Beth Tabler
Rise of the Mages by first-time author Scott Drakeford is an epic fantasy story in the tradition of The Belgariad that will directly appeal to those who love the classic fantasy of that era. The story combines political machinations and a quest for vengeance with found family vibes. All of this is nestled comfortably in a fascinating magic system based on infusori. Infusori is the electromagnetic energy and soul of everything around us. Practitioners can tap into this power and harness it for anything from tinkering to crumbling walls and battle magic. It is a heady combination that starts with a bang and never lets up.
The story starts with two brothers, Emrael and Ban. Two young men who are nationless refugees of a now-defunct royal bloodline. Emrael is working to keep his brother in materials used for tinkering and to further his crafting skill with infusori. At the same time, Emrael is learning daily to become a master warrior and political commander at training school. This training will allow the brothers to make something of themselves, and they would no longer have to rely on their mother for Ban's support. No matter the two brothers' work, they are constantly regarded as lesser by their peers, save for Ban's best friend, Elle.
Due to the political intrigues of the existing nations and the church's influence, Governor Corrande, the governor of the state that Emrael's school is located in, brokers a deal with the church to enslave users of infusori to build machines that will give him an edge in an upcoming war for territory. Corrande is setting himself up to consolidate the existing domains under his authority. Emrael and Ban, due both to their ability to use infusori and their political connections, get stuck in the middle of this war.
The crux of the story happens when Emrael and Ban attempt to flee the Citadel, the school they train at, and Ban is captured. Elle, Ban's teacher, and Emrael's master and trainer Jaina barely escape with their lives. The extremely close brothers are separated by the direst of circumstances. This separation sets Emrael on a quest for revenge on those who captured and enslaved Ban, and Emrael will burn the world to ashes before abandoning his brother.
There is a strong power in this familial bond between the brothers, especially in Emrael and how he relates to Ban. Ban is the younger brother, and while competent and a man in his own right, Emrael takes care of him as an older brother should. This helps drive the narrative of why Emrael will stop at nothing to save his brother. I think had the reverse happened; Ban would do the same. Although due to the story's structure, we learn and get to know Emrael a lot more than we do Ban. I am hoping in the second and third parts of this trilogy, we will get to know Ban a lot more and learn what drives him.
In Rise of the Mages, behind the story of Emrael and his quest to become a warrior or Ban's quest to learn to tinker and create are strong female characters. In the periphery, but no less important is the boy's mother, who is more than she claims. But at this junction, we only know fragments and pieces of her story.
Jaina, Emrael's master, is a warrior and one of the best fighters that the world has ever seen. Instead of slipping into convention, Drakeford gives her added depth by making her devoutly religious to the Ordenan religion. It is a beautiful contrast that she is not all hard planes but a soul beyond fierce battle. And finally, we have Ban's best friend Elle, who is powerful also but very different from the brothers. While the narrative is always about Emrael, I couldn't help but wonder about Elle in the backdrop of his extraordinary quest. Elle is in the background experiencing moments that bifurcate her life into the before and after. She is not the same character at the end that started the story.
I am thoroughly impressed by this story. I know that this story took ten years to craft and was a labor of love for all involved. With its rounded characters and exciting action sequences, you can tell this will have a gigantic appeal to lovers of classic fantasy stories. Author Scott Drakeford just stepped into the publishing world of SFF and slammed his ax down.
I am very much looking forward to the next book, so I may dive back into the world of Ire and watch the brothers come into their power.
First off, let me say that this series is kick ass. I ended up reading the books out of order; first, I read Ash Kickers, and I liked it so much I came back to Smoke Eaters. Even though I gave Smoke Eaters a 3 instead of a 5, don't think that I didn't love the hell out of it. I did.
Smoke Eaters is the story of Cole Brannigan, intrepid firefighter and captain. A week before retirement, Brannigan gets to a call that changes his destiny and his plans.
Here is some relevant backstory. In the early 2100s, dragons rose from the soil and roared across the Earth. They wreaked havoc, razed cities, destroyed echo systems, and ravaged humanity. The US, government broken, has divided itself into nation states eschewing the restoration of governmental control.
Smoke Eaters, the novel, takes place in Ohio within the world, decimated by dragons. An offset of the fire department is created with individuals who, through a genetic miracle, can breathe dragon smoke and resist heat. Those individuals are called to serve in this elite fighting force called Smoke Eaters. Cole Brannigan, our main protagonist, goes on a call and is confronted with a dragon. The dragon eats some of his team, and Cole is confronted with dragon smoke, which he survives. He is roped into being the new rookie of the Smoke Eaters.
Cole is on one side, a father figure type character, and on the other, a wise sensei. The Smoke Eaters need cohesion, and they need the ethics and morality outside of just killing dragons. People live, and their lives are directly affected by the dragons that need to be taken into account. Grigsby, an Arkansas firefighter, invokes a lot of the imagery and real-world experience he has as a working firefighter. There is an absolute authenticity to the action sequences and firefighting scenes that can only be derived from living it.
My only caveat, and the reason I gave this a 3 instead of 5 stars is that I found the plot to meander a bit, and I got lost. We are here, and Brannigan is a quadriplegic, but only for a little while. But in the meantime, they need to go check out weapons in Canada. Why does Brannigan needs to go to Canada, while injured is beyond me? Then there is a human sacrifice, an evil mayor, robots, and a mega dragon. But, the story pulls it right back together, and everything makes sense again and ends with a grandiose finale that is exciting.
If you want all the fun, pick up this book and the next in the series Ash Kickers. It is a ton of fun. Like, ass-kicking whooping kind of fun. Check it out!
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Venators is a fast-paced novel about two intertwining stories, Grey Malteer and Rune Jenkins and Rune Jenkins. At the beginning of the story, Rune and Grey are just typical college students. Rune and Grey study for classes and avoid bullies and studying for classes. Rune has a fit of wild anger that erupts whenever she is around anything paranormal. Gray has powers that that that he tries to keep quiet. Through a bit of craziness, Rune and Gray are pulled through a portal into a world of the paranormal: fae, vampires, werewolves, and more. What happened when two unlikely heroes are pulled into a new world?
