Graham

There is definitely an increasing influence of Asian cultural mores in modern fantasy and this is definitely welcome - it has provided a significant shake up to the standard tropes and created some fascinating new worlds to explore in literature. There is an unashamed Asian influence on this debut novel from J.T. Greathouse - the mandarin style schools gives it a very distinctive flavour, reminding me of Poppy War.

The world we are introduced to is one where an empire has conquered many outlying kingdoms using its particular control of magic. Citizens of these conquered parts of the empire are effcetively second class citizens with strong ethnic tensions underlying most of the novel. Each conquered culture had its own magic which the empire has stolen for its own and repressed within the local population.

Our story lead is a half caste, whose father is from the conquering nation. They yearn to wield magic and this is tightly controlled requiring them to be selected as a ‘hand' of the emperor to get trained, requiring them to become top of the mandarin style training school. Loyalties become more complex as they learn more about how the empire works and their role within it.

I really enjoyed this - it was well written with an engaging story development. I look forward to more from this author!

YA with giant mechs. Not something I have really read anything on, so an intriguing and enjoyable read! This was essentially a critique of the patriarchy inherent within military hierarchies so has a fascinating dose of gender politics included within it too.

The basic set up is that some (alien?) invasion has taken place and humanity is fighting to survive using salvages mechs to counter the hordes of invading alien ones. These mechs require 2 pilots, with a yin and a yang seat for a male and female pilot. However, this frequently ends up as the male pilot draining the female one to power the mech - essentially the female pilots are acting as sacrifices to power the robots - except in a few cases where a balanced mech results.

Our lead character is angry about this. Her sister was killed by a pilot (and outside of a mech so the family did not get the pay off for the sacrifice) and she is determined to avenge her. She volunteers to be a pilot to try and get close enough to avenge her sister, but this leads to unintended consequences.

One elephant in the room is the annoying love triangle that YA authors seem contractually obliged to include in every story. It is present in this story too. Fortunately the action outweighs the usual whiney teenage angst here, but I do wish some YA books would avoid this trope as it almost invariably makes books less enjoyable for me.

This was my last subscription book from illumicrate as I have now cancelled the subscription - I was getting too many doubles and have some changes to my life situation meaning I want to be more focused on my reading goals. That said, I went out on a high as this was genuinely an enjoyable read.

A book with a story told from the perspective of a book. I think that sums up some of my frustrations with this book - it tries hard to be clever and meta but ends up just being weird and nonsensical. Our main characters are suffering from mental health disorders - the mother is an obsessive hoarder and the son hears objects talking to him. How much of this is real is left very much up to the reader to determine. In the end, I found the characters strange and annoying. The basic concepts and ideas were interesting enough, and the way that these mental issues creep up on you as a result of external factors was well realized, but the characters themselves just were not interesting or engaging enough for me. The meandering prose and structure really did not help me either.

I am sure there are going to be plenty of people who enjoy this kind of thing, but this was not for me

The fantasy heist is becoming a staple subgenre of fantasy these days and Among Thieves is a new addition to that oeuvre. It follows the standard template of a bunch of misfit characters brought together to attempt a crazy heist of a powerful magical artifact. So far so tropey. Where Among Thieves succeeds is in the deliciously dark motivations of most of the characters. This isn't the YA black and white style world, and whilst the story definitely has a YA style pacing the storyline is definitely firmly rooted in the adult fantasy world.

I enjoyed this - it was a fun read with a suitable amount of backstabbing and twists to keep the reader interested. Yes, it plays with well established tropes, but it plays with them well.

The structure of this book is both its cleverest thing and its weakest thing. We follow three parallel timelines, one 1000 years in the past, one in the present and one 1000 years in the future. The way this allows myth to be developed and shown how mundane things can be mythologized into the future is clever but the problem with multiple timelines is keeping them all engaging and relevant and this book falls down big time on that.

The first timeline takes place in the ancient Mayan world following the destiny of a brother and sister (‘the hero twins') trying to defend their kingdom. This is an interesting story to follow with its delving into Mayan mythology and culture. The second timeline follows a young adult in the modern world who decides to go on a vacation to Belize and falls in love with a cave important to the ancient Mayan culture in the area. Again, this is an interesting and well balanced story that kept me engaged - probably my favourite of the three timelines. Its main weakness was a tendency to dive into creole at times, which for a non speaker is painful to read. The third timeline is where the book fell completely flat for me. Here we end up in the future where humans have become nomadic relationships have completely changed meaning and the disappearance of someone into a cave has become mythologized into a new religion. This story was so out, so completely detached from any grounding to common motifs that I struggled hugely with it. The characters were irritating, the random spanish words thrown in were irritating. It was all a huge mess.

