Michael Barnes

When I finished 'Lady's Knight' I wanted to immediately watch another amusing medieval mash up the 2001 movie A Knight's Tale ( Laura Fraser's Blacksmith Kate was my favourite, definitely need more stories featuring Medieval lady Blacksmiths, also more books about women brewer's in the medieval period apparently a profession that produced some amazing characters and wasn't as gendered as other professions) -Well sufficient to say I enjoyed this outing (well not so much the outing, that was horrible, but necessary for the story) of our Knight Gwen of Sparrow and our noble Isobelle of Avington and look forward to reading more.

As Williamaye Jones of Historical Novel Society puts it "Lady’s Knight is a riotous, romantic romp set in a fantasy England where dragons exist, girls joust (in secret), and queerness isn’t just present—it’s powerful."

I read, enjoyed and noted Hiron Ennes debut Leech and looked forward to reading their next work. The Works of Vermin is even more impressive than Leech. It’s a Weird City novel and as such as much a character as our protagonists and antagonists Niall Harrison at Locus puts it better than I could… "Tiliard, “a grand bridge of a city,” well-built across a gorge through which flows an acid and strange river that is referred to as a “liquid mind.” Tiliard is many-levelled, filled with factories and canals and fields of carnivorous tulips; its origi­nal architecture was concentric, but it has been etched by history. “When it cannot grow out, it settles for down, when it cannot crawl skyward, it turns inward.” It has a Sommelier Laureate and a Seamstress Laureate and a Dramaturge Laureate. It is a place where the high arts – ballet and poetry and portraiture and most of all opera – are not only revered but are actually part of the political infrastructure. Dances are also duels, or execu­tions. It is a melange of Old Europe at its most decadent, architecture with a touch of Gaudi, court intrigue perhaps by Venice, performing arts by Germany. It has Rues as well as Streets. It is also a place infested with giant and/or mutated insects and other creatures, a place “warped” by “bioalchemic” incidents, and where weaponised perfumery is sufficiently advanced as to be indis­tinguishable from magic. It is an old city, in an old world, but given to frequent revolutions. It is ruled by a Chancellor and his Marshal, tyrants who fancy themselves patrons, perhaps philosophers; it is serviced by exterminators and sex workers and labourers. It is an intoxicating place to spend time, but its streets ring with echoes".

But its characters are no less complex and fascinating. Guy Moulène works as pest exterminator, hunting a giant bug that secretes ecdytoxin, which warps (horrifyingly, exquisitely) everything it comes into contact with, organic or non-organic – and there are far too many people who see the potential in that. Guy also does sex work on the side all this hustle to keep his feral younger sister Tyro from sign work contracts which for the underclass, the exploited are terrible. Another character Asteritha Vost (Aster), to call her a perfumer is to undersell think alchemist, wizard, and personal stylist. Her past saw her lungs were badly damaged by a chemical weapon when she was a child, in the city’s last civil war. Aster is sent to ‘acquire’ a dancer for her employer and patron, the Marshal (think head of the military under a dictator; he’s not the dictator, but he is not someone you want to fuck with). By the end, the city is on fire, and neither Guy nor Aster’s stories are anything like what you thought they’d be at the beginning.

Throw in toxins of the bizarre insects produced by the river are turned into perfumes that give gifts to the wearer: the ability to control people’s actions, or maybe just a more attractive smile. The devastating building-deforming toxins used in previous intra-regime battles have changed entire areas of the city, and led to artistic movements. Then there’s the opera, where the killings on stage are very real, with those who displease the ruling chancellor being put to death to serve the cause of theatre.

Around these wild concepts, Ennes builds a story of deep satire, constantly hilariously yet deeply disturbing and utterly ruthless about what it says about the ruling classes. This is a city whose constant changes of authoritarian regime are named as art movements: from neo-revivalism to extemporism. The centrepiece for this art-obsessed city is the opera, where as I noted above revolutions are powered by stage performances that portray real killings. It’s this mix of the utterly pretentious with the shockingly brutal that powers some of the outrageous wit and whimsical grotesqueness of the satire, sort of if Waugh’s Vile Bodies was crossed with 1984.

