citizens flee southward. There, Persephone means to do something no chieftain has managed before: unite all the human clans, even the wild northern warriors, under one keening. It's their only chance against the coming war. But they'll need more than numbers and a leader to win against Fhrey magic and Fhrey weapons. There's not much they can do about the former - only the wildborn girl Suri has ever managed Fhrey-like magic - but the latter may have a solution, across the waters in the stony halls of the dwarfs. But they are a mistrustful race that already lost a war with the elven Fhrey, and handing over armaments to humans will almost certainly bring the wrath of the fane down upon them again. It will take daring, cleverness, bravery, and more than a little deception to get them to part with their treasures.
Meanwhile, back in the Fhrey capital, Prince Manwyndule, the spoiled son of Lothian, chafes under the thumb of a father who still sees him as a child. He longs to exact revenge upon the whole of the human race for striking down his friend and mentor at the battle of Dhal Rhen, even as he seethes over how his former teacher turned traitor to help the upstarts. When he encounters a secret society of other young men and women of his kind who feel, as he does, that the magic-wielding Miralyith tribe are truly the superior of all the Fhrey, akin to the gods themselves, and should be worshiped as such, he faces choices and temptations that could deliver everything he dreams of - or turn into his worst nightmare.
REVIEW: This year, I'm making a conscious effort to follow through on some series I keep telling myself I'll get back to "someday". Having enjoyed Sullivan's Age of Myth (despite not having previously read any of his Riyria books, which this series is evidently a prequel to), I figured this is one of those "get back to it" series worth following up on. I was also in the mood for a nice epic fantasy. Fortunately, this book both scratched that epic itch and lived up to the first volume, making for an enjoyable read (or listen, this being another audiobook).
It picks up more or less where the previous book left off - just as Fhrey magic (and attacking giants) deliver the fane's answer to the battle in the previous book, with lightning and hail and tornadoes. In the aftermath, with barely one stone left atop another in what was Dhal Rhen, chieftain Persephone - who, by chance, encountered a trio of dwarfs while fleeing for her life - only grows more determined that the only way to save her people is to rally the rest of her species against the Fhrey. Several familiar faces return, with a few new ones picked up along the way, as the clan treks southward to the coastal village of Dhal Tirre... but what they find is not the welcome they had hoped, and uniting the clans seems almost impossible from the start, even without the fractious northern clans involved (yet). It doesn't help that most won't take her seriously as a chieftain because of her gender. They'd rather have the God Killer, Raithe, as their keening... but he still rejects all efforts to drop big responsibilities onto his shoulders. As far as he's concerned, the war is already as good as lost: few among the humans even have so much as copper blades, no match at all for the bronze of the Fhrey, even disregarding the problems presented by Fhrey magic. Persephone, however, refuses to give up, a drive that leads her into the forbidden stronghold of the dwarfs with a group of young women, the Fhrey woman Arion (still endeavoring to teach the young mystic Suri how to use her unexpected abilities), and the trio she met earlier, who were not as honest as perhaps they should have been about what awaits the humans. Meanwhile, back among the Fhrey, the spoiled young princeling seethes at still being treated like the child he so often behaves like, making him the perfect patsy when targeted by schemers with their own ideas on the future of the ancient race.
As before, the story doesn't have too much down time, moving along almost from the first page with plenty of action and intrigue, punctuated by moments of emotion and humor and wonder. As in the first volume, there are familiar tropes at play, but for the most part they're interesting and work here, though some of the side characters can feel a bit flat. Overall, though, it makes for a solid continuation of the series, retaining that nice, old-school epic fantasy feel and sense of wonder without feeling at all stale. I'll be looking forward to the third installment.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Elvenbane (Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton) - My Review
Age of Myth (Michael J. Sullivan) - My Review
The Tiger and the Wolf (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
Friday, February 16, 2024
Skulduggery Pleasant (Derek Landy)
Skulduggery Pleasant
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 1
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy/Humor/Mystery
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: When popular horror writer Gordon Edgely died, the relative who misses him the most is his twelve-year-old niece Stephanie... but even she never expected to inherit the vast majority of his estate. Soon, it becomes apparent that she inherited more than his house and future royalties: she also inherited enemies she knew nothing about - and an ally she never expected, when she's saved by the living, walking skeleton named Skulduggery Pleasant. A detective by trade, Pleasant was a close friend of her eccentric uncle, whose books were inspired by the hidden world of adepts and sorcerers and other magical beasts and beings amongst humanity. One of those sorcerers apparently got it into his head that Gordon knew something about a long-lost artifact, a scepter with ties to elder gods long cast out of this world, and that sorcerer is convinced that he left the key to finding that scepter with his heir. Though Stephanie knows of no such key, her denial won't stop the man's monstrous servants from torturing her and killing her very, very dead - unless she and Skulduggery Pleasant can unravel the mystery themselves and beat the villain Serpine to the scepter.
REVIEW: I've heard of this series now and again, and I see it go through the library shipping center on a reasonably regular basis, but for some reason it never made it onto the reading list until now. Whatever I was expecting, what I found was a highly enjoyable, often witty magical adventure with a strong heroine and one of the most fun characters - the titular Skulduggery Pleasant - I've read since Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus the djinn.
The tale starts not unlike several other middle grade fantasy/adventure stories, with a relative's death and an unexpected inheritance, followed by the revelation of a magical "world". Unlike many of those stories, Stephanie actually has a supportive family, if one unaware of the existence of magic; to them, Uncle Gordon was just considered eccentric, possibly a touch delusional, and kept strange, potentially dangerous company. But family isn't going to help the girl survive henchmen who can be lit on fire and barely get singed... and Stephanie, who has always been encouraged to find her own path in life (for all that Mom and Dad couldn't possibly have anticipated this particular path), realizes early on that she doesn't want them to help her in this anyway. This is her path, her adventure, her destiny, and if she can't manage it without them then she doesn't deserve it at all. The magical world's dangers are apparent even before she realizes it's magic going on, but something about it calls to her despite the risks. For his part, Skulduggery Pleasant sees enough potential in her that his attempts to sideline her in the dangerous investigation are minimal; if she isn't put off by being chased through the night by a monstrous killer, there's not much that'll turn her aside, though he is never anything but honest with her about what's ahead and the risks of mingling with magicians. The hidden world of mages has less in common with Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic and more with adult urban fantasies, or Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch: magicians are an insular community, eccentric but also potentially dangerous, and nothing is bubble-wrapped or blunted for the sake of newbies of any age. Stephanie gets a trial by fire (literally, at times) as she steps into this world, where it's often hard to tell friend from foe (and the same person can be both in different circumstances) and where the stakes are life and death, not just for her but for the world at large if Serpine gets his hands on the scepter. There are shades of/nods to Lovecraft around the edges, with ancient races and "Faceless Ones" who once ruled in chaos and darkness. Through it all, Skulduggery Pleasant is a steadfast, clever-tongued presence, though one with his own agenda. Despite her age and inexperience, Stephanie makes a solid partner for him, and generally doesn't do stupid things for the sake of being stupid (or for the sake of plot).
