December 2022 Reading Round Up

The 4 book reviews at SFFWorld in December made up for the the lack of any book reviews I posted in November. However, two of these books mentioned in my November post. There was also a 2023 release I read, the review of which I’ll be posting in January, but I’ll just say it was from a favorite horror author.  The standard drill follows...excerpts of what went up at SFFWorld this past month followed by brief review/reactions to the other books I read in December 2022.

The Art of Prophecy (The War Arts Saga #1) by Wesley Chu - What the novel then turns out to be is a lengthy and entertaining answer to the question of “What if the Prophecy was wrong?” Well…it turns out the true nature of the Eternal Khan was very misunderstood by Jian’s people, but we learn more about the Eternal Khan and the Katuia Hordes of the Sea of Grass who worship him through the character of Salminde (Sali). Sali finds herself on a quest to a new Eternal Khan. This also allows readers to gain a sympathy with the “other side” because Sali is a fantastically realized character. I appreciate when characters buck the “expected” in favor of logic and reason and Sali has a great wit about her that makes her particular journey quite enjoyable.

 The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal - Perhaps the word that I can best use to describe this book (and it has already appeared in this  review) is the word charming. Tesla and Shal are charming, so is Gimlet, and the story is just a fun romp that itself is charming. Charming can sometimes come across as “too cute” for its own good, but MRK is a smart enough writer to keep that charming element that is a comforting blanket over the whole novel at just the right level. Although The Spare Man is not marked as the first book in a series, it certainly can work that way. I for one would love to follow Tesla and Shal throughout the galaxy solving crimes and having adventures.

The Bladed Faith (The Vagrant Gods #1) by David Dalglish - David Dalglish has published over 25 novels since 2010, many of them in the same secondary world of Dezrel (The Half-Orcs, Shadowdance). With The Bladed Faith, Dalglish launches a new world and a new series entitled Vagrant Gods. In it, young prince Cyrus of Thanet watches his parents and gods Endarius the Lion and Lycaena the Butterfly murdered by an invading army of the Everlorn Empire. Cyrus is shocked to see this transpire before his eyes. ... A lot happens in this novel, The Bladed Faith very much fits the term Epic. But is only the first installment of a trilogy! Dalglish reveals his story and characters at a measured pace I very much appreciated, with a balanced approach to character, action, backstory, and worldbuilding. It was fun, it was epic, energetic, and addictive. In short, The Bladed Faith is very strongly in my Epic Fantasy wheelhouse. Even before I finished the novel, I knew the second book in the series, The Sapphire Altar would be very high on my anticipated reads list.

Lucky Girl: or How I Became A Horror Writer: A Krampus Story by M. Rickert - This is by no means an uplifting Christmas ghost story, but it is gripping and rife with dread and tension. The only minor issue I had with the story was that for a horror writer, Ro was not quite genre-savvy to recognize some of the horrific elements she was experiencing. That in itself is a trope, characters of horror stories being somewhat unaware of the nature of the darkness plaguing them so perhaps that is what Rickert was playing with in this story.

 

T. Kingfisher published two genre works this year, and I read both of them, moist recently What Moves the Dead, which is a retelling of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” with a non-binary character who happens to be a retired lieutenant named Alex Easton. Alex visits the Ushers to help her friend, Madeline thanks to Roderick (Madeline’s brother) request. The Ushers are not in good shape, they seem to be affected by a strange affliction. Adding another layer of creepiness are a few factors constantly seen on the grounds of the Usher mansion – staring, white rabbits, the strange lake on the grounds, and the proliferation of fungi. 

 There is a quirky cast of characters who surround Alex: Eugenia Potter, the mycologist (a scientist who studies fungi) and the American doctor James Denton. The three of them try to figure out what is plaguing the Ushers and if it can be remedied. 

 This was a strange, weird, and fascinating story. Largely because of the fungus element, I was reminded of Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris stories. Kingfisher has one of the more unique and enjoyable points-of-view in the genre and I’ll continue to read her work as it publishes. 

Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth is a Mount Rushmore-level Werewolf novel. I read Harrison’s debut novel The Return earlier in the year and I was very impressed so I was excited to try her new (in 2022) novel which was about werewolves. Well, one werewolf in particular. Harrison tells the tale of Rory (short for Aurora) Morris, who returns to her hometown to be by the side of her twin sister Scarlett during the last weeks of her pregnancy. On the way there, Rory is bitten by a creature and she finds her body going through changes. She’s stronger and transforms during the full moon. Harrison does a fantastic job of paralleling the experiences of the twin sisters, and telling a compelling, addictive story. I read it over the course of two days. 

