The month's reviews have been archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books site.
Enjoy!
Friday, September 30, 2022
She Who Became the Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan)
She Who Became the Sun
The Radiant Emperor series, Book 1
Shelley Parker-Chan
Tor
Fiction, YA? Fantasy/Historical Fiction
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In 1345, China suffers under the heels of Mongolian conquerors. On a dead farm in a dying village stricken by years-long drought, one boy is foretold to rise to greatness, while his sister's fortune is nothing. Then bandits come to take what little they have left. In the aftermath, the boy Zhu Chongba and his father lie dead, and the girl is left with a slender chance at a future: by taking her dead brother's name, perhaps she can take his fortune as well, and become great. To do this, she will have to do more than just wish it, or wear a boy's garb and take a boy's name. She will have to struggle, suffer, and burn with her desire for greatness until the heavens themselves cannot deny her, until she outshines the sun itself.
REVIEW: Inspired by the rise of the first Ming emperor of China, She Who Became the Sun presents a vivid, often brutal exploration of the path to greatness and the desires that drive people to both bold and terrible acts. From the first page, the girl who will take the name of Zhu is a fighter; in a village where most every other girl has died - no family would waste scant food on a girl if they had a boy to feed, and other girls were either traded away to bandits or quietly vanished - she relies on skill and pure determination to survive. Hearing the village fortune teller give his verdict that she is to be nothing is a blow that sends her reeling, until the death of her brother opens up the possibility of a future that few, if any, other girls would even dare consider in her culture and era. It also gives her the unusual gift of seeing ghosts, part of the underlying fantastical elements of the story (along with the visible aura-like fires of the "mandate of Heaven" that great leaders can burn with, and perhaps a certain tangibility of Fate's threads binding Zhu and others to each other and to their destinies). Zhu starts out with little idea of what form of greatness she is grasping for, mostly concerned with mere survival, but slowly begins piecing together a clearer picture of the future she wants, the path that she determines to walk whether or not she was originally fated to do so. Every obstacle and setback only deepens her determination, spurred both by her unquenchable desire and her fear that the fortune teller was right and she truly is meant to be nothing. Meanwhile, other characters have their own desires and destinies driving them onward, from two conquering princes to a bitter eunuch to the compassionate woman promised to a foolhardy rebel general and more. Their tales unfold in a story rich in period culture details, with vivid settings and intricate power plays, military and political and personal. Nobody's hands or consciences are entirely clean by the end, some feeling the burden more than others as ends justify increasingly cruel and deadly means. It made for an enjoyable, if sometimes brutal, tale that kept my interest from start to finish.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Range of Ghosts (Elizabeth Bear) - My Review
The Grace of Kings (Ken Liu) - My Review
The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - My Review
The Radiant Emperor series, Book 1
Shelley Parker-Chan
Tor
Fiction, YA? Fantasy/Historical Fiction
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In 1345, China suffers under the heels of Mongolian conquerors. On a dead farm in a dying village stricken by years-long drought, one boy is foretold to rise to greatness, while his sister's fortune is nothing. Then bandits come to take what little they have left. In the aftermath, the boy Zhu Chongba and his father lie dead, and the girl is left with a slender chance at a future: by taking her dead brother's name, perhaps she can take his fortune as well, and become great. To do this, she will have to do more than just wish it, or wear a boy's garb and take a boy's name. She will have to struggle, suffer, and burn with her desire for greatness until the heavens themselves cannot deny her, until she outshines the sun itself.
