Another year, and in addition to posting the December site update, it's time to reflect on the past twelve months' worth of reviews.
January started light and sweet with Stephanie Burgis's The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart. I also delved into Ken Liu's doorstop silkpunk The Grace of Kings, a refreshingly different epic fantasy based on ancient China, and revisted Carl Hiassen for a fun but ultimately disappointing outing in Scat. (And apparently hardcover coloring books are a thing, as I discovered with Jonny Marx's The Book of Beasts - though I suspect the hardcover price is why I found it so cheap on clearance.)
In February, I ranged from a book on illuminated manuscripts (Janice Anderson's aptly-titled Illuminated Manuscripts) through romance (Samantha Chase's This Is our Song) and politics (Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man), and even an illustrated biography by an internet celebrity (Ryan Higa's How to Write Good, by Ryan Higa.) James Islington's epic fantasy The Shadow of What Was Lost and Genevieve Cogman's The Invisible Library failed to engage me, though the main theme of the month turned out to be interplanetary sci-fi: Dennis E. Taylor's second Bobiverse book (For We Are Many), the fourth Expanse installment (Cibola Burn, by James S. A. Corey), Killing Gravity by Corey J. White, and Jeff Lemire's graphic novel Descender: The Deluxe Edition Volume 1 universally impressed.
March wasn't a good month for reading. Of six titles posted, five were graphic novels; the exception was the Expanse novella The Churn, a prequel by James S. A. Corey. Two more Descender titles, Katie O'Neill's cutesy but enjoyable The Tea Dragon Society, Grant Snider's examination of creativity in the cartoons of The Shape of Ideas, and the groundbreaking (yet inevitably dated) The Mercenary, Volume 1 by Vicente Segrelles rounded it out.
April got me back into reading a few more word-based stories, kicking off with Tom Reiss's The Black Count, the biography of mixed-race general Alexandre Dumas, who rose to prominence in Revolutionary France only to be betrayed by Napoleon - later immortalized in the works of his son, Three Musketeers author Alexander Dumas. I was unexpectedly impressed by the young adult romance/sci-fi tale Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowsky, which deftly avoided potential pitfalls of telepathic teenagers and pulled off a rare "first person plural" perspective. Tor's eBook-of-the-month club once again delivered an interesting read as I finally got around to All Systems Red, the award-winning first installment of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Still, graphic novels and picture books dominated, as I continued with Joshua Williamson's portal fantasy twist Birthright series (volumes 5 and 6) and Brian K. Vaughan's time travel adventure Paper Girls (volume 4), encountered the mysterious shapeshifter at the heart of Noelle Stevenson's Nimona, and took a pleasant trip aboard Dashka Slater's The Antlered Ship.
May started off with a major misfire of a dragon adventure in Stephen Deas's The Adamantine Palace, a throwback fantasy that successfully prevented me from caring about any character, two-legged or otherwise. Further disappointment awaited in the alternate history heist tale River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey, in which hippos - imported as a potential food source following a real-world proposal - have overrun the lower Mississippi, and Mechthild Glaser's The Book Jumper, in which a teenager persistently acted like a preteen while exploring a newfound ability to enter stories. I paid homage to nostalgia with an Andre Norton title, Catseye, that couldn't help showing its age despite the imaginative premise. It wasn't all bad news, though. Katherine Applegate's wishtree offered hope in the face of prejudice and fear, Kurt Busiek's first Autumnlands graphic novel explored a post-apocalyptic future dominated by mages and anthropomorphic animals, and Chris Impey's Beyond offered a glimpse of an interplanetary future already in the works today.
In June, I finally threw the proverbial switch with the year-long main site overhaul. In reading, I revisited Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series with her third installment, Beneath the Sugar Sky, and wrapped up Dennis E. Taylor's Bobiverse trilogy with the enjoyable finale All These Worlds. Sebastien de Castell hooked me into his Greatcoats series, a fantasy homage to The Three Musketeers, with Traitor's Blade. The month's low point was the attempted romance/sci-fi mashup The Down Home Zombie Blues by Linnea Sinclair, which stumbled haplessly into every pitfall imaginable and even a few unimaginable ones.