I realise this is too long and few if any will read it but sufficient to say when I read, about three quarters through the book, Ennes provides an astonishing pulls off one of the greatest structural narrative twists, which made me immediately lock myself into to re-read the book to pick up on those parts I had red and overlook pointing to this change. On tip from Sia at Every Book A doorway suggest "you should pay attention to character names, to people’s titles, and that this is a story that lavishes rewards on those who take heed of every detail"

Summing up I agree with Neil Harrison at Locus "Filled with some of the most twisted, inventive worldbuilding you’ll ever see and a perfectly poised balance of ruthless mockery of the decadent and corrupt with a well of deep humanity for those beneath them, The Works of Vermin is not just a landmark novel of dystopian satire but one of the great speculative works of the twenty-first century".

The final book in the 'Her Majesty's Royal Coven' series. Our five witches introduced in the first book, Helena, Leonie, Elle, Niamh and Ciara have since divided (one died FFS, don't worry she got better) but with the prophecy of 'the Sullied Child' and the coming of the end of days in this book chapters come with different perspectives from these witches and others.

The prophecies, the demons, the cracks in the relationships were all leading in one conclusion. I the preceding two books led to satisfyingly conclusions stories of their own whilst contributing to a wider arc.

What we have this time round is an evil-genius level of meticulous planning to bring together threads from the previous books that you wouldn’t have even realised were important. All in all a very satisfying conclusion for our friends and as corny as it sounds the lesson - love has the means to conquer fear.

A Zombie novel similar in style to Colson Whitehead's 'Zone One' and Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth where as I am more a Mira Grant's Newsflesh zombie reader.

Our protagonist Orpen is a young woman who has grown up in the zombie apocalypse kept safe on an island off Ireland raised by her mother and Maeve. Her mother dies from a bite when Orpen is 12 then years later her other mother Maeve is bitten and she sets off on the mainland. Years into the apocalypse it is a desolate place, ravaged by a frightening and grisly foe, the skrake (Zombies). These demonic creatures infect a human with a poisonous bite, gradually transforming that person into one of their own.

The parallel story of Orpen's up bringing runs alongside chapters with her current situation carrying the slowing turning Maeve searching for a place called Pheonix City. The authors language evocates melancholy longing in a landscape both beautiful and brutal, and in the distinctive voice of Orpen a narrator who is both confident in her abilities and filled with fear and grief.

Orpen's tale continues in Sarah Davis-Goff's 2023 novel 'Silent City' which I shall read as soon as the Glen Waverley Public Library opens it's temporary collection while it is refurbished.

This was the book picked for my book club and if you are looking for a fast paced, well crafted LitRPG that has a bit more depth to it than the average Isekai adjacent genre then I recommend Dungeon Crawler Carl. Please remember it’s to be a 10 volume series first volume self-published in 2020 and when picked up by a publishing house exploded in popularity – even a live-action series is in production so I don’t need to say much more about it that hasn’t already been said. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series. This book ends a natural conclusion but it does make you want to pick up the next volume immediately.

I will offer the words of Meed Touzani over at book summary

“Conclusion: The Verdict on This Beautiful Train Wreck Dungeon Crawler Carl shouldn’t work. It’s a book where a man kills monsters with his bare feet while his ex-girlfriend’s talking cat negotiates sponsorship deals, and somehow it also manages to say something real about corporate power, performative suffering, and what we’re willing to do to survive. “

All Hail Chaos is the second in the Time of Iron series in which of protagonist Rae dying from cancer finds herself in her sister’s favorite fantasy series. In the body of a villainess who in the original doesn’t live long, so Rae kinda had to change the story, just more changes than she expected.

Rae now betrothed to the dread forever Emperor (who she loved when she read about him, even loved the young man Key who he came from) now desperately wanting to change him to be less dreadful. The strength of this second outing in this meta-narrative series was the attention given to all the other characters were given the opportunity in the spotlight not just Rae and Eric. I especially enjoined the brief, but dramatic appearance of Merel the minstrel towards the end.

My only regret, the final in the trilogy isn't out yet.

There is a thriving genre of stories about female real world characters falling into another world as the hero of their favourite fantasy book or more recently in their favourite video game, there is now a number of those where you end up taking over the body of the major antagonist or villain. I first encountered this in the anime 'My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!' In that story our villainess avoids her doom by being unfailing positive, supportive and with an impressive gardening ability attracting all the characters to fall in love.

