Beth Tabler

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.

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse follows protagonist Maggie Hoskie as she lives and battles in the “sixth world.” The Sixth World is the age that has come after climate change and the big floods that have taken most of the land. Maggie, or Mags, as she is called, is a survivor. “Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last—and best—hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much larger and more terrifying than anything she could imagine.” She was the victim of great violence as a teenager, thus shuttling her on a path of fighting monsters.

Because of the flooding, referred to as “big water” several changes have occurred on the lands. Large walls have enveloped the southwest. These walls, 50 feet tall, were magically created to protect the Navajo Nation of Dinétah. They keep the floods and the people at bay. Also, some individuals have “clan powers” or powers that represent the clan they are from. In Mag's case, it is the power of fighting, and she has the skills of the warrior inside her. This allows her to eke out a small existence as a bounty hunter and monster killer in exchange for small amounts of tradeable goods or money.

“Everything you've done, your past, it's all just a story you tell yourself. Some of it is true, but some of it is lies.”
― Rebecca Roanhorse, Trail of Lightning

Like many other main protagonists with incredible gifts, Mags is wracked by guilt. She has a difficult time defining what she is. Is she a monster, or is she a person who has done awful things to survive. This is the underlining theme of the story. Are we defined by what we do, or can we rise above our pasts? The story is made even more enjoyable by some well written supporting characters. Firstly, Grandpa Tah. He is an old medicine man that has helped and saved Mags in the past when no one else would. He sees her as an adopted daughter and treats her like family. Then there is Tah's grandson, Kai. Kai starts as a charismatic character, but further develops and changes as we learn more about him and his motivations.

“We were safe. Safe from the outside world, at least. But sometimes the worst monsters are the ones within.”
― Rebecca Roanhorse, Trail of Lightning

First, let me say, “I loved this book.” I loved this book hard, from start to finish. I have a soft spot for character-driven stories like this, and Roanhorse did a great job of balancing character arcs and development with action. The characters developed deep and complicated relationships with each other that allow the reader to latch on and become engrossed in the story. Additionally, the fact that it is written with rich Native American stories and culture is rare in fantasy, and I am so glad that this book exists.

“Sometimes, the ones we call our heroes are the greatest monsters of all.”
― Rebecca Roanhorse, Trail of Lightning

This book had some detractors, some small problems that I encountered that took me out of the story a few times. The pacing is good and generally even. However, when the pacing dips, it dips hard—some of the character interactions were a little confusing, especially at the end. I would have liked the relationship between Kai and Mags to progress a bit slower, especially with how reticent Mags was in trusting anyone. But that might be a personal preference.

I loved this book. I cannot wait to read the next one. Roanhorse is creating such a rich world in “the sixth world” series that I cannot wait to see what else happens to these characters.

I recommend.

Docile is a swirling vortex of abuse, non-consensual sex, and money. It is an uncomfortable read that has left me dumbfounded. This isn't a romance, although I have seen it touted that way. It isn't a BDSM story because nowhere in this story is the most important aspect of BDSM, and that is the ability to say no. Yes, Elisha is given a safeword, but when your future and your family's future is swirled up in your ability to give over a choice, it isn't BDSM; it is coercion. 

This is an uncomfortable story that has left a bad taste in my mouth and a raw and worn spot on my soul. 

Docile is the story of a young man named Elisha. Elisha is the oldest son in a family of debtors. As a means to save his family from debtors prison, Elisha agrees to enter the debt cancelation program where he signs over a certain amount of life in the service to his patron. This patron, in turn, pays off the agreed-upon debt. The catch is that in this indentured servitude, the debtor takes a drug that removes all of their ability to make choices or desire to care. The patron has full control of every aspect of their property. This can include sexual abuse. It is a part date rape drug/heavy duty benzodiazepine that the debtee takes every day during term. The quirk of this particular story is that Elisha refuses the medication, which is one of the few rights afforded to people entering this program. This is based on his experience with his mother Abigail becoming stunted and mentally broken as an aftereffect of the drug. 

As their relationship progresses the lines of control blend. Alex exercises his ability to inflict punishment for infractions, even if they are minor. And, Elisha begins to lose his ability to see beyond his master, Alex. Love is spoken about. But can you love someone who has given up their free will, and conversely love someone who has taken it?

This story is told from the perspective of two points of view, Elisha, the debtee, and Alex Bishop, his patron. This story is touted as a dystopian queer romance? I had a difficult time suspending disbelief that any of this was palatable or even possible. Elisha is such a meek and timid character in the first place; it didn't seem like much of a stretch that he was brainwashed into a permanent sub position. Alex was a much more believable character, but again I had a difficult time stomaching his point of view. I could not get past the graphic sex scenes set in the context of a lack of consent. Alex is never mean to Elisha, but Elisha cannot say no. Thus no matter how you dress up the novel in love and pretty words, it is still a lack of consent and was not a pleasant read for me.

However, uncomfortable or not, this story is well written and achieves its goals. I think of it much like A Clockwork Orange. Hard as hell to read and uncomfortable, I won't be rereading it, but I can appreciate the detail and written skill it took to pull it together. 

I can understand it, but I do not like it. 

Bitch, Queen, whore, warrior, wife, and mother: In The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso, Talyien aren dar Orenar is all of these and so much more.

K.S Villoso's debut novel and the first novel of the Chronicles of the Bitch Queen series introduces us to the protagonist and all-around badass Talyien. Talyien is the Queen. Her longtime betrothed, Rayyel, the Ikessar heir, whom she married to unite the warring clans of her homeland, has left her and disappeared. Now she bears the burden of monarchy solely. Alone and facing warlords who would love to see her fail and take her throne from her, Tali must survive and hold her country together.

Five years have passed since Rae left; Talyien has struggled and fought to hold her homeland together. It is a battle every day to keep the predators of rival clan warlords away from her and her young son. Taylien receives a letter from Rayyel out of nowhere. He asks if they can meet. Taylien is hoping for reconciliation for the sake of the ruling throne. She quietly sets out for this clandestine meeting, leaving her young son behind in the care of family members.

“Even after I became Queen, the rumors continued. I was powerless to stop them. I should have been more, they said. More feminine. Subtle, the sort of woman who could hide my jibes behind a well-timed titter. I could have taken the womanly arts, learned to write poetry or brew a decent cup of tea or embroider something that didn't have my blood on it, and found ways to better please my man. Instead, Rayyel Ikessar would rather throw away the title of Dragonlord, king of Jin-Sayeng, than stay married to me.”

What transpires on this journey to this meeting and afterward is exciting and chaotic. Assassination attempts, kidnapping, fights, and great characters, Tali is in a foreign land with foreign adversaries pulling strings behind the scenes. She doesn't understand much of the language or customs, and after the assassination attempt, Tali is alone.

She has to survive on her wits and wiles.

One of Villoso's strengths is her ability to set a scene. The lighting, the sky, the food: she covers it all and paints with the world with a colorful brush. You can practically feel what her characters are wandering through. Especially the food, I happen to think that food is one of the driving forces behind understanding a culture. It is central to gathering and feasting, it is the most important thing and can denote great fortune. Adding in descriptions of the sumptuousness of one lands cuisine versus the bland nature of another can help a reader understand the cultures better.

“They called me “bitch,” the she-wolf because I murdered a man and made my husband leave the night before they crowned me.”

Coupled with the worldbuilding, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is a tremendous character-driven narrative. At no point in the story did I not know who Talyien aren dar Orenar was a person. Same for the characters around her. I might not have known all their motives and trickery, but I got a good sense of who they were as people. For instance, Talyien is a character that is weary of her duties, but she is duty-bound and honorable down to the core of her soul. She is hard on the outside. That is necessary and fitting for her survival as Queen, but inside she is somewhat naive. Rayyel, her would-be king, is charming and scholarly. We see the descriptions of who Rayyel is through the eyes of Talyien, as the story progresses and changes, her perceptions of him change and mature.