July again had a bit of a sci-fi bent, starting with the fanciful exploration of our neighboring planets in Olivia Koski and Jana Grcevich's Vacation Guide to the Solar System and continuing with James S. A. Corey's sixth Expanse book (Nemesis Games) and Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, not to mention the graphic novel of astral-projection journeying in Leila del Duca's Afar and Blake Crouch's thriller Pines. Derek Alan Siddoway explored a world of griffin riders in Windsworn, while a wayward dragon cursed into human form sought to rebuild her hoard in the Scales and Scoundrels graphic novels by Sebastian Girner; of the two, Windsworn was the more absorbing, despite the promise of the latter. Political parody met picture book in "Marlon Bundo" and Jill Twiss's A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, a fun tale of bunny love and the "stink bug" who stands in its way. The month wrapped up with an unfortunately pointless graphic novel, Elian Black'Mor's In Search of Lost Dragons.
August started with yet another return to the Expanse universe (so sue me - I like the series) with the Origins comics omnibus by James S. A. Corey, Hallie Lambert, and others, exploring the histories of the main characters as presented on the SyFy/Amazon Prime television show, with mixed-to-good results. High points of the month included Brandon Sanderson's second installment of his mammoth Stormlight Archives series, Words of Radiance, and Peter Cawdron's sci-fi thriller on Mars, Retrograde. Disappointments ranged from Lynn Viehl's alternate-world fantasy/romance Disenchanted & Co. to Tahereh Mafi's middle-grade fantasy Furthermore, capped off by Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning - impressive from a worldbuilding and Literary-with-a-capital-L standpoint, and undeniably different, but an utter failure insofar as giving me a single character to like or maintaining my interest. Michael Dante DiMartino also dropped the figurative ball in Rebel Genius, which reads like a cartoon that never wanted to be pinned down as writing.
September was a wide-ranging month for reading. From the freeform picture book poetry of Margaret Wild's The Dream of the Thylacine to Dan Rather's autobiographical examination of America's past, present, and future challenges in What Unites Us; from Seanan McGuire's adaptation of the "Phantom Prom Date" urban legend in Sparrow Hill Road to the suspense-filled romance in Rachel Grant's Incriminating Evidence; from escaped experimental military animals in Grant Morrison's graphic novel WE3 to Sarah Beth Durst's tale of stone creations seeking a carver to renew the story-marks keeping them alive in The Stone Girl's Story; even from the incredible true tale of a girl partially raised by wild monkeys in Marina Chapman's The Girl with No Name to an exploration of creativity in Art and Fear (David Bayles and Ted Orlando); I wandered all over the literary map. (And, yes, I checked in with the Expanse universe again with the novella Gods of Risk.)
October opened with an impressive novella from P. Djeli Clark, The Black God's Drums, set in an alternate-world New Orleans steeped in voodoo. I found myself less impressed than I'd hoped to be by Andy Weir's Moon-based heist novel Artemis, Jodi Lynn Anderson's alternate-world middle-grade road trip My Diary From the Edge of the World, and Scott Westerfield's spooky The Secret Hour, though I was far more disappointed by C. J. Darlington's Jupiter Winds as it nosedived into religion and Creationism. Bill Nye explained the "nerd" mindset and offered hope that it might someday save our future in his autobiographical Everything All At Once. Naomi Novik's fairy tale adaptation Spinning Silver entertained me, and I also enjoyed yet another Expanse novella by James S. A. Corey, The Vital Abyss.
I started November with the fun picture book Everyone Loves Bacon by Kelly DiPucchio. The classic one-time-award-winner The Snow Queen, by Joan D. Vinge, unfortunately showed its age (or its author's assumptions about women needing men to complete their lives) badly, though the month's true low point had to be Kirk Kjeldsen's The Depths, a thriller that largely failed to thrill. Surprise "hits" were Fonda Lee's Jade City, which mashed up genres I don't generally enjoy (martial arts and mafia) into an engaging fantasy, and Elle Katharine White's Heartstone, a Pride and Prejudice riff with dragonriders that may not have been a favorite, but was more enjoyable than I'd anticipated. Nnedi Okorafor gave Harry Potter-like hidden magical worlds an African twist in Akata Witch, and old Atari classics found new life in the graphic novel Swordquest: Realworld by Chad Bowers and Chris Sims, based on the real Swordquest franchise. Warren Ellis captured the sense of wonder behind the best sci-fi in his graphic novel Ocean/Orbiter Deluxe Edition, and I caught up through Book 6 of The Expanse with Babylon's Ashes. The month wrapped up with another Tor eBook-of-the-month-club offering, Victor Lavalle's tale The Ballad of Black Tom, which gives the bigotry of 1920's New York City a Lovecraftian twist.