In this first in the Time of iron Trilogy our snarky rather than plucky Rae, instead leans into the role as sexy villain seeking only what she needs return to her world by stealing the Flower of Life and Death, which with her infinite knowledge of the story. That is, until she wakes up in the body of Rahela, the evil stepsister to the heroine, who is due to be executed the next day. Together with a motley crew of the most wicked characters, she starts scheming to pull off this deadly heist and maybe, possibly give the villains a chance at a happy ending, if they can survive until the final page.

A strong driver in this anrrative is Rae's growing awareness of the rest of her crew, she has named the vipers, who she initially considered she could use and disregard since they are just figures in the story. Long Live Evil is ridiculously entertaining, campy, and extremely meta, and somehow it just works? I love the narrative device of Rae not remember some of the details of the first book because it didn't get interesting until the Once and Forever Emperor appears.

The other characters are also interesting plays on the fantasy stereotypes with many readers really cheering for Key (the unhinged and slightly sociopathic guard with a dangerously seductive grin) and The Cobra (a rakish spymaster with a heart of gold despite his interestingly traumatic backstory). The second point of view, in the story is given by Marius, was an interesting take on the stoic, vow-restrained bad arse character with a tragic backstory and a merciless heart—yet somehow a hero.

The story involving Rae's cancer in our world is especially heart wrenching when I learned of the authors own struggles with cancer.

The ending left me leaping straight into the next volume All Hail Chaos.

The first novel The Blighted Stars is a fast paced thriller of a space opera with a war between cunning fungus, AI spinning into madness, ecological critique, explosions, banter, and challenging romance. The Fracked Dark is the bridge book in the trilogy and in many this is where the story can struggle but I found this sequel as enthralling as the first.

The tale continues the Canus as metaphor … Capitalism. So I like Alex Tas at Quil to live "dove into The Fractured Dark, commie senses tingling" and the realisation that you can even know about the infection, know it is influencing you decisions and you still fall for it.. Alex again "Extraction, environmental degradation, personal relations, the structure of society and the relations of the people within it are all tainted by this unseen force".

Other reviewers mentioned they found the story mor confusing than the first. I think the parts that could have been the most confusing though, were deftly handled by O’Keefe’s writing ability.

I also like how the author 'reset' the relationship between Naira and Tarquin partly feels like retreading old ground, with similar difficulties in the matter of power, ethics, and responsibility to negotiate but this time its is Tarquin knows more about Naira than she does about him, which reverses the dynamic from the first novel. This relationship is the emotional heart of the story so far.

Looking forward to reading book 3 The Bound Worlds.

In a far future where Earth exists but as a barely inhabitable abandoned husk and humanity lives in constructed artificial stations dominated by a corporate alliance known as MERIT (the initials of the surnames of the five constituent families) the reach of humanity is every expanding and yet impoverished all the time, their continued survival pegged to a rare mineral called relkaktite, first found on Venus and now mined everywhere, its presence in the artificial golden pathways that line everyone with added strength, knowledge and skills, the key, so it is said, to humanity’s future progress and success.

The Mercator family patriarch Acaelus is the archetypical controlling corporate tyrant/mafioso tolerating no failure or deviation in his orbit, including his gentle, geologist son Tarquin, whose frequent observation of the nature of this sixth cradle (the term for human sustaining planets) I was intrigued by and wish I knew more geology to know if it was through research or just sounded sciencey.

In this sci-fi world, humans have achieved a longer lifespan by “printing” their neural map into a new body when the old one dies. Reminiscent of Richard K. Morgan's of 'Altered Carbon'.

The book opens with exploding starships and the action from there never lets up. We meet one of our protagonists Naira Sharp who used to be a highly expert body guard called and Exemplar before she began to suspect that the Mercators were causing the planets to collapse.

Through in a mystery about TWO competing fungus, walking dead like missprints of people from these neural maps, Ais and space opera with cyberpunk corporate noir.

Consider two themes of this story

turning a blind eye to the ecological impacts of advancing technology. the danger of allowing a handful of individuals or families to control most wealth.