This is an exciting story. It took me a while to get into it and get to know the characters, but once I did, I enjoyed the plot quite a bit. Rune, for instance, is a flat character in the beginning. I found her reactions to the paranormal to be too much. However, as the book continues onwards, her personality changes, and she comes more into her own. Grey was attacked six years ago. This attack forever changed him. He has spent the last six years living with what happened to him, but knowing that there was more in the world.
I recommend this story to anyone who enjoys some light fantasy. The characters are fun, there is narrative progression, and by the end, you are cheering on the characters.
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach is not a simple story. There is nothing subtle and simple about a middle-aged scientist with prosthesis octopus-like legs, time travel, ecological restoration, and culture dynamics. Nor is there anything subtle about a world in recovery that has been racked by climate change, species die off, and plague. The world Minh lives in is one that is complicated and nursing its wounds and trying to move on. It sounds like it is a depressing story full of tropes, coming off as a typical apocalyptic novel. But in Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach, it isn't like that. If anything, Robson has created a world that is recovering and in a lot of ways excelling. We are past the struggle for resources usually associated with apocalyptic novels. The descriptions of technology and how it is intertwined with life are marvelous, but humanity has changed past that. To me, there seemed to be an undercurrent of depression among the plague-babies (those that survived the plague), Minh's generation. This is in stark contrast to Kiki's generation, the fat-babies. The characterizations between the two cultures is relevant and interesting.
The story is told in three parts. The first, and most lengthy is setting up the world building and Minh's life as a world-class ecologist. Her job is to go out and do reclamation on natural habitats in an attempt to find balance again with nature. We meet Kiki, an administrator, and fat-baby - tall, healthy, and robust in personality. All she wants is Minh's approval and friendship. She goes out of her way to put herself in Minh's life, almost to an uncomfortable degree. Minh is a cantankerous older woman. Set in her ways and uncomfortable with how forthright Kiki is. A new proposal for a time travel project to ancient Mesopotamia has come up, a proposal that Minh wants badly. Kiki and Minh work to land the bid and enlarge her team with the addition of Hamid. He falls in the middle, personality-wise. The second part of the story is the actual expedition and ecological restoration work. It is fascinating how Robson handles this. She creates a stark dichotomy between the technology of the Lucky Peach(their ship) and ancient Mesopotamia. The third part of the story is what happens after the intial part of the cataloging is done, where cultures clash.
Robson has meticulously constructed a story that is rich and nuanced. Areas that are “old-hat” in science fiction, i.e., time travel, seem restrained and exciting instead of worn out. It is a rigorous story that asks a lot of the audience. Character dynamics, the heart of the story, are done in a way that you empathize with all sides involved. It is obvious why Robson won many awards for this story. This story cements her as a science fiction powerhouse and one to watch in the coming years.
Reviewing The Sin of America by Catherynne M. Valente
“There's a woman outside of Sheridan and she is eating the sin of America.”
What is the sin of America?
That is the question of this story, and it was a question I asked myself repeatedly as I had to read it three times before I started to understand. That is not any knock to Cat Valente. Sometimes great things take time to digest, and they have to be chewed thoroughly. Do I know what the sin of America is? Maybe. Maybe I think I do because I am an American and see glimpses of it. Whatever is happening in the story is not straightforward. Because doing something like eating the sin of America is not an easy or simple thing.
All we know is that we are in a “Blue Bison Diner & Souvenir Shoppe under a busted wagon wheel and a pair of wall-mounted commemorative plates. One's from the moon landing. The other's from old Barnum Brown discovering the first T-Rex skeleton up at Hell Creek.” There is a woman whose life has been nothing but pain and half-truths and disappointments sitting in a vinyl booth. Her name is Ruby Rose and “she ran away from the Ultimate Butterfly Experience as soon as she could chain one dollar to the next.” She was terrified of the glittery swarms that flitted and alighted after stroking you with their sticky tongues. Some butterflies drink the nectar of flowers, but many will eat anything. Ruby Rose was called upon to eat the sins of America.
Ruby Rose is sitting in this cracked vinyl booth in this no-where diner staring at the menu. They told her that her meal could not be a small one. “Ruby-Rose looks over the menu. She isn't in the least hungry. But it cannot be a small meal. They told her that when they came for her, and all the delicate endangered emerald swallowtails circled their heads like green rings around terrible planets. It cannot be small and it cannot be short. It takes as long as it takes. You can't do this thing halfway. We're counting on you.”
The Waitress who is serving Ruby-Rose is named Emeline. She nervously cracks a pinky and asks Ruby what she wants to start with. Ruby asks for some wine, but they don't serve soft things like that here. The owner of the diner, Mr. Herbert James Gage, when informed by certified mail that it was going down in his restaurant, picked up some hard alcohol in preparation for the event.
The food starts to come out: a rib-eye steak, peppermint milkshake, and tomato soup. It is grotesque in its amount, and the food keeps coming. Ruby keeps swallowing. It is too much food, it is all too much, it won't fit inside her, and she can't hold it. All this was the lottery or the anti-lottery. Astronomical odds that it would be her.
What happens when she is done? “We'll be happy, they say. We'll be better. We'll all be happy forever and everything will be okay.” But will we? Probably until the next person has to come and eat our sins.
The imagery is grotesque, slovenly. The woman, Ruby Rose, has a life of tragic mediocrity. Then as the story progresses and climaxes, Ruby finishes her food and so much more. It ends and begins again. The cycle. Does it mean anything? Does Ruby Rose's sacrifice mean anything in the grand scheme of things? I don't know; there will be more sin.
The Sin of American is one of those stories that is difficult to parse; you can read it a dozen times and get more out of the language. It has the ere of dark and too salty, or sticky sweet. It is the idea of fried twinkies and made for tv movies. It has a vague christ mythos, but that has been sanitized, homogenized, and run through a Jerry Springer talk show. It has lost all of its original meaning and become an ugly thing. Someone must suffer. And in this scenario, for all of us to continue to sin and enjoy our lives, Ruby Rose must eat that sin and suffer.