December began with Gareth L. Powell's space tale of a self-aware war ship turning its back on combat in Embers of War, which had potential but ultimately felt a little too familiar to stand out. Mary Robinette Kowal explored an alternate history of the space race in The Calculating Stars, as humanity is forced to push interplanetary colonization efforts with Apollo-era tech after an extinction-level event in the 1950's. I revisited a favorite childhood movie with the graphic novel prequel Jim Henson's Labyrinth Coronation: Volume 1, though ultimately I enjoyed the film more. Another movie-inspired read was The Art of How to Train Your Dragon 2, by Linda Sunshine. An anthology by the Western Writers Group, Wanted: A Western Story Collection, failed to break my streak of mixed-bag anthology experiences, and I also found disappointment (despite great potential and glimmering ideas around the edges) in JY Yang's The Black Tides of Heaven. December's high points included Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames, an unexpectedly enjoyable mashup of sword and sorcery with rock and roll culture, and yet another Expanse novella, Strange Dogs, which would work better as a standalone than more than one of those Western tales in that anthology.
Here's hoping 2019 brings pleasant surprises, both on and off the bookshelf.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Saturday, December 29, 2018
The Realm Volume 1 (Seth Peck)
The Realm Volume 1
The Realm series, Issues 1 - 5
Seth Peck, illustrations by Jeremy Haun
Image Comics
Fiction, Fantasy/Graphic Novel
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Fifteen years ago, civilization came to a sudden end when monsters out of legend emerged around the world. In the desolate wastelands that used to be America, pockets of humanity struggle to rebuild, but so far nobody has figured out just what the beasts want, or how to send them back where they came from... and there seem to be more of them every day.
Will Nolan makes a living escorting people through the monster-filled countryside, doing the odd rescue mission on the side, though the people he deals with hardly seem more civilized than the orcs and goblins and other beasts he dispatches along the way. His latest gig - escorting a small group, including a pair of scientists, to what used to be the American heartland - looks like just another job, but he and his sometimes-partner Rook soon find themselves up against forces unlike any they've yet seen. A would-be sorcerer king, a mysterious lone monster hunter, and a strange boy who seems unable to die will make this the most dangerous journey Nolan has undertaken, one with consequences that could save the world - or destroy what's left of it.
REVIEW: There's a line between revealing too much information - drowning the reader in facts and backstories and subplots and such that don't really matter - and withholding too much, leading to detachment and confusion. The Realm falls on the latter side of that line. The story introduces several characters and subplots, but isn't always clear on how they relate or how they matter in the main story, certainly not clear enough to lift any of them above "been there, read that" genre tropes to become something compelling. Nolan's a typical post-apocalyptic mercenary with a Dark Secret (which, thanks to the subplot clutter, is little more than a pointless footnote in this volume), the sorcerer Eldrich could come from any given vaguely-Lovecraftian story, the monster-hunter Ben stalks beasts and broods and reveals nothing of his motives or goals... I just found nothing here to interest me, nothing to differentiate it from countless other post-demonic-apocalypse tales. While I'm sure more will be revealed in future installments, my reaction to reaching the end was more of an indifferent shrug than anything else - certainly nothing like a desire to revisit these characters or the setting.
You Might Also Enjoy:
King: The Graphic Novel (Joshua Hale Fialkov) - My Review
The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger (Stephen King) - My Review
Monstress Volume 1: Awakening (Marjorie Liu) - My Review
The Realm series, Issues 1 - 5
Seth Peck, illustrations by Jeremy Haun
Image Comics
Fiction, Fantasy/Graphic Novel
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Fifteen years ago, civilization came to a sudden end when monsters out of legend emerged around the world. In the desolate wastelands that used to be America, pockets of humanity struggle to rebuild, but so far nobody has figured out just what the beasts want, or how to send them back where they came from... and there seem to be more of them every day.