The story moves quickly from the start, with a significant bruise and body count by the time it reaches the climax. Part of me almost wonders if Skulduggery Pleasant was originally intended to be the Harry Dresden-like star of his own grown-up fantasy series; I'm almost certain he could've carried one. Still, he works very good here, and Stephanie steps up to her role and future rather than stooping down to it, if that makes any sense; again, there were times I almost wondered if her age was rolled back a bit, maybe for marketing purposes. In any event, I greatly enjoyed this story and am looking forward to continuing the series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer) - My Review
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher) - My Review
The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 1
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy/Humor/Mystery
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: When popular horror writer Gordon Edgely died, the relative who misses him the most is his twelve-year-old niece Stephanie... but even she never expected to inherit the vast majority of his estate. Soon, it becomes apparent that she inherited more than his house and future royalties: she also inherited enemies she knew nothing about - and an ally she never expected, when she's saved by the living, walking skeleton named Skulduggery Pleasant. A detective by trade, Pleasant was a close friend of her eccentric uncle, whose books were inspired by the hidden world of adepts and sorcerers and other magical beasts and beings amongst humanity. One of those sorcerers apparently got it into his head that Gordon knew something about a long-lost artifact, a scepter with ties to elder gods long cast out of this world, and that sorcerer is convinced that he left the key to finding that scepter with his heir. Though Stephanie knows of no such key, her denial won't stop the man's monstrous servants from torturing her and killing her very, very dead - unless she and Skulduggery Pleasant can unravel the mystery themselves and beat the villain Serpine to the scepter.
REVIEW: I've heard of this series now and again, and I see it go through the library shipping center on a reasonably regular basis, but for some reason it never made it onto the reading list until now. Whatever I was expecting, what I found was a highly enjoyable, often witty magical adventure with a strong heroine and one of the most fun characters - the titular Skulduggery Pleasant - I've read since Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus the djinn.
The tale starts not unlike several other middle grade fantasy/adventure stories, with a relative's death and an unexpected inheritance, followed by the revelation of a magical "world". Unlike many of those stories, Stephanie actually has a supportive family, if one unaware of the existence of magic; to them, Uncle Gordon was just considered eccentric, possibly a touch delusional, and kept strange, potentially dangerous company. But family isn't going to help the girl survive henchmen who can be lit on fire and barely get singed... and Stephanie, who has always been encouraged to find her own path in life (for all that Mom and Dad couldn't possibly have anticipated this particular path), realizes early on that she doesn't want them to help her in this anyway. This is her path, her adventure, her destiny, and if she can't manage it without them then she doesn't deserve it at all. The magical world's dangers are apparent even before she realizes it's magic going on, but something about it calls to her despite the risks. For his part, Skulduggery Pleasant sees enough potential in her that his attempts to sideline her in the dangerous investigation are minimal; if she isn't put off by being chased through the night by a monstrous killer, there's not much that'll turn her aside, though he is never anything but honest with her about what's ahead and the risks of mingling with magicians. The hidden world of mages has less in common with Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic and more with adult urban fantasies, or Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch: magicians are an insular community, eccentric but also potentially dangerous, and nothing is bubble-wrapped or blunted for the sake of newbies of any age. Stephanie gets a trial by fire (literally, at times) as she steps into this world, where it's often hard to tell friend from foe (and the same person can be both in different circumstances) and where the stakes are life and death, not just for her but for the world at large if Serpine gets his hands on the scepter. There are shades of/nods to Lovecraft around the edges, with ancient races and "Faceless Ones" who once ruled in chaos and darkness. Through it all, Skulduggery Pleasant is a steadfast, clever-tongued presence, though one with his own agenda. Despite her age and inexperience, Stephanie makes a solid partner for him, and generally doesn't do stupid things for the sake of being stupid (or for the sake of plot).
The story moves quickly from the start, with a significant bruise and body count by the time it reaches the climax. Part of me almost wonders if Skulduggery Pleasant was originally intended to be the Harry Dresden-like star of his own grown-up fantasy series; I'm almost certain he could've carried one. Still, he works very good here, and Stephanie steps up to her role and future rather than stooping down to it, if that makes any sense; again, there were times I almost wondered if her age was rolled back a bit, maybe for marketing purposes. In any event, I greatly enjoyed this story and am looking forward to continuing the series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer) - My Review
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher) - My Review
The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Cujo (Stephen King)
Cujo
Stephen King
Viking
Fiction, Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The Trenton family - Vic, Donna, and young Tad - moved to Castle Rock, Maine from the big city to raise their boy in a better place, but it may be the undoing of their family. Vic's small advertising firm may be losing its biggest client, Donna's frustrations over small town life and being a stay-at-home mother lead to a brief affair with an unstable man, and Tad is convinced that there's a monster in the closet of his new room. When Vic has to head out of town on short notice to try saving his business, he leaves Donna with the boy and the family Pinto, which has been acting up lately. The local repair "shop" is crusty Joe Camber's converted barn at the end of a long, dead-end country lane... a shop space he shares with a gentle giant Saint Bernard named Cujo. The dog has been a solid animal, good and loyal, as well as a best friend to Joe's son Brett - until a fateful encounter with a rabid bat. Now Cujo, in growing pain and confusion and sourceless rage, is a monster on four legs... and Donna and Tad are about to become the targets of an unstoppable madness.
REVIEW: This 1981 horror novel still delivers suspense and chills, though some of the story arcs range a bit far afield and don't always quite pay off for their ranging. From the start, there's a supernatural sheen to the otherwise earthbound terror that's about to be visited upon the Trentons and other residents of Castle Rock, demons that cannot be escaped from once they've chosen their victims. After the opening, the setting and characters are established and set in position for the terrors to come, most of them having complicated inner lives and relationships. As in other King novels, there are other themes that tie them together, in this instance matters of time and age and how every year, every month, every moment narrows choices and all too often moves one further away from the life one wants, further away from the people they used to be and still think of themselves as being even though that version of them slipped away while they were busy with the day-to-day business of living. Yet even when the past is gone, it still shapes and colors the future, a seemingly inescapable pattern. Different characters deal with their frustrations and disappointments over lost times and repeating patterns in their lives in different ways that drive the plot; some look backward and keep trying to recapture a lost era, others try to numb or drown the pain of lost years, still others feed resentments or other distractions. Even Cujo struggles to stay a good and loyal dog even as an alien madness - one, again, with some tinges of the unnatural behind it - drives the animal to murderous rampages.