I had to bail on the second book in an epic fantasy series I was really looking forward to reading, I just couldn't connect as the narrative felt very scattered. I think it may have been a case of “me, not the book,” but a book that size (and the predecessor was just as large) would very much benefit from a recap page and cast of characters page. 

After that unfortunate book, I moved onto R.S. Belcher’s Six-Gun Tarot, which is the first book in his Golgotha Weird-Western fantasy series. This guy is criminally under-read, he writes wonderful, genre-bending stories. The kinds of books/stories that when you look at the superficial ingredients, you shake you head and ask yourself, how in the hell is this going to work. But he makes it work. I read the third book, Queen of Swords five(!) years ago and liked it very much. This one introduces readers to a young man named Jim on his way to Golgotha. Jim’s got a magic eye from his deceased(?) father and somehow gets deputized shortly before arriving at Golgotha. Maude, a young witchy woman, is another featured character. Belcher tells the novel going between the “current” storyline as well as Flashbacks that show the “origins” of Maude and Jim. There’s also a powerful, dark presence (maybe it is an Elder God like Cthulhu?) on the outskirts of Golgotha and oh yeah, we see chapters that peek into the War in Heaven or what lead to the War in Heaven and Lucifer’s fall. Heady, all over the place stuff, but it makes sense within the pages. 

All of my Audiobook time in December was dedicated A Crown of Swords, the seventh Robert Jordan Wheel of Time novel. I’m still enjoying the trek through Randland.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2016-02-2016)

Here's the rundown of arrivals from the previous week.

Nightwise by R.S. Belcher (Tor, Hardcover 03/01/2016) – This is Belcher’s fourth novel in only a few years and he switches up continually showing a breadth imagination.

R.S. Belcher, the acclaimed author of The Six-Gun Tarot and The Shotgun Arcana launches a gritty new urban fantasy series about the mysterious society of truckers known only as, The Brotherhood of The Wheel.

In 1119 A.D., a group of nine crusaders became known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon--a militant monastic order charged with protecting pilgrims and caravans traveling on the roads to and from the Holy Land. In time, the Knights Templar would grow in power and, ultimately, be laid low. But a small offshoot of the Templars endure and have returned to the order's original mission: to defend the roads of the world and guard those who travel on them.

Theirs is a secret line of knights: truckers, bikers, taxi hacks, state troopers, bus drivers, RV gypsies--any of the folks who live and work on the asphalt arteries of America. They call themselves the Brotherhood of the Wheel.

Jimmy Aussapile is one such knight. He's driving a big rig down South when a promise to a ghostly hitchhiker sets him on a quest to find out the terrible truth behind a string of children gone missing all across the country. The road leads him to Lovina Hewitt, a skeptical Louisiana State Police investigator working the same case and, eventually, to a forgotten town that's not on any map--and to the secret behind the eerie Black-Eyed Kids said to prowl the highways.

Supernova by C.A. Higgins (Del Rey Hardcover 07/26/2016) – I was very impressed with Higgins’s debut Lightless which also launched this series. Smart, sharp SF.

C. A. Higgins’s acclaimed novel Lightless fused suspenseful storytelling, high-caliber scientific speculation, and richly developed characters into a stunning science fiction epic. Now the dazzling Supernova heightens the thrills and deepens the haunting exploration of technology and humanity—and the consequences that await when the two intersect.

Once Ananke was an experimental military spacecraft. But a rogue computer virus transformed it—her—into something much more: a fully sentient artificial intelligence, with all the power of a god—and all the unstable emotions of a teenager.

Althea, the ship’s engineer and the last living human aboard, nearly gave her life to save Ananke from dangerous saboteurs, forging a bond as powerful as that between mother and daughter. Now she devotes herself completely to Ananke’s care. But teaching a thinking, feeling machine—perhaps the most dangerous force in the galaxy—to be human proves a monumental challenge. When Ananke decides to seek out Matthew Gale, the terrorist she regards as her father, Althea learns that some bonds are stronger than mortal minds can understand—or control.

Drawn back toward Earth by the quest, Althea and Ananke will find themselves in the thick of a violent revolution led by Matthew’s sister, the charismatic leader Constance, who will stop at nothing to bring down a tyrannical surveillance state. As the currents of past decisions and present desires come into stark collision, a new and fiery future is about to be born.

Sleeping Giants (Book One of The Themis Files) by Del Rey Hardcover 04/26/2016) – This is Neuvel’s debut and launches a trilogy of books, the description gives a real “page turner” feel.