The pacing of this story does not stop. We are moving moment to moment, fight scene to fight scene constantly. It does not get overwhelming, but this is an intense story. There are moments of introspection, moments to take our breath, but they are so brief that it is almost as if they didn't happen. I think that is a tool that Villoso is utilizing to show how quickly this story is evolving. There isn't much introspection because there is no time for meditation. We have murdering and spying to do.

“Perhaps, when you love less, it is easier not to let the emptiness become a cavern from which you could no longer see the sun.”

One of the excellent character dynamics of the story is between Tali and Khine. Khine is a swindler con-artist that assists Tali at the beginning of the book when she got separated from her group. Nothing is free, and Tali had to help Khine with the swindling of a mark. She does so, and a great friendship is born. Their scenes, even though most often took place while fighting or running, added a light levity and banter to the story.

A few times, I was even chanting Team Khine and screw Rae.

Overall, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro has been one hell of a fun ride. It is emotional, full of danger, loyalty, betrayal. It had plot twists, twists on twists, and for once, a kick-ass female character that was also a mom. All of this combined with an energetic and emotional group of characters that you become invested in rather early, and you have one thrill-ride of a novel. I highly recommend it, and I can't wait for the next one.

I received a copy of this from Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for my open and honest review.

Katie M. Flynn's newest story, The Companions, is described as a dystopic combination of “Station Eleven and Never Let Me Go set in an unsettling near future where the dead can be uploaded to machines and kept in service by the living.” However, The Companions never hits the mark with either comparison.

The story is about a world that has been destroyed by a crafted, highly contagious virus. California is under massive quarantine, people cannot go outside or interact with other people for fear of contamination. Right from the start, this isn't a new idea. This kind of isolationism is widespread in science fiction. Humans are social creatures, and we start to act funny and do odd things when cut off from society. The dead can come into homes, however, in the form of “companionship.” A deceased persons mind, intellect, and memories are downloaded in storage and uploaded into a new robot if “the company” deems it fit. This leads to so many questions that break the plausibility of this story. Why would a company be given so much power and ownership of what amounts to people's souls? What about this virus? What did it do? Why are some people outside, but seemingly ok? Is the virus a lie? and so on...

“Wealthy participants in the “companionship” program choose to upload their consciousness before dying, so they can stay in the custody of their families.” This class system stratification could have opened up a ton of exciting avenues for the story, the wealthy versus the poor, where the wealthy love forever. But, it came off as more of a footnote—a bit of backstory rather than a propelling narrative for the plot.

“Sixteen-year-old Lilac is one of the less fortunate, leased to a family of strangers. But when she realizes she's able to defy commands, she throws off the shackles of servitude and runs away, searching for the woman who killed her.”

The premise, at least in the blurb, is solid with this story. We have disharmony between societal classes, a vast plague that disrupts social norms, people stuck in machines, and more, which is why it saddened me around the 50% mark to see that this story was not going to go anywhere.

What was written where a series of character vignettes.

Each of the vignettes is interesting and well written on their own, but taken as a whole are an incohesive story. The characters that were very strong to start with, get lost. There is no real character that I could call a true protagonist. The story jumps in time and events with rapidity, but the reader is never given a chance to eternalize why some events are important and why others are not. What we end up with is a substantial character and emotional series of stories that take place in the same world, and might have some connecting thread between them, but not much else.

The Companions started so strong, the writing was excellent, but the lack of cohesive narrative and worldbuilding leave it muddy.

Ragged Alice, a novella by author Gareth L. Powell is a whole lot of information in a tiny package. It is one of the novellas that had me shouting, “why aren't you a full novel?” A problem that novellas and short stories can run into is trying to do too much in a small amount of narrative time. When doing too much, and covering to much ground, it can come off flat because of the lack of character definition, exposition, and world-building. Powell's novel is such a good premise but comes off as rushed because there is not enough of it to connect thoroughly to everything.

The premise is thus, “Orphaned at an early age, DCI Holly Craig grew up in the small Welsh coastal town of Pontyrhudd.” Holly is a damaged inspector type character. She has been broken by her past and is held together with tea and whiskey in equal parts. After fifteen years in London, Holly is back on assignment in Pontyrhudd. A town full of all sorts of ghosts, both literal and figurative. Holly has a peculiar “gift” that helps her solve cases and determine the innocence of suspects, and now she gets to use this gift on a hit and run case in her hometown.

Ragged Alice is a good story, Powell is an excellent author but try as I might this story came off as midgrade. Enjoyable, but didn't stay with me. I did not care as much about Holly as I wanted to, and due to the format of a novella, there wasn't enough meat to bring more story elements in that would allow me to connect. Don't let this put you off this story or Powell in general. He is a killer author, but this book didn't allow him to shine.

The novel Kingshold by self-published author, D.P Woolliscroft and is the first offering of the Wildfire Cycle series. If I could describe Kingshold in a few lines, it would be a beautiful but complicated tapestry. It is written in the vein of dark and intricate fantasy, much like the Malazan series or The Darkness That Comes Before. There are magic and fantasy aspects in Kingshold, but they come second to the political and societal maneuvers of the characters. Because of the breadth and scope of the worldbuilding, the first 200 pages of the story are on the slow side. I don't fault the author for this. He had a lot of history and territory to layout for the reader. Subsequently, I would think later books in the series, Tales of Kinghold and Ioth, City of Lights, require much less narrative exposition and worldbuilding to get going. If you stick with the story and let Woollenscroft build a foundation for the politics and intrigue to sit in, you are rewarded with a well crafted and entertaining political fantasy story.

Kingshold is a place that has been riotously turned on its head. The king and queen of the city have been murdered, their heads set upon pikes. The governing body is in chaos. It is a vacuum that wants to be filled by the vainglorious and social climbers. Jyuth, the ancient wizard that had guided the court for centuries, is guilty of the regicide. Tired of bad kings and queens, he sets out the rules for a new election.

The people will vote on a new leader.

Anyone can vote as long as you can put in the 1000 coins to earn a spot at the voting table. This causes the disenfranchisement of many would-be voters; only the rich and elite get a say. And with that thought, the race to the crown proceeds. There are death, back-stabbing, pay-offs, propaganda, and riots. Everything you would come to expect in a situation like that.

Kingshold is entirely character-driven once the settings are set for the story. Most of it revolves around Mareth, the bard. Mareth is a man with stars in his eyes and the intelligence to help shape the future of Kingshold. Jyuth is the great wizard that set about starting this tumultuous election in the first place. Both of these characters' machinations shape the kingdom's future.


Another one of the real strengths of the story is the humour. This isn't a powerful laugh-out-loud type story. But Woolliscroft does a great job in injecting a bit of lightheartedness into conversations that lift the dialog and keeps the pacing from getting stodgy. I appreciated that as a reader, and it was an excellent counterpoint to the dark political intrigue and backstabbing.

The engaging and detailed political plots, along with the humor and gorgeous worldbuilding, made this a treat to read. I look forward to tackling the next book in the series.

The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold is a fantasy novel about sin, redemption, and hope. The story follows a man-for-hire named Fetch Phillips. Fetch is a human working in a town full of mystical creatures. Humans are hated, and for a good reason. However, in a redemptive bid to atone for past sins, Fetch's job and his sole purpose in life are to help non-humans, usually in the form of PI work. Through this work, helping one creature at a time, Fetch seeks to help atone for the wrongdoings in his past, his greatest sin. His sin destroyed the world and magic with it.

“A good man is made through a lifetime of work. Great men are made by their monsters.”