It is a harrowing story that is puzzling and will continue to puzzle me as a reader. But, one thing is for sure. Cat Valente is a hell of a writer.
Noryska Groans is a dark low fantasy story by the fantastic duo of Clayton Snyder and Michael Fletcher. It is a world that forgives nothing, and your frozen carcass won't be found until spring.
norylska groansI am very familiar with Fletcher and Snyder's work. I have previously read both of their work and knew that they would wreck me with this story. I have a cold little grimdark-loving heart. And I let out a mighty squee when I saw that this book had made the finals.
“THE DEBT COLLECTOR, PYOTR, SMILED, A SLIMY THING THAT SEEMED TO WANT TO CRAWL AROUND THE SIDE OF HIS HEAD AND ESCAPE TO THE THICKET OF HIS HAIR.”
The premise of the story follows two voices. The first, Katyushka Leonova, is a woman seeking restoration of her family's name and the courage to ask for more than the paltry scraps of love and respect offered to her. The other voice is Genndy Antonov, a man trying to survive and support his young family. But he has a particular set of skills that the less savory folks would like to utilize. Their narrative arcs swirl around each other like two tornados until their stories begin the inevitable of slamming into one another.
Kat is a woman who wants to rediscover and reclaim a life she previously held. At the start of the story, Kat defines herself by the men around her. Her father's daughter. Her boyfriend's girlfriend. Her boyfriend is ineffectual and weak, and while he has never hit her, Kat feels battered. She feels like a woman who has been abused by everyone around her for so long she doesn't know the difference anymore. Kat is told that instead of a typist position she was applying for, she will become a police officer of a sort. It is a trial position, as she is the only woman serving. It is so far out of her comfort zone it is staggering.
“IF THE WORLD WANTED BLOOD, HE WOULD GIVE IT BLOOD.”
Gen is a man who wants to be different and escape the violence of his soldiering life. He has a young family with a baby on the way and feels a deep need to be a good provider for his wife and baby. At the beginning of the story, he is let go from his job, which means death for his family from the cold or hunger in Norylska. He feels like he has very few options. And when an opportunity presents itself.
Worldbuilding-wise, Fletcher and Snyder's Norylska is a brutal beast of a place. It has a personality all of its own, a hulking creature that slices open the stomachs of those who are weak to watch their steaming entrails spill across the floor. There is no forgiveness or mercy in the cold north. That idea, that bleakness permeates every aspect of Norylska Groans, from the snow on the ground to the very air the characters breathe. It is evocative and crushing for both the characters and the reader.
The real Norylska or Norilsk squats in northern Russia are home to the world's largest nickel deposits. It is a brutally cold place and the second-largest city in the Arctic circle. I can see how the duo borrowed the general idea of the city, but they truly made their Norylska all their own.
The magic of the story, while important to the story arc, felt like it played second to the excellent characterizations. Magic in the story is encased in memory stones. Items that while the user wears them, they experience the memories and personality of every person who had previously worn them. It isn't a perfect memory transference, but the new user gets the general feel of previous wearers. When they take off the stones, the memories accumulated while wearing them dissapear. You can see how that might appeal to those who have the need to do violence or morally objectionable things. Once the stone is off, poof, the memory is gone.
“IT IS NEITHER THE JOB OF THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE STATE NOR THAT OF YOUR FELLOW COMRADES TO SUPPORT YOU. INSTEAD, IT IS YOUR OWN RIGHT, THE RIGHT OF EVERY TRUE PATRIOT, TO LIFT THEMSELVES UP AND BUILD THEIR OWN FORTRESS AMID THE INJUSTICE OF THE WORLD. THE WEAK WILL FALL AWAY, LEAVING TRUE STONE BEHIND. ONLY THEN CAN WE BEGIN THE WORK OF FORTIFYING”
I tip my proverbial cap to Fletcher and Snyder for this bit of magic use. They had to write multiple versions of characters, stone on and stone off. And the characters need to feel right, an extension and blending of the original personality with something else. This isn't easy to do, and the duo nailed it. The two characters are two halves of a whole. They are very similar when you look at their situations. Both seek to better their lives. Both get sucked into a position they cannot control, like a whirlpool down a drain but with violence.
There is a prevailing stigma about books labeled “grimdark.” Many people have a gut reaction that if something is grimdark, it is violence porn and that the characters are violent for being violent. I challenge anyone to read Norylska Groans and tell me that. Yes, there is violence, but every scene in this book is purposeful. And while the morality of the story is challenged, there is a realness to these two characters. Their moral code is not black and white but shades of grey as it is with all people.
My only real issue with the story is the pacing. It felt disjointed, and it slowed down quite a bit in some parts. It was a good story that picked up quite a bit at the end, but the first 75% of the Norylska Groans was difficult for me. Nothing was singing for me, nothing to latch onto that made me turn from page to page. As a reader, even with all the positives, I still had a hard time going from chapter to chapter in the beginning.
Because of the pacing, I had to give this a lower score. Aside from that, believe me when I say this is a seriously well-done book. Fletcher and Snyder deserve to be in the finals, and I knew going in that this would be a seriously cool world, and they did not disappoint.
Let me introduce you to one of my favorite series from last year, the Adam Binder series. Who author David Slaton has released a new book for 2021, Trailer Park Trickster.
In the first novel of the series, White Trash Warlock, we are introduced to the titular character Adam Binder. Adam is a sensitive, one who is aware of the other side of things. The existence of magic, elves, and evils that come from that side of the coin. This sensitivity rules his life, and he tries to work around it, but he is often overwhelmed by the energies and feelings of masses of people.
“Adam Binder hasn't spoken to his brother in years, not since Bobby had him committed to a psych ward for hearing voices.”
