Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow
The Nevermoor series, Book 1
Jessica Townsend
Little, Brown
Fiction, MG Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Anyone in the Wintersea Republic knows that being born on Eventide makes one cursed... even the daughter of a chancellor. The merest glance or whisper from such a child curdles luck like bad milk, spreads illness, breaks things, sours the weather, disrupts the Wunder powering the city's marvels, and worse. It's likely a blessing that they die on their twelfth birthday, at the turning of the Skyfaced Clock to a new Age. Morrigan Crow has lived with this burden all her life, blamed for any misfortune, big or small, in the whole of the city of Jackalfax. As she approaches her eleventh birthday, her family already treats her like one dead and gone, her father remarrying and starting another family before she's even fallen down. A girl like her doesn't have a future to look forward to - until, on Bid Day, when masters put forth bids on the town's children for apprenticeships, she receives not one, not two, but four offers. She hardly has time to consider whether this is a cruel joke or a cruel hope when the Skyfaced Clock shifts to midnight black: the new Age, starting one year early. And, with the new Age, comes her death.
Or, at least, she should be dead, but for the strange red-haired man Jupiter North who swoops in at the last moment, whisking her away from Jackalfax, from the Wintersea Republic to the Free States, off to a grand city she's never heard of: Nevermoor.
The world, it turns out, is far bigger and grander and bolder (and wilder, and more dangerous) than anything she learned in the Republic. Just the hotel she finds herself living at, the Deucalion, bursts at the seams with strange wonders: a giant talking "Magnificat" Fenestra, a vampire dwarf, and a room that reshapes itself overnight are just the least of these. Even as she marvels, she can't help feeling that there must be a catch; you don't grow up being told you're cursed every day of your life without knowing that nothing good happens without a catch. Jupiter North bent quite a few rules, and left others dazed and broken, when he plucked Morrigan from Jackalfax and crossed the border, but he claims he has very good reasons, for all that he won't divulge what they are. What he does tell her is that he intends to sponsor her as a candidate for the Wundrous Society, the most prestigious society in Nevermoor. Among them, she'll be safe and wanted for all her days. But there are hundreds of candidates from the city and beyond, all competing for a mere nine openings in the Society, and they - unlike Morrigan - all have special "knacks", talents and gifts to make them worthy of passing the four Trials for entry. What does Morrigan have besides her curse?
REVIEW: I'd heard some decent things about this book and was in the mood for something a little whimsical, so when I found a copy that was free to me, I figured I'd give it a try. There's a natural tendency to compare stories like this - where the unloved but special child is whisked off to experience adventures and wonders in a magical world they never realized existed right inside their own - to Harry Potter, but that comparison falls far short of the mark, and not just because Morrigan already comes from a place with some magic in it, if a dour and rather bleak place. She has it even worse off than Harry, too; the "boy who lived" was simply invisible to his aunt and uncle, while Morrigan is actively considered both cursed and doomed, to the point where her father finally cancels her education because it's a waste of time and money to teach a child who won't see the far side of twelve. She knows, deep down, that she can't possibly be the cause of everything she's forced to write apology notes for (and her politician father is forced to pay restitution for), but feels even deeper down that there really must be something wrong with her for everyone, even her family, to treat her this way, with so much fear and hate. On Bid Day, when she gets her unexpected offers for futures she knows she'll never have, the twist of hope in her gut is worse than anything she's felt before, even before it's snatched away. This insecurity and skepticism follows her to Nevermoor, an expectation of failure and rejection that colors her actions even as she desperately wants to believe she can escape her seemingly inevitable doom.
