Michael Barnes
A female coming of rage narrative is a favourite genre of mine, unsurprisingly given the misogynist culture we find around us everyday.
The story focuses on three young adults Grace Salter is the new girl in town, whose family was run out of their former community after her southern Baptist preacher mom turned into a radical liberal after falling off a horse and bumping her head, (and I love this off scene addition to the story. I have read of cases where head injuries have lead to personality changes I love seeing where one made the person more compassionate), Rosina Suarez is the queer punk girl in a conservative Mexican immigrant family, who dreams of a life playing music instead of babysitting her gaggle of cousins and waitressing at her uncle’s restaurant and Erin Delillo is obsessed with two things: marine biology and Star Trek: The Next Generation, but they aren’t enough to distract her from her suspicion that she may in fact be an android.
I was surprised when the young women's collective called for a now sex strike no one referenced Lysistrata's mission to end the Peloponnesian War. The conversations in the novel reveal the power dynamic that young women negotiate, not just with men bit also women in the hierarchy such as the Head of the high school. These called to my mind a scene from the 2020 movie 'Promising Young Woman' and the conversation the protagonist of that movie Cassandra has with Dean Elizabeth Walker of the University. More of this please.
Whilst these young women's view are where we spend most of the story it allowed other women (including a trans woman) voices to be heard and their points of view seen. Whilst the driver is initially the rape Lucy Moynihan, the former occupant of Grace's new home, was run out of town for having accused the popular guys at school of gang rape the story goes on to reveal a culture of rape and assault in the small town which from anyone who has read any statistics is very believable.
A book which for me falls into the window category (thankfully) and a reminder for all pushing for a more hopeful society we should be grateful that women are only demanding equality and not revenge.
I went in expecting this book to be a series of examples of how having engineers in positions of Authority contrasted to having lawyers in positions of authority which seems to be the centre and repeated thesis of the book, but the book took a more generalist view. Its focus seemed to be how engineers in charge lead to China being engaged in social engineering and lawyers in the US block everything. It's argument obviously more descriptive than that and interesting it was the descriptions of how the US functioned that sounded so simplistic that meant I had doubts about how reflective of China were its descriptions. An interesting highlight was how much of China's success the author attributes to a community of process knowledge which I found intriguing. The book concludes with a plea for each of the superpowers to adopt some of each other's pathologies. Interesting read.
I selected this novel as my choice for bookclub this month, so from that detail you can surmise I found the text so engaging I recommended it for others to read. I read it fist in the early 2000s and I think it holds up well. The tale whilst initially focusing Jane Takagi-Little, an unemployed Japanese-American documentary filmmaker and Akiko Ueno, the bulimic Japanese wife of the executive who hatched the My American Wife! concept, lives an ocean away. She is thin, so thin that her bones hurt, so thin that her periods have stopped, soon collects other interesting characters with her production crew and the families that each week made up the 30minute episodes of My American Wife.
As Jane uncovers more the terrible industry and dangerous practices in the American beef industry, particular focus on the terrible effect Diethylstilbestrol (DES) an added hormone supposedly no longer and its possible personal cost for Jane. Akiko whose horrendous treatment by her husband 'John' saw a couple of friends I had recommended the book to, call while they were reading it to ask "is Akiko going to be okay" and her journey is one of the most satisfying to read, though both she and Jane have grown though the narrative. John Ueno doesn't, he remains an asshole.
The detail of events that happen around these two that add to the story such as the 1992 Murder of Yoshihiro Hattori a Japanese student on an exchange program to the United States who was shot to death by Rodney Peairs on Halloween, and the information about the cattle industry reminiscent of Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' show the detail and research that Ruth Ozeki has pulled in to craft the world around these characters
Mira Grant, aka the terrifying story machine Also Known As Seanan McGuire. I first discovered her with her brilliant Newsflesh series (zombies), more recently I read her deep sea mystery 'Into the Drowning Deep' (mermaids) all of her novels hold a really strong sciency narrative throughout that warms my cerebellum. The botanical horror of Overgrowrth is no exception.
The other common thread in Mira Grants stories is most of the horrors come from the human side, and these are the ones who in Overgrowth really mess things up. At its heart the story is Anastasia “Stasia” Miller, who we discover this curious child at three where she runs into the forest behind her house and is consumed by a star seed and three days later returns a hybrid Anastasia, a plant alien in human form. A compulsion then drives her to say to anyone she’s an alien and an armada is coming. Of course, no one believed her.