White Trash Warlock by David R. Slayton
His brother has him committed to a facility, mainly in a misguided attempt to help him, but also because the things that adam believes are scary and might be true. This obviously causes a strain on the relationship between the brothers. Something dark and murderous possesses Bobby's wife, Adam comes to Colorado from rural Oklahoma to see if he can help. Despite the divide between his family and him and the way he is treated. This dark thing that is infecting people in the city is a power unlike anything Adam has ever seen, and to survive, he must call on energies above his paygrade. Plus, there is a great love triangle and banter with immortals of all sorts. It is an engaging urban fantasy that has some comfortable tropes that you find in urban fantasy, but author David Slayton has a way of making things seem very fresh.
All of this takes us right to the sequel, Trailer Park Trickster. Adam is reunited with his family after much pain and turmoil. All are completely changed from the events in the first book, but none more so than Adam's brother, Bobby. The story picks up with Adam returning home to Guthrie, Oklahoma. He has suffered a significant loss that has set him adrift.
This brings me to what I think is the central theme of this story, being lost and untethered. Both Adam and Vic have had some great upheavals in their lives. Adam is trying to find what to do after his great loss, and Vic is trying to make sense of his new life and connection to Adam. It doesn't help that Adam is a terrible communicator, which leaves Vic even more in the dark.
“Just remember, it's always darkest right before it goes pitch black.”
Also, to make things more confusing for Adam, Trailer Park Trickster's antagonist is a dark druid whose identity is one of the great mysteries to be solved. The druid is picking off Adam's family members one by one. Adam does not have many family members, and those he does have he holds dear for the most part. This allowed Slayton to fill in some essential backstory elements that enriched Adam's history. I loved learning about his world, painful as it is. It rounded out Adam even more for me as a protagonist.
While Adam is dealing with his part of the story and the dark druid, Vic has a challenging time with Argent, the Queen of swords. I like Argent as a character, but this section did feel a bit flat to me. It might be because I enjoy Argent and Vic together as a team, and separated didn't give me the same bang. Their relationship was a wonderful part of the first book, and I look forward to exploring their complicated story in future books.
The Adam Binder series is fast shaping up to be one of my favorite urban fantasy series. Adam's story has a lot of heart. You wouldn't think of him as a leading man-type character you find in famous urban fantasy series. Dresden, as much as I love you, I am looking at you. Adam isn't snarky, and he doesn't need to be. He is heartfelt, and I respect and want to learn more about his determination and quiet resilience.
Last year, when Pearl dropped, I had been on a quest to read as many Josh Malerman books as possible. There is a sharp edge to the horror he creates, an assault on the reader's psyche that may or may not be too far. Malerman has a deft understanding of what makes some readers climb the walls and tear at their hair in dismay. Opening one of his books is thrilling and slightly terrifying because you never know which part of your abused mind he will assault.
Then he created Pearl.
“GO TO THE FARM JUST OUTSIDE OF TOWN AND YOU'LL HEAR IT.
A VOICE. INSIDE YOUR HEAD.
OR IS IT?
COME TO ME...
Pearl never minced on the edges of horror; this is Malerman stretching his metaphorical razor-tipped claws and sinking them into your unsuspecting brain. Pearl is the stuff of childhood nightmares.
Pearl is a pig; if you know anything about pigs, know they are crazy intelligent, massive in size, and will eat anything. They tick all the “other” boxes compared to humans. Pearl is also a pig with only one good eye, but this psychotic pig sees everything. And Pearl uses his mind to wreak havoc and control everything.
Pearl by Josh Malerman is gory and psychotic. It touches on that part of the primal brain that hides in the corner, quivers from things bigger and worse than you, and is up to no good. The pig is a wonder of creation, so subtle, Malerman's prose is unadorned, but explains just enough to allow the author's imagination to take over.
If you read this story, and I wholeheartedly believe you should, you are going to go through some shit—because Pearl is going to get you.
5 out of 5 gore smeared stars
I was provided a free copy of this novel from NetGalley.com for an honest review.
Butcher writes another slam dunk in the Urban Fantasy genre with everyones favorite anti-hero and total pain-in-the-ass wizard. This go around is in the form of a graphic novel.
To preface, Harry is seething in anger and anxious about past dealings that are coming to haunt him. He is a man holding on by how fingernails. But then he gets an unexpected request for help from a member of the White Council. This takes Harry out of his comfort zone of Chicago and the reader to an unfamiliar location. Harry attempts to do what he does best, protect the innocence and cause hate and discontent for some rather nasty baddies that are attempting to shit on Harry's evening. As always, things definitely do not go as planned.
Typical for Jim Butcher, the writing is excellent. The language and imagery are crisp and interesting with out being to verbose. In a not so typical fashion for Butcher's writing the pacing seemed off. I found that at the start of the novel the pacing was lugubrious and slow. Maybe that was a writerly choice for tone setting, but I found that off putting. Especially in a format such as a graphic novel. Where pacing and imagery are literally at the forefront. The story picks back up in a typical Dresden fashion and ends in some very interesting ways. Overall a very good read and I would recommend it to anyone. This series has a big place in my heart and I am always so excited with Jim releases new stories.I can't get enough of this world and I believe that everyone needs a little Harry Dresden in their lives.
I am sitting in stunned silence. I finished dashing through the last thirty pages of Middlegame about 5 mins ago' I now have the most unsettling feeling of, “Now what? Please story; don't end.” Alas, it did as it would have to. And I am sitting here twiddling my thumbs and wishing for so much more. I miss Roger and Dodger already.
Middlegame is as it is purported to be, it is a middle, the midway, the equidistant point between the beginning and the end. The term middlegame refers to space between the opening and endgame in chess. A space that often blends into both the opening and the endgame where there is not a sharply seen divide. It is an interesting play on definitions. The middle of a story, the middle of a chess game, and the story in its entirety is an elaborate chess game.
The middle is the most crucial part of most stories. Openings are but a fleeting moment that sends the characters on their path while endings are the explosion like a volcano after many years. Endings are the outcome. But the middle is the actual story. Middlegame is written about all the points in between for Roger and Dodger. Their tales are not done, although I have the sneaking suspicion that this story is a single book, not planned for a series.