Nevermoor itself is a place of wonders (and Wunder), brimming with whimsy and wildness but with counterbalancing complexity and darkness to give it some heft and weight. Morrigan barely scratches the surface of it all in her adventures and the assortment of colorful characters she meets, from hotel guests and staff to the other young candidates for the Wundrous Society to the Elders and a mysterious man in gray who turns up at the oddest moments with the oddest advice. Along the way, through the Trials and beyond, Morrigan slowly learns how to trust and make friends and believe in herself, to step boldly forth even when it seems certain she's going to plummet over the edge. Nobody is excessively stupid just to prolong the plot, and nobody is perfect, nor are they helpless. All this comes through in a story that hooked me from the first page and kept going right to the end without ever feeling exhausting and only once in a while feeling a touch convenient, with sparkling prose and great dialog. My only minor complaints were the lengths to which North went to avoid telling Morrigan certain important things, and an ending that's just slightly up in the air (not quite literally)... though I suppose that's partially my fault for not grabbing the second book to have on hand, which I really should've done once I realized what I was in for with the first few pages. Tight as the budget is these days, I suppose I'll have to carve out a little room for another book store run sooner rather than later. This is a series I definitely want to follow through on.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Bad Unicorn (Platte F. Clarke) - My Review
Cold Cereal (Adam Rex) - My Review
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians (Brandon Sanderson) - My Review
Sunday, January 29, 2023
Friday, January 27, 2023
Wake of Vultures (Lila Bowen)
Wake of Vultures
The Shadow series, Book 1
Lila Bowen
Orbit
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Western
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Life in the flyspeck of a frontier town called Gloomy Bluebird is every bit as dismal as its name suggests, but it's even worse for teenaged Nettie Lonesome. Since before she can remember, she's been little more than a slave to slovenly adopted parents Pap and Mam, a dark-skinned halfbreed with Indian and Black blood who wasn't even worth the teaching of lettering or sums. But she has a knack for gentling horses, and with it she hopes to escape the bleak future that stretches before her. That future almost ends before it begins, when a stranger turns up on the ranch one night - a stranger who turns to dust when she, in self-defense, strikes him through the heart with a splintered wooden stake.
Since that kill, Nettie starts seeing things nobody else notices (even as the stranger's fancy boots and hat and wad of cash help her slip away from Pap and Mam to a better position at the neighboring ranch as the boy "Red"). The ladies at the Leaping Lizard saloon have red eyes and long fangs, for one thing. Then there's something gnawing on the cattle - and the unfortunate incident when another ranch hand turns into a scaly, ravenous something. And she has the ghost of an Indian woman haunting her, insisting that she carry out revenge against a monster that snatched away the children of her tribe, a cannibalistic owl beast out of legend.
Nettie holds no truck with ghosts or monsters or destiny. All she wants is freedom: from Pap and Mam, from the terrible expectations of being a woman, from everything. But whether she likes it or not, it seems this is a fight she can't avoid.
REVIEW: Part Western, part urban fantasy, part alternate history, part quest and coming of age under harrowing circumstances, Wake of Vultures stars a heroine as stubborn, grit-blooded, and rough-edged as the alternate American desert country she inhabits (Durango Territory, of the Federal Republic of America). Raised by a bitter and abusive couple who were more interested in a slave than a child, she holds no illusions about life being beautiful or fair, knowing that any future that doesn't involve being Pap's punching bag is only going to be won by her own sweat and blood and stone-hard will. Indeed, she's deeply distrustful of friendship and kindness in any form, fully convinced that nobody could think anything remotely charitable about someone like her. She never set out to be a hero or vampire slayer - she didn't even know what a vampire was - and at first tries to deny what she's becoming. It takes a dead woman's ghost and a coyote shapeshifter (and some hard encounters with other monsters, including one that costs her dearly and effectively ends her chances at finding another future on her own terms) to force her to accept the quest before her, hunting down the owl beast that's preying on area towns and native tribes, human and inhuman alike. To do this, she has to join up with the ill-rumored Durango Rangers, who have a poor reputation by