Because they’ve always told people exactly what they are, humanity hasn’t been kind to them. Before it was confirmed that they were aliens, people just thought they were freaks. And then, when it turns out they’re telling the truth? Now people hate them for being aliens.
But her circle of friends makes it complicated for her at least initially to be on the side of the invasion There is Graham her boyfriend who as a transman has also experienced the bigoted judgement of humanity. His acceptance of Stasia’s alien nature—while still grounding her emotionally—is beautifully handled and adds rare warmth to a chilling narrative. Along they way they pick up Toni the astronomer who detected the Armada's signal and let the world know it was coming. (Spoilers Humanity doesn't win)
Now, an alien broadcast has been heard from the stars, and Stasia knows what it says. Her biological family are coming. And it’s unlikely that they come in peace. Stasia must choose between the humans she’s grown to care for and the alien race she belongs to.
The resolution is satisfying and it’s a standalone something for which I am grateful for these days in my science fiction, fantasy books.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. The Chatelaine has come.
Set during the Flemish Peasant’s Revolt of 1323 – 1328, this is a historical fantasy which provides an incredible cast of strong women a literally hellish world. Once men half blended in the forges of hell with beasts, and birds and even devices becoming walking canons stalk the streets and dead men swarm the walls, revenants who visit to call on their loved ones and bring them to hell or infect them with a lingering death called The grief. Hell is a gigantic beast whose mouth has opened in Flanders. Its new mistress (I would usually defer to the term master but the Chatelaine calls herself mistress and so I adopt her choice) is a woman so long resident of hell that she has forgotten her name but she declares when asked if she is the Queen of hell replies
"I have no right to that kingdom as it had no right to me, but I am, for now, its mistress and manager. I hold the keys, you may call me perhaps its chatelaine". This magnificent introduction perfectly describes the titular character.
She is one of the fascinating women encountered. We meet Margriet de Vos killed her first soldier when she was eleven. Who as a child tricked an invisible water monster with a riddle and so was promised transport on its back throughout the canals. She has buried six children and will fight for the daughter left to her. And she’s on a mission to reclaim her daughter’s stolen inheritance. Jacquenine Ooste who employed her as wet nurse for her daughter is at one point dismissed by a clergyman as a moor underestimated her sharp with in a court. Beatrix Margriet 's grown and married daughter whose kind heart is given visions of the horrors that will one day come to Flander's fields and one of the intriguing man characters Claude a trans man who has stolen a copy to the key to hell, sold it to Margriet's husband and wants it back.
"This isn’t a book about saving the world, that the characters are ordinary people – widows and their children and a man-at-arms – who are more interested in getting the money to live than dealing with the disaster around them. That’s the province of kings and counts who fight and make life hellish enough for common folk without actual hell arriving. These ordinary people are the sort fantasy and historical fiction pay far less attention to, but they have stories of their own". - Sifa Elizabeth
I read and enjoyed S.A. Chakraborty's Daevabad Trilogy I enjoyed her The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi even more. On the surface it's a trope we have read before a retired pirate of the twelfth century Indian Ocean who seeks a quite family life with her young daughter, she’s offered a deal that can’t be refused, forcing her to don her adventuring mantle and embark on one last reckless journey through the high seas.
The story is crafted in a world steeped in the tales like the Arabian nights amidst the Islamic past as the story is told to Jamal a scholar who in subsequent found to be a key character in this story. I loved its language and terms drew on non-European works referencing Indian, Persian, Chinese, and Greek sages. The oaths sworn were the more flowing than in traditional fantasy
"Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him! To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth—will you get off of me?” I elbowed the creature hard, and it spit in my face. “Who could possibly intercede with Him without His permission? He knows what is ahead of them and what is behind them, but no one can grasp any of His knowledge—except what He wills!”
An our titular hero is neither young nor beautiful anymore – a rare thing for a heroine these days. It is great to read a book about a middle aged heroine, driven by her personality rather than her looks, but she fills the page with her larger than life adventures and the horror that lead to her retiring is slowly revealed and finally announced near the climax.