The world now no longer runs on magic. There used to be a great river of magic that flowed underground and seeped out to all the various creatures of the world. Thus, the world used to be full of magical creatures, mystical entities, as well as joy and pain. The world and the creatures in it had purpose and drive, glory, and beauty. Now that magic has been ripped from the world; it is a sad shadow of its former self. Magical creatures who used to stand tall and shimmer in the glory of the magic that infused them, are rotting. Dragons fall from the sky in dusty, scaled heaps. Trolls that had been made of as much soil as magic have stopped moving and ceased to exist. Elves that used to live forever, either fall to dust from rapid aging or now have to look mortality in the face as they know they are going to die.

The day the magic stopped was the day that hope and the future inexorably changed. Magic was ripped from the world by jealous humans, and it is a sin that humanity will live with for the entirety of their existence.

“I'd seen plenty of things break in my lifetime: bones, hearts, and promises. This woman was breaking right in front of me. I watched as she somehow vacated her own eyes. The waves of hatred lulled to nothing. The door closed.”

Now Fetch has been given a job, find a missing vampire. Vampires have been withering away to dust since the Coda(the day the magic stopped).
However, this vampire is much beloved and missed by the magical community. Fetch's patron wants to know what happened to his friend. As Fetch delves deeper into the case, he discovers that the vampire might have disappeared due to something nefarious. It is Fetch's job to figure it out.

Through a series of interactions, Fetch begins to piece together the timeline and what might have happened; things become so much bigger than a missing vampire. And, in doing so, maybe help find a small grain of piece for himself. Maybe give himself a little hope in this tortured and busted world.

“He was three times my age and starting over. I don't think I ever got started in the first place.”

The story is told through a series of interactions, both now and in the past. These interactions in the past created Fetch in the present, and we slowly understand why. Arnold did a great job showing how different Fetch was before and after the Coda. Before the Coda, Fetch was wide-eyed and naive, dealing with his strange upbringing and marveling at this world full of monsters. After the Coda, Fetch is a broken man. He nurses a deep wound and is wracked with guilt that is slowly disintegrating him, much like vampires slowly sloughing away. There is a dark melancholy in the way that Arnold writes this story. Often when authors attempt to use this type of tone, it can come off as trite. Trite and pretentious, but Arnold used it as a means of showing the desperation of the situations that Fetch and by extension Sunder City are in, and it is a useful way of communicating it. The Last Smile in Sunder City is a sad Sam Spade type story, but underneath all that sadness is a small gem of hope. This hope allows the reader to feel something aside from the grief and inevitability at the destruction of magical life. At the beginning of the story, the little light of hope is seen flashing briefly in the characters from page to page. Always other characters than Fetch. Fetch is fully immersed in his mental anguish. But by the end, and through some excellent writing, hope the most elusive of emotions comes shining through for a few moments. Things might not be ok. Matter-a-fact, they probably won't be. But, there are things to be hopeful about. There are things to find a small bit of joy in even if it is something as little as a good cup of coffee.

There are good things, and The Last Smile in Sunder City demonstrates that. It is a great read, sad at times, and hopeless, but it still propels the reader page to page with hope for the future. Arnold has demonstrated great skill in weaving an emotionally realistic tale, and I am looking forward to the next one.

Misery by Stephen King is a novel about pain, obsession, and writing. Paul Sheldon, the stories protagonist, is 42. He is a celebrity writer, twice married and divorced, drinker and smoker, and he is in a lot of trouble. So much trouble. “umber whunnnn yerrrnnn umber whunnnn fayunnnn These sounds: even in the haze.” Even through the haze of drugs and pain, he knew something was off; something was wrong. There was pain, so much of it. “The pain was somewhere below the sounds. The pain was east of the sun and south of his ears. That was all he did know.” His memory was hazy. He remembers a crash. He remembers he stopped breathing, then breathing again. A mouth, spitless, dry, and tight had clamped on him like a vise with its breath. It was “a dreadful mixed stench of vanilla cookies and chocolate ice cream and chicken gravy and peanut-butter fudge.” It was awful, Paul begged and pleaded to be left alone. But Annie couldn't leave him alone.

“Breathe, goddam you!” the unseen voice shrieked”

This was Paul's introduction to Annie Wilkes, Paul's number one fan, the stories antagonist and Paul was in a lot of trouble.

Paul was out celebrating the finishing of his newest novel. “Fast Cars.” A story that Paul had written after putting behind him his best-selling romance series staring the heroine Misery Chastain. A story that, to him, was not writterly and deserving of praise. He had drunk champagne, high on the excitement of the victory, and went driving. He crashed his car spectacularly on a snowy road outside Sidewinder, Colorado. A place that many King fans will recognize from Dr. Sleep, American Vampire, and The Shining. He is found broken and twisted amongst the remains of his car by Annie Wilkes. His legs are a badly broken puzzle of bone shards and pain. He awakes in Annie's farm somewhere outside of Sidewinder with only the sounds from an unhappy cow and a pig that Annie had named Misery to greet him.

“This memory circled and circled, maddening, like a sluggish fly. He groped for whatever it might mean, but for a long time the sounds interrupted. fayunnnn red everrrrrythinggg umberrrrr whunnnn Sometimes the sounds stopped. Sometimes he stopped”

Paul realizes that his legs are a broken and splintered mess pretty quickly. Ironic because Annie is an ex-nurse and probably could have set them to rights. He is in excruciating pain and hooked on pain killers, and is entirely at the mercy of his number one fan, and something is not quite right with her. There is something diabolical and insane in Annie Wilkes. Something dark is inside her mind and only comes out sometimes, something that can hurt him, something that will eventually kill him. If he wants to continue his existence, he needs to write a new Misery novel for her, one that revives the protagonist Misery Chastain. Misery is a character that Paul was delighted to kill off and be done with. Otherwise, Annie might kill him; but she might kill him anyway piece by piece.

Much of Stephen King's Misery is psychological terror and internal turmoil. The psychological terror is palpable. Annie Wilkes might be the scariest villain I have ever read. She is cruel, but her cruelty is unknown to her. “You did this to yourself, Paul!” She is also efficient and diabolical. “Annie was not swayed by pleas. Annie was not swayed by screams. Annie had the courage of her convictions.” When Paul is found to be investigating the farmhouse while Annie is out, Annie decides that he needs to be punished, so she cuts his foot off with an ax and cauterizes the stump with a blow torch. It is brutally efficient, and in its way, Annie thinks she is weirdly kind. She gives Paul a pain killer and a slight sedative beforehand. Much like grounding a wayward child for being naughty, Annie feels she needs to punish Paul. Although her punishment is violent and cruel, she doesn't know it.

Misery is a spectacularly, cruel novel, and it goes beyond the usual horror that we can expect from King. This novel touches on the psychological horror and self-flagellation of a writer. Paul must create a story that he does not want to tell, then the story takes ahold of him as he begins to tell it, and he must see it to the end. Annie is both a jailer, muse and finally the ultimate critic. She punishes failures by cutting off pieces of him. Deadlines and writerly problems take on whole new meanings for Paul.

The ending is almost anti-climatic. As a reader, I want fire and brimstone to fall upon Annie. She deserves so much comeuppance. But I think the way that King handled it is perfect. A battle between writer and critic needs to happen, and the struggle between jailer and inmate needs to happen. “It was always the same, always the same-like toiling uphill through jungle and breaking out to a clearing at the top after months of hell only to discover nothing more rewarding than a view of a freeway - with a few gas stations and bowling alleys thrown in for good behavior, or something.” And, as King says here, writers plod through, whip themselves, battle their muses, and in the end, it is anti-climactic - a bowling alley and gas station. It is not satisfying, but the ending is right. It is terrifying for Paul and quite disturbing as a metaphor for writing.

Misery is King writing at his finest and possibly most introspective. It is, at times, a painful and terrifying read. I had to put it down a few times to take a breath, pet a dog, and watch some happy youtube video. But it is worth the read, and I am so glad I took it on.