I see this has been referenced with Cloud Atlas a few times - this is no where near on the same level. The structure is less clever and the stories less engaging. This novel struck me as over ambitious with the execution falling short of the intent. If it had worked, it could been a very clever novel. It just didn't work for me.

This book definitely hit home in a somewhat unexpected manner. The main topic is buying a seemingly dream home which turns out to be more than you bargained for. Having recently bought a new house and discovered afterwards some expensive problems to fix I can definitely get on board with this theme! Fortunately my issues are not the same as the ones here. Palmetto takes its name from the Palmetto bug, a type of cockroach. Infestations make good horror topics - both very believable and easy to make people a bit squeamish with. Ania Ahlborn does a fantastic job of building up the rising sense of dread that someone with a genuine fear of bugs might have. The novella format is perfect here giving just the right length to leave a satisfying denouement without overstaying its welcome. Thoroughly enjoyable!

Thunderstorm books have also done a fantastic job with the production of this book. This is part of their Black Voltage line which is signed and numbered, has a standardized size, is leatherbound and features hand marbled endsheets. Very good value for the price!

DNF after 25%. This was just a diarrhea of words vomited up on a page. I found it utterly impenetrable. The whole thing meanders pointlessly without a real semblance of purpose. I get the concept - a retelling of a classic from the viewpoint of an absent (female) character. But this does not really do that. It's setting after the end of the a pretty apocalyptic play means it doesn't really have any retelling to do and what plot it could have generated it doesn't even attempt instead favouring an overly flowery style that screams pretentiousness without even attempting to explore the potential ideas it promises. The stuff it does add feel contrived. A first husband (named Michael of all things)? Banishment to an abbey without any real explanation as to why?

The antithesis of what I want in a book. I'm sure there are people who love this type of meandering explorations of descriptive prose, but i am not one. I just can't get behind the lack of purpose behind it, the lack of plot.

Sebastien de Castell has managed to find a wonderful niche within fantasy with his Greatcoats series. The best description of it is the Three Musketeers but fantasy. His world is well developed, even if the villains are a bit of caricature at times, but then if you look at real history those caricatures can seem remarkably apt. The Musketeers style setup allows for a fantastic buddy relationship to form the heart and soul of the books and the character relationships really are the highlight of the stories.

Knight's Shadow follows on immediately from Traitor's Blade, with our heroes trying to unite the rest of the Tristia against the northern dukes but end up caught up in some larger conspiracies. The commentary on class system inherent in the original Musketeers is still present here, along with some interesting musings on the right to rule. Knight's Shadow keeps up the excellence of the first book and drives the story along very satisfactorily. I look forward to continuing my exploration of Tristia with the next book!

3 stories in this issue:

Monster/Hunter - Jordan Ross

A fun little exploration of greed and power, and the relationship between predator and prey. Trophy hunting taken to its extreme in a dark and twisted way. 4/5

The Saga of Hilde Ansgardottir - Jesse Bullington

I can appreciate that the author is going for a traditional skald style of story telling. Unfortunately I am not a fan of this style. Otherwise this would have been a very interesting cross between norse mythology and lovecraft... 3/5

The Shapes of our Fever - T.R. Napper

Cyberpunk tower assault. Playing along typical cyberpunk storylines (the rich enjoying a lifestyle and privileges at the expense of an underclass - that underclass rising up in rebellious acts against the figures of authority). Whilst not treading anything original it is a fun yarn told in an entertaining way. 4/5

This was highly entertaining. A clever retelling of the maiden in the tower style fairy tale, this time the witch made the monsters in the tower too powerful for the rescuing knights, so our maiden, Princess Floralinda, is forced to become her own rescuer. A clever tale of female empowerment, a strong female lead and wonderfully wry sense of humour make this a really fun novella, twisting tropes in a clever and entertaining way.