Will Nolan makes a living escorting people through the monster-filled countryside, doing the odd rescue mission on the side, though the people he deals with hardly seem more civilized than the orcs and goblins and other beasts he dispatches along the way. His latest gig - escorting a small group, including a pair of scientists, to what used to be the American heartland - looks like just another job, but he and his sometimes-partner Rook soon find themselves up against forces unlike any they've yet seen. A would-be sorcerer king, a mysterious lone monster hunter, and a strange boy who seems unable to die will make this the most dangerous journey Nolan has undertaken, one with consequences that could save the world - or destroy what's left of it.
REVIEW: There's a line between revealing too much information - drowning the reader in facts and backstories and subplots and such that don't really matter - and withholding too much, leading to detachment and confusion. The Realm falls on the latter side of that line. The story introduces several characters and subplots, but isn't always clear on how they relate or how they matter in the main story, certainly not clear enough to lift any of them above "been there, read that" genre tropes to become something compelling. Nolan's a typical post-apocalyptic mercenary with a Dark Secret (which, thanks to the subplot clutter, is little more than a pointless footnote in this volume), the sorcerer Eldrich could come from any given vaguely-Lovecraftian story, the monster-hunter Ben stalks beasts and broods and reveals nothing of his motives or goals... I just found nothing here to interest me, nothing to differentiate it from countless other post-demonic-apocalypse tales. While I'm sure more will be revealed in future installments, my reaction to reaching the end was more of an indifferent shrug than anything else - certainly nothing like a desire to revisit these characters or the setting.
You Might Also Enjoy:
King: The Graphic Novel (Joshua Hale Fialkov) - My Review
The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger (Stephen King) - My Review
Monstress Volume 1: Awakening (Marjorie Liu) - My Review
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
The Black Tides of Heaven (JY Yang)
The Black Tides of Heaven
The Tensorate series, Book 1
JY Yang
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: From the moment of their conception, the twins Mokoya and Akeha were meant to be pawns in the games of their iron-fisted mother, all-powerful Protector of the realm. They are raised in a monastery, studying discipline and the five veins of slackcraft that power their world, and from the start vow that, whatever their mother intends, they will live and die for each other alone. But vows made as children rarely last into adulthood, and when Mokoya's strange dreams prove to be prophetic, the start of a wedge grows between them. Driven into different lives with differing loyalties by the black tides of the heavens, the twins must reconcile or see their mother's blood-slicked grip on the land become absolute.
REVIEW: One of the reasons I so enjoy fantasy and science fiction stories is the chance to explore new and unusual worlds, to immerse in the wild and the grand and occasionally bizarre. Unfortunately, this can also lead to a serious disconnect between me and the story, when for whatever reason I find myself shut out of the wonders at hand. This can happen for a variety of reasons - characters I don't like or can't believe, plots that bore or confuse, or simple failure to connect to the author's style. I cannot say for certain which was the culprit here, but through the entire tale, despite tantalizing hints and promise of Yang's imaginative Tensorate, I never once managed to truly visualize and immerse in it. Characters tend to be stiff or overly dramatic, though this may have been a result of me never understanding the world enough to recognize the stakes or what compelled them to take (or not take) action. The plot proves a dense web of rebellion and politics and love triangles that I couldn't care about for lack of connection. As for the world, it seems like an intriguingly unique land: the sun apparently cycles several times in each day or night cycle, there are five powers in the "slack" corresponding roughly to Asian elemental magic, tamed raptor packs serve as trackers, a budding industrial revolution threatens the absolute powers of the Tensors (magic-wielders) and majority race... but I felt shut out of most of these wonders, peering in through inadequate slats in the fence boards and never quite finding that sense of immersive understanding that would let me truly experience what Yang was writing. It's not a terrible story for all that, but ultimately not one I could care about, and not one I care to pursue through the remainder of the series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Range of Ghosts (Elizabeth Bear) - My Review
Jade City (Fonda Lee) - My Review
The Grace of Kings (Ken Liu) - My Review
The Tensorate series, Book 1
JY Yang
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: From the moment of their conception, the twins Mokoya and Akeha were meant to be pawns in the games of their iron-fisted mother, all-powerful Protector of the realm. They are raised in a monastery, studying discipline and the five veins of slackcraft that power their world, and from the start vow that, whatever their mother intends, they will live and die for each other alone. But vows made as children rarely last into adulthood, and when Mokoya's strange dreams prove to be prophetic, the start of a wedge grows between them. Driven into different lives with differing loyalties by the black tides of the heavens, the twins must reconcile or see their mother's blood-slicked grip on the land become absolute.
