November 2022 Reading Round Up

November still had a linger of horror to start, but it the month saw traipses through fantasy, horror, and science fiction. I didn’t post any reviews to SFFWorld in November, but all the reviews I posted in October made up for that, I’d hope. However, two books I read in November will end up being reviewed for SFFWorld (The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu which posts tomorrow 12/6 and The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal which will post 12/13) so as usual, I’ll focus on the other books I read.

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia kicked off November in a great way. I’d read the author’s 80s love letter, Signal to Noise a few years ago and had my eye on this book for a while, especially since Tor Nightfire acquired the rights and wrapped the pages in a gorgeous cover by John Picacio. 

Garcia plays with vampire mythology and noir in this fantastic novel set in Mexico City. A young man named Domingo finds himself drawn to vampire Atl and despite her attempts at pushing him away, he continues to find her. Vampires are real and very much a part of the world in Garcia’s novel, although they aren’t quite welcome in Mexico City. Atl and her Doberman are on the run from a gang of “Necro” vampires led by Nick, who has a long-held grudge against Atl. 

I loved how the relationship between Domingo (not quite a “Renfield”) and Atl played out over the course of the novel. He was bright and optimistic, she a bit closed off (understandably). What I enjoyed even more was the deep vampire mythology Garcia built for this novel. It isn’t in your face world-building, rather, the backbone of the story that informs the conflicts Atl is forced to deal with in her life.

Certain Dark Things is an immediate classic vampire novel. 

The book that took up the most significant portion of my reading time in November was Chuck Wendig’s Wayward, the sequel to his epic apocalyptic Wanderers. Chuck picks up those threads and weaves a powerful, gripping story of how the survivors of a plague-apocalypse (White Mask) try to survive as humanity with the “help” of an extremely powerful and convincing AI (Black Swan) who helped to “hand pick” a select group of people and protect them from the plague as a last hope for humaity. Picking up about five years after the events of Wanderers, Chuck keeps the pace addictive over the course of the novels lengthy 800 pages. There’s a sense of anger in this novel that is completely believable, especially with the returning characters like Shana Stewart and “President” Ed Creel, though scientist Benji Ray and rocker Pete Corley balance out that anger with signs of hope. 

There’s something about “road stories” and “apocalyptic” stories that work so well when brought together, traversing a barren landscape with potential dangers out of sight makes for great storytelling. That’s one strong element of the Wayward and I again felt resonance with Robert McCammon’s Swan Song. In fact, characters in Wayward specifically called out Swan Song.

There’s also the Very Good Dog Gumball, who along with Radar from Stephen King’s Fairy Tale are co-winners of the goodest dog of the year. Many authors try to tell stories from the point of view of dogs, not all of them succeed, Chuck does. 

Chuck did a pre-release signing at the Doylestown Bookshop the Saturday before the book published, with the bookshop about an hour away from me, there was no way I was going to miss it even though I chatted with Chuck at NY Comic Con. 

In the end, Wayward was a fantastic novel, I was consumed by it for the week-and-a-half I was reading it. Never did I want to leave, never did the novel drag, never did things happen in the novel that didn’t make sense even if what unfolded over the course of the novel was not what I expected. I was surprised by where the story went, and at times even scared by a lot of what the characters had to confront. 

Put simply, a fantastic novel. 

On the audio side of things, I dipped into another V.E. Schwab novel, This Savage Song, the first of Monsters of Verity duology. Set in a world where monsters are real, the story focuses on two young characters – Kate Harker, daughter of a powerful monster hunter who oversees on portion of the city and August Flynn, adopted son of man who runs another portion of the city.

I've read a good handful of novels by Schwab and what I enjoyed in those novels was on display here - deft characterization. Kate and August felt real, genuine, and I wanted to believe them. I also appreciated Schwab's world-building especially when it comes to the various monsters who live in this world side-by-side with humans. She balances the details with the elements that are mysteries to the readers but taken for granted by the characters very well.