REVIEW: Inspired by the rise of the first Ming emperor of China, She Who Became the Sun presents a vivid, often brutal exploration of the path to greatness and the desires that drive people to both bold and terrible acts. From the first page, the girl who will take the name of Zhu is a fighter; in a village where most every other girl has died - no family would waste scant food on a girl if they had a boy to feed, and other girls were either traded away to bandits or quietly vanished - she relies on skill and pure determination to survive. Hearing the village fortune teller give his verdict that she is to be nothing is a blow that sends her reeling, until the death of her brother opens up the possibility of a future that few, if any, other girls would even dare consider in her culture and era. It also gives her the unusual gift of seeing ghosts, part of the underlying fantastical elements of the story (along with the visible aura-like fires of the "mandate of Heaven" that great leaders can burn with, and perhaps a certain tangibility of Fate's threads binding Zhu and others to each other and to their destinies). Zhu starts out with little idea of what form of greatness she is grasping for, mostly concerned with mere survival, but slowly begins piecing together a clearer picture of the future she wants, the path that she determines to walk whether or not she was originally fated to do so. Every obstacle and setback only deepens her determination, spurred both by her unquenchable desire and her fear that the fortune teller was right and she truly is meant to be nothing. Meanwhile, other characters have their own desires and destinies driving them onward, from two conquering princes to a bitter eunuch to the compassionate woman promised to a foolhardy rebel general and more. Their tales unfold in a story rich in period culture details, with vivid settings and intricate power plays, military and political and personal. Nobody's hands or consciences are entirely clean by the end, some feeling the burden more than others as ends justify increasingly cruel and deadly means. It made for an enjoyable, if sometimes brutal, tale that kept my interest from start to finish.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Range of Ghosts (Elizabeth Bear) - My Review
The Grace of Kings (Ken Liu) - My Review
The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - My Review
Thursday, September 29, 2022
The Cay (Theodore Taylor)
The Cay
The Cay series, Book 1
Theodore Taylor
Laurel-Leaf Books
Fiction, MG? Adventure/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: American-born Phillip loves his life in the West Indies, where his father moved their family as part of his job with the oil companies, though his mother still deeply misses their old home and friends back in Virginia. Now that there's a war on in Europe, his father's job - helping refine airplane fuel - is more important than ever... and more dangerous than ever, when the German U-boats show up. When at last Dad agrees to let Mom go back to America with the boy, Phillip protests, but there's nothing the boy can do to change grown-up minds. He'll be safer in Virginia, he's told, and the ship that's taking them is a nondescript Dutch vessel that should be beneath German notice.
The Germans don't care what Phillip's parents think; their torpedoes take out the ship and scatter the survivors across the waves.
Phillip wakes in a lifeboat with a terrible headache, the ship's cat Stew Cat, and an old Black sailor named Timothy. The boy's mother had very strong feelings about people of color, but as hope of rescue fades along with his eyesight, Philip has no choice but to trust Timothy with his life.
REVIEW: The Cay is a classic tale of survival at sea, inspired by a tragic passage in the log of a Dutch vessel sunk by Germans in the Caribbean. Though white Philip was friendly enough (if at a distance) with the Black people of Curacao, being in a survival situation brings up all of his mother's teachings about race and the inherent difference/inferiority of certain people compared to his own heritage. He has to literally be blinded to finally see the lie in those teachings, as Timothy endeavors to not only help the boy survive but teach him what he needs to know to survive on his own. The boy does learn, if stubbornly at first, and even has to step up to help the old man when needs arise. As hours become days become months without rescue, at first at sea then on the waterless small island they eventually land on, the bond between boy and man (and cat) grows into something akin to family, though it is only later on that Phillip truly understands the scale of Timothy's sacrifices and efforts. Things move fairly well from start to finish, still readable and memorable today.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Island: Shipwreck (Gordon Korman) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Rogue Wave (Theodore Taylor) - My Review
The Cay series, Book 1
Theodore Taylor
Laurel-Leaf Books
Fiction, MG? Adventure/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: American-born Phillip loves his life in the West Indies, where his father moved their family as part of his job with the oil companies, though his mother still deeply misses their old home and friends back in Virginia. Now that there's a war on in Europe, his father's job - helping refine airplane fuel - is more important than ever... and more dangerous than ever, when the German U-boats show up. When at last Dad agrees to let Mom go back to America with the boy, Phillip protests, but there's nothing the boy can do to change grown-up minds. He'll be safer in Virginia, he's told, and the ship that's taking them is a nondescript Dutch vessel that should be beneath German notice.
The Germans don't care what Phillip's parents think; their torpedoes take out the ship and scatter the survivors across the waves.
Phillip wakes in a lifeboat with a terrible headache, the ship's cat Stew Cat, and an old Black sailor named Timothy. The boy's mother had very strong feelings about people of color, but as hope of rescue fades along with his eyesight, Philip has no choice but to trust Timothy with his life.