From a somewhat meandering opening, the story builds toward its violent, tragic climax. At numerous spots along the way are places where things could go differently, where someone else other than Donna and Tad could move into the line of catastrophe (or said catastrophe might have been averted altogether), yet those moments are passed by as tragedy becomes more and more inevitable. As a monster, Cujo becomes downright terrifying, all the moreso because the reader first met him was, indeed, a very good dog. Rabies is a horrific enough disease on its own, but the strain in Castle Rock - of course - is more than a mere virus. Cujo does not just mindlessly hunt and maul; this is a stalking, cunning creature, the tool of an older and darker and more patient evil than any mere canine (or human) mind can understand. (There's also quite a bit of damage done to the troublesome Pinto whose engine malfunction kicks off so many bad things; having driven cars with "issues" myself, I rather suspect there was some personal catharsis involved as King mercilessly and relentlessly ravaged that car.) Toward the end the tale wanders a bit again, though the conclusion is reasonably strong.
On its own, Cujo remains a decent horror story. Compared to some other masterworks by the author, such as It or Pet Sematary, it falls short, but average Stephen King is still fairly good.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Who Goes There? (John W, Campbell Jr) - My Review
The Girl in Red (Christina Henry) - My Review
Pet Sematary (Stephen King) - My Review
Stephen King
Viking
Fiction, Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The Trenton family - Vic, Donna, and young Tad - moved to Castle Rock, Maine from the big city to raise their boy in a better place, but it may be the undoing of their family. Vic's small advertising firm may be losing its biggest client, Donna's frustrations over small town life and being a stay-at-home mother lead to a brief affair with an unstable man, and Tad is convinced that there's a monster in the closet of his new room. When Vic has to head out of town on short notice to try saving his business, he leaves Donna with the boy and the family Pinto, which has been acting up lately. The local repair "shop" is crusty Joe Camber's converted barn at the end of a long, dead-end country lane... a shop space he shares with a gentle giant Saint Bernard named Cujo. The dog has been a solid animal, good and loyal, as well as a best friend to Joe's son Brett - until a fateful encounter with a rabid bat. Now Cujo, in growing pain and confusion and sourceless rage, is a monster on four legs... and Donna and Tad are about to become the targets of an unstoppable madness.
REVIEW: This 1981 horror novel still delivers suspense and chills, though some of the story arcs range a bit far afield and don't always quite pay off for their ranging. From the start, there's a supernatural sheen to the otherwise earthbound terror that's about to be visited upon the Trentons and other residents of Castle Rock, demons that cannot be escaped from once they've chosen their victims. After the opening, the setting and characters are established and set in position for the terrors to come, most of them having complicated inner lives and relationships. As in other King novels, there are other themes that tie them together, in this instance matters of time and age and how every year, every month, every moment narrows choices and all too often moves one further away from the life one wants, further away from the people they used to be and still think of themselves as being even though that version of them slipped away while they were busy with the day-to-day business of living. Yet even when the past is gone, it still shapes and colors the future, a seemingly inescapable pattern. Different characters deal with their frustrations and disappointments over lost times and repeating patterns in their lives in different ways that drive the plot; some look backward and keep trying to recapture a lost era, others try to numb or drown the pain of lost years, still others feed resentments or other distractions. Even Cujo struggles to stay a good and loyal dog even as an alien madness - one, again, with some tinges of the unnatural behind it - drives the animal to murderous rampages.
From a somewhat meandering opening, the story builds toward its violent, tragic climax. At numerous spots along the way are places where things could go differently, where someone else other than Donna and Tad could move into the line of catastrophe (or said catastrophe might have been averted altogether), yet those moments are passed by as tragedy becomes more and more inevitable. As a monster, Cujo becomes downright terrifying, all the moreso because the reader first met him was, indeed, a very good dog. Rabies is a horrific enough disease on its own, but the strain in Castle Rock - of course - is more than a mere virus. Cujo does not just mindlessly hunt and maul; this is a stalking, cunning creature, the tool of an older and darker and more patient evil than any mere canine (or human) mind can understand. (There's also quite a bit of damage done to the troublesome Pinto whose engine malfunction kicks off so many bad things; having driven cars with "issues" myself, I rather suspect there was some personal catharsis involved as King mercilessly and relentlessly ravaged that car.) Toward the end the tale wanders a bit again, though the conclusion is reasonably strong.
On its own, Cujo remains a decent horror story. Compared to some other masterworks by the author, such as It or Pet Sematary, it falls short, but average Stephen King is still fairly good.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Who Goes There? (John W, Campbell Jr) - My Review
The Girl in Red (Christina Henry) - My Review
Pet Sematary (Stephen King) - My Review
Monday, February 12, 2024
The Expanse: Dragon Tooth, Volume 1 (Andy Diggle)
The Expanse: Dragon Tooth, Volume 1
The Expanse: Dragon Tooth series, Issues 1 - 4
Andy Diggle and James S. A. Corey (creators), illustrations by Rubine
BOOM! Studios
Fiction, Graphic Novel/Media Tie-In/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: One year ago, the solar system was rocked by cataclysmic events. Already destabilized by the opening of the alien ring gates and the colony worlds beyond, the rise of Belter rebel Marco Inaros led to the bombardment of Earth, while the betrayal and desertion of Martian General Duarte left one of the major system powers half-gutted. Now, with Marco dead and Duarte vanished behind the now-closed Laconia gate, Earth, Mars, and the newly-created Transport Union of Belters try to pick up the pieces and move forward in a changed reality... but with Earth in shambles, food growing scarce, and pirates preying on colonists and freighters alike, the system is still half a click away from disaster.
Captain James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have been hunting pirates, but one - Sohiro - proves both exceptionally brutal and exceptionally elusive, leaving nothing but carved-up wreckage in his wake. Camina Drummer, president of the Transport Union, struggles to coordinate traffic through the ring gates from Medina Station while keeping supplies of food and live soil moving... nearly impossible with the pirate problem, and with Earth - the only source of microbial-active soil needed to grow human-edible food - in such a state of disarray. Chrisjen Avasalara tries to keep the peace on a broken world, but suspects the rot revealed by Marco and by Duarte's defection is by no means cleansed; not only is the rage that led to Marco's rebellion still rampant through the Belt, but Duarte's ability to coordinate such a staggering betrayal suggests a vast network of spies and traitors, not all of whom may have passed beyond the Laconia gate with him. She is about to be proven right - and it may spell the end of the fragile peace.
REVIEW: In the interest of full disclosure, I contributed to the Kickstarter campaign that helped fund this graphic novel series, billed as "Season Seven" of the televised version of The Expanse.
Though following the show's version of events (and featuring likenesses of the actors), Dragon Tooth also fills in some of the time that was jumped over between Books 6 and 7 of the source material. It had a fairly high standard of storytelling and continuity to live up to. Happily, it cleared that bar handily.