The Rise of Gaia is author Kristen Ward's third novel, and frankly, she just keeps getting better and better. In this outing, Ward touches on a few different topics, but first and foremost is the topic of climate change. Readers have been seeing a lot of books out in the world about this subject. It is on the minds of authors as well as readers because we as humans are seeing the effects of environmental degradation more and more every day. Instead of writing a purely dystopic novel, which you find often when dealing with climate change, Kristen wrote a novel exploring friendship, love, and unusual circumstances.

The protagonist of the story is a young woman name Terran. A nod to Kristen about the name choice, the word Terran translates to “of the Earth.” This sets a fun foreshadowing about how Terran develops as a character and the interesting path she takes in the narrative. Terran is an atypical teenage girl, in that instead of playing with social media, worrying about her hair or school drama, Terran feels most at home hiking. I like this as a character attribute. Often teens are written stereotyped. Terran and her best friend Beth are interesting characters because they are realistic in that they seem like real people.

The story progresses as Terran is wracked by visions of a dying Earth. She feels the pain of loss at a natural world that is rapidly disappearing, and sorrow for a broken future. Eventually, we come to find out that Gaia (The entity representing the spirit of the natural world) has decided that Terran is a chosen one. What that means for Terran's future and how she sees the world is the bulk of the story.

The strongest element of the story and the part that I enjoyed the most was the depth of friendship between Beth and Terran. As I was a teenage girl, so very very long ago, I remember the intense and important relationships that I formed that as a young girl and how they lasted me a lifetime. I loved that Kristen explored some of those aspects.

Again Kristen as written a wonderful and affecting story. I am so happy to have been a part of this blog tour and highly recommend reading any of her books.

In the realm of dystopia, there are trends, and as Vonnegut wrote novels and short stories for a very long time, his work spans these trends. Depending on what is going on with the world, in the 1930's - 1950's it was government control. This is demonstrated in books like 1984, which was written in 1949 and Brave New World, which was written in 1932. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was religious control and religious Zionism. In the 1980s, it was nuclear destruction do to the influence of the cold war on culture and literature. In the 1990s, it was the rise of technology and technology run amok. In the 2000s, it was survivalism and the loss of individuality. In the 2010s till now, two concurrent trends are running in dystopia. One is the rise of the dystopian feminism movement. This is usually depicted as Christian fundamentalism and lack of reproductive control. And the other is environmentalism, influenced by the grave importance of global warming. Each of the trends blends into the other and influences one another. You can have feminism and environmentalism expressed in the same book, just as one can have religious extremism and governmental control in another.

Often, Vonnegut writes governmental authority as the antagonist in his stories. Always at odds with the stories protagonists and the protagonist's ability to express themselves. Vonnegut had a lot to say about the state of the world, and he often got on his proverbial soapbox to express his views to beautiful results. One of my favorite examples of this is in his novel Galapagos. It is little known unless you are a Vonnegut junky like myself. A nuclear war decimates the world. The only remnants of a society that have survived, ironically enough, was a pleasure cruise to the Galapagos Islands. There the last humans must come to accept their fate and blend into nature and, by extension, evolution. It is funny and beautiful, poignant, and a bit of a thinker. I find myself enjoying 2BR02B just as much as I enjoyed Galapagos all those years ago.

2BR02B is one of Vonnegut's many short stories. Extremely short in length, but what it lacks in length it makes up for in dialog and worldbuilding. The first sentence is, “Everything was perfectly swell.” This is a perfect sentence in its ability to convey dual meanings. Is everything swell? Is the speaker of the story ironic? The speaker goes on to list man's achievements:
There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars.
All diseases were conquered. So was old age.
Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.
The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls.
If Clarke's Childhood's End has taught us anything, it is that without a bit of conflict and struggle, life, beauty, art, and desire become meaningless. Humans need a little bit of effort to make things meaningful. If everything is given, humans can become thoughtless and lose their drive. In BR02B, even death has been conquered. Death the great equalizer, all will eventually die, has been defeated. Humans do not even need to die if they don't want to. This creates a wholly different problem, and one that Vonnegut has written about many times, and that is population control. The residents of the united states are held to a strick population of 40 million souls. To put that into perspective, 40 million is the population of California.

At the beginning of the story, we meet a painter; he is about 200 years old but looks as if he is 35. “A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder, painting a mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had touched him that much before the cure for aging was found. He is painting, which can only be described as a Thomas Kinkaid-Esque pastoral scene. “The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white, doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer. Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried refuse to trash-burners. Never, never, never—not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan—had a garden been more formal, been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use.” Vonnegut is not a wordy writer; he uses few words to convey a lot. This painter, this double centenarian, is bored.
The other character we are introduced to is Edward K. Wehling, Jr., as he waits for his young wife to deliver triplets. Triplets - unheard of! That means that for these young children to live, three people must be willing to give up their lives.

If someone wants to end their life, all they need to do is call this handy number 2 - B - R - 0 - 2 - B. Pronounced To be or naught to be after Shakespeare's Hamlet. You can choose to live or die as you see fit. The government runs this number and is The Federal Bureau of Termination. Each new life that is born is replacing an old life like parts in a machine. Humanity, as it has destroyed all the conflicts ever presented to it has come down to number crunching — 1 for 1. Wehling, a new father to three babies, is expected to choose which children to destroy because the US only has room for one child. Dr. Hitz reprimands Wehling.
“Do the parents have three volunteers?” said Leora Duncan.
“Last I heard,” said Dr. Hitz, “they had one, and we're trying to scrape another two up.”
“I don't think they made it,” she said. “Nobody made three appointments with us. Nothing but singles going through today, unless somebody called in after I left. What's the name?”
“Wehling,” said the waiting father, sitting up, red-eyed and frowzy. “Edward K. Wehling, Jr., is the name of the happy father-to-be.”
He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely wretched chuckle. “Present,” he said.
“Oh, Mr. Wehling,” said Dr. Hitz, “I didn't see you.”
“The invisible man,” said Wehling.
“They just phoned me that your triplets have been born,” said Dr. Hitz. “They're all fine, and so is the mother. I'm on my way in to see them now.”
“Hooray,” said Wehling emptily.
“You don't sound very happy,” said Dr. Hitz.
“What man in my shoes wouldn't be happy?” said Wehling. He gestured with his hands to symbolize care-free simplicity. “All I have to do is pick out which one of the triplets is going to live, then deliver my maternal grandfather to the Happy Hooligan(2BR02B), and come back here with a receipt.”

Dr. Hitz, almost like a hitman, lacks the moral understanding that these babies are more than numbers. They are interchangeable with any other soul. Edward K. Wehling, Jr. proceeds to pull out a gun and shoot Dr. Hitz, his nurse, and finally himself. Ultimately expressing the last bit of control that Edward has in his life, and that is the right to kill himself. Ironically, Dr. Hitz and his nurse's deaths are the pure expressions of their beliefs. One interchangeable piece for another.

Vonnegut can be brutal in his storytelling. Brutal and effective. You get the point that he was trying to get across. If you would like to read this story, it is widely available as it is now out of copyright and can be read on Project Gutenburg. I suggest giving it a try. Only Vonnegut makes the idea of population control, individualism, and creative expression engaging and thought-provoking in ten pages.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this in exchange for my open and honest review.


“By the touch of thy hand shall the black lotus bloomThus shall we know thee, handmaid of desolationBy the corruption of the seasBy the fading of all thingsThy name shall be forsaken and thou be my brideThus spake the Nameless One upon the plains of dust from The Book of Unmaking”

A.K Larkwood's debut novel, The Unspoken Name, the first novel in The Serpent's Gate series, is all about choice. There is absolute power in hitting bottom; you have faced death, the end, and come out on the other side. After that, the world is open to you choice-wise.

“You have looked your foretold death in the face and turned from it in defiance. Nothing in this world or any other deserves your fear.”