Can't imagine why this might resonate with readers

I was engrossed by Dolki Min's story of a shapeshifting alien. Such a character is of course going to challenge our binary categorisations of identity and gender. In our introduction to our narrator, whose name we only learn in the final page, cleverly drops information about themselves at the beginning of the story, and lets the reader assign a gender to the creature based on their own biases. This is, of course, a lesson to the reader, as the alien confronts our expectations of gender and our desperate need to gather data and slot someone neatly into a well-defined category.

Throughout the novella we are made aware of how much hostile attention is draw when they fail to successfully imitate a “normal” human, and the way this contributes to body conformity

“They can’t wait to ogle a monster. Without monsters, how would they withstand the unrelenting futility of their days?”

As a cis white able male I am unsure of how clearly this tale speaks to the experience those who society judges as non-conforming but even I can see how arbitrary and performative gender is. The alien labour under the earth's gravity and their old and constant enemy stairs I feel the story also makes pointed observations about ableism.

The translator has mentions she had to develop a different method to highlight the more alienesque thoughts than in the original Korean and her choice in the variable spacing font did a brilliant job conveying the difference.

I have yet to read a T.Kingfisher novel that I haven't enjoyed, her mixing of the horrific and charming and the her focus on female characters who in other stories or even history have long made her a favourite of mine.

And whilst I initially struggled with A Sorceress Comes to Call I realised it was nothing to do with Kingfisher but it is set in a period of history I personally find a bit blah. I have a similar issue with some of Shirley Jackson's short stories set in mid-century USA, it's not them it's me.

This story, a retelling of Grimm story of Goose Girl, soon entranced me with the tale of fourteen year old Cordelia whose mother is the titular sorceress Evangeline who seeks a position of security through the control of a wealthy man by marriage. She can brutally compel others to do her bidding, often forcing her daughter into complete, docile obedience whenever she does anything that annoys her. Their house has no doors, and Cordelia is allowed little privacy and fewer dreams of her own, frequently left isolated with no company beyond Falada, Evangeline beautiful, but deeply creepy horse/familiar.

The story is told through dual narratives Cordelia’s voice is balanced by that of the sardonic Hester, a crotchety spinster with a bum knee who brings a mature, sensible spirit to the story and serves as a stoic balance to the timid, socially awkward younger girl who has never been allowed to imagine a life of her own. Neither of these women is what anyone might call a traditional fantasy heroine.

Kingfisher’s male characters are also remarkably multifaceted and emotionally vulnerable in ways this genre is often loath to allow.

I was chuffed to determine a possible timeline to the story as the book Cordelia often refers to on how to behave is "the ladies book of etiquette and manual of politeness' was published in 1860 and a one part of the story references the concern that someone will develop 'Lockjaw'. Since a vaccine for Tetanus was first synthesised in 1890 and the inactive tetanus toxoid in 1924. The more effective adsorbed version of the vaccine, was developed in 1938, so can't be earlier than that.

Before reading this I recommend reading The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi first, it covers the story of our protagonist Amina al-Sirafi retired pirate legend dragged out of her quiet life by the promise of a big payday and a sense of old loyalty (there is also some blackmailing at play). Reassembling her old crew: Dalila, the unnerving Mistress of Poisons; Tinbu, her devoted first mate; and Majed, her sharp-eyed navigator. The book ends with Amina having traded one retirement for a new, stranger kind of life, sailing the seas on Peri (sort of gods of the air) business collecting 5 artifacts that are too dangerous for the world and destroying them. Amina seems to have actually found a decent rhythm. She gets to sail, do the occasional dangerous errand for the Peris and still come home to her daughter Marjana. It's not exactly the peaceful retirement she'd imagined, but it's manageable.

Then after Raksh, the spirit of discord she is unhappily magically bound to in marriage, goes and causes a scene with the peri council. The results in her next tasks on an inescapable island with a reality altering spindle possessed by a tyrannical embodied spirit if vengeance

The heart of this story is the friendship between Amina and Dalila. TDalila is someone we've always seen as composed, sharp, slightly terrifying with all cool efficiency and deadly competence. In The Tapestry of Fate, Shannon peels back those layers and shows us who Dalila actually is underneath all of that armor. Her past, her vulnerabilities, her deep and complicated love for Amina.

Another fabulous Mideastern adventure with a final line hooking me in to find out what happens in the next book.