the lay public who has no idea they hunt monsters... though their reputation, as she finds out, may not be entirely be mitigated by their duty. Even as she's struggling to come to terms with possibly being the "Shadow" of native legend, she's struggling with growing up, complicated by feeling not at all like a woman, yet not quite like a man; nonbinary sexuality was not exactly a subject that came up much in her upbringing, where everything was black or white, man or woman, good or evil. Nettie also, despite her ingrained cynicism, still secretly hopes to find out who she actually is and why she was abandoned as little more than a baby. Her skin makes her mixed race heritage clear, but does nothing to tell her who her parents were and whether they might have loved her... whether anyone could ever love her, despite the self-loathing Pap and Mam carved into her soul. Nettie's strong personality is the main driving force through the plot, which is heavy on action and often quite brutal but not above pausing for some introspection and personal growth (or setbacks), though every so often her refusal to accept what's right in front of her could grow irritating, particularly at points where she backslides on lessons learned the hard way. The story also ends at an almost literal cliffhanger after the main climax resolves (a climax whose buildup involves a couple plot convenient developments that almost, but not quite, derailed the story for me). Overall, enough pluses balanced out those minuses to end up with a four-star Good rating. I might end up following the rest of Nettie's adventures someday.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Rebel of the Sands (Alwyn Hamilton) - My Review
True Grit (Charles Portis) - My Review
Six-Gun Snow White (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
The Shadow series, Book 1
Lila Bowen
Orbit
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Western
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Life in the flyspeck of a frontier town called Gloomy Bluebird is every bit as dismal as its name suggests, but it's even worse for teenaged Nettie Lonesome. Since before she can remember, she's been little more than a slave to slovenly adopted parents Pap and Mam, a dark-skinned halfbreed with Indian and Black blood who wasn't even worth the teaching of lettering or sums. But she has a knack for gentling horses, and with it she hopes to escape the bleak future that stretches before her. That future almost ends before it begins, when a stranger turns up on the ranch one night - a stranger who turns to dust when she, in self-defense, strikes him through the heart with a splintered wooden stake.
Since that kill, Nettie starts seeing things nobody else notices (even as the stranger's fancy boots and hat and wad of cash help her slip away from Pap and Mam to a better position at the neighboring ranch as the boy "Red"). The ladies at the Leaping Lizard saloon have red eyes and long fangs, for one thing. Then there's something gnawing on the cattle - and the unfortunate incident when another ranch hand turns into a scaly, ravenous something. And she has the ghost of an Indian woman haunting her, insisting that she carry out revenge against a monster that snatched away the children of her tribe, a cannibalistic owl beast out of legend.
Nettie holds no truck with ghosts or monsters or destiny. All she wants is freedom: from Pap and Mam, from the terrible expectations of being a woman, from everything. But whether she likes it or not, it seems this is a fight she can't avoid.
REVIEW: Part Western, part urban fantasy, part alternate history, part quest and coming of age under harrowing circumstances, Wake of Vultures stars a heroine as stubborn, grit-blooded, and rough-edged as the alternate American desert country she inhabits (Durango Territory, of the Federal Republic of America). Raised by a bitter and abusive couple who were more interested in a slave than a child, she holds no illusions about life being beautiful or fair, knowing that any future that doesn't involve being Pap's punching bag is only going to be won by her own sweat and blood and stone-hard will. Indeed, she's deeply distrustful of friendship and kindness in any form, fully convinced that nobody could think anything remotely charitable about someone like her. She never set out to be a hero or vampire slayer - she didn't even know what a vampire was - and at first tries to deny what she's becoming. It takes a dead woman's ghost and a coyote shapeshifter (and some hard encounters with other monsters, including one that costs her dearly and effectively ends her chances at finding another future on her own terms) to force her to accept the quest before her, hunting down the owl beast that's preying on area towns and native tribes, human and inhuman alike. To do this, she has to join up with the ill-rumored Durango Rangers, who have a poor reputation by the lay public who has no idea they hunt monsters... though