Later in the story supernatural being offers her tea, reminds me where and when this story takes place. Sucha minor thing built helps build the verisimilitude
Do I take what?” “Tea?” I blinked. “What is tea?” The peri wrinkled a beak-like nose. “Ah, I forget how far I am from home sometimes. Tea is a drink, a wondrous one. It will undoubtedly make its way to this part of the world in another century or two, but I shall give you an early taste.”
We spend most of the story with Amina and her motley crew of sailors, reassembled by necessity. The cast is also delightful non-judgmental of sexual pleasure and embracing of queer, including transgender, characters within the historical and religious context of the story. There are multiple characters that identify on the queer spectrum, and I loved discovering their identities as the story went on – and found that it added a layer of joy to the story that I didn’t expect.
The resolution sets up a clear direction to justify the further adventures Amina Al-Sirafi and her crew/friends I look forward to reading more of her chemical assassin Dalila (I do love a fantasy chemist) and her 4th and current husband Raksh (not a daemon).
Definitely a tale for those of us who like our buckling swashed.
The action in Flight of the Fallen begins soon after the conclusion of Magebike Courier book one Road to Ruin. Sometimes you can pick up the second book in a duology and it doesn't matter that you haven't read the first, this is not one of those (not sure if I can think of any duologies like that actually).
The heart of this story of polyamorous queer throuple spend the first part of the book split but its our now talentless magebike rider bearing the worse but with the discovery of a possible map to the first city of the gods, thanks to a timely influx of refugees from a collapse city, Princess Yi-Nireen and Jin-Li are off into the wastes while our big hearted third Kadrin trying to redeem Princess Yi-Nireen, save his family and deal with a religious leader whose motto is death before change.
Hana Lee's gritty, queer Mad Max–inspired fantasy second novel is as thrilling as the first and brings everyone and everything into a satisfying conclusion.
I have read many lists of well-regarded horror many feature Kathe Koja's debut novel The Cipher (which was going to be called The Funhole but the publishers said no) Her language conjures words and phrases that are at turns poetic and grotesque. Her feel for language is truly impressive. The Funhole, a portal to another dimension in the utility closet of his rundown apartment building that while visible to any who look at it only truly becomes miraculous when our protagonist Nicholas is present. He with his on-again off-again girlfriend Nakota begin to put things in the "Funhole" only to have them returned different.
Nicholas attracts others, accreting them and his descent into visual hallucinations and madness is as horrible as the bizarre purification of the wound in his hand that is linked to the funhole.
This book's attraction for me was the use of alchemy, with my love of chemistry I am drawn to stories which weave a unique alchemical framework that maintains a consistent fundamental system that still allows a surprise that you could predict from the details provided bravo to Lu. The different ways that alchemy can take a life, from transmutating your opponent's skin to the pavement, to melding metal to your target’s scalp – the fighting tactics are innovative and gruesome. Alchemy, in Marie Lu’s adult debut Red City, is the art of transformation. In the novel, we learn that a drug known as Sand is used to make people 'the best they can be' so whilst it heightens their strengths, but also their weaknesses. The tagline of the book reads ‘power always has a price’, referring largely to the fact that the use of alchemy erodes part of the user’s soul. It also, however, alludes to the greater narrative of the story, that power is a give-and-take; so how much are you willing to give up?
The supporting characters are fascination as well all with depth and motivation that make them so much more than just easily categorised hero/villain. Please don't think I some moral equivalence excuses their horrible deeds but at least there are no mustachio cartoon Dick Dastardly plotting evil for the laughs.
The world building is superb in an alternative contemporary of our own but in which alchemy exists in a shadowy underworld. If you have read and enjoyed Fonda Lee’s Greenbone Saga, and V.E. Schwab’s Vicious then I think you will enjoy this new series. Like those this include magical crime syndicates, and childhood unrequited love. Sam and Ari are tragic characters destined to be on opposing sides of a magical war between Alchemists trying to control the most valuable substance: sand. Set primarily in an alternate Los Angeles, we follow these characters as they grow up and head their separate ways. Lu also touches on first generation immigrant struggles, the complicated relationship dynamics with family, and cultural differences drawing on some of her own experiences as she says in the acknowledgements at the end of the book. There might be a few scenes you may find confronting, as there is torture, so check for warnings.
Fair warning this is book 1 in The Downworld Sequence, published in 2023 but I haven't seen no announcements of a next release and I do want to read more.