I could tell you that this story is about twins, but so what. There are a million stories about twins. I could tell you it is about alchemy. Again, so what. It doesn't do any of it justice. So how about this, “Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come quickly to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.” More so Rodger understands that naming something gives it power. Language in all its forms has power. “Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.” Math is in every movement of a bird, thing of beauty; math is sunsets, waterfalls and the first cry from a newborn. Math is a creation. But Roger's powers of language allow him to solidify creations through words. They work together.
The intertwoven, multi-decade story is about the intertwining of to opposite forces whose lives, and love meshes together like the roots of a gnarled old oak tree. Rodge and Dodge need each other, and through McGuire's excellent writing we can see that need coalesce into a yearning and a struggle. Sometimes the intertwining to the two of them feels like iron band banded around them, other times the intertwining is a hug from a long departed loved one in arms you never want to let go again. All of this is under the watchful eye of Reed, an alchemist, whose plans to exploit them for his own game have been the spiderweb the twins have lived in their whole lives.
But love, curiosity, leadership –those are equally important,or they wouldn't exist. Natureabhors a vacuum.Nothing without purposehas been made.
I can't tell you many details from the plot save for Rodger, and Dodger have been pulled apart and pushed together most of their lives. In the pulling and pushing they have figured out mostly who they want to be, but only when the other is around can they obtain their full potential.
First, let's talk about the magnificent. Seanan McGuire is damned good at story creation only to be bested by her ability of character creation. The writing of this story is sumptuous, atmospheric, and thick with meaning. While most other writers are thin soup, Mcguires writing is thick dark chocolate pudding. To be poured over and savored mouthful by mouthful. The only small quibble that led me to drop the rating by one star was the pacing. The story felt very uneven in terms of speed. Some section dragged on like molasses, others over in a flash.
Also, thank you, McGuire, for writing a math-driven girl as to be something celebrated and not something to be ashamed of. So many stories take female characters and say that their love of math is cute or silly and something that should embarrass them. But, not so in this story. Dodgers love for math goes deep into her bones. It is who she is. There is nothing to feel shame for. I love that, and it is wonderfully refreshing to read. Go STEM!
I will miss this story, and I have fleeting hope that she will continue to write this series. But if she decides not to, thank you, Mcguire, for the beautiful book. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
I have one child, one child that I carried, all 12 pounds of her, and had her pulled from me, squalling into this awe-inspiring and cruel world. All of my love, hopes, and dreams for the future lay upon her tiny shoulders. As the saying goes, “my heart lives outside my chest.” This is why Mr. Death by the always incredible Alix E. Harrow smacked me around a bit emotionally. I empathized with both the reaper and the parents. Two sides of the same coin, and in the middle is a little boy, age two, whose soul shines like the sun.
You know from the first line of the story, “I've ferried two hundred and twenty-one souls across the river of death, and I can already tell my two-hundred-and-twenty-second is going to be a real shitkicker.” Mr. Death is about a reaper who gently ferries souls from their bodies to the river and the after. Sam Grayson, the reaper in question and the main protagonist of the story, is a father grieving the loss of his own son years before when he is taken by lung cancer. While waiting in the breakroom for his next assignment, He is handed a manilla envelope. Thin, to thin, with this information printed on it:
Name: Lawrence Harper
Address: 186 Grist Mill Road, Lisle NY, 13797
Time: Sunday, July 14th 2020, 2:08AM, EST
Cause: Cardiac arrest resulting from undiagnosed long QT syndrome
Age: 30 months
As a reader, his response and mine are the same, “Jesus Christ on his sacred red bicycle. He's two.” Sam visits the child, supposedly invisible, but for some reason, Lawrence can see him. Sam's heart aches in solidarity for the upcoming earth-shattering pain he will have to inflict upon these loving parents and the pain of his own loss. But all bodies will eventually die, and when it is your time, that is an unassailable fact. Or is it?
Harrow has pulled just enough of the raging thunderstorm of grief into this story to make you empathize and believe the situation. Instead of maudlin, it is heartfelt. It is a lovely read and pretty obvious why it is now nominated for a Nebula. Awards seem to stick to Harrow like magnets these days, and rightly so. Check it out.
The Only Living Girl on the Earth by Charles Yu is a novella-length novel consisting of three interrelated short stories. The stories have featured Jane, the customer service representative/short-order cook/hotel manager of the Earth's only gift shop. Well, the Earth's only “anything” as everything else was destroyed a thousand years ago. Mostly from vaguely referenced devastating climate change and a rueful AI robot that scorched the skies.
Jane is like most 18 years old's in many ways. She is trying to figure out what to do with herself—thinking about college. She is dealing with the after-effects of very grown-up issues with her father and the general futility of being the only girl on an entire planet.
In the first story, Jane talks about the history of the Earth's giftshop and how it started as a museum, then an amusement park, and finally became just a gift shop selling souvenirs of a time gone by. There is a specific tone that Wu takes during the story the belies the solemn subject matter. Jane is funny as a character and allows for fun while still maintaining the deep subject matter. Without that, this collection of stories would be too much.
The first story talks about how human history has been boiled down to something consumed at a gift shop or an amusement park. Oddly enough, the first story reminded me a bit of Percy Shelley's “Ozymandias.”
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
The second story is from a different perspective of someone living in a Smalltown, USA type before the decline of civilization. It is from the standpoint of people trapped on an amusement ride that makes all choices for them from birth to death. There are obvious nods to the problem of mass consumerism and the hamster-wheel-like existence people get trapped in, birth, learn, work, consume, end. This story treads no new territory as this topic is a huge one in science fiction of capitalism run amok. Still, the imagery that Yu creates as people trapped on an amusement ride is actually pretty horrific.
The third story is from Jane's perspective again, except this time it is how two travelers had to stop at the Earth because their spaceship was malfunctioning. This story reminded me of the bygone era of people traveling on freeways and having to get off and end up on route 66 in a town that had seen its heyday. But, now it was a bit past its prime because no one stopped there anymore. All three of the characters, Jane, the dad, and son, end up inside the boarded-up amusement park/Smalltown USA and discover something sinister and rather sad. Again, the story nods to much deeper topics than the dialog and bantering.