REVIEW: The Cay is a classic tale of survival at sea, inspired by a tragic passage in the log of a Dutch vessel sunk by Germans in the Caribbean. Though white Philip was friendly enough (if at a distance) with the Black people of Curacao, being in a survival situation brings up all of his mother's teachings about race and the inherent difference/inferiority of certain people compared to his own heritage. He has to literally be blinded to finally see the lie in those teachings, as Timothy endeavors to not only help the boy survive but teach him what he needs to know to survive on his own. The boy does learn, if stubbornly at first, and even has to step up to help the old man when needs arise. As hours become days become months without rescue, at first at sea then on the waterless small island they eventually land on, the bond between boy and man (and cat) grows into something akin to family, though it is only later on that Phillip truly understands the scale of Timothy's sacrifices and efforts. Things move fairly well from start to finish, still readable and memorable today.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Island: Shipwreck (Gordon Korman) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Rogue Wave (Theodore Taylor) - My Review
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
Rocannon's World (Ursula K. Le Guin)
Rocannon's World
The Hainish Cycle, Book 1
Ursula K. Le Guin
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Among the numerous planets of the League of All Worlds, most only have one intelligent species. The League contacts these people, raising their civilization and collecting tax or tribute, in preparation for a coming intergalactic war, but mostly leaves them to their own devices. On one world, though, multiple species reached self-awareness. It is a world too small and otherwise unremarkable to have been officially named beyond its system designation Fomalhaut II, let alone thoroughly explored, and only one of the species, the Gdemiar or so-called Clay People of the nights and underground tunnels, was granted League secrets. But it was not a Clay Person who traveled to the offworld museum one fortuitous day in search of an old family heirloom, traded to the star travelers for their gifts many years past: it was one of the dark-skinned and golden-haired Angyar, ruling race of the Liuar species of humanoids. Interworld ethnologist Rocannon was captivated by her beauty and the many unexplored secrets of her world... enough that he undertook a mission to fill in the countless gaps in League knowledge about the place, for all that, due to the speed of bureaucracy and the time dilation effects of space travel, it would be decades before he set foot on the planet.
That is why he was on the world, in the company of the woman's grandson and current prince of their lands, when his ship and all his League companions were destroyed by offworld rebels. The League of All Worlds is under attack, and the attackers have chosen to set up their base of operations on the backwater Fomalhaut II... and, with the ansible device that allows instantaneous communication across space destroyed, there is no way for Rocannon to let his colleagues know where the rebels are, let alone summon help for a planet whose populace is largely in the Bronze Age. As he cannot, in good conscience, stand back and let the people whom he has come to admire and love be destroyed, he undertakes a quest halfway across the world to find their base and do whatever he can to protect the planet - even if it costs him his own life.
REVIEW: Part of the classic Hainish series by noted genre author Ursula K. Le Guin, Rocannon's World plays into the seemingly-popular "planetary romance" trend of its time (or, at least, I've read more than one other example from roughly the same era, so it appears to have been a trend) of projecting a near-fantasy epic adventure onto an alien world. (It also uses the then-popular, now-cringeworthy notion of tall, thin, blonde masters and "swarthy" dark-haired servants or slaves; even the clearly intelligent underground Clay People are portrayed as brutish and nasty beyond the less technically advanced Liuar race in no small part due to their appearance; even though the skin of the Liuar is dark and the servant/squat races are pale, it's a bit hard to edge around the implications of blonde-haired master/black-haired slave.) The planet itself is a world of many wonders; a slightly less than Earth-normal gravity gave rise to many species developing wings, albeit without any insect life to speak of. The Angyar tame and ride "windsteeds" of griffinlike appearance, and there have been rumors since the world's discovery and in myths of winged humanoids on the unexplored land mass Rocannon and his companions must visit. There's a certain air of mysticism to the cultures, with limited telepathy and talk of omens and destinies. Rocannon comes to the world as a wide-eyed outsider utterly enamored with the people (or at least the comely Angyars) and the planet; when his ship is destroyed, he hardly needs prompting to step up to protect them. There's an unavoidable shade of "white savior" to his actions, especially as he comes to be viewed as something akin to a wizard in his travels, for all that many on the world are casually familiar with the concept of aliens and the League of All Worlds even if they haven't met offworlders themselves. Setting that aside, though, this is a decently-told adventure story in a world of wonders and dangers, perhaps more akin to a classic fantasy story than science fiction as one would read it today.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Lord Valentine's Castle (Robert Silverberg) - My Review
The Snow Queen (Joan D. Vinge) - My Review
Cards of Grief (Jane Yolen) - My Review
The Hainish Cycle, Book 1
Ursula K. Le Guin
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Among the numerous planets of the League of All Worlds, most only have one intelligent species. The League contacts these people, raising their civilization and collecting tax or tribute, in preparation for a coming intergalactic war, but mostly leaves them to their own devices. On one world, though, multiple species reached self-awareness. It is a world too small and otherwise unremarkable to have been officially named beyond its system designation Fomalhaut II, let alone thoroughly explored, and only one of the species, the Gdemiar or so-called Clay People of the nights and underground tunnels, was granted League secrets. But it was not a Clay Person who traveled to the offworld museum one fortuitous day in search of an old family heirloom, traded to the star travelers for their gifts many years past: it was one of the dark-skinned and golden-haired Angyar, ruling race of the Liuar species of humanoids. Interworld ethnologist Rocannon was captivated by her beauty and the many unexplored secrets of her world... enough that he undertook a mission to fill in the countless gaps in League knowledge about the place, for all that, due to the speed of bureaucracy and the time dilation effects of space travel, it would be decades before he set foot on the planet.