Emma Mieko Candon’s The Archive Undying opens with an all to possible beginning: “When an AI god dies, its city dies with it.” This opening line sets the tone for a gripping narrative that binds elements of trauma, flesh-and-blood characters, and the mesmerising allure of the complex relationship between humanity and AI.
Our initial point of view is provided by Sunai, who one reviewer (Simon Kerr at Friction ) "a lovably reckless lead, his latest inadvisable hookup, and a rather suspicious crew". Sunai is haunted soul unable to escape the aftermath of a robotic god’s corruption that left his home in ruins, Sunai has roamed like a ghost for years, numbing his pain with vices and fabricated indifference. But just when he thought he was out, they pull him back in. The gears of fate start turning when Sunai wakes up beside an unexpected stranger with whom he shares more than one passionate night. Fate, like time, is never linear, and Sunai is once again sucked into the machinations of cybernetics deities and the ones that would seek to worship or destroy them.
Other reviewers have commented on how much they found this book a challenge to read but so worth it and I agree. The greatest strength of this book is the writing, which is fluid, clever, and hilarious. Some descriptions read like poetry, others made me laugh out loud: “You were interfaced when corruption hit, riddled with finer threads, all white and tender, the dendritic web through which you understood Iterate Fractal meat to finally consume you. If Iterate Fractal means to eat you, it had better hurry its shit up.”
Candon swiftly delves deep into her characters’ psyches, immersing the reader in Sunai’s heartfelt grappling with the profound impacts of past (and ever-present) trauma. The Archive Undying constantly challenges notions of reality and understanding, creating an ethereal atmosphere comparable to Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation but it also reminded me of my first experience reading Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch space opera trilogy that began with Ancillary Justice.
Seeing the world through Sunai’s eyes was a visceral experience; witnessing his carving as he battles both powerful external forces and the demons within him was terrifying and blissful. The slow-build relationships add layers to the story, making the connections between characters feel substantial. Candon weaves a narrative that questions what it means to love and trust in a world where personal boundaries are interchangeable and permeable and memories are preserved and manipulated. Sunai and Veyadi’s journey is not only one of survival but also a search for connection and understanding in a fragmented, high-stakes world.
The plot fascinates, if you can navigate through the points where the plot bewilders. It’s a book you’d want to take your time with. It may be a book I’ll return to in a year or two and discover the 30 percent of clarity I was missing and happily say, “It’s better than I remembered.” Despite its density, I recommend this beautiful complicated story and hope to read more of Emma Mieko Candon.
This was an enjoyable steampunk style romp with a well craft system of magic/science and a strong sense of the rich and privileged thriving on the murdered exploited othered masses, can't image why such a story resonates at the moment. (Honestly we in the 'western hemisphere' are not the good guys).
Also a compelling primary character in Sciona who in a culture steeped in misogyny is willing to tear it down hence the 'punk' in the steampunk.
"A glorious sunshine/grumpy romantic re-imagining of the Pandora myth, from the bestselling author of Girl, Goddess, Queen and The End Crowns All" that's an accurate summary. With these retellings you get a fresh take on the myths we all know. I get to learn more about characters who I hadn't heard about before and thanks to the author some cleverly thought out tricks to resolve the dilemmas facing these characters I have gown to care about.
Don't let the forest in' is the second of C.G Drews novels I have read and I can state their beautiful, heart wrenching prose was no one off as it infuses this young adult, queer, dark academia novel. Drew's rich prose fills this tale. I found it immediately captivating from the first line “It hadn’t hurt, the day he cut out his own heart.”
Our protagonist Andrew Perrault (who is described as 'feels too fragile to exist properly in the world, thanks to the intense anxiety that either paralyses him or sends him spiralling' writes haunting terrible fairy tales as a means of managing his anxieties and fears. He is writing them for Thomas Rye – “a freckled kid with a reckless mouth and hair kissed by the devil” who is as talented an artist who draws equally beautiful and terrible images that illustrate these dark monsters of the mind. They are between them … what Andrew spends much of the novel trying to work out. At the lush gothic Wickwood Academy we join them for their final year with polished and high‑achieving twin sister Dove who last year were inseparable but a rift opened between Dove and Thomas last year which has pushed Andrew to try to understand what Thomas means to him.
This would be easier if the school wasn't being stalked by monsters or varied shape, forms an horrors each night, crafted to seem to be echoes of Thomas's drawings and Andrew's stories you can wonder if it is just in the mind, until the Maths teacher dies - (of all those characters encountered so far in the story he was no 2 on my list of won't miss them).