This one certainly falls into the 'unreliable narrator' genre, but unlike most not because they are a psychopath or a narcissist, far from it. In fact Elenor's unrelentingly critical inner voice is one of the challenges of this debut novel. Elenor is acerbic, aloof, unbearably awkward, rude, and a complete lack of social skills and as her character and background is revealed and you begin to see the nightmare she was living and the horror she has lived as a child you only want to see her achieve some measure of happiness.

The book follows Eleanor Oliphant, a thirty-year-old finance clerk in Glasgow whose life is governed by rigid routines: work, weekly phone calls with “Mummy,” and weekends blurred by vodka.

The way the story is revealed, a detail here a memory there of what Elenor is hiding from herself (and therefore, the reader) as it shades in the rest of her world. The discussions of loneliness, trauma, and the life-saving power of ordinary kindness resonates. Eleanor’s journey from isolation to connection is neither easy nor sentimental, which makes her eventual hope feel genuinely earned.

This is Space Odyssey crossed with chosen family where four young friends (late twenties, though if you read them as younger that's fine as the emotional intensity of the characters would be consistent) who whilst investigating the mystery of the disappearance of all the crew on the launch day of the Providence 1 the first dark matter powered spaceship twenty years earlier mission to Proxima Centauri B on a near-future earth stumbling towards environmental and societal collapse.

But at its heart it’s a sapphic romance where the lead character Cleo, who’s long dreamed of becoming an astronaut but maybe not like this thank you very much, falls in love with the resident hologram Billie created by and from the mental engrams of head of the mission, Captain Wilhemina Lucas.

I thought her fellow accidentally crew mates Kaleshia, Abe, and Ros who are a breath of race and gender and sexual orientation more reflective of where I hope our culture will be by 2061, and frankly where our society should be already. I wish we had got more time with these other characters who were interesting and complex but had too little time in the story.

The title comes from a poem 'The Old Astronomer' by Sadie Williams.

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night"

Six years after the publication of Hench where we read the story of Anna Tromedlov's journey from office temp learning the cost of superheros and joining with villains at first for work and then because the superhero organisation and in particular the world greatest superhero SuperCollider who injured her and at the end of the book saw her be the engine of his demise.

Well this book I enjoyed even more than Hench (which I enjoyed a lot) but it does get darker as you would expect from Anna's arc. Sia at 'Every Book a Doorway' seems to have enjoyed it as much as me and provides an excellent description/warning "realistic, morally grey, awfully complex complexity continues; it’s Villain’s defining characteristic. Which makes perfect sense, because while Hench didn’t feel morally complicated (in the sense that, yes, Anna and her team were doing awful things, but they were doing them to unmitigatedly awful people!) Villain is a darker read, with Anna progressively taking more and more steps that fewer and fewer readers will be willing to cheer on. This is a natural continuation on from Hench’s ending – which was much darker than the rest of it – so if you flinched at that ending? Then you probably do not want to pick up the sequel".

This book like Hench also end on a dramatic cliffhanger and I hope I don't have to wait six years for the next but even if I do I am sure it will be worth it.

This is Kiersten White‘s second Dracula book, after her remarkable Lucy Undying, I am here for it and hope she continues to explore the mythology of Dracula. Set in closing years of 19th century Europe. Our remarkable protagonist is consulting detective Anneke who has been pursuing the figure at the centre of her famous father Abraham Van Helsing's murder. Anneke does not believe in the supernatural. She is a scientist, a seeker of truth that she can observe and note and study. I appreciated when Anneke reviews who fathers notes with her keen scientific method sensibilities was a crap vampire hunter. In her eyes, her father didn’t discover vampires in his later years, but spiralled into madness, keeping journals full of mythical creatures that do not, and never did, exist. Anneke’s journey, then, parallels her father’s own discovery that the world is darker, stranger, and more frightening than he could have imagined.

Another standout was the cast of characters that surround Anneke. They encourage her, challenge her, and provide skills of their own that Anneke lacks. While David and Maher were great, Inge the determined younger woman that Anneke saw so much of herself in. But it was the romance between Anneke and Diavola who she thinks murdered her father is where much of the strength of the narrative progresses.