An inventive debut in the tradition of World War Z and The Martian, told in interviews, journal entries, transcripts, and news articles, Sleeping Giants is a thriller fueled by a quest for truth—and a fight for control of earthshaking power.

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved—its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand’s code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of relic. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history’s most perplexing discovery—and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

Books in the Mail (W/E 2015-08-08)

Another significant batch of books, many of which look very appealing.

Shadow of Empire (Far Star Trilogy #1) by Jay Allan (Harper Voyager 11/10/2015) – Allan makes the jump from small press/self-published to one of the Big SF publishers. This launches a Space Opera trilogy to be published over the course of three months. That is proof of a publisher showing confidence in a writer.

The first installment in the Far Star series, a swashbuckling space saga that introduces the daring pirate Blackhawk and the loyal crew of the Wolf’s Claw, from the author of the bestselling Crimson Worlds saga.

Smuggler and mercenary Arkarin Blackhawk and the crew of the ship Wolf’s Claw are freelance adventurers who live on the fringe of human society in the Far Stars. A veteran fighter as deadly with a blade as he is with a gun, Blackhawk is a man haunted by a dark past. Even his cynicism cannot banish the guilt and pain that threaten his sanity.

Sent to rescue the kidnapped daughter of his longtime friend Marshal Augustin Lucerne, Blackhawk and his crew find themselves drawn into one deadly fight after another. When the Wolf’s Claw is damaged, they are forced to land on a remote planet subsumed by civil war. Pulled unwittingly into the conflict, they uncover disturbing information about secret imperial involvement that could upset the plans of Lucerne.

For the Marshal is determined to forge a Far Stars Confederation powerful enough to eliminate all imperial influence and threats in the sector. He needs a skilled warrior like Blackhawk on his side, but the mercenary, plagued by dark memories from the past, refuses to join the cause. All too soon, though, he and his crew will have to take a stand.

Nightwise by R.S. Belcher (Tor, Hardcover 08/11/2015) – After a well-received Weird West/Steampunk series, Belcher turns his pen to something a little bit darker.

R.S. Belcher, the acclaimed author of The Six-Gun Tarot and The Shotgun Arcana launches a gritty new urban fantasy series set in today's seedy occult underworld in Nightwise.

In the more shadowy corners of the world, frequented by angels and demons and everything in-between, Laytham Ballard is a legend. It's said he raised the dead at the age of ten, stole the Philosopher's Stone in Vegas back in 1999, and survived the bloodsucking kiss of the Mosquito Queen. Wise in the hidden ways of the night, he's also a cynical bastard who stopped thinking of himself as the good guy a long time ago.

Now a promise to a dying friend has Ballard on the trail of an escaped Serbian war criminal with friends in both high and low places--and a sinister history of blood sacrifices. Ballard is hell-bent on making Dusan Slorzack pay for his numerous atrocities, but Slorzack seems to have literally dropped off the face of the Earth, beyond the reach of his enemies, the Illuminati, and maybe even the Devil himself. To find Slorzack, Ballard must follow a winding, treacherous path that stretches from Wall Street and Washington, D.C. to backwoods hollows and truckstops, while risking what's left of his very soul . . . .

Silver on the Road (The Devil’s West #1) by Laura Ann Gilman (Saga Press Hardcover 10/06/2015) – Gilman is a very prolific writer, slipping between sub genres and genres. This one has a nice weird/horror west flavor to it.

“The right hand gathers and gives, visible to all. But the left hand, Isobel, the manu sinistra? It moves in shadows, unseen, unheard…. Until I deem it time for it to be seen and heard. And when it moves, its work cannot be undone. It is the strength of the Territory, the quick knife in the darkness, the cold eye and the final word.”

She looked up, away from his hands, and was caught by a gaze the burnt gold of the morning sun.

“I have been lacking a left hand for too long, now. Are you strong enough for that, Isobel nee Lacoyo Távora? Is the iron in your spine, the fire in your blood, proof against my forging?”

Back East, they claim the so-called Devil’s West is overrun by magic, magicians, and monsters. But to Isobel, it’s home. She grew up in a saloon, trained to serve drinks and fold laundry, to read those who came to the gambling tables, and report back to her boss on what she saw.

But when she comes of age, she is given a choice….

Now the Territory’s Left Hand, Isobel takes to the road, accompanied by the laconic rider Gabriel, who will teach her about the Territory, its people and its laws. But she needs to learn quickly: The bones of the earth are cracking, and the Hand has work to do…

Zero World by Jason M. Hough (Del Rey Hardcover 08/11/2015) – Hough’s trilogy earned him some very good sales and acclaim and graduated him to Hardcover for this release.

