Ryan

This was a really neat read! In each chapter, Shoalts looks at a different pre-confederation map of Canada, and the conditions under which it was created. The maps range from Leif Erikson's first map of Vinland to the maps of the Arctic produced by the Franklin expedition, so there's a wide range of material drawn from. With each map, Shoalts takes time to present the cultural and political reasons behind each map's development, in a manner that is welcoming and open to those without much Canadian history knowledge.

Due to the nature of the book, it's not without its limitations. The book relies heavily on settler sources (although it does acknowledge the role of Indigenous people in the development of the country), and the map-making conceit means that a lot of the political and cultural history that shaped the country is overlooked. If you understand those limitations going in, though, it's a real treat, because Shoalts' ability to relate the compelling and complex nature of Canadian history is incredible.

This was an incredibly fun read. Trail of Lightning is a hard-edged mashup of Supernatural and Mad Max told through the lens of the culture of the Navajo nation. If you're a fan of dystopian lit, or of “gods walking the Earth again” stories, this is well worth your time.

This was equally fascinating as its predecessor, but at the same time it was a very distinct work from Farthing. While the latter was more of a country-house mystery, this one is a political thriller, and given the inherently political nature of the setting, that allows Walton to explore a bit more of the reality of her alternate history.

As in the first novel, we're looking at an alternate England that has secured Peace In Our Time by signing an armistice with Nazi Germany in 1940. The result is not only the nightmare of a Nazi-controlled Europe; we also see the corrosive effect that reality has on democracy in England, and even in familiar bonds and the general morality of the characters we see. The “Nazis are horrible and bad for everyone” theme would maybe seem more cliched in the hands of a less-skilled author, but Walton's rich characterization and foreboding plot add a lot of richness and depth to the story.

Perhaps most importantly, though: the plot revolved around a partially gender-swapped version of Hamlet (Hamlet and Ophelia are crossed, with the other roles still being played by their traditional genders). I need this in my life, because it sounds like it would be excellent.

There were some okay parts here - mostly surrounding Zahn's original characters (Thrawn, Mara, and Pellaeon). It was fun to get to see those characters again, especially as only one of them seems to have survived the switch in canon. But the plot was just kind of there, and the focus on the Rebel characters kind of made everything drag. I don't have that much interest in reading Luke at his whiniest or Han at his douchiest, but the placement of this novel between A New Hope and Empire kind of requires them to still be those people.

The Marrow Thieves is a story about finding and building a family, figuring out where you belong in a world that fears and hates you, and survival as an important part of resistance. It has a great, compelling story, characters that are immediately well-developed and easy to empathize with, and important, resonant themes.

A well-told dystopia should never just be about the future; it should also be a reflection on the hopes and fears of the society that it's created in. With The Marrow Thieves that's doubly true. The novel's central plot - of a society that's lost the ability to sleep, and which starts to kidnap Indigenous people due to a belief that they can bring the dreaming back, is a harrowing metaphor for the relationship that Canada has had with Indigenous people both in the past and the present.

The past aspect of that relationship is the most obvious one. Dimaline's characters speak openly about the history of the residential school system, and the intergenerational trauma that that system caused to Indigenous culture; beyond that, there are explicit parallels between the government's actions in the story and the actions of historical Canadian governments. It also speaks to how many non-indigenous people act today - they'll talk nonstop about dreamcatchers and spirit animals one day, and criticize movements like Idle No More and MMIW the next.

Yet another fun Torin Kerr adventure! Huff hits that mix that makes for a great military space opera: likable, relatable characters; intergalactic politicking; thrilling adventure; and a dark sense of humour that helps prevent the story from getting bogged down in the face of the violence that fills the characters' lives. I could easily read another twenty books like this, I like it that much.

The one downside to this book is that it's rumoured to be the last Torin novel - and it doesn't feel like that at all. The Big Yellow storyline gets resolved, obviously, but there's no sense of the ending of a story arc for Torin and the rest of Strike Team Alpha, which is a little disappointing.

This was an intriguing story just for the premise alone - missionaries and religious life were a very central part of the Regency and Victorian eras, and so much of the modern sci-fi and fantasy set in that time period leave it out to their detriment. But it seems obvious that, had 19th century Britain established relations with the fae kingdom of Arcadia, there would have absolutely been tracts on the nature of the fae soul, and missionaries attempting to convert them to save their Heathen Souls. This book does a great job of matching a realistic and recognizable British society with the absolutely unrealistic and phantasmagoric land of Arcadia.