their reputation, as she finds out, may not be entirely be mitigated by their duty. Even as she's struggling to come to terms with possibly being the "Shadow" of native legend, she's struggling with growing up, complicated by feeling not at all like a woman, yet not quite like a man; nonbinary sexuality was not exactly a subject that came up much in her upbringing, where everything was black or white, man or woman, good or evil. Nettie also, despite her ingrained cynicism, still secretly hopes to find out who she actually is and why she was abandoned as little more than a baby. Her skin makes her mixed race heritage clear, but does nothing to tell her who her parents were and whether they might have loved her... whether anyone could ever love her, despite the self-loathing Pap and Mam carved into her soul. Nettie's strong personality is the main driving force through the plot, which is heavy on action and often quite brutal but not above pausing for some introspection and personal growth (or setbacks), though every so often her refusal to accept what's right in front of her could grow irritating, particularly at points where she backslides on lessons learned the hard way. The story also ends at an almost literal cliffhanger after the main climax resolves (a climax whose buildup involves a couple plot convenient developments that almost, but not quite, derailed the story for me). Overall, enough pluses balanced out those minuses to end up with a four-star Good rating. I might end up following the rest of Nettie's adventures someday.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Rebel of the Sands (Alwyn Hamilton) - My Review
True Grit (Charles Portis) - My Review
Six-Gun Snow White (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
Thursday, January 26, 2023
Time Tourist Outfitters, Ltd. (C. N. Jackson)
Time Tourist Outfitters, Ltd.: A Historical Time Travel Adventure
The Toronto Time Agents series, Book 1
C. N. Jackson
Christy Nicholas, publisher
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Wilda Firestone of Toronto used to be a top agent with the Time Tourist Board, the only sanctioned time travel outfit in the world - the only one whose portals won't cause cellular degeneration in travelers. Now, she limits her involvement to designing period-authentic clothing for other agents and tourists. She lost her taste for time travel after a tragedy in the past tore away everything she loved. If she can help it, she'll never set foot out of her own time ever again. Besides, in her mid-fifties, she feels far too old to deal with the privations of history and bureaucratic red tape of being an agent.
Then the stranger stumbles into her shop, rambling and sickly... a stranger who has clearly been through an unsanctioned, rogue time portal, and who carries some unknown contagion.
Despite her best efforts to stay out, Wilda finds herself pulled back in for one more job: tracking the stranger and other unsanctioned travelers through time to try to isolate the source of their deadly illnesses. In doing so, she'll finally have to confront the memories she's been hiding from for over two decades.
REVIEW: With a stubborn, sarcastic protagonist and a reasonably lively time travel story, this looked like a fun adventure. Generally, it was, but it had just enough bumps and rough patches to hold it back in the ratings. Several stretches felt like filler, not really advancing the story or the characters in any meaningful way, and others set up clues and hints that were never followed up on. There was also an irritating tendency to talk in circles and get distracted by itself before finally getting to the meat of things or the reveals. By the end, several characters who could've used more fleshing out still felt flat. (I also had a few issues with the sound quality of the audiobook.) But there were some interesting ideas and descriptions of history, particularly history as experienced by women (not often a great place to be), and it did keep me listening to the end, so it did do several things right.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Sky Coyote (Kage Baker) - My Review
15 Minutes (Jill Cooper) - My Review
The Psychology of Time Travel (Karen Mascarenhas) - My Review
The Toronto Time Agents series, Book 1
C. N. Jackson
Christy Nicholas, publisher
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Wilda Firestone of Toronto used to be a top agent with the Time Tourist Board, the only sanctioned time travel outfit in the world - the only one whose portals won't cause cellular degeneration in travelers. Now, she limits her involvement to designing period-authentic clothing for other agents and tourists. She lost her taste for time travel after a tragedy in the past tore away everything she loved. If she can help it, she'll never set foot out of her own time ever again. Besides, in her mid-fifties, she feels far too old to deal with the privations of history and bureaucratic red tape of being an agent.