Starting one year after the sixth season finale - the end of Marco's rebellion, the disappearance of Duarte beyond the Laconia gate, and Drummer becoming head of the fledgling Transport Union to keep supplies and people flowing between the new colony worlds - it drops the reader into a familiar situation: the Rocinante on a desperate rescue mission, hunting enemies in the Belt. From the first frame, it feels just like the show, from the fantastic artwork to the pitch-perfect dialog to the character interactions. Even though it's been a little while since my last rewatch of the show, I was back up to speed in no time, in part because it just felt so familiar. Even the new characters slot neatly into the established world. With action, intrigue, emotion, and the odd touch of humor, this first volume establishes a strong story arc for the next installment. I'm looking forward to Volume 2 already...
You Might Also Enjoy:
Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
The Expanse: Origins, Volume 1 (James S. A. Corey, Hallie Lambert, and Georgia Lee) - My Review
Ocean/Orbiter Deluxe Edition (Warren Ellis) - My Review
The Expanse: Dragon Tooth series, Issues 1 - 4
Andy Diggle and James S. A. Corey (creators), illustrations by Rubine
BOOM! Studios
Fiction, Graphic Novel/Media Tie-In/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: One year ago, the solar system was rocked by cataclysmic events. Already destabilized by the opening of the alien ring gates and the colony worlds beyond, the rise of Belter rebel Marco Inaros led to the bombardment of Earth, while the betrayal and desertion of Martian General Duarte left one of the major system powers half-gutted. Now, with Marco dead and Duarte vanished behind the now-closed Laconia gate, Earth, Mars, and the newly-created Transport Union of Belters try to pick up the pieces and move forward in a changed reality... but with Earth in shambles, food growing scarce, and pirates preying on colonists and freighters alike, the system is still half a click away from disaster.
Captain James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have been hunting pirates, but one - Sohiro - proves both exceptionally brutal and exceptionally elusive, leaving nothing but carved-up wreckage in his wake. Camina Drummer, president of the Transport Union, struggles to coordinate traffic through the ring gates from Medina Station while keeping supplies of food and live soil moving... nearly impossible with the pirate problem, and with Earth - the only source of microbial-active soil needed to grow human-edible food - in such a state of disarray. Chrisjen Avasalara tries to keep the peace on a broken world, but suspects the rot revealed by Marco and by Duarte's defection is by no means cleansed; not only is the rage that led to Marco's rebellion still rampant through the Belt, but Duarte's ability to coordinate such a staggering betrayal suggests a vast network of spies and traitors, not all of whom may have passed beyond the Laconia gate with him. She is about to be proven right - and it may spell the end of the fragile peace.
REVIEW: In the interest of full disclosure, I contributed to the Kickstarter campaign that helped fund this graphic novel series, billed as "Season Seven" of the televised version of The Expanse.
Though following the show's version of events (and featuring likenesses of the actors), Dragon Tooth also fills in some of the time that was jumped over between Books 6 and 7 of the source material. It had a fairly high standard of storytelling and continuity to live up to. Happily, it cleared that bar handily.
Starting one year after the sixth season finale - the end of Marco's rebellion, the disappearance of Duarte beyond the Laconia gate, and Drummer becoming head of the fledgling Transport Union to keep supplies and people flowing between the new colony worlds - it drops the reader into a familiar situation: the Rocinante on a desperate rescue mission, hunting enemies in the Belt. From the first frame, it feels just like the show, from the fantastic artwork to the pitch-perfect dialog to the character interactions. Even though it's been a little while since my last rewatch of the show, I was back up to speed in no time, in part because it just felt so familiar. Even the new characters slot neatly into the established world. With action, intrigue, emotion, and the odd touch of humor, this first volume establishes a strong story arc for the next installment. I'm looking forward to Volume 2 already...
You Might Also Enjoy:
Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
The Expanse: Origins, Volume 1 (James S. A. Corey, Hallie Lambert, and Georgia Lee) - My Review
Ocean/Orbiter Deluxe Edition (Warren Ellis) - My Review
Friday, February 9, 2024
The Fall of Babel (Josiah Bancroft)
The Fall of Babel
The Books of Babel series, Book 4
Josiah Bancroft
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: The great Tower of Babel has stood for centuries, and though the people come and go and ringdoms rise and fall within its walls, it has been as enduring as a mountain... but even mountains may fall. Now, as the monstrous machine known as the Hod King - constructed by renegade Luc Marat and crewed by zealot followers culled from the enslaved hods - begins its destructive ascent, and as the enigmatic Sphinx goes silent in their high lair, the unthinkable might be possible. As the ringdoms fall into squabbling and war, the Sphinx's agent, Captain Edith of the advanced airship State of the Art, has her hands more than full, even if there weren't a war engine gnawing its way to the heart of the Tower like a great metal termite. She managed to rescue Thomas Senlin's wife Marya and their infant daughter from the evil Duke of Pelphia, but Senlin himself is now lost, last seen on the deadly Black Roads as a hod. Young daredevil Voleta has finally woken from near-death, but has returned changed in ways none of the crew understand or trust. And Voleta's brother Adam is still somewhere at the top of the tower, last seen in the company of the lightning-bearing guards of the highest and most aloof of the ringdoms. Edith races to collect the paintings that will reveal the key to the locked "bridge", and with it the purpose of Babel's construction (and, hopefully, the means for its salvation), but Marat's agents always seem to be one step ahead of her. And if he succeeds in taking over the tower, all hope will be lost.
Senlin thought he could infiltrate Marat's hod rebellion and sabotage the madman from within, but now he's trapped by his own deceit inside the Hod King, helpless to stop the horrors to come. His ruse worked too well, as he finds himself drawn into Marat's secret inner council of former Wakemen: those who were saved by the Sphinx's unusual devices in exchange for becoming agents, but who turned on their distant master in favor of Marat. As the shape of Marat's ambitions become more and more clear, Senlin's resolve to stop him - even at the cost of his own life - only grows more certain.
Meanwhile, at the top of the tower, young Adam is mystified to be heralded as a celebrity among people whom he's never met. The city of Nebos is every inch the paradise he'd imagined: beautiful gardens, golden houses, all dominated by a great pyramid of awesome size, peopled by artists and scholars and more, living a life of unimaginable luxury. It is also, as he soon learns, hiding dark secrets beneath its immaculate streets, and a betrayal that dates back to the final days of the enigmatic Brick Layer who designed the great tower itself. As much as Nebos considers itself above the troubles plaguing the rest of the tower (literally and figuratively), it, too, is threatened by the crumbling beneath... and it may hold the key to saving the Tower of Babel, or destroying it utterly.
REVIEW: As the rating reflects, I had mixed feelings on this final volume in the epic Books of Babel series. It almost feels like it wanted to be two books, and again like it should've been only half as long. That sounds contradictory, but it's what I'm left with as I consider how some plot points and character arcs come to conclusions (if sometimes prolonged conclusions) and others feel like they've just been introduced or are only half-finished by the time the tale finally, eventually, almost exhaustedly comes to a halt.