The Only Living Girl on Earth is an unusual take on the decline of civilization. All of the stories unite to make this a cohesive narrative and a with Yu's exceptional writing skill, a definite worthwhile read.
I received this as an advanced copy from Netgalley.com for an honest review.
I swear, Sarah Anderson's strips are pixelated joy. Each one speaks to me in a different way, and I found myself nodding enthusiastically as I read them and/or laughing my ass off. She speaks to my inner animal lover and my inner anxiety and angst fueled woman. I liked this so much, I want to get some of strips printed out and hang them on the wall so moments when I am losing my mind, or having crazy anxiety due to my period and I can look up at the picture and go “ahhhh. Yes. I am not alone in this insanity.” I haven't read the first two books in the series which is so very exciting because that means I get to experience them for the first time and look forward to all the joy. I would definitely recommend this book to any adult reader. I find some of her strips speak specifically to being a woman, but even then male readers will get a chuckle. Readdddd itttt.
There is a luscious, lurid quality to The Bayou by Arden Powell. It is as if the reader is peeping into the characters' private moments, mainly those of the photographer protagonist, Eugene. Powell's descriptions are dark and sweltering. I felt a little dirty and careworn after reading some passages, as if the words on the page transferred themselves to my skin. It is quite a talent to show readers this version of the 1950s small town of Louisiana.
My only issue with this gothic story is that sometimes the language is incredible; you feel like you are there staring down gators or sweat is running down the middle of your back. But sometimes, it seems like it switches to very “tell” heavy descriptions. These are pretty jolting and in sharp contrast to other heavy “show” descriptions in the story. Because of the contrast, it feels uneven.
However, sticklers aside, this is beautifully written and would be a perfect Halloween read to get you in the spirit. Check it out
Risen is a shattering final book of the Alex Versus series by Benedict Jacka; we say goodbye to the titular character Alex. It is all done. Finito. Endings can be difficult; it is hard to wrap up all the emotion and gravitas of a series, especially one as large as the Alex Verus one with a neat bow. Instead of allowing the series to pitter out like a band still on stage when patrons are getting their bags and heading home, Jacka finished the series with a thundering crash of an orchestra in its final song for the night. It was perfectly timed and perfectly executed, and a conscious choice by Jacka that this book and this plot arc is the right time to finish. Jacka did a great job, and I am left with a fondness for the series.
It took us 12 books to get to this point, and unlike other stories in the Alex Verus series, you can't start at book 12, Risen. You won't get the gravitas of what is going on and the combined struggles Alex has faced. Jacka does his best to give context to the situation that Verus finds himself in. But even with some backstory, it will read like an excited but superficial action fantasy novel. Instead, Risen feels like a story written as a nod for the fans and everything Verus has gone through and lost.
Alex Verus is an unlikely hero on many fronts. Firstly, up until recently, he was not a hugely powerful mage. Verus has always been cunning and strategic in planning because of necessity. He was scrappy, the runt puppy of the Mage world. Often his fights were akin to someone attacking with a pea shooter instead of a Nuke. You can do a lot of damage with a pea shooter if you get someone right in the eye, which was Alex's modus operandi. It took him far in the mage world, but Verus was always lacking true power.
That is, until the last few books, where the tides began to turn. But there is always a price to pay for power.
One of the most positive aspects of the story is how Alex has grown and nurtured his relationships with his allies. As I mentioned above this is essential for Alex's survival, but I think this is more so because of his highly protective nature. It is the epitome of a found family. If Alex chooses you and trusts you, he will likely care about you his entire life, and possibly burn the world down to save you. With all the magical and political machinations going on in the background, his relationships take center stage and are the beating heart of the Alex Verus series.
Verus also has a distinctive duality in his nature, which was evident as the series progressed but doubly true for the last book. He can be intensely pragmatic and ruthless, in essence, a dark mage. The very thing he spent most of his adult life running from. He is capable of very dark things, which many dark mages attempted to exploit for their gain. Especially, the longstanding villain of the story Richard Drakh. The morally ambiguous nature of Jacka's hefty cast of characters seems much more realistic and practical than the perfect “good guy/bad guy” characters that many other urban fantasy series employ.
So, who is Alex Verus and why should you read this series? Alex is a complex character set in difficult situations that never jump the proverbial shark. The series has grey characters that have an authenticity that is appealing and grabs you. And those characters have psychological issues that again, add to the realism of the series. The ever-evolving plot is great, you continually want to know more. And now that it is a finished story, you can binge-read it. There is so much good, which is why I have loved and read this series for years.
It was bittersweet to see it go, but it was time. Jacka did Alex Verus justice and I was thrilled with the ending. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great urban fantasy series to binge read. You won't be able to put it down.
I received this as an advanced copy from Netgalley.com for an honest review.
There are countless stories rich in history interlaced in the concrete, wire, and foundations of human civilization; whether it be a tower in Pisa or a bridge that spans the waters between New York City and Brooklyn; every brick, trestle, and pylon could tell a story. It is up to us, the stewards of the past, to recognize, learn from, and appreciate these works. We would not be where we are as a society without people like the Roeblings. I can now say after reading this novel the Roeblings are added in my mind to the likes of Guggenheim, Olmstead, and Vaux.
The novel is not the dry telling of pounds per square inch of pressure in the caissons or the tensile strength of the wires; It is the story of a monumental project and the people who dedicated their lives to see it through. Specifically, a husband and wife team whose love and respect for each other are tantamount, as well as their mutual intelligence shines throughout the story much to the credit of the author Peter J. Tomasi. Graphically it is beautiful. They set the historical tone without being overly fussy and fastidious to detail. Sarah Duvall did her research into the period. Pictures of the bridge are not overly technical. I would assume this is a stylistic choice, yet they convey all the necessary information to the reader. This allows the story to move at a good place and pause when necessary for reflection. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who appreciates a good history lesson that is so intriguing it could be written as a work of fiction. I look forward to reading many more works by the author and enjoying the art of the illustrator.