Then the stranger stumbles into her shop, rambling and sickly... a stranger who has clearly been through an unsanctioned, rogue time portal, and who carries some unknown contagion.
Despite her best efforts to stay out, Wilda finds herself pulled back in for one more job: tracking the stranger and other unsanctioned travelers through time to try to isolate the source of their deadly illnesses. In doing so, she'll finally have to confront the memories she's been hiding from for over two decades.
REVIEW: With a stubborn, sarcastic protagonist and a reasonably lively time travel story, this looked like a fun adventure. Generally, it was, but it had just enough bumps and rough patches to hold it back in the ratings. Several stretches felt like filler, not really advancing the story or the characters in any meaningful way, and others set up clues and hints that were never followed up on. There was also an irritating tendency to talk in circles and get distracted by itself before finally getting to the meat of things or the reveals. By the end, several characters who could've used more fleshing out still felt flat. (I also had a few issues with the sound quality of the audiobook.) But there were some interesting ideas and descriptions of history, particularly history as experienced by women (not often a great place to be), and it did keep me listening to the end, so it did do several things right.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Sky Coyote (Kage Baker) - My Review
15 Minutes (Jill Cooper) - My Review
The Psychology of Time Travel (Karen Mascarenhas) - My Review
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Scatter, Adapt, and Remember (Annalee Newitz)
Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive A Mass Extinction
Annalee Newitz
Anchor
Nonfiction, Science/Sociology
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: If there's one thing the history of the earth teaches us, is that change is inevitable - as is extinction. Since its formation, the planet's atmosphere has veered from snowball to greenhouse, methane to oxygen, lush tropical paradise to barren wasteland, even the occasional catastrophic impact from space. Species come and go, with life enduring massive upheavals and bottlenecks. So far as we know, however, humans are the first species to not only be able to observe and predict coming catastrophes, but engineer our own survival. As life itself has to change to survive in dramatically altered circumstances, so, too, we will have to change: how we live, how we think, what we value, even perhaps our own bodies. In this book, author Annalee Newitz looks to the past to understand where humans have come from and what we've come through, then to the present and future to consider what challenges we face in our long-term survival and what we might have to do to endure.
REVIEW: Oh, the sweet optimism of the previous decade... Starting with the earliest life forms (cyanobacteria) to showcase how life has proliferated even under the most trying of circumstances and bounced back from extinction-level events of almost unimaginable proportions, Newitz's book - published in 2013 - offers tempered optimism, based on humanity's previous brushes with oblivion, that we can overcome the numerous challenges before us - climate collapse, resource scarcity, disease, and more - and come out the other side, perhaps altered on a fundamental level but still alive and potentially thriving. Unfortunately, I'm reading this after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that makes a lie of her extensive chapter on global disease and how humanity "will" come together to confront and overcome the next pandemic threat... something which, as we sadly know, is not what happened, at least not as well as one might hope. Instead of coming together and embracing science for the good of the whole, too many turned to tribalism and denial and weaponized ignorance to deepen divides and gain short-term political ground on the backs of long-term damage and death tolls, even leading to potential knock-on effects (I have to wonder if the politicized ranting about vaccines is linked to the current worrying dip in standard childhood vaccinations and rise in diseases like measles in "developed" nations that had once beaten it back; even as I type this, one American state proposed banning COVID vaccines altogether, a move which, even if it was withdrawn, is an exceptionally worrisome sign of the overall political climate that has gained far, far too much traction in recent years, not to mention the general state of education that allowed said climate to develop in the first place... but I digress). Considering that this book was written only ten years ago, it's a sad statement that the author's optimism has so quickly dated her book. It also makes other scenarios and changes she proposes seem far less likely to come to fruition; she does acknowledge that there needs to be sufficient political will to fix problems current and future, but I think she underestimated the level of resistance and even active backsliding those in power seem prepared to execute just to maintain their grips and the illusion that nothing needs to change (because if nothing changes they won't lose their power). That things do need to change is absolutely undeniable, and the many different possible changes and responses to different threats are outlined here, through numerous interviews with experts. From living skyscrapers to underground shelters to potential body modifications and even space colonization, all manner of possibilities are discussed.