Lastly, I started (and am still listening to) A Crown of Swords, the seventh Wheel of Time novel. I was trucking along pretty well diving into Randland on an almost monthly basis for the first portion of the year, but it was July when I finished the preceding installment, Lord of Chaos. At this point, what can I say about a Wheel of Time novel. I knew this book is where many fans of the series see the "slog" creeping in, but so far I'm feeling very comfortable back in the world. It has been just over a decade since I re-read this book so this makes the audio version I'm currently consuming the third time I'm reading the book. 

That's it for November 2022!

Double Duty at SF Signal (SFFWorld not Forgotten!)

I haven't had much activity reviewing at SFFWorld in the past couple of weeks for a couple of reasons.

First, the books I have been reading, David Anthony Durham's spectacular Acacia novels are large and take a lot of my attention.  The first one is  re-read which I mentioned last week that I initially reviewed in 2007. As I'm reading second novel The Other Lands, the story continues to keep my attention in a very powerful way whereas other books which have taken as long for me to read fell to the wayside. I short, as I've said before, Durham is a great storyteller.

Secondly, I've been doing weekly Orphan Black posts for Tor.com as I mentioned in my last blog post.

Thirdly and fourthly, depending on how you choose to count it, I've had a couple of things go live at SF Signal this week.  Wednesday, the Mind Meld Paul Weimer invited me to give thought to: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Genre Series: Series vs. Standalones; Ones We Abandoned; Ones We Returned To.  Here's a bit of what I said (and of course I mentioned Acacia):

Of course there are series that I read immediately upon publication of a new book in the series: George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (though I re-read the whole series when each book publishes), any series that Tad Williams has published or will publish, and more recently Myke Cole’s Shadow OPS books, Peter Brett’s Demonwar cycle, and since reading her latest as Rachel Bach, any series Rachel Aaron writes, and so on and so forth…

Yesterday, the latest installment of my column for SF Signal, The Completist went live wherein I pull from a decade plus time laps since reading Jeffrey Ford's Well-Built City trilogy to try to expound upon the books powerful virtues.

These novels should not be dismissed for their short length, as the three combined are smaller than many fantasy novels with which they share shelf space. The combination of literary weight and breadth of imagination on display in these three novels (frankly, all of the work I’ve read by Jeffrey Ford) is nothing short of brilliance. At the intersection of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror lies The Well-Built City, enter at your own risk, but the rewards will spoil you for other fantasy, for nothing is quite like it.

World's End by Chadbourn review at SFFWorld

Some writers take longer to get to the US than others, even when their books are critically acclaimed and sell well. The latest author who fits this mold is Mark Chadbourn, whose Age of Misrule trilogy was unleashed to US readers over a three month period by the fine folks at Pyr. With a beautifully designed thematic cover scheme for all three books, they can now sit on your shelves like they are sitting in my house.

Which leads me to the review I just posted of World’s End:

Mark Chadbourn brings back the gods and myths of Celtic lore in World’s End, the first novel in his Age of Misrule trilogy. The novel takes place primarily in England as strangers are drawn together against the dark returning gods. Jack “Church” Churchill is a tormented man, unable to let go of the grief he holds over his girlfriend’s suicide two years prior to the beginning of the novel. When he’s on a late night walk, he witnesses a strange encounter – one man is being attacked by something that can only be described as a monster. Jack isn’t the only witness; disillusioned lawyer Ruth Gallagher also witnesses the attack, but due to its grisly and shocking nature both pass out.

Chadbourn is doing a lot of things well in this opening volume – he keeps a nice amount of tension and manages to tow a good line in terms of revealing things in slow doses. With Church and Ruth as our protagonists, Chadbourn allows the reader to discover and awe at the great transformation in which the world is undergoing. In one sense, Chadbourn is playing with archetypical characters – Church as the hero, Ruth as the witchy-woman, Veitch as rouge, Tom as the advisor who ‘reveals-the-world-of-magic-slowly’.

Over the next two weeks, I'll be posting reviews of the second (Darkest Hour) and third book (Always Forever) in the series.

Cover artist and designer John Picacio created some of his best artwork for these books, (check out this awesome collaborative overview on Tor.com by Picacio, Lou Anders of Pyr and Mark Chadbourn) I just love the image of Cernunnos on the cover of book one.