Gabriel Harrison at Elephant Page publishing has recognised "The novel has both asexual and bisexual representation, a dynamic which is often underrepresented even in queer fiction, and was refreshing to read. Seeing Andrew struggle to come to terms with his asexual identity throughout the story is something that will deeply resonate with queer readers, especially those on the asexual spectrum. The author’s bio states that they are aspec themselves, which made me enjoy the novel so much more" which speaks to our need for books like these as 'windows' for me but more importantly as a mirror for your queer folk who don't get to see themselves as heroes in enough stories.
I was enthralled with the ending. It is left ambiguous, allowing the reader to infer their own interpretation of the events that have occurred leading up to it.
Road to Ruin by Hana Lee was described to me as a Max Max: Fury Road-inspired fantasy with magic-fuelled motorcycles, a dangerous wasteland, and romantic letter writing, this is an accurate description. The story explodes with our protagonist Jin a courier one of the few who travel outside the safety of the walled cities known as kerinas, delivering goods and letters and dodging dangerous mana storms, outlaw raiders, and aggressive dinosaur-like beasts with Jin being attacked by a flying a pteroper a wild miniature 4 winged pterosaur (about the size of motor cycle helmet) whose she names Screech and whose injury she treats gives us our first indication that our outlaw isn't quite as hard and tough as she pretends to be.
The others in this burgeoning polycute are Prince Kadrin and Princess Yi-Nereen – who live in separate Kerinas – for years. Because Kadrin is dyslexic, Jin has always read Nereen’s letters aloud to him; because women in Nereen’s Kerina are not taught to write, Nereen has always dictated her letters to Kadrin to Jin. These letters open each of the books chapters.
The Lesbrary describes it thus "the world-building of Road to Ruin, which is a delightful combination of fantasy and steampunk. This is clearly a society in decline, able to field motor bikes but also penned in magically-walled cities that are constantly on the verge of failure. You have some of the hallmarks of non-modern fantasy—couriers, knights, winged beasts, and magic sources—but clearly set in the long aftermath of some dystopian climate event. I thought it was very fun and imaginative, and I loved that it allowed us some of the tropes of romantic fantasy such as letter writing and royalty and arranged marriages while also giving us an extremely hot queer motorcycle aesthetic".
Very grateful the second in the duology Flight of the Fallen is available So I can dive right in.
Kingfisher writes either cosy fantasy or otherworldly horror this is the former. Its a sleeping beauty fairytale-inspired retelling (you don't want this princess to wake up) and balances the creepy and the cosy and has a heroine the changeling Toadling that deserve so much better than she expects. If you are a fan of Kingfisher’s other novellas like Nettle and Bone or A House with Good Bones, (which I am) then thow this one on the top of your TBR pile, or bottom depends on how you choose from your pile.
Hazelthorn is C.G. Drews’ return to the horror genre, after 'Don’t Let the Forest In', which is on my TBR list but this one showed up available in my local library first and I has convinced me to make the effort to track down their earlier novel of the genre I think is called botanical horror (reminds me T. Kingfisher's 'What moves the dead', 'A House with Good Bones' by T. Kingfisher and 'Where the darkness blooms' by Andrea Hannah.
Esmay Rosalyne at Grimdark Magazine sums it thus "It’s a hauntingly tragic tale of an orphan teen with missing memories who inherits a crumbling gothic manor with a carnivorous garden and has to solve a murder mystery together with his ex-best friend who tried to murder him seven years ago".
But its C.G.Crews gorgeous writing style that sets this book apart, their voice comes through as atmospheric and dreamlike with hauntingly beautiful imagery. There are also illustrations of the plants that Evander reads about in the Hazelthorn field guide that are interwoven throughout the story.
But for me it was the focus of the young man (seventeen) Evander's autistic rage, and about being treated like a monster for acting autistic, and about being told that your view of the world is ‘wrong’. It includes anxiety and meltdowns and spirals and sensory issues, and a lot of the horror in the book doubles as a metaphor for what autistics go through. His intoxicating dynamic with Laurie, who is a beautifully complicated mess of a character in his own right. This inexplicable queer yearning is absolutely delicious, and the way that Drews captures Evander’s toxic obsession with Laurie is a highlight of the book.