Despite the unfortunate dating (after only a decade), it's an interesting exploration of what the future could bring if humans choose to rise to the occasion. I wish I had more faith that any of the futures Newitz outlines here will come to pass. If they do, I fear it will only be after our current catastrophic age plays out to the very last gasp, with far more losses all around than should be necessary if we really lived up to our own species name of "wise man".
You Might Also Enjoy:
Unbound (Richard L. Currier) - My Review
Fool Me Twice (Shawn Lawrence Otto) - My Review
Soonish (Kelly and Zach Weinersmith) - My Review
Annalee Newitz
Anchor
Nonfiction, Science/Sociology
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: If there's one thing the history of the earth teaches us, is that change is inevitable - as is extinction. Since its formation, the planet's atmosphere has veered from snowball to greenhouse, methane to oxygen, lush tropical paradise to barren wasteland, even the occasional catastrophic impact from space. Species come and go, with life enduring massive upheavals and bottlenecks. So far as we know, however, humans are the first species to not only be able to observe and predict coming catastrophes, but engineer our own survival. As life itself has to change to survive in dramatically altered circumstances, so, too, we will have to change: how we live, how we think, what we value, even perhaps our own bodies. In this book, author Annalee Newitz looks to the past to understand where humans have come from and what we've come through, then to the present and future to consider what challenges we face in our long-term survival and what we might have to do to endure.
REVIEW: Oh, the sweet optimism of the previous decade... Starting with the earliest life forms (cyanobacteria) to showcase how life has proliferated even under the most trying of circumstances and bounced back from extinction-level events of almost unimaginable proportions, Newitz's book - published in 2013 - offers tempered optimism, based on humanity's previous brushes with oblivion, that we can overcome the numerous challenges before us - climate collapse, resource scarcity, disease, and more - and come out the other side, perhaps altered on a fundamental level but still alive and potentially thriving. Unfortunately, I'm reading this after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that makes a lie of her extensive chapter on global disease and how humanity "will" come together to confront and overcome the next pandemic threat... something which, as we sadly know, is not what happened, at least not as well as one might hope. Instead of coming together and embracing science for the good of the whole, too many turned to tribalism and denial and weaponized ignorance to deepen divides and gain short-term political ground on the backs of long-term damage and death tolls, even leading to potential knock-on effects (I have to wonder if the politicized ranting about vaccines is linked to the current worrying dip in standard childhood vaccinations and rise in diseases like measles in "developed" nations that had once beaten it back; even as I type this, one American state proposed banning COVID vaccines altogether, a move which, even if it was withdrawn, is an exceptionally worrisome sign of the overall political climate that has gained far, far too much traction in recent years, not to mention the general state of education that allowed said climate to develop in the first place... but I digress). Considering that this book was written only ten years ago, it's a sad statement that the author's optimism has so quickly dated her book. It also makes other scenarios and changes she proposes seem far less likely to come to fruition; she does acknowledge that there needs to be sufficient political will to fix problems current and future, but I think she underestimated the level of resistance and even active backsliding those in power seem prepared to execute just to maintain their grips and the illusion that nothing needs to change (because if nothing changes they won't lose their power). That things do need to change is absolutely undeniable, and the many different possible changes and responses to different threats are outlined here, through numerous interviews with experts. From living skyscrapers to underground shelters to potential body modifications and even space colonization, all manner of possibilities are discussed.
Despite the unfortunate dating (after only a decade), it's an interesting exploration of what the future could bring if humans choose to rise to the occasion. I wish I had more faith that any of the futures Newitz outlines here will come to pass. If they do, I fear it will only be after our current catastrophic age plays out to the very last gasp, with far more losses all around than should be necessary if we really lived up to our own species name of "wise man".