Ultimately this book failed to deliver what it promised. It was marketed as ‘The Hunger Games but bloodier and with magic'. The Hunger Games set up was there but felt horribly contrived. It just felt like such a lazy construct and has been done better in multiple other books. The bloodier aspect doesn't hold true - in reality it was fairly tame. For a Battle Royale style fight to the death this was mostly a lot of nothing. The magic system was confused and contrived as well. The biggest let down was the world building. It was effectively absent. When you have such a contrived fight to the death concept you need to have a world that makes this make sense. The world building here was so cursory as to basically be nonexistent. Also, a comment on the title and the constant allusions to villainy - a properly well balanced and written villain is extremely difficult. They need to have a motivation and a believability to generate the necessary sympathy. The characters in here are barely villainous at all despite their preaching on it, and what villainy is present is often not really rationalized properly to generate the necessary sympathy for the action. Grimdark this is not. The book does pick up a bit towards the end and leaves us on a bit of a cliffhanger. It avoids some of the more annoying YA tropes but the prose is somewhat lazy and dumbed down. Overall a 2.5 stars for me. I can see some potential, particularly based on the last 3rd. I just wish there had been more effort on the world building to give the context that is extremely lacking.

A triad style mafiosa in an urban fantasy setting. This is the clever context that Fonda Lee sets up her Green Bone Saga. We are introduced to a world where the population of a small island nation possess the ability to use jade to power magical abilities. The trade in this jade is controlled through the gangs that effectively rule the island. This is all destabilized when a gang war breaks out...

Whilst it feels wrong empathizing with gang lord characters, Fonda Lee has managed to make them incredibly sympathetic. The relationships within the gang are wonderfully realized helping to make these antihero type characters incredibly engaging.

The world built is an intriguing one - the magic system is well realized, the historical background is believable and well built. A highly impressive start to a series that I look forward to continuing!

There is a wonderful dreamlike quality to Jemisin's prose which really comes through in this tale of mad gods and the corruption of power. Here we are introduced to an empire in the height of its power - a world of peace and prosperity maintained through the emperor's enslavement of the gods. The mythology created here is one of the greatest strengths. The gods are both relatable and ineffable at the same time. The main character is a minor offshoot from the ruling family, summoned to court and named one of the potential heirs. We follow her trying to navigate the politics both of the ruling class and the enslaved gods.

Jemisin has a remarkable ability to build innovative worlds which create new and interesting motivations for the characters. The cultural references are very different from the standard European medieval ones as well - Jemisin's own heritage helps to inform the world she builds. This is innovative, creative fantasy, dreamlike in its execution with a beautiful prose and fascinating world and mythology

An intriguing read. This is a love story told through the guise of a competition between two hidden magicians. Definite vibes of ‘this is how to lose the time war' with various his and hers chapters as the competition is played out through the environment of a magical circus.

Firstly: the prose here is beautifully done. This is a gorgeously written book and deserves a lot of the attention it has garnered. The story and setting have been done before, but the presentation here is superb. The world built and the characters created are fantastically crafted. The story builds to a very satisfying crescendo as well - the manipulators on the fringes taking things to a very climatic finish.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Definitely a more literary take on fantasy but it was done in a way that allowed the story to breathe.

I quite enjoy it when authors take you into there previously established worlds from another angle. Ann Leckie is doing exactly that in Provenance. Here we enter the universe that was established in the original Imperial Radch trilogy, but we have new characters, new worlds, new politics. The events told previously are obliquely referenced and seem to be occurring somewhat concurrently, but we follow the goings on in a minor backwater system with its own petty squabbles on a different scale.

Here we follow Ingray, minor scion of an important family trying to secure her status and inheritance by rescuing a con artist from prison. But when she does so she ends up engaging the services of a captain running from a reclusive species and dragged into a conflict between her home world and one of its neighbours. Full of the same clever political machinations that typified the earlier Imperial Radch stories this is an intriguing companion novel. Separate but interlinked, sharing all the same DNA and telling a pretty enjoyable tale in the process

Silvia Moreno-Garcia seems to have made a career out of taking classic tropes and making them Mexican. This example is Mexican vampires. She has created an intriguing world of different vampire bloodlines with different powers with their conflict with both themselves and the human world. In this world the native Mexican (Aztec) vampires have largely been outcompeted by the imports from Europe (an interesting allegory to the cultural impact of european history), and we follow one of local vampires (Atl) on the run from a rival european gang, and a street sweeper (Domingo) who falls for her.