T Kingfisher is one of those authors I have read and always been engaged by her work, never have I had a disappointment, she is one of my reliable to read authors who I haven't yet devoured her extensive bibliography as I like to keep her novels up my sleeve to perk up my reading.
This southern gothic horror novel masterfully pulls a quirky and genuinely likable protagonist Samantha Montgomery, a thirty-two-year-old post-doctoral scholar in archaeoentomology. She is introduced when the novel opens, where our protagonist is greeted by a vulture perched on their mailbox, keeping a close eye on the house.
Another reason I love Kingfishers work as it is significantly researched and I learned a lot along the way about Vultures, insect taxonomy, ladybugs and roses in fact the author acknowledges the book sprouted (sorry, not sorry) from her own complicated love-hate relationship with tending rose bushes.
The horror aspects of A House with Good Bones kick into overdrive in the last fifth of the book, drawing to while a predictable, but no way unsatisfying conclusion.
The previous novel On Vicious Worlds had manoeuvred all the pollical players in to various states and locations, some up some down, which left me wondering if Jacobs could satisfactorily wrap these disparate lines in conclusion. As far as I'm concerned, Jacobs nails the ending. Not only is it deeply satisfying, the characterization in this book is so good, and adds so smoothly to the characterization of the previous books, that I saw the whole series in a new light. I thought this was one of the best science fiction series finales I've ever read even given the deus ex gate.
In a conclusion that tracks the action from at least four vantage points and linked in a grand strategy with chaotic surprises. Also the historical storytelling that lead to and described the destruction of the Jeveni moon was one of the most gripping sequences in a book already chock full of action even knowing how it must end.
Also makes me want to reread Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy.
I look forward to reading more by this new voice Bethany Jacobs.
Willis, has been awarded eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards and a member, since 2009, of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and I have enjoyed her award winning time travel shenanigan All Clear series and Oxford novels. I was worried when I realised this was contemporary set in Alien tourist Roswell and involving a cast of characters Francie our protagonist there for a wedding of a best friend Take the fact that its slightly off-the-wall premise of Francie, the wedding attendee in question, a con man named Wade, an old lady who lives for trips to local casinos, a retiree with a RV the size of Texas and UFO-believing devotee with more than a few conspiracy theories in his pocket, all who end up getting abducted by alien they call Indy, which could be too over the top but it not only works in Willis craft but is made to mean something.
The resolution is when the puzzle pieces of this novel click together to make a satisfying and for me unexpected whole. The novel as Alex Kingsley at Ancillary Review of Books reminds us "…to think critically and put compassion over fear—an especially relevant reminder in a day and age when conspiracy theories are alive and well".
Christina (Chris) lives in an gated community in a world that suffering from Capialsim and climate change called the Enclave. Growing up she and all the other members of the community are bombarded telling her how dangerous and evil the world outside the wall is. And like every Dystopia the Enclave has cameras in every room and the lives of those who live within are mapped out in a uniform fashion from birth to death. SafetyNet (Fu*K AI its easy to predict everyone's choices when they are so restricted) knows everyone’s wants and needs before the individual does.
After Christina kisses Serinna a dark skinned worker (because these racist/classist of course would want anyone who works form them to be coloured) bused in each day from outside the walls she is forcefully ejected from the Enclave when her shocked family cuts her off. She survives the Wasteland and makes her way to the mainland to my home town Melbourne. Which give the vision of what the world could be if we didn't listen to greedy racist misogynist homophobic and transphobic asshats.
The first third of the book, set inside the Enclave, is a little slow with simple prose, but this amplifies the vanilla lives of the residents. When Christine is ejected the writing comes alive and is powerfully and graphically written. The final third was one of my favourite ideas, queer theater kids with the help of science nerds save everyone.
Certainly those who enjoyed These Burning Stars and its dramatic reveal will be as eager as I to read this second on the Kindom trilogy. Daniel Haeusser puts I thus "Similar to the first novel, the plot of On Vicious Worlds also alternates between the points of view of two groups of characters: a key pair and a group of caster/collector/refugee colonists. In These Burning Stars, the former pair of characters captivated me far beyond the others, though I did also really enjoy Jun and Liis. Jun is now part of the colonist community, though Liis is away for much of the novel. As they try to revive a society and build it on equity and justice, Jun, Masar, and the Jeveni Wheel face disturbing challenge from an unknown rogue caster who is leaving a trail of sabotage and death in the colony. Meanwhile, the aforementioned (here unnamed) duo try to flee from Kindom forces, but political upheaval as ramification of their actions has altered what their enemies are hunting for, and who can grab hold of power. Jacobs draws events and characters together for an amazing conclusion that nicely sets up the final volume of the trilogy to come: This Brutal Moon".