You Might Also Enjoy:
Unbound (Richard L. Currier) - My Review
Fool Me Twice (Shawn Lawrence Otto) - My Review
Soonish (Kelly and Zach Weinersmith) - My Review
Sunday, January 15, 2023
Light From Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki)
Light From Uncommon Stars
Ryka Aoki
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In classical music circles, Shizuka Satomi is known as the Queen of Hell, a legendary violin instructor with a fearsome reputation. Six students she has trained, six stars who blazed brilliantly across stages around the world - six lives that ended tragically, but the true tragedy is one the public would never know. For Miss Satomi did not come by her name lightly. She sold her soul to Hell, and to buy her own freedom she has promised the demon Tremon Philippe seven tortured souls. She only needs one more student, one more soul, but not just anyone will do; the Queen of Hell does have a reputation to uphold, after all, and will only take on a true diamond in the rough. Yet with only a year before she defaults and Tremon claims her as the seventh and final prize for his master, she finally hears the sound she's been seeking, the violinist who will be her crowning achievement, in the most unlikely of places: beside a duck pond in a public park.
Katrina Nguyen fled an abusive home and parents who refused to understand who she really was, even smashing her violin and resorting to violence as they tried to force her to be their son "Michael" again. All she has is a backpack of essentials, an address of someone she met briefly at a convention, and a cheap eBay violin from China. But the San Gabriel Valley is not the sanctuary she'd hoped it would be. Running away again, lost and desperate, she turns, as always, to her music for comfort... and attracts the attention of a stranger. There's no way this woman can be who she says she is, and there's no way she could possibly want to train a nobody like Katrina, a nobody who only sees herself as a useless freak. There has to be a catch, doesn't there? But it's not like she has a choice, with nowhere else to go.
Captain Lan Tran fled with her family from the galactic wars ravaging her homeworld. On a quaintly backwards little planet whose inhabitants have barely begun exploring their own star system, Lan plans to hunker down and wait out the end of her people. To blend in, she buys an iconic donut shop, one whose landmark large rooftop donut will make a nice stargate (if she can figure out a power source that won't blow the grid on the entire coast), and sets her family/crew to work. She didn't mean to get attached to the simple locals or their odd customs. Little does she know just how deeply she and her family will become involved, the day Shizuka Satomi walks into Starrgate Donuts...
REVIEW: Aliens, classical music, Asian diaspora, hate, prejudice, damnation, and donuts... Light From Uncommon Stars is a song composed of many notes that one wouldn't think would harmonize, but do, even if it takes a while before the melody becomes clear. It took me a while (and one false start) before I managed to get far enough in for the characters and story threads to start coming together, and even then I was wondering just how on Earth it was going to work. It does this, in part, by not overexplaining or overanalyzing its premise, embracing its contradictions and peculiar mashup of ideas and characters. At the center of it all is the relationship between Shizuka Satomi, a woman who knowingly bargained away not only her own soul but the souls of six other men and women, and Katrina Nguyen, a trans teen who has endured all manner of dehumanization and abuse yet who finds a voice in her violin. The tale unfolds in the cultural stew of Monterey Park, where numerous immigrant cultures come together in unexpected ways (though not without friction), a peculiarly dynamic melding of tradition and innovation creating unique flavors, literally; food is a running theme through the book, from Lan's attempts to replicate home-baked donuts with interstellar technology to pizza restaurants that have morphed into Asian bistros to neighbors sharing the fruits of backyard gardens. Music, too, reflects the cultural blending and clashing, from classical masters to modern video game scores, and the universal power of music to shape emotion and evoke memory. As in most any story involving Hell and damnation, there is also pain and suffering and despair and heartbreak, not to mention a scheming demon who has no intention of being cheated out of the soul he was promised and who knows just how to play his human marks to get what he desires. While the plot sometimes feels slow and a few characters start to feel extraneous, it builds to something truly powerful and memorable by the finale, and I expect I'll be thinking about it for quite some time.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Rhapsody (Elizabeth Haydon) - My Review
Song for the Basilisk (Patricia McKillip) - My Review
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (V. E. Schwab) - My Review
Ryka Aoki
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In classical music circles, Shizuka Satomi is known as the Queen of Hell, a legendary violin instructor with a fearsome reputation. Six students she has trained, six stars who blazed brilliantly across stages around the world - six lives that ended tragically, but the true tragedy is one the public would never know. For Miss Satomi did not come by her name lightly. She sold her soul to Hell, and to buy her own freedom she has promised the demon Tremon Philippe seven tortured souls. She only needs one more student, one more soul, but not just anyone will do; the Queen of Hell does have a reputation to uphold, after all, and will only take on a true diamond in the rough. Yet with only a year before she defaults and Tremon claims her as the seventh and final prize for his master, she finally hears the sound she's been seeking, the violinist who will be her crowning achievement, in the most unlikely of places: beside a duck pond in a public park.