Things start more or less where the previous volume ended, at least storywise. The Sphinx has gone silent and their lair sealed off, the crew of the State of the Art deal with onboard tensions (such as Captain Edith's mixed feelings over having Marya aboard, after her brief affair with Senlin) and external threats, and Luc Marat's great siege engine the Hod King begins its slow-motion assault on the tower, on its way to lay siege to the Sphinx and thence to claim power of the whole of Babel, while Adam at the top of the tower finally learns just why everyone in Nebos knows so many details of his life. As the story moves between the now-scattered characters, it sometimes feels unevenly paced, shifting from meandering and sight-seeing to high tension and action almost at random. The Tower of Babel itself remains massive and enigmatic and full of wonders and horrors beyond imagination, while also serving as a condensation of humans being human in all the best and worst (especially the worst) ways possible. More is revealed about the Brick Layer and the Sphinx, as the true purpose of the tower - so long a matter of debate - eventually is revealed... and here is one of the stumbles that wound up costing it in the ratings, as I felt myself fighting to not roll my eyes at some revelations and other incidents that sometimes felt less like clever solutions and more like out-of-the-blue twists made up on the fly to shock and awe the reader.
On the character side, nobody is who they were when the reader first met them, and their development continues through the tale as they're all put to the test in various ways. Senlin and Marya have been through so much in their separate, harrowing journeys that reconciliation may not even be possible at this point, not even with an infant daughter binding them; long gone are the happy, naive small town man and wife who stepped off the train in the first book, replaced by weathered, more worldly people who both have seen their own weaknesses and dark sides. Edith, having had leadership thrust upon her unexpectedly by the Sphinx, must learn to fill the shoes last filled by the absent Senlin. Former bodyguard Iren still struggles to deal with her own changing life and her first real brush with romance, while Voleta's changes make her do some growing up (but not a ton of it, as she's still a bit prone to recklessness, if in different ways than before). The former Red Hand, the only one who can relate to her new experiences, becomes a sort of ally and mentor as she deals with the mind- and time-bending effects of a bloodstream full of red "medium", the miraculous glowing fluid that powers the Sphinx's contraptions. This also allows Voleta to become a bit of a plot device, as part of the medium's properties involve a sort of astral time travel... but I can't elaborate without spoilers.
The whole has a lot of moving parts and a lot of balls in the air to juggle, and it doesn't always feel like those balls get caught; one or two seem to have disappeared by the end of the story, while others went through a lot of frantic actions yet didn't necessarily go anywhere far at all. The ending almost feels like it wants to segue into another book or series, though I'm not sure if there's enough steam in the world or plot. (There are also at least a few worldbuilding points that felt handwaved or inadequately addressed.) Even with that, though, there are plenty of solid moments and memorable writing throughout. I liked it more than I didn't, but I still can't quite shake the sense of something out of kilter, something either not quite finished or carried a step or two too far past the natural end point.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Senlin Ascends (Josiah Bancroft) - My Review
The Invisible Library (Genevieve Cogman) - My Review
The Keys to the Kingdom: Mister Monday (Garth Nix) - My Review
The Books of Babel series, Book 4
Josiah Bancroft
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: The great Tower of Babel has stood for centuries, and though the people come and go and ringdoms rise and fall within its walls, it has been as enduring as a mountain... but even mountains may fall. Now, as the monstrous machine known as the Hod King - constructed by renegade Luc Marat and crewed by zealot followers culled from the enslaved hods - begins its destructive ascent, and as the enigmatic Sphinx goes silent in their high lair, the unthinkable might be possible. As the ringdoms fall into squabbling and war, the Sphinx's agent, Captain Edith of the advanced airship State of the Art, has her hands more than full, even if there weren't a war engine gnawing its way to the heart of the Tower like a great metal termite. She managed to rescue Thomas Senlin's wife Marya and their infant daughter from the evil Duke of Pelphia, but Senlin himself is now lost, last seen on the deadly Black Roads as a hod. Young daredevil Voleta has finally woken from near-death, but has returned changed in ways none of the crew understand or trust. And Voleta's brother Adam is still somewhere at the top of the tower, last seen in the company of the lightning-bearing guards of the highest and most aloof of the ringdoms. Edith races to collect the paintings that will reveal the key to the locked "bridge", and with it the purpose of Babel's construction (and, hopefully, the means for its salvation), but Marat's agents always seem to be one step ahead of her. And if he succeeds in taking over the tower, all hope will be lost.
Senlin thought he could infiltrate Marat's hod rebellion and sabotage the madman from within, but now he's trapped by his own deceit inside the Hod King, helpless to stop the horrors to come. His ruse worked too well, as he finds himself drawn into Marat's secret inner council of former Wakemen: those who were saved by the Sphinx's unusual devices in exchange for becoming agents, but who turned on their distant master in favor of Marat. As the shape of Marat's ambitions become more and more clear, Senlin's resolve to stop him - even at the cost of his own life - only grows more certain.
Meanwhile, at the top of the tower, young Adam is mystified to be heralded as a celebrity among people whom he's never met. The city of Nebos is every inch the paradise he'd imagined: beautiful gardens, golden houses, all dominated by a great pyramid of awesome size, peopled by artists and scholars and more, living a life of unimaginable luxury. It is also, as he soon learns, hiding dark secrets beneath its immaculate streets, and a betrayal that dates back to the final days of the enigmatic Brick Layer who designed the great tower itself. As much as Nebos considers itself above the troubles plaguing the rest of the tower (literally and figuratively), it, too, is threatened by the crumbling beneath... and it may hold the key to saving the Tower of Babel, or destroying it utterly.
REVIEW: As the rating reflects, I had mixed feelings on this final volume in the epic Books of Babel series. It almost feels like it wanted to be two books, and again like it should've been only half as long. That sounds contradictory, but it's what I'm left with as I consider how some plot points and character arcs come to conclusions (if sometimes prolonged conclusions) and others feel like they've just been introduced or are only half-finished by the time the tale finally, eventually, almost exhaustedly comes to a halt.
Things start more or less where the previous volume ended, at least storywise. The Sphinx has gone silent and their lair sealed off, the crew of the State of the Art deal with onboard tensions (such as Captain Edith's mixed feelings over having Marya aboard, after her brief affair with Senlin) and external threats, and Luc Marat's great siege engine the Hod King begins its slow-motion assault on the tower, on its way to lay siege to the Sphinx and thence to claim power of the whole of Babel, while Adam at the top of the tower finally learns just why everyone in Nebos knows so many details of his life. As the story moves between the now-scattered characters, it sometimes feels unevenly paced, shifting from meandering and sight-seeing to high tension and action almost at random. The Tower of Babel itself remains massive and enigmatic and full of wonders and horrors beyond imagination, while also serving as a condensation of humans being human in all the best and worst (especially the worst) ways possible. More is revealed about the Brick Layer and the Sphinx, as the true purpose of the tower - so long a matter of debate - eventually is revealed... and here is one of the stumbles that wound up costing it in the ratings, as I felt myself fighting to not roll my eyes at some revelations and other incidents that sometimes felt less like clever solutions and more like out-of-the-blue twists made up on the fly to shock and awe the reader.