This is one of the main aspects of the lead protagonist Csorwe, and I think of The Unspoken Name in general. This story delves deeply into the nature of what choice actually is. Are our actions in this world truly choices? Or do we choose to do things based on what is expected of us?

Larkwood's debut novel, the first of a grand new series aptly named The Serpents Gates stars the character Cswore. Csorwe is in a lot of ways unoriginal, at least at first. She grows up in what I can only think of as a cult where every 14 years, a girl child that has been groomed to become the bride of a god is devoured in sacrifice to appease the god. The first 14 years of her life have been entirely without choice. Choice, as a concept, is a wholly foreign concept. Csorwe has been brainwashed her entire life. This great honor that has been bestowed upon her by this wrathful god.

Her life's only meaning is in its death. In the last hour of her life, she is approached by the wizard Sethennai, a wizard, he offers her a choice, “serve me, and I will save you. Don't and accept your fate.” Csorwe, having never been offered a choice in anything, she is offered what could be the most pivotal choice of her life. She accepts life and defies a god. She takes her young life and runs for it. Sethennai needs Cswore to restore his position as ruler of a great city named Tlaanthothe. It is difficult as a reader to make the connection as to why Csorwe, basically a babe in the ways of the world, is essential in this great wizard's quest to gain his city back. Especially since, again, Cswore is groomed as an assassin and bodyguard, and it takes years to get her ready. And, still, what looks like a choice and an opportunity to live her life finally on her own terms is not what she thinks it is. She is bound to Sethennai by obligation and her honor.

The narrative The Unspoken Name has two plot arcs. It is almost as if two novels were joined together, each could have stood on their own as a book in the series. The first arc is of Cswore's escape, education, abduction, and finally, assistance in Sethennai's quest of restoring his position as ruler of Tlaanthothe. This arc is exciting and encompasses the first 30 or so percent of the story. After this arc concludes, we jump forward five years. Cswore and Talasseres, who is a fascinating side character and is both Cswore's foil and companion for much of the novel, are on the hunt for the Reliquary of Pentravesse for Sethennai. The Reliquary is an object of mystical and religious importance that Sethennai and Oranna are both searching for. Anyone who obtains the Reliquary will gain knowledge of the Pentravesse. A source of high power. Sethennai and Oranna are brutal and efficient characters in very different ways. Each stops at nothing to achieve their own goals. While Sethennai behaves like a razor blade cutting into and removing things in his search for the Reliquary, Oranna acts much like a cudgel and bashes into things and people with brutal raw force. Both Tal and Cswore get in the crossfire.

Another integral part of the second arc in The Unspoken Name is the developing romantic relationship that occurs. It becomes a complete expression of choice. The choice to live, to love, to die, and to protect. All vital and singular expressions of Cswore's budding ability to make choices for her self and her future. Her choices, Whether it burns the world down or not, it is her choices to make. It helped create a strong second half to this book that saved the pace and brought the full reader speeding into the conclusion.

“The desert called the Speechless Sea was of black sand, scattered with shards of volcanic glass that sparkled like the stars. A chain of hills emerged from this desert, as though the night sky was punctured by a row of vertebrae. Built on these was the city of Tlaanthothe.”

World-building in this story is exceptional, although occasionally, it is just a little bit murky. The setting of this story is a series of worlds, an almost infinite amount of them, that are accessed through gates. Each setting is entirely different culturally and geographically. It is a heady mix of ever-shifting landscapes that are a serious nod to writer's A.K Larkwood's imagination. The part that was a bit murky to me was the character's physical attributes. Csorwe is described as having tusks. Unless other descriptions are given, Cswore is immediately orc-like. The same goes for Sethennai. He is described as having pointed ears, which immediately makes me think of an elf. Maybe this is a function of my fantasy context from reading other books. But, it seemed like a missed opportunity for more complicated and exciting physical characteristics of the characters.

Is the power of choice enough to build a substantial epic series around?
The answer is a resounding, yes!

Choice is one of the most primal things humans can make. Your choices make or break your future. This debut novel is excellent and worth reading, even if it is just for the world-building alone. Is it perfect? No, there are plotting problems, and as I mentioned above, issues with suspended disbelief. But it is a great book that ended on a high note. This, in turn, will lead to the second book in the series perfectly. You should absolutely check out this debut novel and jump into this world.

Alcoholism is a specter that wraps itself around you like a scarf. You can't see it, your neighbor, nor family can't see it, but it is there. It affects everything you do, the actions you have with your families, and who you are at your core. Samantha Church knows this. The specter of alcoholism has been a big part of her family's life. But now she needs to face this specter and her inner demons if she is going to solve this case and, in the end, save herself.

On Christmas Eve in Denver, Colorado, a young woman falls to her death. In her apartment is a large bottle of whiskey, the young woman has a history of drinking, and there is a note; all who know about the case think that the woman just succumbed to her inner demons. But Samantha Church, the women's sister, knows better. Her sister's suicide would not and could not happen on Christmas Eve.

The girls have a pact about that.

No one believes Samantha, I mean, why would she. She has a besmirched reputation; she has lost her daughter in a custody battle with her ex-husband due to her alcohol abuse, and she is a barely functional drunk most of the time. But she is also something else beyond all of it, the alcohol and family drama; she is an investigative journalist. And, she wants to get to the bottom of this question. Who killed her sister?

I can't tell you much beyond that as it would ruin the fun of the mystery, and everyone loves a good mystery.

Samantha is not a nice character, especially at the beginning of the story. But, who can be nice when they have destroyed their entire lives and are under the yoke of alcoholism. Plus, Sam is grieving. Grief permeates much of what she does and her reactions. As the story moves around, Sam seems to get more comfortable doing what she does best, figuring things out.

Sam also has to face her inner demons if she is going to survive.

The Friday Edition is a good story that keeps you guessing, and Sam is written well. It is worth the read.

Taking as a whole, this is not a poor edition. I don't believe it is up to par with the previous versions of Captain Tripps, American Nightmares, and Soul Survivors. Maybe it is because Hardcases mainly deals with the villains of the novel — specifically Trashcan Man. I never felt like Trashcan Man was a fully fleshed-out character in the original book, so I lack interest in reading about him in the graphic novel. I do think that graphically this book shines as much as previous installments. The images of Las Vegas with people being crucified on the strip are pretty stark. It shows just how evil the Las Vegas folk are and how low they will go. It is an excellent addition to the series, as it keeps the story flowing, but I didn't enjoy it a whole lot.

(Reviewer's Note:  This story hit pretty close to home for me. I am speaking from a very tender spot about gun violence. It was very personal and I talk a bit about that. If you are triggered by discussions about gun violence, this book is not for you in any way.)

As Author Michael Bendis wrote on the second page of this story, we all feel silent rage, and he felt like he did not have anything new to bring to the table. I don't believe that. I think that each of us, including Michael, in our own ways, are whacked out and off-kilter. It is as if we citizens of the United States are treading water and a giant dark wave wants to crush us. Violence once thought to be the thing of movies and TV, is all about us. But, we as a society are sold the idea that the violence is happening somewhere else, not here. Not at a country music concert. Suspicious theories, no better than the “whisper game” from childhood, tell us our news. The news that is vetted and manipulated to want to tear us along party lines not since seen since the civil war. Those Blues and Those Reds.

The thought that this book even exists makes me want to tear at my hair and bruise my fists on the walls. I want to take my sweet five-year-old child and hide her away in a bunker, teach her training, martial arts, and never to have her leave home without body armor. I wish I were kidding. But violence killed a class of adorable five years old kids that just wanted to talk about barney and Winnie the pooh. They are the personification of innocence. It is insane.

Are you still with me here? I promise to get to the bits about the book and why it is so damn important to me. 

I AM LAS VEGAS NATIVE.