The worldbuilding is clever enough - I do like the allusions to the many myths of blood drinkers across the different cultures that exist in real life. The Mexican setting, as often seems the case with SMG, is somewhat incidental - it could in reality be set almost anywhere without impacting the story. This is one of her earlier works which has only just been rereleased and the prose is definitely weaker than in her more recent works. It is an interesting take on a genre which often feels done to death. This at least had some intriguingly original aspects!

This book recently got the nod in the Hugo awards, and based on that I bumped it to the top of my tbr. I have no regrets for doing this - it is one of the most impressive books I have read this year.

Teixcalaan is a galaxy spanning empire, with a rich political history. We follow the new ambassador for a small independent ‘state' on the edge of the Teixcalaan empire, summoned to the Teixcalaan court and immersed into this complex political structure. Arkady Martine slowly introduces us to elemnts of this court through a combination of murder mystery (what happened to the previous ambassador?) and political maneuverings of the various political factions in court. Somehow politics through poetry seems to work, as that is the way Teixcalaan seems to be ruled. The world building is on a scale I have rarely encountered. This is truly epic.

Away from the politicking that underlies the main story there are some deeply philosophical themes running through the story as well, especially around the concept of ‘self'. One of the key technologies here is an ‘imago' - a device that record the memories and personality of the previous holder of the job, which is embedded in the new person. This person is the integrated with the new job holder, gradually meshing into one, with the old personality being subsumed by the new, but leaving the knowledge and experience of the first. A clever concept and it leads to some interesting subtext around how we view our selves and how our own personality evolves.

If I did not know that this was a debut novel, I would never guess. This is a deep, philosophical and political epic space opera/murder mystery. It is deeply impressive. A Memory Called Empire has to rank as one of the best books I have read this summer. It is definitely the cleverest.

I struggled with this one. Overwrought and melodramatic, it struggles with its own earnestness. it loses to much of the fun that makes YA enjoyable to read.

I am not the biggest YA reader, and I do find that it tends towards some tropes that can get frustrating. One of my least favourites is love triangles, and this one seems to try layering love triangles onto love triangles. It doesn't work. The characters end up extremely annoying. The earnestness becomes overwrought and ultimately falls flat on its face. The basic world set up here is one of the most interesting aspects, but it gets lost within the unimpressive romance that has been layered on top. I like the romanesque fantasy - it is rare enough to give a wonderfully fresh feeling. But this is written as more of character piece. The main characters are annoying. The villains frustratingly one-dimensional. The lack of motivation in a lot of the characters makes the whole story feel distant.

A definite drop in quality from the first and I can only hope the series improves in its last two entries. Definitely a troubled second album...

I found this a frustrating read. In many ways I respect that it is written in Trinidadian English, but as someone not used to the tense structure used in that vernacular it was a somewhat jarring read for me. My bigger issue was with pacing though - this novel starts extremely slowly and only marginally ups the pace. The magical realism is intriguing - the concept and theming of the book was done in a nice a haunting way, really leaning into some of the folk mysticism surrounding death in Caribbean cultures. The two main characters were likeable in there own way, but the fact it took until over halfway for them to come in contact left the start of book dragging.

Literary fiction is often a bit heavy for me and this was definitely on that side of the scale for me - I would call this a literary magical realism novel if I am trying to categorize. The prose is pretty, but again it acts as a speed bump on the story (my usual criticism of the more literary styles). For people who enjoy that style of writing, this is an excellent example of it. The fantastical elements were intriguing, but the pacing dragged to much for me to really enjoy it.

I really appreciate horror that has a grounding in reality. The psychological element is key for me. The Hunger ticks all these boxes, being firmly based on a real story. The Donner Party is very much part of the American mythos, but is a bit less known elsewhere. The story of a group of pioneers who had a disastrous attempt to cross to California in the early years of westward expansion in the US. The reality of what happened to the is truly horrific - the rumours of cannibalism in order to survive and the shear number of them who died on the trip. Katsu adds an intriguing hint of supernatural - some mysterious tribe influenced by a spirit that drives people to acts of extreme violence. The reality of how real this supernatural thing is is left entirely up to the reader - and I love that type of ambiguity.

This was a brutal read, fitting for such a brutal event. Thoroughly enjoyed!