That is why he was on the world, in the company of the woman's grandson and current prince of their lands, when his ship and all his League companions were destroyed by offworld rebels. The League of All Worlds is under attack, and the attackers have chosen to set up their base of operations on the backwater Fomalhaut II... and, with the ansible device that allows instantaneous communication across space destroyed, there is no way for Rocannon to let his colleagues know where the rebels are, let alone summon help for a planet whose populace is largely in the Bronze Age. As he cannot, in good conscience, stand back and let the people whom he has come to admire and love be destroyed, he undertakes a quest halfway across the world to find their base and do whatever he can to protect the planet - even if it costs him his own life.
REVIEW: Part of the classic Hainish series by noted genre author Ursula K. Le Guin, Rocannon's World plays into the seemingly-popular "planetary romance" trend of its time (or, at least, I've read more than one other example from roughly the same era, so it appears to have been a trend) of projecting a near-fantasy epic adventure onto an alien world. (It also uses the then-popular, now-cringeworthy notion of tall, thin, blonde masters and "swarthy" dark-haired servants or slaves; even the clearly intelligent underground Clay People are portrayed as brutish and nasty beyond the less technically advanced Liuar race in no small part due to their appearance; even though the skin of the Liuar is dark and the servant/squat races are pale, it's a bit hard to edge around the implications of blonde-haired master/black-haired slave.) The planet itself is a world of many wonders; a slightly less than Earth-normal gravity gave rise to many species developing wings, albeit without any insect life to speak of. The Angyar tame and ride "windsteeds" of griffinlike appearance, and there have been rumors since the world's discovery and in myths of winged humanoids on the unexplored land mass Rocannon and his companions must visit. There's a certain air of mysticism to the cultures, with limited telepathy and talk of omens and destinies. Rocannon comes to the world as a wide-eyed outsider utterly enamored with the people (or at least the comely Angyars) and the planet; when his ship is destroyed, he hardly needs prompting to step up to protect them. There's an unavoidable shade of "white savior" to his actions, especially as he comes to be viewed as something akin to a wizard in his travels, for all that many on the world are casually familiar with the concept of aliens and the League of All Worlds even if they haven't met offworlders themselves. Setting that aside, though, this is a decently-told adventure story in a world of wonders and dangers, perhaps more akin to a classic fantasy story than science fiction as one would read it today.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Lord Valentine's Castle (Robert Silverberg) - My Review
The Snow Queen (Joan D. Vinge) - My Review
Cards of Grief (Jane Yolen) - My Review
Friday, September 16, 2022
The Marrow Thieves (Cherie Dimaline)
The Marrow Thieves
The Marrow Thieves series, Book 1
Cherie Dimaline
DCB
Fiction, YA? Horror/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Francis, or Frenchie to his family and friends, is too young to remember the world before: before cataclysmic climate disasters, before the ecosystem collapse and wasting of the world's great cities, before so much pure water was irreparably polluted... before the mysterious plague that rendered most people unable to dream and Native Americans as targets. As the lack of dreams drove most of the world to madness, natives seemed unaffected... and what the white people could not learn or appropriate, they once again stole, harvesting their marrow for a serum to treat dreamlessness. Young or old, northern or southern tribes, even mixed bloods or those unfortunate enough to look "other", all are subject to the recruiters, and few who are taken to the new "schools" are ever seen again. For a while, Frenchie had his family, but one by one they've all been taken, until it was just him, a sickly boy on the run... until he encountered the others.
For several years, the now-sixteen-year-old Frenchie has been with Miig and a handful of other "bush Indians", fleeing through the northern wilderness toward rumors of possible sanctuary. He has learned to hunt, to track, to live off the land, and some scraps of the old ways and old languages... but still he lives a harried existence, always aware of the Recruiters and their agents - Native American traitors, who lure their kin to their dooms like Judas goats - who could be anywhere. His companions may not be family by birth, but they are family - and, soon, Frenchie will learn just how far he's willing to go for the sake of family.
