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.

July 2022 Reading Round Up

July was another great month for reading, I read a couple of authors for the first time as did many people recently, they were debut novels. Three of the books I read in July were review books for SFFWorld (one of which will post in August so I'll note that next month), but the review of a book I read in June was posted in July. The short of that sentence - I posted 3 reviews to SFFWorld in July: 

Kagen the Damned by Jonathan Maberry: Horror and Epic Fantasy tend to intermingle, just read some of the passages of Tad Williams’s The Dragonbone Chair and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re reading a horror novel. More recently; however, some big chonker Epic Fantasy novels don’t just have horror passages, or dashes of horror, they can be considered Epic Horror novels outright – Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Christopher Buehlman’s Blacktongue Thief immediately come to mind. Of course, this novel could be considered Grimdark – and it will definitely appeal to Grimdark readers – but the horror DNA of Kagen the Damned is pretty potent. 

A Mirror Mended by Alix Harrow: Powerful prose, modern sensibilities, and a great sense of fun make A Mirror Mended a great follow-up to A Spindle Splintered. There are many other fables/fairy tales Harrow can explore with her fine-tuned pen and sensibilities, I for one would welcome more stories in this vein with these characters. 

Black Tide by K.C. Jones: I also like how Jones injects humorous passages into the otherwise dark and horrific tale. The best horror novels, and movies, have a laugh here or there to balance out the tension and the same can be said for Black Tide. That humor and balanced approach…i.e. not every chapter/passage being a conflict with an alien monster…helps to keep the pages and story moving at a great pace. 

In books I read that weren't reviewed at SFFWorld, I continued with Marshall Ryan Maresca’s Maradaine super series with Lady Henterman’s Wardrobe, the second in the Streets of Maradaine sub-sequence. This trilogy within the big series has a heist-like/caper feel and focuses on The Holver Alley Crew. The crew is still trying to get some kind of revenge or recompense for their homes and base of operations being burnt down. The street-wise group needs to infiltrate a high-society party to learn who was pulling the strings lead to a surprise. I’ll admit, a book with a title about a woman’s closet may be peculiar, but the book was lots of fun and was a great “episode” of the overall Maradaine saga. 

Paul Tremblay is one of the more impressive horror writers to emerge into the genre the last decade or so. A Head Full of Ghosts is one of the most perfect horror novels I ever read. Slowly, I’ve made my way through his books and this past month, landed on Survivor Song which is set during a pandemic as a new, deadly strain of rabies emerges. Although published in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tremblay wrote it before. Timing can be interesting. Anyway, this was a pretty gripping novel focusing on the plight of Natalie, a pregnant woman who was bitten and asked her friend, a Doctor, to help her. The novel follows their journey across a small region of Massachusetts over the course of a few hour. An intense, emotional and unsettling novel. 

As the month came to a close, I cracked open Into the Narrowdark the third book in Tad Willams’s latest 4-book trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard. Hard to say too much at this point, but I eased right back into the world and these characters. Small print at 500+ pages means I’ll be occupied with this book for a while. That is NOT a complaint. 

For my audiobook readings, all of July was consumed by Lord of Chaos, the sixth installment of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. I’m enjoying it as a very comforting return to friends and familiarity, but I’m beginning to see hints of the dreaded “Slog.” Some fantastic character moments in the novel, more perspective from the Forsaken and dark side. 

Only one book didn’t work for me in July, Ruthanna Emrys’s A Half-Built Garden. I found the pacing to be rather slow. I didn’t’ connect with the characters and was simply not feeling the book.

Friday Round-Up: I'm All over the Place

Got a few things to catch up on in this week’s Friday Round-up. Let’s begin.

Last week, an interview I conducted with one of my favorite writers, C.S. Friedman, was posted to SFFWorld. In it, we discussed her latest YA novel Dreamseeker as well as some of her past work and the great covers her books have had:

The first novel was told in two narrative voices, reading Jesse’s voice helped to impart a great deal of empathy with me as the reader, while the more omniscient views of the story allowed for a greater scope. Will Dreamseeker bounce between those two POVs.

Yes, but with more time devoted to the third person narrative. Dreamseeker follows the story of two main characters whose fates have now become intertwined: Jesse, who is from our world, and Isaac, a young apprentice from a Guild of undead necromancers known as Shadows, who helped Jesse escape from captivity in Dreamwalker. In Dreamseeker, Isaac attempts to return home and make peace with his family, but his human soul cannot accept what undead demand of him.

Was it a challenge to tell the story from two types of narrative perspectives or did it just seem to be the only way to tell it?