This book has been unfortunately horribly mismarketed. The title and artwork suggest an Agatha Christie style murder mystery in Russia. Whilst this is a crime novel, it really isn't anything like a Christie style murder mystery. For one thing, the cast are not really contained enough to be a proper whodunnit.

The main issue with this story is the main character (Olga) really quite annoying. I get the impression that Farrington has been repeatedly told to ‘write what you know' and has ended up writing about someone who wants to write a book. This is a bad take - the trope has been overdone and is utterly unrelatable for most non-authors. This has ended up with a messy construct of a Russian Railway worker wanting to write a book and coming up with a completely dire idea with random faux-wisdom about using learnings from the railways as a life improvement handbook. Olga is also rather simply constructed - there is no real emotional nuance to her leaving a pretty flat character

Beyond these peeves is a nice enough crime story, hinting at some of the corruption endemic to the Russian state. Here politicians and crime lords intertwine in an all too believable setup

A bucolic English pastoral setting makes an intriguing setup for what is pretty clever thriller. CJ Tudor has proven adapt at creating atmosphere in small village settings and this is no exception. Here we see a vicar moving to a country church after a scandal at her inner city one. It doesn't take long before secrets from the village begin to become apparent, and the plot cleverly weaves in a way that does keep you guessing till the end. Just the right amount of ambiguity is left to make things interesting too! I have thoroughly enjoyed all the CJ Tudor I have read and this is no exception.

The Wolfen is a bit of a victim of its time. The concept is brilliant, taking a fantastically convincing approach to the myth of Werewolves. Everything on the mythology side is amazingly done. However, I don't find the actual prose particularly good. This is definitely a book which tells, rather than shows. The characters almost feel like caricatures at times. Whitley writes a brilliant monster, but his humans struggle to convince. It definitely lays into some of the social mores of its era - the attitudes towards female policing, whilst undoubtedly true to when he wrote it, feel troubling to a modern reader. Based on this example I am not sure he knows how to write women. But beyond this, there is at the core a fun story. The Wolfen are an intriguing monster playing on some interesting fears. If you can get passed the very 80s writing there is quite a bit of enjoyment to be had

I get the impression that the city of Kithamar itself is the main character of this story. The story is entirely self contained within this city, only vague allusions to a larger fantasy world are made. The city itself is characterized by an extreme wealth stratification that makes for a nice gritty fantasy read. The characters range from the ruling family to poverty stricken thieves. The main plot interweaves the different levels of the society as a cult like group try to maintain their control on the city. The manipulations through calls for patriotism are a dark reminder of many events that are happening in the real world. Alys provides the central character - a thief who is drawn into the plot after her brother's death.

Being so focused on one place allows a real depth to the world building for the city, giving life to a very real feeling place. Daniel Abraham has a beautiful prose style that works well to bring this place to life. The characters are interesting, although maybe not as well developed as the place. I am intrigued where the story will go now though - it felt reasonably self contained so far so it will be interesting to see how it develops in the series

A difficult book to rate. There are many fundamental flaws with this one - the characters are unlikable, the prose is somewhat naïve and clunky, and there is a lot of telling going on. The first half the book was a real struggle with this. The book follows multiple POVs, but the dominant one is probably Tynnstra. The idea of a coward as lead character in this style of fantasy (which btw is at grimdarkest end of grimdark) is a nice idea, but the constant statements that she is a coward without really developing the whats and the whys of it just ends up deeply annoying. Cowards can be written well (Flashman and Rincewind are two examples that come to mind) and it is possible to write them in ways where it is possible to relate and understand their cowardice. Tynnstra is just a coward, with no ulterior motives explored at all.

The one dimensionality of the other characters is also there. The villains are evil for no apparent reason except to be evil. The noble soldiers are also not really explored in their motivations. The shallowness of the characters is offset dramatically against the viciousness of the world they live in. A conquered country with an invading force that cares little for their new subjects is a vivid setting that really is brutal.

The saving grace for the novel is its second half. Here the pace picks up, the action picks up, the characters start to show some better development and suddenly the story becomes alive. The prose is still clunky at times but the tension and the stakes become more exciting, the telling is reduced and the whole thing is much more readable.

This is very grim and very dark. There are plenty of triggers in the text. It is also not the best prose. But there is enough excitement to help provide some good entertainment.