"Call me...call me whatever the fuckyou like. Isha. Or Isobel. Io. Imogen. Iris. Ivy. If there is a point to all this - to any of the cacophonous bullshit in my head - it's that I don't think I've ever been sure what the I in I Am stands for. But it's the only word or name or pronoun that's always been mine. That nobody's tried to take from me."

So right at the start, if the title of the book hadn't clued you in "…from hell's heart I stab at thee" we know this is a science fiction retelling of a gender-swapped, queer as fuck Moby Dick in space and I am here for it.

So for those that have read Moby Dick I think will enjoy this even more because of the shout out the author/narrator/disaster pansexual makes about their story is clearly coming from someone who read Moby Dick. "And yes, in hindsight I could probably have worked that information into the text more elegantly instead of just devoting the occasional chapter to long digressions about biology,..."

This also made me realise just how much Moby Dick is an exploration of capitalism in which value is exploitivly extracted from everything just to make a few rich.

One of whateverthefuckyoulike's first encounters is a terran called Q whose dialog in Latin consisting mostly of quotes from Catullus or Cicero or the Vulgate Bible; a really delightful joke about Elmo are worth having a translation app handy.

Since I have read Moby Dick I am unsure if it stands alone for those who haven't. I think it would Cat Treadwell at the Fantasy Hive certainly thinks so "This captures the intrinsic humanity contained in great literature, and reminds us why such stories are told and retold. It reflects who we are now, with all our crazy dreams, goals and utterly illogical societies, via the deep inner thoughts of a lonely fictional woman from the far future".

‘We’re bound together by webs of trust and betrayal and pain and comfort and triumph and humiliation and caring and apathy and life and life and life.

And below the web, the endless void.

And at its heart, monsters.’

Our plucky protagonist is the fiercely alone Karys Eska who has a well-earned ‘fuck around and find out’ attitude a result of a foolishly desperate act in her teens when she bargained her soul away to a terrifying eldritch being, Sabaster. Giving her the abilities of a Deathspeaker; she can communicate with the newly departed and see things through the 'veneer' but means at some indetermined future Sabaster will 'claim' her which is just as terrifying as it sounds.

Karys earns money (but not a lot) using her gifts to investigate suspicious deaths around the city. However, her latest job went horribly wrong and leaves Fe­rain Taliade the last survivor of a slaughtered embassy existing in the material world only as Karys’s shadow and ever present voice in her head.

When Karys, her ever present soul shadow the mysterious Fe­rain and vivacious scholar Winola head to Varesli, Fe­rain's home country, the story becomes a road trip that involves travel by giant spider and encounters with skin-thieves. As in other Kerstin Hall novels her worldbuilding is subtly revealed - no long clunky blocks exposition devlivered by sidewalk story tellers - anything she needs you to understand, Karys sees, or interacts with, or has cause to explain or have explained to her, succinctly and elegantly and there is something new to discover—and marvel at or be horrified by—at every turn.

This dark miasma of a story that for all the fantasy and world building elements seems to have been crafted to explore the consequences of desperate choices. All of the major characters have made some that they were driven to make by their extreme circumstances.

A few found the ending unsatisfying but I think it's well crafted and given all we learned about these gods and the characters consistent.

This is a novel of whimsy (you didn't expect otherwise with a title like Dallergut Dream Department Store (DDDS) were dreamers (including furry kind) go to when they fall asleep, a place where they can stop by different stores and buy a dream. The currency is the emotions the dreamers experience upon waking, at which time they’re collected by the store the dream was purchased from and then the store can deposit it in the bank or use the emotions for various things.

We follow new starter Penny a young, enthusiastic, woman who has always wanted to work at the DDDS. The cast is made of a diverse range of workers, all of whom are different and fascinating in their own way as well as perfectly suited to the types of dreams sold on their respective floors. We don’t get to know much about her personal life as the focus is on her job, but there does seem to be a new dream maker who might have an eye on her.

I was also surprised how genuinely emotion I found some of the dreams, an old dog that wants the dream of his family coming home, (who do come home while the dog (Leo) is dreaming of it, and two deferred dreams. One left by a grandmother as she was dying for her grandson and another by a five year old daughter who died for her parents and I am tearing up while typing this.

A very human set of dreams.