My second novel, The Madness Season, alternated between first-person and third-person storytelling as well, so this is not something new for me. The combination is particularly powerful when dealing with a rite of passage story like Dreamwalker, as it allows the reader to experience an intimate connection with the main character, while leaving me free to explore facets of the narrative that she is not aware of.

The balance in Dreamseeker and the third book, Dreamweaver, will be more 50-50 than Dreamwalker was, in part because other characters are now coming to the fore.

This past Friday (11/06) two of my reviews were posted to Tor.com.

Emma Newman’s Planetfall was one of those books and damn was it an intense look at a person suffering from PTSD among other mental disorders on a newly colonized alien planet

Planetfall is at once a fascinating character study through Ren’s first person narrative and a novel that examines how secrets, no matter how buried they are, can be extremely damaging things especially in a small colony in a seeming utopia. Ren spends much of her day as the colony’s printer, responsible for overseeing an advanced 3-D printer which is used to repair damaged items or create them when necessary. Any items. Ren’s obsession with repairing things is a mask for trying to repair the damages left in the wake of Lee’s disappearance and burying her own guilt in the tragic events which transpired nearly two decades ago.
…
The Unreliable Narrator is quite common in genre, but Newman has effectively dropped the mic on that narrative tool. Ren is a fractured woman who gives new depth to the meaning “unreliable,” and as the story progresses, Ren becomes less of an empathetic character from her fellow colonists’ perspective. If anything, the feeling that grows as more is revealed is pity and frustration.

The other review is from the Tor.com imprint and the first book acquired by my pal Justin Landon. The book? The supremely fun and engaging short novel The Builders by Daniel Polansky,

The story begins in a bar where the Captain (just the Captain, no other name is needed) awaits the return of his allies. As each of the players are introduced, Polansky reveals small details about each character. After the Captain, Polansky introduces perhaps the most over-the-top character: Bonsoir the stoat. Because a talking mouse with an eye-patch named simply the Captain isn’t over-the-top enough. As the narrative indicates, there are many animals like a stoat, but stoats are unique. To say the stoat has a flair for the dramatic is to say the sun gives off light; the sun is unavoidable in life and Bonsoir is unavoidable in this story. As it should be.
…
There’s a philosophical question at the heart of this story too, can people change? Are we always going to revert to our baser natures? Can an individual who was once a killer ever escape that violent past and eschew any violent impulses? The Captain is hoping his former team members can’t, because that is what is required to see this revenge plan to its end. Polansky brings life to that essential question brilliantly through the characters, some give in easily to their past behaviors, others struggle against it.

I was part of the last two Mind Melds over at SF Signal (and will be posting the one I’m curating next week). Last week, my pal Paul Wiemer organized a Mind Meld around Audio books. I gushed about the audible adaptation of Joe Hill and Gabe Rodriguez’s Locke & Key, Dominion by C.S. Friedman, and Jonathan Maberry’s Patient Zero.

This week, one of the men behind the curtain of SF Signal, JP Frantz, corralled a few of us Mind Melders and asked what our favorite recent reads were. I shouted out Jim Butcher’s The Aeronaut’s Windlass, Cherie Priest’s Borden Dispatches, Bradley P. Beaulieu’s Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, Jason M. Hough’s Zero World, C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner, and Updraft.

A couple of days ago, something long in the simmering posted. A few months ago, Fred Kiesche, Joe Sherry, Paul Wiemer, Jonah Morse, and The G (of Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together), and I were involved in a twitter conversation about Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni novels, specifically the first one Deryni Rising.

We all decided that we’d do something more formal, like a round-table blog discussion. Well, the G went and posted that mega roundtable discussion over at Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together.

[The G] I think it’s fair to say we all really liked Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz--I know I did. But what is it, exactly, that makes this novel hold up so well? I mean, it’s more than 40 years old, but it feels quite modern in many ways. Am I right? Why or why not?

Rob Bedford: In large part, it is Kurtz’s ability to build up the narrative tension as the novel ramped up to the confrontation with Charissa. Good, gripping storytelling survives and continues to draw people in because it keeps people from stepping away from the story. I think it is the simplicity of the story and how elegantly Kurtz constructs the story.

Last, but not least, I reviewed C.A. Higgins’ debut novel Lightless, which really impressed me:

The crew of the Ananke is quite small. Surrounding Althea are Domitian, ship’s captain and Gagnon, the senior scientist. The crew grows by one when Ida Stays, an interrogator from the System, arrives to determine Ivanov and Mattie’s links to Mallt-y-Nos, a galactic terrorist…well, just Ivanov now since Mattie escaped (or was killed according to Althea’s superiors aboard the Ananke). After that chess-board is set-up (about ¼ to 1/3 of the novel), Higgins begins to maneuver her characters in expert fashion. Her characters begin to question what they have come to know and how they view their situation – especially Althea – which makes for a great puzzle of a novel to decipher.