On the character side, nobody is who they were when the reader first met them, and their development continues through the tale as they're all put to the test in various ways. Senlin and Marya have been through so much in their separate, harrowing journeys that reconciliation may not even be possible at this point, not even with an infant daughter binding them; long gone are the happy, naive small town man and wife who stepped off the train in the first book, replaced by weathered, more worldly people who both have seen their own weaknesses and dark sides. Edith, having had leadership thrust upon her unexpectedly by the Sphinx, must learn to fill the shoes last filled by the absent Senlin. Former bodyguard Iren still struggles to deal with her own changing life and her first real brush with romance, while Voleta's changes make her do some growing up (but not a ton of it, as she's still a bit prone to recklessness, if in different ways than before). The former Red Hand, the only one who can relate to her new experiences, becomes a sort of ally and mentor as she deals with the mind- and time-bending effects of a bloodstream full of red "medium", the miraculous glowing fluid that powers the Sphinx's contraptions. This also allows Voleta to become a bit of a plot device, as part of the medium's properties involve a sort of astral time travel... but I can't elaborate without spoilers.
The whole has a lot of moving parts and a lot of balls in the air to juggle, and it doesn't always feel like those balls get caught; one or two seem to have disappeared by the end of the story, while others went through a lot of frantic actions yet didn't necessarily go anywhere far at all. The ending almost feels like it wants to segue into another book or series, though I'm not sure if there's enough steam in the world or plot. (There are also at least a few worldbuilding points that felt handwaved or inadequately addressed.) Even with that, though, there are plenty of solid moments and memorable writing throughout. I liked it more than I didn't, but I still can't quite shake the sense of something out of kilter, something either not quite finished or carried a step or two too far past the natural end point.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Senlin Ascends (Josiah Bancroft) - My Review
The Invisible Library (Genevieve Cogman) - My Review
The Keys to the Kingdom: Mister Monday (Garth Nix) - My Review
Friday, February 2, 2024
Winds of Marque (Bennett R. Coles)
Winds of Marque
The Blackwood and Virtue series, Book 1
Bennett R. Coles
Harper Voyager
Fiction, Adventure/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Second son of a minor lord, Liam Blackwood sought his fortune as many of his rank do, in the star-sailing navy of the interstellar human empire. He's a solid officer, rising to the rank of Subcommander, but all too often he finds himself second in command beneath higher-born men who consider fleet ships their personal toys - as happened when his captain, Lord Silverhawk, pushed the vessel Renaissance almost past its limits through a solar storm just for bragging rights at a party. Only the valor and hard work of the crew, and the quick thinking of one common-born underling in particular, Amelia Virtue, saved them all from disaster... but, of course, men like Silverhawk never bear the blame for near-disasters, unlike those of Liam's minimal family status. He needs a new commission while the Renaissance is in dry dock for extensive repairs, something preferably far away from Silverhawk and his kind - and finds salvation quite unexpectedly handed to him.
War with the inscrutable Sectoids is on the horizon, but pirates - always a problem in the spaceways - are becoming bolder in their attacks. If the outlaws and the threat they pose to supply lines aren't dealt with soon, then the imperial war effort is effectively dead in space, but any open efforts to round up the pirates may tip off the Sectoids that the Empire is preparing for war. To this end, the Empire has offered a letter of marque to the retrofitted frigate HMSS Daring, authorizing them to go undercover as common merchants and use any means necessary to track down the pirates to their lair and eliminate them - though if they mess up and are caught, the Empire will disavow any knowledge of their actions. It will mean working under yet another highborn captain, along with a new crew (of which he only is familiar with a handful, those he personally recruited from the Renaissance's idle sailors - including, of course, clever Virtue), but, as second in command on the Daring, this secret mission could make the fortune of Blackwood and everyone else on board... or ruin them forever if they fail.
REVIEW: A strong hero and solid heroine out to prove themselves to a world that underestimates them, a nefarious band of pirates, a fantastical space setting amid a dense star cluster where ships ply the complex solar winds under sail... Winds of Marque had many ingredients that should've made for a rollicking swashbuckler. Once in a while it actually reached that, but more often it seemed to fall short.
The tale starts with a handful of stock characters in a decently tense scene, as the captain obliviously pushes his vessel to the brink of ruin just so a rival won't beat him to a fancy ball on their destination world; Blackwood, his chief engineer equivalent Smith, and plucky Virtue manage to stay half a step ahead of disaster to pull the Renaissance through, even knowing that the damages will probably come out of their hides and careers while Silverhawk walks away without a blemish on his record. Though familiar tropes, they work fairly well in the scene, establishing the star-sailing world and social dynamics that drive much of the novel. But once the action dies down and the ship makes it to port, that world starts to feel a little thin and hollow. Though the reader sees some of the nobles and also some commoners, the latter don't seem particularly oppressed or abused among the crew; minor lordling Blackwood being demeaned and wronged by those of higher birth comes through loud and clear, and there's prejudice against other species (the insectlike Sectoids are universally feared, while the saurian Theropods - commonly termed "Brutes" - are often looked down on even as they're tolerated in menial positions), but until Virtue calls him out on his blindness to the plight of the everyman in a world where noble blood means immunity from laws and basic decency, the novel doesn't even bother getting into how commoners are generally treated by the empire. This discontent may or may not form the root of the growing piracy plight, but mostly the pirates are cardboard cutouts for the main characters to chase across the spaceways, cold-blooded killers, and some minor hints that there's something else going on behind them (other than greed or possibly cultish fanaticism) are completely forgotten by the end. Among the crew, the sense of everyone being a stock character going through stock character motions only grows stronger as the tale goes on.
That's not to say there's nothing enjoyable here. Those stock characters and tropes exist for a reason, in that they generally work to tell a story. The action sequences are exciting, melding the pitched battles of ship-to-ship combat with the added dangers of space travel. There's some intrigue with the possibilities of traitors on board and the obligatory threat of mutiny, as well as the expected romance between newly-promoted quartermaster Amelia Virtue and Subcommander Liam Blackwood. Underneath all that, unfortunately, I just never shook that sense of hollowness or flatness or a lack of that indefinable spark that takes a story from a collection of expected tropes and ideas into something stronger.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Crownchasers (Rebecca Coffindaffer) - My Review
The Last Watch (J. S. Dewes) - My Review
Arabella of Mars (David D. Levine) - My Review
The Blackwood and Virtue series, Book 1
Bennett R. Coles
Harper Voyager
Fiction, Adventure/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Second son of a minor lord, Liam Blackwood sought his fortune as many of his rank do, in the star-sailing navy of the interstellar human empire. He's a solid officer, rising to the rank of Subcommander, but all too often he finds himself second in command beneath higher-born men who consider fleet ships their personal toys - as happened when his captain, Lord Silverhawk, pushed the vessel Renaissance almost past its limits through a solar storm just for bragging rights at a party. Only the valor and hard work of the crew, and the quick thinking of one common-born underling in particular, Amelia Virtue, saved them all from disaster... but, of course, men like Silverhawk never bear the blame for near-disasters, unlike those of Liam's minimal family status. He needs a new commission while the Renaissance is in dry dock for extensive repairs, something preferably far away from Silverhawk and his kind - and finds salvation quite unexpectedly handed to him.