I didn't just live there like so many Cali transplants coming for cheaper homes. I grew up and ran through the deserts of lizards, jackrabbits, and Joshua Trees. Trees that look like a spikey alien reaching for the heavens only to feel a loss at being anchored to the burning sand. I was there when strip signs fell, water-filled up hotels, hotels raised to the sky as glittering monstrosities, and came crashing down reduced to nothing - nothing but ghosts. Vegas courses through my blood as much as blood cells do. Vegas is a glittery and dirty myth for some, but for me, Vegas will always be a four-letter word - home. I got married in Liberace's house - I am as Vegas as they come.


I think because of my personal connection to the subject matter, the entire experience reading it was more heartbreaking. This book broke me in places that I didn't know had places. I currently live in Portland, but I remember learning about the shooting and frantically calling MY ENTIRE FAMILY. “Please don't be there. Please don't be there” I begged the portland sky. I was so far away and impotent in the face of all of this. They were not there, bless the gods, but some other friends worked in the Mandalay as security, I have friends working two hotels over dealing cards. My parents live one mile down the street next to Las Vegas Blvd. This night shattered me because it was the idea of home being blown apart by bullets.

Someone did that, and I am forever changed by it.

The book itself is good. Really good. It is a selection of events, memories, collections of ideas about the Las Vegas experience, and what it was to be there. Maybe I am biased because my sense of home and safety got blow apart by a motherfucker with a gun. So I might be viewing this story a little differently than other folks. But that is ok. Books and reading can be a very personal experience based on your moments from your past and visions of your future. For me, this story felt both homey; these are my people, and painful because of the topic. In terms of content, the book sways between illustrated accounts of the victim's experiences during the shooting and calls to action for gun control. If these are two things affect you and you feel passionate about they can be very triggering. This book is not attempting to make a two-sided argument regarding guns, so don't expect that. This book is for the victims and the violence has already happened, and this book talks about the aftermath. 

Graphically it is beautiful. Each page is a new writer, style, opinion, and idea of what home is. It is a kaleidoscope of colors, darkness, light, and talent. I think people should read this to connect, even for the moment, with what happens after significant gun violence. Even if you are pro-gun, you can read appreciate this book as a collection of art pieces. Some of the images are that good. 

Maybe it can help change the violent madness we walk as a society, maybe it can't. But taken as a whole this is a very stirring work to read and maybe, just maybe, a little healing for those who have been directly affected by the violence. I wholeheartedly and sadly recommend it

Thank you to Tor.com for providing me with a copy of Prosper's Demon via Netgalley in exchange for my open and honest review.

Prosper's demon, written by author K.J. Parker is a ride through sarcasm, nihilism, and philosophical morality. Even though the ending made the reading of the rest of the story worth it, this book is not for everyone. It employs time jumps, a stream of conscious writing style, and an unreliable narrator.

All is not what it seems with this story.

The story starts with a person named Prosper of Schanz. He is a scholar, artist, visionary, and thinker - ultimate creator. He is also currently populated by a demon. Demons exist; they live inside of people; they do damage, and have machinations. Because they cannot die and have been alive for possibly billions of years, they play the long game. Their ideas and schemes can be thwarted, but much like a river, they find other avenues to flow down. They find different ways of achieving their goals. Removing the demon can cause damage that can cause irreparable harm to the human. It is very Sisyphean.

Enter our unreliable narrator. He is an anonymous exorcist who can see these demons and pluck them from the souls and bodies of those they inhabit. He is an entirely unlikeable, and unempathetic. He has this gift that he has cultivated over his comparably short lifetime that allows him to interact with a demon. But for him, it is always the end's justify the means. If the human is damaged or die from having a demon removed, that is on the demon, not the exorcist. It is a morally bankrupt position to take, but that lack of care representative of the type of character the exorcist is.

Prosper's demon and the anonymous exorcist have a battle of wits through the course of the novel. Or at least that is what I think the author intended to portray. It is more like a battle of wits on the part of Prosper, and someone who is utterly uninterested on the part of the exorcist. The conversations between the two of them are confusing and banal.

This story is a short one clocking in at 100 pages. At 50%, I could not figure out who was talking, anything much about the characters or their intentions, and anything about the environment. The dialog is written in a stream of conscious style that made it difficult to figure out who is speaking. In the last 50% of this book, it got easier to figure out what was going on, but at this point, I didn't care about any of the characters and frankly just wanted to be done.

I wanted to like this book, and I gave it a higher star rating at three stars because I know that for some readers, this kind of storytelling is fantastic, and Prosper's Demon was done very well if you enjoy these types of narratives. But it wasn't for me.

If you would like to read more of my reviews or various other bookish things, please come by my blog at https://beforewegoblog.com/

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for my open and honest review.

Do you know what happens when author Eoin Colfer of Artemis Fowl fame decides he wants to write an adult book? You get dragons and snark. You get Highfire. I am a particular fan of the snark, pretty much as it comes in all forms because I like my characters to swagger and be cheeky bastards.

Vern, short for Wyvern, is hiding on an island in a Louisiana swamp. He minds his own business, doing as he has done for the last 3000+ years. He hates humans, much like an old man who hates kids playing on his lawn. They are a nuisance, cause all sorts of issues, and usually end up trying to hunt you down with pitchforks. He loves Netflix, Flashdance, the incredible 1980s classic, and Vodka. But to get these necessities of life, he needs a minion to fetch things for him. Currently, a half-human creature named Waxman has been helping him out; they go back for a awhile. Vern saved Waxman from a life in the circus fifty years ago. But Waxman needs to go underground, or really bury himself in Vern's dragon shit to regenerate himself for a few months, so Vern needs a new minion.

Also, in the town lives a resourceful 15-year-old boy named Squib. Squib is a hustler. He does anything he can to make a dollar, and that includes fetching Vern vodka and helping him with his cable. To make things even more interesting, the town constable, sociopath Regence Hooke, is off to create himself a drug trade through Vern's little piece of swamp paradise. Hooke's plans are an issue for both Squib, who gets caught up in the machinations of Hooke and Vern, as well as Vern himself. Thrown in a whole lot of dragon fire, exciting fights, and a blowout on Honey Island, and you have yourself a story.

I have known Colfer from the much-beloved Artemis Fowl children's series. He writes compelling characters, with fun offbeat senses of humor and excitement. However, this story is touted as an adult story, and I didn't get that sense when reading it. Yes, there is cursing, and yes, Hooke is very much a psychopath. But something was missing in the execution that screamed adult to me. It was a good story. Squib is a great and lovable protagonist, and Vern is a whole lot of grumpy scaly fun, but the story did not feel fully fleshed out beside the characterizations and fight scenes. Both of which are very good.

It was only somewhat meh for me.

If you would like to read more of my reviews or various other bookish things please come by my blog
at https://beforewegoblog.com/

I very much enjoyed the Snowpiercer movie, and thus when I saw at the library there was a three-part series of graphic novels to go along with the brilliant film, I was stoked. If you aren't familiar with the film, it is about a future society that travels around on a train. The rest of the world is a snowy wasteland, but the last remnants of the world are divided by class on this gigantic train. We don't know why the train is the only viable escape route for humanity, but it just is. Snowpiercer is a story that requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.

Writing in this story is both its strength and a weakness. The writing is tight and exciting. The dialog is concise and engaging; the problem is that it is so heavy-handed and overwrought. I found myself confused and shaking my head. There is such a thing as subtlety in writing, not every idea needs to be pounded into the reader's head like a nail into a piece of wood. This story doesn't quite get that.

Art-wise, it is done beautifully. But you have to like this type of artwork. The shading is quite stark and dramatic, which, on the one hand, adds to the drama of the story. But, on the other hand, it could be distracting and again overwrought to the reader.

If you are a fan of the Snowpiercer series, I say check out this book even if it is for a sense of completion. However, I would not go out of my way to read this.