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki is a collection of discordant elements: California's San Gabriel Valley, cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship with a deep love and fascination for fresh-made donuts. However, instead of Light From Uncommon Stars feeling overly jangly like a tin can full of pennies...this book comes together like a bit of sugar-dusted magic.
The premise involves three women, Shizuka Satomi, Katrina Nguyen, and Lan Tran. All are women running from something and grasping for something that will, in the most literal sense, save them.
Shizuka, long ago, made a deal with the devil. To escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. Enter Katrina, a young transgender runaway that catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent; Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate.
But where does a donut shop fit into all of this?
“Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.”
“As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.”
The first thing you notice when reading this story is that humanity is laid bare. The good, the bad, and the deplorable are brought into the light for all to see. Maybe it is because it involves Faustian bargains. Ultimately, who you are will shine through because it has to. The music and the devil know what is in your heart. I think that is why one of the main characters is transgender. Aside from the beautiful queer representation, they are being their most authentic self. Who they really are, is brought out to the forefront in a very emotional and unflinchingly raw way.
And I am here for it.
The book also touches on the importance of the concept of a found family. Who we are born to is not necessarily whom we end up with as our nearest and dearest. Sometimes, our family is a bunch of alien space refugees running from a galactic war who run a donut shop.
Light from Uncommon Stars is also a sensual experience. Music and food can be luscious and evocative of memories of bygone times. Aoki uses them as mute characters. When speaking of music, “What would happen if someone played their existence not only to its inevitable end, but also to its inevitable beginning? What if someone played their music to its inevitable everything?” Or, when talking about bread, “A good bread tastes like home.”
My only caveat to this lovely story is a point brought up by the amazing reviewer Gautam Bhatia: this story is heavily steeped in American culture. This might make this story difficult to connect to if you are unaware of some of the minutiae of American culture.
If you have an opportunity to read this book, you should. It is an entertaining, heartwarming experience that speaks to the heart of what makes us both human and who we are inside. It takes absolute courage to be your most authentic self, and these three female protagonists, each on their own path, show that courage in different ways.
Destiny for the Dead, Kel Kade's newest addition to the Shroud of the Prophecy series, aims to beat the hero's journey trope with a hammer. For the most part, this series, and specifically this story, Destiny for the Dead, is very successful in that aim. But I think as the story progresses, it is settling into some more of the common writing patterns we see in fantasy.
“Aaslo rubbed his chest as he led the odd group of horses and undead toward the chamber where he was most likely going to meet his own death.”
The story picks up directly where we left off in the first book, Fate of the Fallen. Aaslo and his merry band of thieves, prophets, drop-out wizards, and the undead are on the march from one spectacular fight to the next. This chapter is much more violent, and Aaslo starts to come into his powers a bit more thoroughly.
Fate of the Fallen aimed to subvert the chosen one trope, which it did well. However, now in book two, it feels like the story is moving towards a found-family quest-type fantasy. The subversion of the chosen one trope feels much less important than it did in Fate of the Fallen. I like how the story is progressing and maturing; I think if Kade kept hammering home how Shroud of the Prophecy was smashing the chosen one trope, it would feel hackneyed. Instead, it balances well.
Plot-wise, much of this story covers the political machinations of various gods and their minions. It is a bubbling brew of characters with different aims working against each other. My only slight qualm with this book is that it can be challenging to follow. There is so much going on that it is hard to latch onto any of the essential side characters. And there is no fluff; all side characters are purposeful to the driving narrative. But there are quite a few, and I got lost in them a few times. However, Aaslo's group, a found family, if you will, is fantastic. His group is peppered with distinctive voices that I knew and understood and followed.
For instance, Dolt, the weird horse who is more than just a ride, is hilarious. I am convinced that he is the reincarnation of Mathias; that is the sort of energy Dolt brings to the story. Teza is great, as is Mory, Peck, Myra the Reaper, and Ijen the not-so-helpful- Prophet. Ijen gets more fleshed out in this story, as does Myra. We have so much to learn about the two of them. Kade drops some profound tidbits that will be important in the third novel.
Aaslo, our protagonist, is such a refreshing character. Instead of an asshole, the antihero is philosophically an 80-year-old man yelling at folks to get off his lawn. I can picture Aaslo hitting some poor unsuspecting ten-year-old in the ass with a stick for stepping on his begonias. He wants none of this nonsense, but he will put up with it out of duty and love of humanity.
The actual chosen one, Mathias, who was preordained for greatness, resides in a bag that swings from Aslos hip. I love this little bit of macabre that Kade wrote into the story. Not only is the hero dead, but his head hangs from the hip of his best friend, and he talks to Aaslo. Mathias is super dead and an excellent comedic foil for Aaslo so that he might relax a little bit. It doesn't work, but Mathias tries.
Destiny for the Dead was one of the books I was looking forward to for 2022, and it didn't let me down. Unique voices, a moving plot, a bit of the macabre, and a unique narrative made this series a lot of fun. I can't wait for book 3.
I received a Kindle Arc from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
A little backstory on this graphic novel, it is a prequel to Pierce Brown's Red Rising Series and revolves around one of the subsidiary characters in the 4 novel story, However, other characters that are in the Red Rising series are featured. That being said, this graphic novel can be read on it's own but the reader will not get the nuances had they read the entire 4 book story beforehand. Furthermore, I think Brown's great writing is missing here. It doesn't have the same detail that the novels have. It seems much flatter. If you are a diehard fan of the Red Rising series, absolutely read this. Otherwise, you might skip it till you read the novels.