War with the inscrutable Sectoids is on the horizon, but pirates - always a problem in the spaceways - are becoming bolder in their attacks. If the outlaws and the threat they pose to supply lines aren't dealt with soon, then the imperial war effort is effectively dead in space, but any open efforts to round up the pirates may tip off the Sectoids that the Empire is preparing for war. To this end, the Empire has offered a letter of marque to the retrofitted frigate HMSS Daring, authorizing them to go undercover as common merchants and use any means necessary to track down the pirates to their lair and eliminate them - though if they mess up and are caught, the Empire will disavow any knowledge of their actions. It will mean working under yet another highborn captain, along with a new crew (of which he only is familiar with a handful, those he personally recruited from the Renaissance's idle sailors - including, of course, clever Virtue), but, as second in command on the Daring, this secret mission could make the fortune of Blackwood and everyone else on board... or ruin them forever if they fail.
REVIEW: A strong hero and solid heroine out to prove themselves to a world that underestimates them, a nefarious band of pirates, a fantastical space setting amid a dense star cluster where ships ply the complex solar winds under sail... Winds of Marque had many ingredients that should've made for a rollicking swashbuckler. Once in a while it actually reached that, but more often it seemed to fall short.
The tale starts with a handful of stock characters in a decently tense scene, as the captain obliviously pushes his vessel to the brink of ruin just so a rival won't beat him to a fancy ball on their destination world; Blackwood, his chief engineer equivalent Smith, and plucky Virtue manage to stay half a step ahead of disaster to pull the Renaissance through, even knowing that the damages will probably come out of their hides and careers while Silverhawk walks away without a blemish on his record. Though familiar tropes, they work fairly well in the scene, establishing the star-sailing world and social dynamics that drive much of the novel. But once the action dies down and the ship makes it to port, that world starts to feel a little thin and hollow. Though the reader sees some of the nobles and also some commoners, the latter don't seem particularly oppressed or abused among the crew; minor lordling Blackwood being demeaned and wronged by those of higher birth comes through loud and clear, and there's prejudice against other species (the insectlike Sectoids are universally feared, while the saurian Theropods - commonly termed "Brutes" - are often looked down on even as they're tolerated in menial positions), but until Virtue calls him out on his blindness to the plight of the everyman in a world where noble blood means immunity from laws and basic decency, the novel doesn't even bother getting into how commoners are generally treated by the empire. This discontent may or may not form the root of the growing piracy plight, but mostly the pirates are cardboard cutouts for the main characters to chase across the spaceways, cold-blooded killers, and some minor hints that there's something else going on behind them (other than greed or possibly cultish fanaticism) are completely forgotten by the end. Among the crew, the sense of everyone being a stock character going through stock character motions only grows stronger as the tale goes on.
That's not to say there's nothing enjoyable here. Those stock characters and tropes exist for a reason, in that they generally work to tell a story. The action sequences are exciting, melding the pitched battles of ship-to-ship combat with the added dangers of space travel. There's some intrigue with the possibilities of traitors on board and the obligatory threat of mutiny, as well as the expected romance between newly-promoted quartermaster Amelia Virtue and Subcommander Liam Blackwood. Underneath all that, unfortunately, I just never shook that sense of hollowness or flatness or a lack of that indefinable spark that takes a story from a collection of expected tropes and ideas into something stronger.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Crownchasers (Rebecca Coffindaffer) - My Review
The Last Watch (J. S. Dewes) - My Review
Arabella of Mars (David D. Levine) - My Review
Thursday, February 1, 2024
Midnight at the Well of Souls (Jack L. Chalker)
Midnight at the Well of Souls
The Well of Souls series, Book 1
Jack L. Chalker
Del Rey
Fiction, Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: One of the greatest mysteries encountered by humanity as they spread across the stars was the Markovian ruins, great cities atop planet-encompassing technology that bear not a single lingering artifact - not so much as a potsherd - nor any hint as to what happened to a species that had advanced to near-divinity. But a chance discovery puts one archaeologist, Elkinos Skander, on the path to waking a Markovian computer... with which he believes he can become like a god over the known universe and beyond. When his breakthrough is witnessed by ambitious young student Varnett, Skander resorts to desperate measures. The two are locked in life-and-death combat when they suddenly vanish.
Freighter captain Nathan Brazil has spent hundreds of years plying the spaceways. Rejuvenation procedures often extend human life spans to centuries, but Brazil is older than that... old enough he's even forgotten his own age and origins. On his latest run, he carries three passengers from various worlds. But when a distress beacon reaches the ship from a Markovian planet, Brazil diverts to explore, which is how all four of them end up disappearing. Finding themselves in a strange new place, they're met by an old friend of Brazil's, former space pirate Serge Ortega - only the man is not the human he used to be, but a half-snake, half-walrus alien known as an Urik. He explains that they have fallen into a planet known as Well World: a Markovian artifact, which holds over one thousand distinct habitats in hexagonal fields, each with its own biomes and tech (or magic) levels. As for why the man is no longer human, this is what the Well World does to everyone: it transforms all arrivals into new species and sends them to one of the habitats, there to live out their days as best they can. Escape, Ortega informs them, is impossible. But even as they resign themselves to their fate, Ortega holds Brazil back, with a special assignment. Skander and Varnett are on Well World, too... and both believe they've discovered the keys that will let them control Markovian tech, if they can make their ways from their new habitats to the central control room inside the planet. This, of course, would be a disaster in the making, not just for the inhabitants of Well World but for the rest of the universe. Nathan Brazil was always a resourceful one, and Ortega wants him and his companions to do everything in their power to stop the two meddlers.
REVIEW: This story, first published in 1977, is something of a genre classic, and has a wild imagination and ambitious scope that hold up today... better, unfortunately, than some other aspects of the story.
The characters aren't especially deep, but then the primary focus is the exploration of the Well World concept and the legacy of the Markovians, which is much more than the simple ruins that dot the galaxy - and the primary purpose of the Markovians and other aliens is to examine the metaphysical purpose of life itself (especially human life). There's a fair bit of handwaving/"sufficiently advanced technology" that's basically magic to explain how the world and much of what it contains and enables exist, with echoes that resonate in old Earth myths and legends and religions (because of course Earth and humans are the center of the known universe, for all that the species has lost its way terribly on the way to the stars; many are becoming hivelike nests of cloned genderless servants under a small ruling class, while others are greedy and lawless monsters). At its heart, the story is more of an epic quest, with a small band of travelers crossing many strange lands and encountering many strange cultures on their way to the metaphoric citadel to stop the villains from destroying the world/universe and end the evils that have darkened the land - in this case, the way humanity has parted ways with its own heart and conscience in pursuit of illusory perfection and/or material luxuries. Brazil's companions each enter new bodies and new mini-worlds across the Well World, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and quirks... but Nathan Brazil himself, strangely enough, is untouched by Well World's transformations, yet another hint that he is other than he appears to be.