Higgins plays these characters off of each other extremely well with all the interactions floating on an undercurrent of distrust and anger. While Domitian plays a very authoritative figure, he becomes a shadow of a man in the presence of both Ida and Ivanov. He treats Althea as little more than an inexperienced child throughout much of the narrative, perhaps because she is the only person over whom he can hold power.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2015-08-29)

This week's Books in the Mail post is (mostly) brought to you by Tor.

The Sleeping King by Cindy Dees and Bill Flippin (Tor 09/08/2015) – This is a first as far as I know; a novel based on a Live Action Role Playing-Game (LARP) Dragoncrest.

The Sleeping King is the start of a new fantasy series by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Cindy Dees.

Dees has won a Golden Heart Award, two RITAs for Category Suspense and Adventure and has also twice snared RT's Series Romantic Suspense of the Year. She is a great storyteller, and the adventures in her more than fifty novels are often inspired by her own life. Dees is an Air Force vet-the youngest female pilot in Air Force history-and fought in the first Gulf War. She's had amazing adventures, and she's used her experiences to tell some kickass stories.

But as much as she love romances, Cindy's other passion has been fantasy gaming. For almost twenty years she's been involved with Dragon Crest, one of the original live action role-playing games. She's the story content creator on the game, and wanted to do an epic fantasy based on it, with the blessing and input of Dragon Crest founder Bill Flippin.

The Sleeping King is the first in an epic fantasy series, featuring the best of the genre: near immortal imperial overlords, a prophecy of a sleeping elven king who's said to be the savior of the races . . . and two young people who are set on a path to save the day.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (Tor 09/15/2015) – I’ve been seeing good things about this book for months, from Kameron Hurley in particular.

In Seth Dickinson's highly-anticipated debut The Traitor Baru Cormorant, a young woman from a conquered people tries to transform an empire in this richly imagined geopolitical fantasy.

Baru Cormorant believes any price is worth paying to liberate her people-even her soul.

When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, overwrites her culture, criminalizes her customs, and murders one of her fathers, Baru vows to swallow her hate, join the Empire's civil service, and claw her way high enough to set her people free.

Sent as an Imperial agent to distant Aurdwynn, another conquered country, Baru discovers it's on the brink of rebellion. Drawn by the intriguing duchess Tain Hu into a circle of seditious dukes, Baru may be able to use her position to help. As she pursues a precarious balance between the rebels and a shadowy cabal within the Empire, she orchestrates a do-or-die gambit with freedom as the prize.

But the cost of winning the long game of saving her people may be far greater than Baru imagines.

Planetfall by Emma Newman (Roc Trade Paperback 11/03/2015) – After a successful fantasy trilogy (The Split Worlds Trilogy) with Angry Robot, Emma Newman (proprietor of the entertaining “Tea and Jeopardy” podcast) turns her pen to a science fiction novel. I’ll be reviewing this one for Tor.com.

Renata Ghali believed in Lee Suh-Mi’s vision of a world far beyond Earth, calling to humanity. A planet promising to reveal the truth about our place in the cosmos, untainted by overpopulation, pollution, and war. Ren believed in that vision enough to give up everything to follow Suh-Mi into the unknown.

More than twenty-two years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided, alone. All that time, Ren has worked hard as the colony's 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment, and harboring a devastating secret.

Ren continues to perpetuate the lie forming the foundation of the colony for the good of her fellow colonists, despite the personal cost. Then a stranger appears, far too young to have been part of the first planetfall, a man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Suh-Mi.

The truth Ren has concealed since planetfall can no longer be hidden. And its revelation might tear the colony apart…

The Builders by Daniel Polansky (Tor.com (The Imprint) Hardcover 09/01/2015) – Polansky is an author I’ve seen great things about, so this is my first sampling of his work. My buddy Justin is the editor on this one. Despite (rather BECAUSE) of that, I’m looking forward to this one. My review for this will appear on Tor.com.


A missing eye.

A broken wing.

A stolen country.

The last job didn't end well.

Years go by, and scars fade, but memories only fester. For the animals of the Captain's company, survival has meant keeping a low profile, building a new life, and trying to forget the war they lost. But now the Captain's whiskers are twitching at the idea of evening the score.