I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. You can see more of my reviews at www.beforewegoblog.com
I absolutely love the ideas in this book. I am a book lover, but also a lover of the ideas and scenes in books. Cooking can be a great storytelling tactic. Everyone has to eat, and many memories can be shared over tea or scones, or scotch eggs for example. Recipes whose sole purpose is to transport you back to a specific scene in a novel that you found evocative is such a fantastic idea. Many of the recipes are from well-loved children's' books. This opens up such a wonderful opportunity to share something special with your child and make a memory. The recipes are easy to follow, and the pictures are lovely and well framed. The writing is concise and easy to understand. I thoroughly enjoyed the ideas and writing in this book and look forward to testing out some of these recipes with my own daughter when she is older. For now, I will have to make some Winnie the Pooh Hundred Acre Tea with her and watch a movie.
I have to admit something to you. I had never heard of My Brother, My Brother and Me. Not until a friend of mine Paul at Paul's Picks reviewed this graphic novel. It looked like an intensely fun and laugh out loud romp through geekery that I needed to embrace tout suite. Let me tell you, go out there find this book and the podcast, My Brother, My Brother, and Me. Dip your toe into it. Embrace your inner nerd and do it quickly because this is hilarious gut-busting fun. We have dick jokes, mage jokes, cleric jokes, and dwarf jokes — enough crass hilarity to cover the proverbial bases.
The story is about three adventures. Taako the elf wizard, Merle, the dwarf cleric, and Magnus, the human warrior. All bumbling morons in one way or another. They are guided by a DM full of snark and wisecracks on an adventure that you are sure they will not survive. It is nuts. It is funny. It is precisely what you expect to be said while sitting around playing dungeons and dragons with a few of your friends. Alcohol will be involved. Will they roll a 20? Will they survive an encounter with a goblin bent on their destruction?! What is with that magic spoon?
The artwork perfectly pairs with the story. It is bouncy, silly, and not too lofty which is exactly what one would expect from these three adventures. We need facial expressions that perfectly sum up Taako's annoyance and blase attitude, not artful decadence, and we get that.
I do want to caution you, this book is not for everyone. I found it funny because I have the sense of humor of a 12-year-old boy and an appreciation for D&D. The highbrow narrative this is not. However, if you enjoy the excellent crass pun and occasional double entendre, this is for you. Order it; I will wait.
In thinking of the title of this book, The Final Girl Support Group, where a support group is by its nature a safe and comforting idea, instead, think about what it means to have been a final girl. The horror of it all.
Although the horror films of the 70s and 80s would have us believe that the last girls survive their ordeals unscarred, we know too often from life that survivors are bent if not broken. The Final Girl Support Group invites us to see what these heroines might endure as they struggle to unbend themselves decades after their trauma.
Those who are horror fans or grew up in the 70s and 80s are familiar with the final girl trope. The idea of a final girl has evolved as horror movies and audiences evolved. To understand and appreciate The Final Girl Support Group it helps to have a passing understanding of the final girl trope. The final girl was usually depicted as an innocent, virginal girl who stayed away from vices such as drinking and drugs. And is thus rewarded for her “good deads” with living through the horror. The narrative structure of the movie or book followed her vantage point, and we as an audience are engaged in her struggles and have a vested interest in her fight to survive. We want her to win, either by escape or rescue.
“We get subjected to sequels. That's what makes our guys different, that's what makes them monsters - they keep coming back.”
As the trope aged, the idea of what a final girl changed as well. Instead of being saved, they often save themselves. Either by being cunning and running. We began to expect more from our final girls. And, as an audience, we revisit the final girl multiple times. Over and over, they are thrust into chaos. Nancy Thompson of Nightmare on Elm Street suffered through three versions of battle with Freddy, starting at age 15 and ending at age 21. Had she survived the last movie, what would her mind be after facing the dream king three times?
I would think that Hendrix created The Final Girl Support Group as a way to exercise the idea that the girl is a person and surviving is only the first part of her struggle. Watching these bloodfests at a midnight show is all about the spectacle of gore. But, with a spectacle comes a certain amount of distancing from the characters as people. They are basically the objective focus of the protagonist's determination.
“Sometimes you need the money more than you need to live with yourself”
The story starts with a group of middle-aged women sniping at each other. They are not friends, but people with shared experiences. They have known each other a long time and have seen each other through the enduring PTSD that comes from the horrors they have endured. In some ways, they are closer than family. What I immediately liked about the story was the idea that these women, no longer final girls, have reacted to their traumas differently. Although I am no expert in psychology, the reactions these women have to horrors like this have a certain authenticness.
For example, one is a drug addict, one is consumed with wealth and power, one is a shut-in driven by the protection of herself and trust of no one, and one channeled their pain into an organization to help others. These reactions seem like plausable reactions that one could have to PTSD like this. The story is from the vantage point of one of the final girls, Lynnette Tarkington, who survived the grizzly murders of her family around Christmas. She was impaled on an antler and set to watch the destruction of all she loved. Now she exists like a ghost, consumed with the idea that something horrible could happen because it already had, twice.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the final girl support group is targeted. Someone wants them to suffer, to be humiliated, and die as they should have originally. Lynette, who is not wholly stable and lives a life of quiet desperation, begins to understand that they are being chosen one by one to die. But trying to get people to believe her is something else entirely. There are conspiracies inside conspiracies and so much violence. Lynette is a survivor, although she doesn't believe it. But will she survive all of this and save the people around her? That is the big “ask” of the story. Is Lynette strong enough?
The Final Girl Support Group is a mover of a story once you get past Hendrix setting the scene in the very beginning. As a lover of slasher movies from the 80s, I never thought about the characters as actual people until reading this book. They were just nameless gore and splashes of crimson across the page and screen. But now, Hendrix has me thinking more in-depth about these characters. It has added a new depth of experience to the slasher movies I watched and books I read as a kid. And in some ways, I respect the distance that those cheesy slasher movies achieved. You can enjoy the movie with jump scares, Karo Corn Syrup dyed blood red, and a rubber knife and know that that kind of thing only happens in the movies. When you drop the partition between life and art, the experience of those movies has an entirely different feel to them.
I believe that anyone who is a fan of horror novels and is familiar with the trope will love it. But more so, I think that if you are a fan of the horror genre in general including movies, this story will resonate with you because it straddles a very uncomfortable blood-splattered line bisecting the two mediums. A line that I had not seen explored before. Check it out.