Things move reasonably well, save when things bog down a bit as new habitats and species are introduced and explained... with an odd emphasis on genitalia. Chalker seemed a bit ahead of his time in exploring notions of gender fluidity and how identity was not determined by what one had between the legs, but he also got a bit obsessed with sex and mating elsewhere; he went out of his way to find a way for two of his characters to get it on when they're not even the same species at the time, in ways that constitute potential spoilers. And this was after one of the pair declared that love was not about sex at all but about caring about one another on a deeper level, so it didn't matter to her that they were physically incompatible at the time because they could still love each other. (Sure seemed to be about sex the moment it was remotely feasible... or maybe the author just had some very peculiar fetishes goin' on, because that scene definitely had more than a touch of bestiality - even more so when one learns about the true nature of one of the participants. But I digress...) In any event, the whole story starts bowing under the weight of increasing metaphysical Messages about life, the universe, and God (because this is yet another science fiction classic that not only considers humans to be the obvious pinnacle of any creation, but considers that godhood is the inevitable "goal" of evolution). The climactic final confrontation between Skander, Varnett, and Brazil and company feels flattened by that weight, and the conclusion starts feeling stretched.
There are more novels in the Well World series, but I consider my curiosity about the concept sufficiently satisfied to stop here. As I mentioned at the start, Midnight at the Well of Souls is an imaginative concept, at least.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Rocannon's World (Ursula K. Le Guin) - My Review
Lord Valentine's Castle (Robert Silverberg) - My Review
A Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge) - My Review
The Well of Souls series, Book 1
Jack L. Chalker
Del Rey
Fiction, Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: One of the greatest mysteries encountered by humanity as they spread across the stars was the Markovian ruins, great cities atop planet-encompassing technology that bear not a single lingering artifact - not so much as a potsherd - nor any hint as to what happened to a species that had advanced to near-divinity. But a chance discovery puts one archaeologist, Elkinos Skander, on the path to waking a Markovian computer... with which he believes he can become like a god over the known universe and beyond. When his breakthrough is witnessed by ambitious young student Varnett, Skander resorts to desperate measures. The two are locked in life-and-death combat when they suddenly vanish.
Freighter captain Nathan Brazil has spent hundreds of years plying the spaceways. Rejuvenation procedures often extend human life spans to centuries, but Brazil is older than that... old enough he's even forgotten his own age and origins. On his latest run, he carries three passengers from various worlds. But when a distress beacon reaches the ship from a Markovian planet, Brazil diverts to explore, which is how all four of them end up disappearing. Finding themselves in a strange new place, they're met by an old friend of Brazil's, former space pirate Serge Ortega - only the man is not the human he used to be, but a half-snake, half-walrus alien known as an Urik. He explains that they have fallen into a planet known as Well World: a Markovian artifact, which holds over one thousand distinct habitats in hexagonal fields, each with its own biomes and tech (or magic) levels. As for why the man is no longer human, this is what the Well World does to everyone: it transforms all arrivals into new species and sends them to one of the habitats, there to live out their days as best they can. Escape, Ortega informs them, is impossible. But even as they resign themselves to their fate, Ortega holds Brazil back, with a special assignment. Skander and Varnett are on Well World, too... and both believe they've discovered the keys that will let them control Markovian tech, if they can make their ways from their new habitats to the central control room inside the planet. This, of course, would be a disaster in the making, not just for the inhabitants of Well World but for the rest of the universe. Nathan Brazil was always a resourceful one, and Ortega wants him and his companions to do everything in their power to stop the two meddlers.
REVIEW: This story, first published in 1977, is something of a genre classic, and has a wild imagination and ambitious scope that hold up today... better, unfortunately, than some other aspects of the story.
The characters aren't especially deep, but then the primary focus is the exploration of the Well World concept and the legacy of the Markovians, which is much more than the simple ruins that dot the galaxy - and the primary purpose of the Markovians and other aliens is to examine the metaphysical purpose of life itself (especially human life). There's a fair bit of handwaving/"sufficiently advanced technology" that's basically magic to explain how the world and much of what it contains and enables exist, with echoes that resonate in old Earth myths and legends and religions (because of course Earth and humans are the center of the known universe, for all that the species has lost its way terribly on the way to the stars; many are becoming hivelike nests of cloned genderless servants under a small ruling class, while others are greedy and lawless monsters). At its heart, the story is more of an epic quest, with a small band of travelers crossing many strange lands and encountering many strange cultures on their way to the metaphoric citadel to stop the villains from destroying the world/universe and end the evils that have darkened the land - in this case, the way humanity has parted ways with its own heart and conscience in pursuit of illusory perfection and/or material luxuries. Brazil's companions each enter new bodies and new mini-worlds across the Well World, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and quirks... but Nathan Brazil himself, strangely enough, is untouched by Well World's transformations, yet another hint that he is other than he appears to be.
Things move reasonably well, save when things bog down a bit as new habitats and species are introduced and explained... with an odd emphasis on genitalia. Chalker seemed a bit ahead of his time in exploring notions of gender fluidity and how identity was not determined by what one had between the legs, but he also got a bit obsessed with sex and mating elsewhere; he went out of his way to find a way for two of his characters to get it on when they're not even the same species at the time, in ways that constitute potential spoilers. And this was after one of the pair declared that love was not about sex at all but about caring about one another on a deeper level, so it didn't matter to her that they were physically incompatible at the time because they could still love each other. (Sure seemed to be about sex the moment it was remotely feasible... or maybe the author just had some very peculiar fetishes goin' on, because that scene definitely had more than a touch of bestiality - even more so when one learns about the true nature of one of the participants. But I digress...) In any event, the whole story starts bowing under the weight of increasing metaphysical Messages about life, the universe, and God (because this is yet another science fiction classic that not only considers humans to be the obvious pinnacle of any creation, but considers that godhood is the inevitable "goal" of evolution). The climactic final confrontation between Skander, Varnett, and Brazil and company feels flattened by that weight, and the conclusion starts feeling stretched.
There are more novels in the Well World series, but I consider my curiosity about the concept sufficiently satisfied to stop here. As I mentioned at the start, Midnight at the Well of Souls is an imaginative concept, at least.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Rocannon's World (Ursula K. Le Guin) - My Review
Lord Valentine's Castle (Robert Silverberg) - My Review
A Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge) - My Review
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