Katrina Nguyen fled an abusive home and parents who refused to understand who she really was, even smashing her violin and resorting to violence as they tried to force her to be their son "Michael" again. All she has is a backpack of essentials, an address of someone she met briefly at a convention, and a cheap eBay violin from China. But the San Gabriel Valley is not the sanctuary she'd hoped it would be. Running away again, lost and desperate, she turns, as always, to her music for comfort... and attracts the attention of a stranger. There's no way this woman can be who she says she is, and there's no way she could possibly want to train a nobody like Katrina, a nobody who only sees herself as a useless freak. There has to be a catch, doesn't there? But it's not like she has a choice, with nowhere else to go.
Captain Lan Tran fled with her family from the galactic wars ravaging her homeworld. On a quaintly backwards little planet whose inhabitants have barely begun exploring their own star system, Lan plans to hunker down and wait out the end of her people. To blend in, she buys an iconic donut shop, one whose landmark large rooftop donut will make a nice stargate (if she can figure out a power source that won't blow the grid on the entire coast), and sets her family/crew to work. She didn't mean to get attached to the simple locals or their odd customs. Little does she know just how deeply she and her family will become involved, the day Shizuka Satomi walks into Starrgate Donuts...
REVIEW: Aliens, classical music, Asian diaspora, hate, prejudice, damnation, and donuts... Light From Uncommon Stars is a song composed of many notes that one wouldn't think would harmonize, but do, even if it takes a while before the melody becomes clear. It took me a while (and one false start) before I managed to get far enough in for the characters and story threads to start coming together, and even then I was wondering just how on Earth it was going to work. It does this, in part, by not overexplaining or overanalyzing its premise, embracing its contradictions and peculiar mashup of ideas and characters. At the center of it all is the relationship between Shizuka Satomi, a woman who knowingly bargained away not only her own soul but the souls of six other men and women, and Katrina Nguyen, a trans teen who has endured all manner of dehumanization and abuse yet who finds a voice in her violin. The tale unfolds in the cultural stew of Monterey Park, where numerous immigrant cultures come together in unexpected ways (though not without friction), a peculiarly dynamic melding of tradition and innovation creating unique flavors, literally; food is a running theme through the book, from Lan's attempts to replicate home-baked donuts with interstellar technology to pizza restaurants that have morphed into Asian bistros to neighbors sharing the fruits of backyard gardens. Music, too, reflects the cultural blending and clashing, from classical masters to modern video game scores, and the universal power of music to shape emotion and evoke memory. As in most any story involving Hell and damnation, there is also pain and suffering and despair and heartbreak, not to mention a scheming demon who has no intention of being cheated out of the soul he was promised and who knows just how to play his human marks to get what he desires. While the plot sometimes feels slow and a few characters start to feel extraneous, it builds to something truly powerful and memorable by the finale, and I expect I'll be thinking about it for quite some time.
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