The standout of On Vicious World for me is the relationships between the characters. Author Bethany Jacobs excels at writing complex bonds between her characters. Two of her characters, Six and Chono, and their ineffable relationship, which seems to transcend all kinds of normal definitions—friendship, love, rivalry, enemies—were absolutely spellbinding to watch
Blend of Classic Historical Fiction (specifically Dickens’ A tale of Two Cities) and Fantasy of the Fae variety. Early in the novel our protagonist Sydney Carton declares "It was the Year of Our Lord 1780. It was a cold grey March morning; I was a cold, grey legal advocate, twenty-five years old and not yet dead. I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse".
Plenty of characters from A tale of Two Cities some with significant changes and with all the excitement of the French Revolution and throughout this are fairies. They’re the typical narcissist characters caring only for themselves, their agenda, and amassing power while toying with human lives. As in some of the old tales human children are spirited away to The Realm, with changelings left in their place, and upon reaching a certain age they have a choice: stay in The Realm and have your memories of humanity erased, becoming an unfeeling, probably devious fairy and continuing the cycle, or be placed in the mortal world and become a mortal servant, doomed to do any fairy’s bidding.
The story ends with a bittersweet but noble resolution, how could it not with a title 'A Far Better Thing' given that speech. It’s a standalone story so if you don't want the commitment of a new series then I would recommend this book.
A fun fast paced romp through the well establish genre of young adults at a boarding school on a remote island where a series of gory deaths initially passed off as suicides turns out to be the work of a serial killer. The tale is told through the eyes of a horror enthusiast Charley who uses her knowledge of these tropes to determine the killer. She also is able to see and hear the ghosts of the girls how died, and with her best/only friend Olive are trying to make it to Halloween.
These stories live and die on the reveal of the one behind the murders and the clues are all there. The book ends with a very clear to be continued, which fortunately the sequel was released this year for those who need to know what happens.
A fantastic new writer in the Space Opera genre. If like me you have read Megan E. O’Keefe’s work, Elizabeth Bear’s White Space series, and Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series this one will appeal. Esek Nightfoot is an appalling character who is I resisted liking for most of the book, Liz Bourke at Locus describes her thus "Charismatic, brutal, and clever, Esek is fiercely ambitious, loyal to her family over the priesthood (because her family better serves her ambitions), possessive, and disinclined to either empathy or sympathy. The novel opens with her diverting an exceptionally talented young student’s career – ruining it – and challenging them to impress her for no better reason than that she can".
And whilst this challenge is pursued across decades and more of the incredible world (universe) building is revealed we learn more of these other compelling actors in this stellar (see what I did there) play. Six, is a descendant of a man reviled for committing genocide against the Jeveni a marginalised community. Jun Ironway the hacker (and what's a scifi story without one of these to move the plot when needed) who Esek would have killed her entire family, instead of just some of them, if a mysterious benefactor hadn’t spirited them away, and last but not least Chono the good cleric, beloved conflicted in her emotions: She was Six’s classmate and then Esek’s novice, and has been part of Six and Esek’s cat-and-mouse game of obsession and revenge for a very long time. Her connections to Six and to Esek are fraught: violence, loyalty, gratitude, and affection all tangle together.
As I alluded to earlier I resisted liking Esek, and then that twist, which I didn't see coming. Brilliant.
First this seems to be a standalone captivating fantasy. That's not to say that the characters aren't interesting enough or the world building sufficiently engaging to carry further stories but it seems to have been written as a one and done.
In a historical fantasy where an immortal witch emperor (so far lived 300 years so off to a good start) has conquered much of the world through the draining lives, siring other witches (male and female, the story has a refreshingly take on gender and sexuality, present but not commented on because it is how a society should be) and healing himself whenever threatened all by making deals with death. I loved the non-nonsense snarky 'I'm death, I'm not a god' character.
Also I loved the way the narrative set up the way the world works and deaths deals and applied the reasonably and consistently. The characters are charming, interesting and varied and well worth getting to know.