REVIEW: This story takes the historical exploitation (and attempted erasure) of Native Americans and projects it into a dystopian future, where they and their dreams are literally hunted down and harvested for sale to white people. Frenchie is both a survivor and a teenager; driven by extreme circumstances, he grows up faster than he should have to, yet is still a teen boy at heart when it comes to girls and, later, rivals for attention and affection. Everyone comes to Miig's makeshift family bearing scars, often in the literal sense, and over the course of the book most of their stories come out, all of them dark in their own ways and revealing more about the future world they live in, the desperation and insanity that has driven things to such horrific extremes. It's ultimately a story about how far one will go for love and survival; even the white people are, in their own brutal and blindered way, driven by the desire to survive, as the lack of dreams pushes them to murder and suicide which, on top of plummeting birth rates, threatens their future at least as much as what they've done to the world, a sort of generational mass suicide they refused to see until the noose was too tight around their necks (and even then refuse to acknowledge). As one might expect in such a story, there's a fair bit of pain and despair and loss, but also strength and hope for renewal and rebirth. The tale moves fairly well, though it feels incomplete by the end, like a song paused in the middle of a verse (and with a slight hint of plot convenience around a few incidents). Even being the first of what is apparently slated to be a trilogy, it felt unfinished. Still, The Marrow Thieves is a justly-lauded tale of cultural and ecological devastation, the wages of racism, and dreams lost and found.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Firekeeper's Daughter (Angeline Boulley) - My Review
Ghost Hawk (Susan Cooper) - My Review
Trail of Lightning (Rebecca Roanhorse) - My Review
The Marrow Thieves series, Book 1
Cherie Dimaline
DCB
Fiction, YA? Horror/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Francis, or Frenchie to his family and friends, is too young to remember the world before: before cataclysmic climate disasters, before the ecosystem collapse and wasting of the world's great cities, before so much pure water was irreparably polluted... before the mysterious plague that rendered most people unable to dream and Native Americans as targets. As the lack of dreams drove most of the world to madness, natives seemed unaffected... and what the white people could not learn or appropriate, they once again stole, harvesting their marrow for a serum to treat dreamlessness. Young or old, northern or southern tribes, even mixed bloods or those unfortunate enough to look "other", all are subject to the recruiters, and few who are taken to the new "schools" are ever seen again. For a while, Frenchie had his family, but one by one they've all been taken, until it was just him, a sickly boy on the run... until he encountered the others.
For several years, the now-sixteen-year-old Frenchie has been with Miig and a handful of other "bush Indians", fleeing through the northern wilderness toward rumors of possible sanctuary. He has learned to hunt, to track, to live off the land, and some scraps of the old ways and old languages... but still he lives a harried existence, always aware of the Recruiters and their agents - Native American traitors, who lure their kin to their dooms like Judas goats - who could be anywhere. His companions may not be family by birth, but they are family - and, soon, Frenchie will learn just how far he's willing to go for the sake of family.
REVIEW: This story takes the historical exploitation (and attempted erasure) of Native Americans and projects it into a dystopian future, where they and their dreams are literally hunted down and harvested for sale to white people. Frenchie is both a survivor and a teenager; driven by extreme circumstances, he grows up faster than he should have to, yet is still a teen boy at heart when it comes to girls and, later, rivals for attention and affection. Everyone comes to Miig's makeshift family bearing scars, often in the literal sense, and over the course of the book most of their stories come out, all of them dark in their own ways and revealing more about the future world they live in, the desperation and insanity that has driven things to such horrific extremes. It's ultimately a story about how far one will go for love and survival; even the white people are, in their own brutal and blindered way, driven by the desire to survive, as the lack of dreams pushes them to murder and suicide which, on top of plummeting birth rates, threatens their future at least as much as what they've done to the world, a sort of generational mass suicide they refused to see until the noose was too tight around their necks (and even then refuse to acknowledge). As one might expect in such a story, there's a fair bit of pain and despair and loss, but also strength and hope for renewal and rebirth. The tale moves fairly well, though it feels incomplete by the end, like a song paused in the middle of a verse (and with a slight hint of plot convenience around a few incidents). Even being the first of what is apparently slated to be a trilogy, it felt unfinished. Still, The Marrow Thieves is a justly-lauded tale of cultural and ecological devastation, the wages of racism, and dreams lost and found.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Firekeeper's Daughter (Angeline Boulley) - My Review
Ghost Hawk (Susan Cooper) - My Review
Trail of Lightning (Rebecca Roanhorse) - My Review
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