REVIEW: One of the reasons I so enjoy fantasy and science fiction stories is the chance to explore new and unusual worlds, to immerse in the wild and the grand and occasionally bizarre. Unfortunately, this can also lead to a serious disconnect between me and the story, when for whatever reason I find myself shut out of the wonders at hand. This can happen for a variety of reasons - characters I don't like or can't believe, plots that bore or confuse, or simple failure to connect to the author's style. I cannot say for certain which was the culprit here, but through the entire tale, despite tantalizing hints and promise of Yang's imaginative Tensorate, I never once managed to truly visualize and immerse in it. Characters tend to be stiff or overly dramatic, though this may have been a result of me never understanding the world enough to recognize the stakes or what compelled them to take (or not take) action. The plot proves a dense web of rebellion and politics and love triangles that I couldn't care about for lack of connection. As for the world, it seems like an intriguingly unique land: the sun apparently cycles several times in each day or night cycle, there are five powers in the "slack" corresponding roughly to Asian elemental magic, tamed raptor packs serve as trackers, a budding industrial revolution threatens the absolute powers of the Tensors (magic-wielders) and majority race... but I felt shut out of most of these wonders, peering in through inadequate slats in the fence boards and never quite finding that sense of immersive understanding that would let me truly experience what Yang was writing. It's not a terrible story for all that, but ultimately not one I could care about, and not one I care to pursue through the remainder of the series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Range of Ghosts (Elizabeth Bear) - My Review
Jade City (Fonda Lee) - My Review
The Grace of Kings (Ken Liu) - My Review
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Paper Girls Volume 5 (Brian K. Vaughan)
Paper Girls Volume 5
The Paper Girls series, Issues 21 - 25
Brian K. Vaughan, illustrations by Cliff Chiang and Matthew Wilson
Image Comics
Fiction, MG? Graphic Novel/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The four paper delivery girls Tiffany, KJ, Mac, and Erin from 1988 have come a long way, through space and time, from the night when they stumbled across temporal invaders in their small suburb outside Cleveland. Now, after visiting a Y2K-devastated year 2000 and picking up an adult Tiffany as traveling companion, they find themselves a few hundred years in the future, almost under the nose of their chief pursuer "Grandfather" Wari. While Mac pursues a thin hope that she might be cured of the leukemia slated to kill her, Erin tries to find a way back to their home time - but can they trust anything, or anyone, in the compromised timestream, or are they already destined to fail?
REVIEW: With the long gap between reading previous volumes and the increasingly-entwined and -compromised timelines, I'll admit it took me a bit to reorient myself, and even then I'm sure I've forgotten a few important details. Despite that, this maintains the quick pacing of the series, adding new pieces to a puzzle that is still far from complete, but is nonetheless compelling. Issues of fate versus free will become very personal, not only as Mac struggles with the possibility of knowing her own death but as Tiffany deals with traveling with an older version of herself. Skirting spoilers, by the end a few questions have been answered but more raised, and the girls find themselves in greater danger than ever. Another good installment in an interesting series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Time Keeper (Barbara Bartholomew) - My Review
When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead) - My Review
Paper Girls Volume 1 (Brian K. Vaughan) - My Review
The Paper Girls series, Issues 21 - 25
Brian K. Vaughan, illustrations by Cliff Chiang and Matthew Wilson
Image Comics
Fiction, MG? Graphic Novel/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The four paper delivery girls Tiffany, KJ, Mac, and Erin from 1988 have come a long way, through space and time, from the night when they stumbled across temporal invaders in their small suburb outside Cleveland. Now, after visiting a Y2K-devastated year 2000 and picking up an adult Tiffany as traveling companion, they find themselves a few hundred years in the future, almost under the nose of their chief pursuer "Grandfather" Wari. While Mac pursues a thin hope that she might be cured of the leukemia slated to kill her, Erin tries to find a way back to their home time - but can they trust anything, or anyone, in the compromised timestream, or are they already destined to fail?