Elevation is proof that Stephen King can write a mediocre novel.

It isn't a bad novella; I don't think Stephen King has ever written anything terrible. But this isn't his best.

The premise of the story follows character Scott Carey of Castle Rock, Maine. A lot of craziness happens in Castle Rock in the King world. It is the nexus for all evil as far as I am concerned. Scott develops a strange problem, reminiscent of King's other novel Thinner. Scott keeps losing weight at a pound or more day. The odd part is Scott looks no different mass wise. He isn't thinner, but he weighs less. Even carry metal chains and fully clothed, he continually is losing weight on the scale.

This is impossible in an ordinary world, but not Castle Rock. Scott starts to see some of the errors in his ways in his life and tries to make amends. The ending is odd and utterly predictable.

I ended this story with a full-body shrug and sigh. It was just a middle of the road story, not much exciting happened, then it stopped.

As far as recommending it, I would recommend it as much as lukewarm tea and a slightly burnt piece of plain toast. Not going to kill you, but all you are going to get out of the experience is some calories.

Doctor Sleep, Stephen King's uber anticipated sequel to his 1977 horror novel The Shining was in almost all ways, worth the wait. Fifty pages into Dr. Sleep, my only thought was “my god, King is a maniac.” Danny, the lovable and haunted boy, son of Jack Torrance from the original novel, is all grown up now. Instead of Danny having the life all us readers wanted him to have, Danny is a drunk. A scoundrel. A mess. He spends years trying to blot and enmesh the shinning in alcohol, women, and drugs in the vain hope that he could function as a human adult. He often fails. When Danny obtains a tentative truce with his alcoholic demons via AA, Danny needs to come to terms with his “gift” and maybe, just maybe, help some people along the way.

Character-wise, even though many a King fan wanted the easy happily ever after, for Danny, god knows he has been traumatized enough, I think the direction that King went with Danny is much more solid and realistic. Danny is a mess because he came from a mess. He has had horrific childhood trauma, lost his father, been chased around by ghouls, and eventually succumbs to alcoholism. It feels like a much more real character and one that I can empathize with than say, the white picket fence and 2.5 kids. We also eventually meet Abra, who is Danny as a child minus childhood trauma. He could have been what she is, generally happy and well adjusted under different circumstances. However, childhood demons aside, both Danny and her have a core of steel that I find in most of King's protagonists. King doesn't tend to write characters that are wishy-washy or weak. These are no exception.

“There's nothing to be scared of.” Instead of taking Charlie's pulse – there was really no point – he took one of the old man's hands in his. He saw Charlie's wife pulling down a shade in the bedroom, wearing nothing but the slip of Belgian lace he'd bought her for their first anniversary; saw how the ponytail swung over one shoulder when she turned to look at him, her face lit in a smile that was all yes. He saw a Farmall tractor with a striped umbrella raised over the seat. He smelled bacon and heard Frank Sinatra singing ‘Come Fly with Me' from a cracked Motorola radio sitting on a worktable littered with tools. He saw a hubcap full of rain reflecting a red barn. He tasted blueberries and gutted a deer and fished in some distant lake whose surface was dappled by steady autumn rain. He was sixty, dancing with his wife in the American Legion hall. He was thirty, splitting wood. He was five, wearing shorts and pulling a red wagon. Then the pictures blurred together, the way cards do when they're shuffled in the hands of an expert, and the wind was blowing big snow down from the mountains, and in here was the silence and Azzie's solemn watching eyes.”

― Stephen King, Doctor Sleep

The villain, and great horror of the story, because this is Stephen King and we need to have a great villain, is a woman that is called Lady in the Hat. She is driven, mean, intelligent, and utterly sure of her position and spot in the food chain. She is a perfect nemesis for Abra and, by extension, for Danny. She was terrifying in some scenes, much like a cult leader leading her deadly flock of psychic lizard-like RV geriatrics. (This is a sentence that I never thought I would say, but there you go.) They want Abra; they need Abra's shinning and will do anything to get it.

“We are the True Knot,” they responded. “What is tied may never be untied.”

― Stephen King, Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep is a great second act to the life of Danny Torrance. At times the story is terrifying, especially in the last 30%. Other times the story meanders and takes its sweet time doling out the details to Danny's story. It turns and twists, but I don't believe the story ever lulls. It takes it's time over the almost 700 pages and gives you beauty, light, self-destruction, and self-acceptance. Is it as scary as the original? No. Nothing much is. But it doesn't have to be.

It is a worthy sequel to the classic that I highly recommend.

I received a copy of this from Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for my open and honest review.

Joanna Kavenna's highly unusual and unpredictable novel, Zed is not what you expect. Going into the story, and looking at the gorgeous cover, you would think that what you are in for is a deep science fiction story. While reading it, your perception of the story changes to confusion. Then you realize what this is, is a stylistic darkly humorous techno-thriller that is more about how digitally enthralled we are with technology and human nature, then the ins and outs of the technology itself.

The story starts with Douglas Varley, a technologist for a large company called Beetle. Beetle reminds me of what Amazon could be in 10 years and no laws. Beetle has integrated itself into every facet of human life. From the regulation of physiological things, “You might need to do some deep breathing Eloise. Your pulse is elevated, and something is burning.” To society, people are paid in beetle credits. Predictive algorithms predict crimes before they happen, programs speak for you, and humanity is quantified down to data points and numbers. Other characters, company owner Guy Matthias, and police officer Eloise Jayne also have interesting parts that balance out the weird dynamics of such a dizzying computer-driven world. All of these data points and prediction, belie the one unquantifiable behavior humans have, choice. The choice humans have to behave unpredictably.

This story is written in almost a frenetic style. It bounces from one character to the next, then through technical jargon and back again. It is spastic and, at times, challenging to follow. Stylistically, the idea behind the novel is excellent. Technology has infused our existence. We talk to our phones more than we talk to people. We talk about idealistic human behavior but often lack context. We live in soundbites in this digital world. But because of the frenzied pace of the story and dialog, I had a difficult time making connections with the story. Instead of caring about any of the characters, It all blended in a freewheeling cacophony of digital noise. In hindsight, this may have been the point all along from author Joanna Kavenna. But for me, as a reader, it felt very flat.

If you would like to read more of my reviews or various other bookish things please come by my blog
at https://beforewegoblog.com/

GG of I'm Not Here returns in Constantly with another elegant and minimalist story. The story is a touching portrait of a woman wracked by depression, disillusionment, and anxiety. The story reminds me much like a duck gliding so regally across the surface of a pond. Below the surface, the duck is churning the waters with desperate intense energy. Still, you would never know it by looking at the glass-like surface of the water just as you wouldn't understand GG's intent if you look at these panels superficially.

The story is rendered in neutral grays and pinks, almost fashionable colors. The first panels illustrate a young woman as she goes about her morning ablution. She awoke troubled from sleep, so she is now to get dressed. The panels, even from the very beginning, have a sort of air quality to them. You see the young woman gazing out the window. Instead of gazing in wonderment, you get the sense that she is gazing with anxiety. Something about each of the panels is almost imperceptibly off. Later as the story progresses, you see the only dialog. It is in the form of sentences written on a lined notebook sheet. In the beginning it reads:

“I don't want
I don't want
I don't want
I don't want”

Interspersed with the lightness of the pink and gray panels, we have dark panels that show the main character getting pulled in different directions from all angles. It is all confusion and desperation. Then there is a panel of the woman lying on a black bed surrounded by pink walls in the fetal position. As an anxiety sufferer myself, I can empathize and understand what she is feeling at that moment. I to have laid in beautiful rooms and been too wracked by so much anxiety I could not open my eyes nor lift my head.

As the story progress interspersed between panels of the woman doing benign things are scenes of the woman writing in her notebook:

“I don't want to eat,
I don't want to sleep.”