Like any good faerie story, Under the Pendulum Sun is darker than you'd imagine, and unsettling in both its characters and morality. Ng fully embraces the Gothic style that would make sense for her setting, and leaves a story that's dripping with melodrama and suspense.

If you're a fan of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, or steampunk in general, you'll no doubt like this. Some of the biggest names in the genre contribute, and for the most part they manage to capture the spirit of the original series rather well. If you haven't read the series, though, I wouldn't recommend starting here.

This was a hauntingly beautiful story about intergenerational trauma and how cyclical neglect can be. The horror elements weren't really “horrifying” in the traditional sense, but the overall mood of the story is tense and dreary. I had to take a deep breath at the end because I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath during the final section.

This had a fun “classic sci-fi” feel to it; Wells has clearly been influenced by authors like Clarke and Bradbury, and tells an enjoyable story about first contact (minus, of course, the casual sexism that one tends to encounter with classic sci-fi stories).

One thing that bugged me about the story, though, was that a lot is made of the protagonist's abilities as a linguist - both within the narrative itself, and in the title of the book. And her linguist skills end up not really playing an important part in the story at all. Instead there's some handwavy sci-fi tech stuff that renders that ability unnecessary. There's a place for handwavy tech stuff in sci-fi, but here it felt like there was a more interesting story that could have been told than the one that ultimately was told.

This was a great primer for people who don't know a lot about astrophysics and want to learn more. Dr. Tyson remains a great communicator of psychics and astronomy, and his combination of down-to-Earth metaphors and what he calls “the cosmic perspective” make this introduction to the science physics enjoyable and informative.

I wanted to love this. Really, I did. I likeds Stross' style in his other work that I've read, and the combination of old tropes and new presentation that The Bloodline Feud represented sounded really fantastic. And it wasn't bad? But for the most part it didn't live up to my hopes for it (This is admittedly my fault more than it is the book's).

Looking at it more objectively, the idea behind the story is still fascinating. Protagonist Miriam learns that she's part of a family that knows how to walk between worlds - specifically, one that never developed past mercantilism and another in an imperial Gilded age. Stross uses Miriam's ability to cross worlds to examine those systems, and how they compare to knowledge-based capitalism. While that's an interesting exercise, he's awfully slow on character development at the same time. It takes a good three quarters of the book for his characters to turn into people. This means that by the end of the book you're finally willing to check out a sequel to see what happens to them, so I guess that's a smart marketing decision? Makes for a bit of a feel-bad reading experience, though.

From a historical perspective, I can understand why this book is important. Gilman's satirizing of gender roles and gender essentialism were no doubt cutting edge in 1915; likewise, her critique of how patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism are intertwined was pretty insightful. The problem is that a lot of her critique has become accepted reality in 2018, so it makes her commentary seem obvious and at times trite.

This wouldn't be a problem if the protagonists were anything more than the blandest WASPs that ever wasped. They're not, however, and the lack of strong protagonists for the story to hang from makes this more an interesting bit of trivia than a compelling read in my opinion.

Music is magic.

On a certain level, I think anyone who's ever played an instrument understands that, as does anyone who's ever poured their heart into a mixtape. Silvia Moreno-Garcia definitely understands it as well; Signal to Noise is a fantastic look at the power of music, and how the right song has the potential to change our lives.

Spanning across decades in Mexico City, Signal to Noise takes that connection between music and magic on a more literal level than that of metaphor - the three teenaged characters at the centre of the drama learn how to use their record collections to exert influence on the world around them, while their adult selves deal with some of the emotional fallout of those exertions. The two halves of the story are balanced well, and Moreno-Garcia creates characters that are easily identifiable without feeling like they're archetypal or cliche. The interesting nature of the characters, mixed with a soundtrack that's both mysterious and familiar, makes this a really engaging read.

The cover boasts that Signal to Noise would be of interest to fans of Stranger Things, and I get why the publisher would say that, but I think a better elevator pitch would be High Fidelity crossed with The Craft. If you were a fan of those films you'd probably dig this.

The title of the book does a great job of setting a tone for the story, which is a fun mix of superheroics and fantasy storytelling with vampires, werewolves, and other monsters. Gardner clearly has a love of superhero storytelling, and this lighthearted story pokes gentle fun at a lot of the common tropes while still telling an engaging and fun story.

This marks another enjoyable installment of the Celtic Mythology series from Irish Imbas. The stories cover a fair amount of the same mythological content as the previous entries in the series, but manages to provide interesting and sufficiently unique modern tales about selkie, changelings, and other familiar topics.