REVIEW: With the long gap between reading previous volumes and the increasingly-entwined and -compromised timelines, I'll admit it took me a bit to reorient myself, and even then I'm sure I've forgotten a few important details. Despite that, this maintains the quick pacing of the series, adding new pieces to a puzzle that is still far from complete, but is nonetheless compelling. Issues of fate versus free will become very personal, not only as Mac struggles with the possibility of knowing her own death but as Tiffany deals with traveling with an older version of herself. Skirting spoilers, by the end a few questions have been answered but more raised, and the girls find themselves in greater danger than ever. Another good installment in an interesting series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Time Keeper (Barbara Bartholomew) - My Review
When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead) - My Review
Paper Girls Volume 1 (Brian K. Vaughan) - My Review
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Strange Dogs (James S. A. Corey)
Strange Dogs
An Expanse novella
James S. A. Corey
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Though she was not born on Laconia, the alien world is all Cara has known. Earth, Mars, and the old solar system are just places she sees in picture books or hears about in school, places Mom and Dad talk about in worried tones now that no more news comes through the ring gates. She spends more time outdoors in the native woodlands than her scientist parents, and probably knows more about the wildlife than anyone - but even she is surprised when she discovers the pack of odd, doglike animals. Then, quite by accident, she discovers what they can do... a discovery that could change the very nature of the colony, unless the grown-ups ruin everything.
This novella, part of the Expanse universe, occurs chronologically between Book 6, Babylon's Ashes, and Book 7, Persepolis Rising.
REVIEW: This side adventure, with strong foreshadowing of things to come in the next volume, almost works as a standalone, having only passing involvement of a character from the greater series. Cara struggles to deal with being a first-generation colonist on alien soil, tied culturally and genetically (and metabolically - humans cannot process native food sources, and vice versa) to a planet of which she has no memory and to which she has no personal connection, yet she faces seemingly-insurmountable obstacles to truly embracing Laconia as a homeworld as she desperately desires. The "dogs" she encounters are not what they first appear to be, offering choices whose consequences she may not fully grasp, yet which seem to her better than any alternatives. The ending is a bit dark, especially given its implications for the next Expanse novel. Overall, I enjoyed it, though I almost clipped it a half-star for deceptive length; only sixty-odd percent of the file is Strange Dogs, the rest being two long excerpts from other Orbit books that aren't even related to Corey (and which I admit to skipping.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
Catseye (Andre Norton) - My Review
Dragon and Thief (Timothy Zahn) - My Review
An Expanse novella
James S. A. Corey
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Though she was not born on Laconia, the alien world is all Cara has known. Earth, Mars, and the old solar system are just places she sees in picture books or hears about in school, places Mom and Dad talk about in worried tones now that no more news comes through the ring gates. She spends more time outdoors in the native woodlands than her scientist parents, and probably knows more about the wildlife than anyone - but even she is surprised when she discovers the pack of odd, doglike animals. Then, quite by accident, she discovers what they can do... a discovery that could change the very nature of the colony, unless the grown-ups ruin everything.
This novella, part of the Expanse universe, occurs chronologically between Book 6, Babylon's Ashes, and Book 7, Persepolis Rising.
REVIEW: This side adventure, with strong foreshadowing of things to come in the next volume, almost works as a standalone, having only passing involvement of a character from the greater series. Cara struggles to deal with being a first-generation colonist on alien soil, tied culturally and genetically (and metabolically - humans cannot process native food sources, and vice versa) to a planet of which she has no memory and to which she has no personal connection, yet she faces seemingly-insurmountable obstacles to truly embracing Laconia as a homeworld as she desperately desires. The "dogs" she encounters are not what they first appear to be, offering choices whose consequences she may not fully grasp, yet which seem to her better than any alternatives. The ending is a bit dark, especially given its implications for the next Expanse novel. Overall, I enjoyed it, though I almost clipped it a half-star for deceptive length; only sixty-odd percent of the file is Strange Dogs, the rest being two long excerpts from other Orbit books that aren't even related to Corey (and which I admit to skipping.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
Catseye (Andre Norton) - My Review
Dragon and Thief (Timothy Zahn) - My Review
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