A collection of four short stories in a contemporary American setting centred on women. The first about a magic eight ball that seems to know better what the protagonist wants. The second tale about a hens night/weekend and what we owe to ourselves and those we choose to go along with, the third Goblin involves bulimia and weight control and the resolution was as satisfying as you could help and finally the titular bad doll.

As a sample of Rachel Harrison's work, I will certainly seek out more.

This tale unfolds like a Shakespearean tragedy disguised as a dark academia novel. If you do not like Shakespeare (my Dog HOW?, just kidding everyone is unique in their likes and dislikes) I do not think you will enjoy this novel which like the bard the author structures her novel deliberately like a Shakespearean play — Prologue, five acts, Epilogue — mirroring the arc of classical tragedy and each act divided into scenes.

At the fictional Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a prestigious and highly competitive American arts school, where seven acting students live and breathe the Bard until art and life begin to blur, and tragedy takes centre stage. James the tragic hero, Richard the villain? equal parts Iago and Edmund, Wren & Meredith the lovers and Oliver — our Horatio, the watchful narrator who survives to tell the tale.

"A haunting exploration of identity and performance, it’s a story for anyone who’s ever wondered whether we play our parts — or if our parts play us". - Coffee, Campfires & Shakespeare

This part murder mystery and part tragic love story is also a Gothic novel; the haunting sense of place at the academy and the sense that a terrible event is coming, the nightmarish atmosphere of the event occurring, and then the slow tearing apart of the fabric that held the friends and their world together. As Oliver muses towards the end of the story, that is the genius of a tragedy: you can almost believe, right up until the point of everything collapsing, that it might turn out alright.

This contemporary tale includes queer elements but I was a little disappointed that in the end (spoiler)could be categorised as the old trope.

Brilliant and magnificent text that evokes the beauty and terror of Shakespeare's prose one for the fans.

M.L Wang's novels are well deservedly popular this one initially self-published went on to enjoy commercial and critical success. It’s a fantasy novel drawing on Japanese culture and martial arts. Set in a mountain village which is clearly on a decline, holding fast to traditional warrior culture of the Kaigenese Empire. It feels like something straight out of the Shogunate. A transfer student Kwang Chul-hee leads us to discover that there is significant technology in this world, with screens and telecommunications but it's just not embraced by this austere community whose leaders/ noble houses wield incredible magical abilities.

From Kwang Chul-hee Mamoru the son of one of the most traditional and powerful houses the Matsudas learns the history he has been taught is largely built on propaganda that is designed to keep the Shirojima warrior houses—known collectively as the Sword of Kaigen—under control so that they will remain willing to sacrifice their lives for the Empire, Something his mother Misaki also a powerful magical fighter has known ever since her time outside the village in one of the cities.

This provides one of the major themes of the novel, about what is owed when that duty is not reciprocated by those in power. It seems a very pointed critique of those who would suppress change that makes things better for all by the claim of 'tradition'. I found the characters engaging and well developed with the development of Misaki as she realised her dark, 'monstrous' nature was nothing to be ashamed of. Other characters provided reflections on the role one plays in such societies.

My only regret is that at the end as more of the mystery behind the story begins to be revealed it was clearly going to part of a larger story but the author updated in 2023 " I am no longer writing in the Theonite universe. Every time I consider returning to it, I hit a wall of deep fundamental issues with the world-building—an understandable consequence of writing in a world I conceived when I was twelve but not a problem with an easy fix. This doesn’t mean I’ll never return to that universe. It just means that, if I do, it will require a major overhaul of the world-building and collaboration with authors who have expertise I don’t (specifically authors from cultural backgrounds I don’t share and can’t write competently."

Which is a pity as I would have liked to read more but I have to respect an author who recognises this and doesn't just get pressured into writing more.

Rivers Solomon has set their challenging debut novel in the HSS Matilda a generational spaceship with an apartheid system with 'pales' on the upper — more spacious, comfortable and luxurious — decks and the lower class darker skinned people living in the much more cramped, much more spartan lower decks.

The story begins in the middle of a series of power outages which joins other mysteries uncovered via our main POV character Aster, whose mother supposedly committed suicide, but her newly decoded journals reveal her mother discovering a major secret which now becomes Aster’s task to solve.