Published in rapid succession, Jason M. Hough’s first three novels, The Darwin Elevator, The Exodus Towers, and The Plague Forge; earned mountains of praise and comparisons to such authors as James S. A. Corey and John Scalzi. Now Hough returns with a riveting near-future spy thriller that combines the adrenaline of a high-octane James Bond adventure with mind-blowing sci-fi speculations worthy of Christopher Nolan’sInception. 

Technologically enhanced superspy Peter Caswell has been dispatched on a top-secret assignment unlike any he’s ever faced. A spaceship that vanished years ago has been found, along with the bodies of its murdered crew—save one. Peter’s mission is to find the missing crew member, who fled through what appears to be a tear in the fabric of space. Beyond this mysterious doorway lies an even more confounding reality: a world that seems to be Earth’s twin. 

Peter discovers that this mirrored world is indeed different from his home, and far more dangerous. Cut off from all support, and with only days to complete his operation, Peter must track his quarry alone on an alien world. But he’s unprepared for what awaits on the planet’s surface, where his skills will be put to the ultimate test—and everything he knows about the universe will be challenged in ways he never could have imagined.

Cold Iron (The Malorum Gates #1) by Stina Leicht (Saga Press Hardcover 07/14/2015) – Leicht’s new series is a huge epic/flintlock fantasy which asks the question, “What would Lord of the Rings look like if Tolkien were American?”

Fraternal twins Nels and Suvi move beyond their royal heritage and into military and magical dominion in this flintlock epic fantasy debut from a two-time Campbell Award finalist.

Prince Nels is the scholarly runt of the ancient Kainen royal family of Eledore, disregarded as flawed by the king and many others. Only Suvi, his fraternal twin sister, supports him. When Nels is ambushed by an Acrasian scouting party, he does the forbidden for a member of the ruling family: He picks up a fallen sword and defends himself.

Disowned and dismissed to the military, Nels establishes himself as a leader as Eledore begins to shatter under the attack of the Acrasians, who the Kainen had previously dismissed as barbarians. But Nels knows differently, and with the aid of Suvi, who has allied with pirates, he mounts a military offensive with sword, canon, and what little magic is left in the world.

The Moreau Quartet: Volume One by S. Andrew Swann (DAW Mass Market Paperback 08/04/2015) – Swann’s been writing in this particular universe for quite some time. These are two of the earliest novels in the sequence - Forests of the Night and Fearful Symmetry. Though published order has these as books 1 and four, Fearful Symmetry is a direct sequel to Forests of the Night.

It’s 2053, and the U.S. has long since genetically engineered life successfully. “Moreaus,” humanoid and animal hybrids, and “frankensteins,” genetically manipulated humans, live as second-class citizens. Nohar Rajasthan is a moreau, a humanoid of tiger stock. Raised by a human after his parents’ death, Nohar ekes out a career as a private eye. Mixing science fiction with detective thrillers, Nohar’s story leaps off the page with all the nonstop excitement and danger of an action blockbuster.

Forests of the Night: When Nohar accepts a commission from a frankenstein to investigate the death of the campaign manager of a local politico, all hell breaks loose. Nohar finds himself targeted by everyone from local cops to federal agents to a drug-running gang to an assassin with a 100% kill rate.

Fearful Symmetries: Nohar retired from the private eye business ten years ago, and just wants to spend his remaining time in the peace and quiet of his wilderness homestead. So when a human lawyer asks him to take on a missing moreau case, he refuses–and soon after is attacked by a paramilitary team. Now Nohar must find the missing moreau and discover why someone wants him dead.

Six Gun Snow-White by Catherynne M. Valente (Saga Press Hardcover 11/09/2015) – Valente seems to write only well-received award worthy stuff. This western reinvention of Snow White looks like it could be a great deal of fun.

A New York Times bestselling author offers a brilliant reinvention of one of the best-known fairy tales of all time with Snow White as a gunslinger in the mythical Wild West.

Forget the dark, enchanted forest. Picture instead a masterfully evoked Old West where you are more likely to find coyotes as the seven dwarves. Insert into this scene a plain-spoken, appealing narrator who relates the history of our heroine’s parents—a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. Although her mother’s life ended as hers began, so begins a remarkable tale: equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have. Filled with fascinating glimpses through the fabled looking glass and a close-up look at hard living in the gritty gun-slinging West, this is an utterly enchanting story…at once familiar and entirely new.