Another interesting part of the book was O'Sullivan's opening essay on the differences between Irish Mythology and Celtic Fantasy (with his work being firmly in the former category). As someone who was raised in Canada by Irish immigrants, I've always been a bit aware of the distinction although I never really had a good, succinct way of distinguishing between the two. And I'll admit to liking some of the Celtic Fantasy that he scoffs at, but it was mostly for lack of better options. I'm glad to see that there are collections like this out there that are dedicated to showing more accurate versions of these classic stories.

This was a fantastic, visceral coming of age story. Jared's struggle to deal with his family dysfunction and addiction issues was really heartfelt, and Robinson's witty, quick-paced dialogue keeps the story engaging throughout.

The magical realism parts took a backseat for most of the novel, and that actually suits the story really well. For most of the story it feels like a metaphor for Jared's experience, but by the end it unfolds into a more major theme. Robinson unveils it really well, and the way in which she does it makes the story incredibly enjoyable.

This felt so different from Amberlough that it was jarring. The first book was whimsical and breezy, and Armistice is never that, trading the jazz of the first book for angsty punk dirges.

This is, of course, the point: that when facism infests an area, it affects everything around it. People can try to hide from it, or lash out in anger, or react in 100 other different ways, but they're still fundamentally changed by that experience.

On top of the political allegory that Armistice leans into, there's a truly engaging spy tale here, full of double crosses, lost love, and betrayal. That plot, and the characters that live it, help the book avoid ever becoming didactic or patronizing, and helps the story remain truly engaging.

This was everything you loved about the first Murderbot Diary, but moreso. Murderbot explores the meaning of its newfound freedom, while still speaking with the sardonic wit that is quickly becoming its trademark. Along the way it interacts with other AI, which allows Wells to do some interesting worldbuilding, and provides more human fodder for Murderbot to dunk on.

The dark humour of Murderbot is the sort of thing that wouldn't be for everybody, but in a genre that often takes itself Very Seriously, it feels like a breath of fresh air, and the novella length of the story prevents it from becoming overly grim or the humour stale.

This is the story of Emmaline, a twenty-something woman who's in the process of being discharged from a mental hospital following a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Em's doing better. She's taking her meds every day, and even gets a job at the local discount big-box retailer. Then Em starts hearing a voice that claims it's a being from another dimension, and it needs Em's help.

What makes Stay Crazy such an interesting read is the ambiguity about the “hallucinations” that Em experiences. As readers, we know that they are real, but only because we know this is a sci-fi story and in sci-fi stories the person's visions or hallucinations are always true. But within the narrative itself, Em doesn't have any proof of that. All she has is her faith in herself and her ability to tell reality from fiction. Seeing Em struggle with that, and watching her trying to determine where exactly the line between sanity and responding to unusual circumstances lies, makes for a really interesting read.

Em is a fun character to follow over the course of the story, as well. She's smart, sardonic, and . All this makes Stay Crazy a dark, fun, thoughtful piece of sci-fi that could form the centre of a Venn diagram that contained Chuck Palahniuk, Phillip K Dick, and Kevin Smith. It deals with harsh issues surrounding mental illness, and does so in a way that's both empathetic and exciting at the same time.

One book to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.

The past, as they say, is a different country. The majority of this book is standard, kind of uninspired standard Canadiana - city person traveling to the backwoods, hoping to find themselves and solve the anomie of modern life.

Then there's parts where the woman's having sex with the bear, and those I just don't know about.

This was a beautiful, heartbreaking story about a residential school survivor as he tries to escape a system and a society that wants nothing more than to strip him of his dignity. Wagamese does a great job of going beyond the intellectual horror that we know those schools inflicted, and presents the emotional scars that stay with someone long after they are removed from an abusive situation.

This was a lot of fun! A quick, light plot, which fits nicely into the novella length; with a longer story this would feel thin, but Wells keeps it short and sweet. Also, Murderbot is possibly my favourite sarcastic android since Marvin. Looking forward to more Murderbot.

Overall, this was a pretty entertaining mix of Lovecraftian horror and pulp detective mystery. Rawlik managed to perfectly capture the aesthetics of Lovecraft's style, free of any of the baggage that the original stories contain. The opening was a bit rough - the story meanders a lot and it takes nearly the first third of the book to find its groove - but once it finds the story becomes a lot of fun.

The one real downside I would say the story has is that it's so full of obvious Easter eggs (references to not only all of Lovecraft's work, but other Victorian/gothic horror as well) that they become distractions from the work, rather than bonuses. In that regard it felt at times like a Lovecraftian version of Ready Player One.