“I don't want to live.”
“I don't want to die.”

It seems as if the character is standing on the abyss of dark depression; she does not want to live at this moment. But she also does not want to die. There is some hope, some small gem of Constantly hope still inside of her.

Constantly is a starkly affecting book. I thin, especially for those who have suffered from depression and anxiety. You can see it in the curve of the young woman's hand, the angle of her head, the fact that you never see her real face throughout the story.

GG has given explained something vastly complicated with delicate clarity and nuance. It is beautiful and heartbreaking if you look a bit deeper.

Thank you to the publisher and author Tochi Onyebuchi for providing me an ARC in exchange for my open and honest review.

Onyebuchi creates a dystopia portrait of modern American in Riot Baby. Kev, one of the two protagonists in Riot Baby, is born to a single mom in 1992 Los Angeles during the height of the Rodney King riots, hence the name Riot Baby. Kev was born into a time that explodes with violence in his childhood violence follows him, and as an adult, Kev is incarcerated at Rikers for eight years. Again his life swirls with anger and violence. The ironic and well-done part of Kev's character is that even though he was born, lived, and survived through significant violence, Kev himself, does not come off as a violent person. He is a person who reacts to violence and protects himself.

The other major character and protagonist of the story is Ella, Kev's older sister as much as Kev is mired in violence and its effects, Ella is mired in her power. She sees much more than the surface of events. She can touch the very soil of the land after some event or act of violence and feel the pain and emotions of those affected. There is a reason why she has this power, isn't there? While Kev is in prison, Ella visits him both physically and psychically. They do not lose touch and are very close even though Kev is incarcerated.

One of the most impactful parts of this story is the dichotomy that Onyebuchi writes events with. On one side, both Kev and Ella are very gifted and powerful; they have supernatural abilities. This could have been the main focus of the story, but it isn't. On the other side, racism and violence run rampant and have shaped their worlds in dystopias. These abilities do not save them from the vagaries of life. While each of the sides of this story is important, their powers and society in general, they are instead written to help develop the other.

In lesser hands, this story would have been challenging to make it through. It is dark and introspective, full of moments of pain and is unflinching from detailing the misery humans can rain down on others. However, in Onyebuchi's hands, this story has a vein of hope and ends on a note of possibility for the future.

I think it will be a book that people will be talking about in the coming year and is worth a reader's time.

Riot Baby is speculative fiction at its finest.

If you would like to read more of my reviews, please visit my site at www.beforewegoblog.com

Walking to Aldebaran, Adrian Tchaikovsky's deeply disturbing novella that hearkens back to Phillip K. Dick's mind-bending science fiction, Lovecraftian cosmic horror, and the comedy of Andy Weir's The Martian. While each of these genre types: psychological horror/science fiction, cosmic horror, or comedic horror/science fiction, would work in the setting of this story, a space artifact of massive proportions named the Frog God after its amphibians features, the combination of all three types allows the story to hit all the buttons. 

As a reader, you are mesmerized and transported by the intense attention to detail Tchaikovsky displays in his worldbuilding. You are made to laugh at Gary Randall, possibly the only survivor of his crew, as he quips and makes jokes about the aliens he meets, Star Trek, and having to eat the random creatures he finds amongst the tombs. This humor lulls the reader into a false sense of normalcy, all is right in Gary's head, or so we think. Finally, Tchaikovsky brings out the existential Lovecraft-type terror of Cthulu monsters of unknowable cosmic origins that are hunting and being hunted by Gary. This combination of pacing and types makes Walking to Aldebaran both hilarious, unsettling, and horrifying in equal measures.

“Captain Kirk would have thought of something by now, I'm sure, but I have no red-shirted confederates to feed to it.”

Walking to Aldebaran's premiss is thus, Gary is an astronaut and in combination with many national space agencies who put together a crew to investigate an object that was found in deep space. This is a decade's long voyage to the thing deemed The Frog God, as Rocky McRockface had already been taken. It has a large orifice, about the size of the moon sitting in its “face.” It also had smaller orifices, some conveniently man-sized. All very enticing for a world desperate to see something alien. 

Gary and his crew set off on the long journey, sleeping in shifts. Gary is one of four pilots. All hail government redundancy. Three pilots will rest while one of the other pilots looks around nervously and touches nothing. 

“I was also one of the pilots, although space piloting is one of those situations where they should really equip you with a dog, so your job is to feed the dog and the dog's job is to bite you if you touch any of the expensive equipment.”

Finally, after a long space flight equalling years, the crew arrives at the Frog God. After sending in most of the probes and had them immediately disappear or stop working entirely, it is decided a human team is necessary. They drive a vehicle aptly named Quixote through one of the many odd-shaped orifices. Once the team drives Quixote into the oddly human-sized-shaped hole, they discover and are either delighted or are suspicious tinged with terror. This particular hole has an excellent combination of blended oxygen, a nitrogen atmosphere with a comfortable .91G, and slightly under one pressure atmosphere. Almost as if it had been designed for them. That is a chilling thought; if there is a human-shaped hole, what goes in all these other holes?

“We weren't prepared,” Gary extols. They had no idea what was ahead of them once they went into the oddly shaped human-sized hole. “We labored off into the dark, the beams of our lamps seeming more and more inadequate as the shadows gathered in front of us.” The team found in those first few long moments of discovery in the crypts' bowels were pain and destruction. Astronaut Gary Randall, the creme of the top of human ingenuity and education, did the only thing he could do.

He ran like his ass was on fire, and eventually got lost. 

The crypts are very outside of the human understanding of physics and nature, those will be understood through a human lens. We humans, and Gary specifically, cannot fathom the purpose of what he was exposed to inside the crypt. Rooms with different pressure and atmosphere, and rooms that had no gravity. Pits, traps, creatures made of glass, ones made of intestines, all who want to kill Gary. No light, mostly no sound. Just Gary alone in the most foreign lands, in the blackest dark, with no hope, mentally dealing with things no human should or probably can. Gary's proverbial cheese slowly slides off its cracker. He knows he is losing it. He doesn't care; he is embracing the crazy. He is internalizing it and using it as a weapon. If he is crazy, maybe nothing crazy will upset him anymore. Gary finally cracks. 

Walking to Aldebaran's chapters swing back and forth between the beginning and middle of the story and show the changes in Gary's mental state. His altered state is funny, he cracks jokes constantly, and it is calming. You might think that his situation is funny. Until you remember the context of what he is living through. I liked how Tchaikovsky handled this. Instead of powering through Walking to Aldebaran from beginning to end, offsetting the chapters adds to the narrative's wobbliness. Gary is off his damn rocker, and so is the way the story is being told. 

The ending of the story is terrifying. It is in line with how Gary progresses mentally, but the way that Tchaikovsky wrote it made it all the scarier. 

Walking to Aldebaran is a fine example of Adrian Tchaikovsky and why he is becoming such a force in Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy writing. It is examples like this and how he can pack so much terror into such a short story that shows his skill—the story clocks in around 130 pages. Also, I recommend listening to this on audio. I had the fortune of listening to this and reading it simultaneously, and Tchaikovsky does the voice for it and does it well. I recommend it, and I know many readers looking for a little horror flavored science fiction would enjoy it. 

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my open and honest review.

This book now sits proudly on my cookbook shelf. I liked the e-book version of this book so much that I had to have a physical copy. All I know is that all my favorite books should have to put out a mandatory cookbook. I know this doesn't make sense financially, but that's the new rule.

This book is lovely. Beautiful illustrations, fantastic recipes reminiscent of the story, and gorgeous pictures. It has everything one could want, I tested out the famous Toffee Pudding recipe on page 32. I hear great things about this recipe on British cooking shows but had yet to try it. It was delicious and every bit as wonderful as it is purported to be.

If you are a cookbook aficionado like myself, you will seriously dig this book.