Solomon is POC and nonbinary and as would be hoped does a great job of presenting us an organically (as opposed to shoehorned in) diverse cast of characters. Aster is neuroatypical, as is another major character, Theo — the light-skinned bastard son of a former Sovereign and currently a high-ranking official known as the Surgeon who befriends Aster (she’s also his assistant) despite the gulf between them. Both are also otherly gendered and in fact, gender and sexuality are generally varied/non-rigid throughout the lower decks: fluid, ambiguous, or queer, with some decks that do label gender categorizing all their inhabitants differently. Aster’s deck refers to all children as feminine (“she/her”) while another deck uses “they.” This ambiguity of gender and sexuality is another thick line drawn between upper and lower decks, with the upper decks whites much more rigid. Theo, for instance, is deprecated by his own father and called “faggot” by the guards due to what he calls his “unnatural girlishness… sissyness.”

I also liked the recognition that whilst learning is managed/restricted Aster and Theo are clearly shown to be very intelligent. I have read some reviews had some issues with the science and the story's resolution I thought it was a well developed and satisfying resolution.

As Bill Capossere at Fantasy Literature concludes "I’d still recommend Solomon’s debut novel for its detailed portrayal of the casual brutality of the apartheid system. While beatings, rapes, and executions occur in real time, much of the cruelty happens off-stage so to speak, sometimes quasi-directly via memory or sometimes in chillingly indirect fashion, as when we witness Aster’s lubrication routine, done in case the not-all-that-uncommon rape by a guard occurs. The vividness, detailed or not, of the inhumanness of this society means that often this is a book one admires while reading as opposed to “enjoys.”

Those who have been reading this series this synopsis makes sense for those that haven't read the other 10 books in the Wayward children series Why haven't you?

"It follows Nancy Whitman, a girl who found her true home in the Halls of the Dead, a realm where residents become living statues, holding perfect stillness to halt time and camouflage themselves from restless ghosts. Nancy’s peaceful eternity is shattered when those ghosts, break free and begin slaughtering the motionless residents. Forced to flee, Nancy returns to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children—the school for those who’ve lost their portal worlds—to seek help. Reuniting with friends Kade, Sumi, Christopher, and Talia, she breaks the school’s “no quests” rule. Together, this makeshift team must travel back to the underworld, confront the army of the unquiet dead, and find a way to seal them away forever". MD Touzani of 'your summary'

What is so satisfying reading these series for me is the reoccurring characters, those who you encounter in limited ways they are still crafted and distinct but you don't fully understand what made them in this story like Talia, until they get revealed in their own quest, like Nancy Whitman in Every Heart a Doorway, we know why she sought the land of the dead and became such a perfect statue, Kade Bronson's quilt revealed in Mislaid In Parts Half-Known and everyone's favourite Chaos Goblin Onishi Sumi Beneath the Sugar Sky. And who is Sumi you ask? In her own words to Talia...

"I am a shallow, candy coloured pixie flitting through world, doing nothing of weight or meaning".

But like the fool in Shakespeare I love reading her because she speaks the truth.

There are other recurring characters but they are in the realm of spoilers so they shall pass unamend.

I hope Talia gets more of her story soon, I need more Asian women characters who confound the western expectations of 'quite, delicate' (see Sumi above) one of her lines in this story "Who looks at a problem like 'the dead are killing our guests' and decides that the answer is a worldwide game of freeze tag with fatal consequences for the losers? It's not... it's not kind"

Please let there be more books in this series

Story is set in alternative London in 1883, in our 19 century England belief in spirits and the existence of mediums were widespread in this world, in our alternative worth the Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Mediums can be identified by their Violet-eyes. In England this is administered the Royal Speaker Society. Men who are mediums if they have the wealth can become speakers, able to move through society with little to limit their authority, women with violet eyes are considered too 'hysterical' to contact the veil and admonished "you know what happens to girls who deal with ghosts"

"Our protagonist sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. So when the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its rotten guts to the world—as long as the school doesn’t break him first". -Booksthatburn

I have read Andrew Joseph White and his novels are powerful, and well-grounded in his voice. At points in the book I wanted to skip over parts because I knew something terrible was going to happen to Silas, but I was grateful to the author because even though something terrible happens he was kind to the read, certainly kinder than what was happening to the characters.

Also Silas's inner voice was embodied as a rabbit who provides comments throughout the book and Silas resolution with the voice was very satisfying.