There Will Come a Darkness

There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool, 496 pages

This is a pretty solidly written action-adventure fantasy. The world is interesting and different. I felt like lots of elements of it were based on ancient history, in areas like Greece and Rome. I also liked the prophecy aspect of it, of five different characters whose stories will eventually overlap, each with their own role to play in this prophecy.

This book, while having familiar elements like good vs. evil, people with powers vs. people without, and prophetic hints for the future, it still managed to surprise me every once in a while.

The only thing that held me back from liking it was the fact that I didn’t care for any of the characters, which is usually a big bummer for me and keeps me from enjoying the book very much. But, I’d still recommend it, because I’m sure there are plenty of readers out there, especially fans of the fantasy genre, who would enjoy this book a great deal. It’s got action, it’s got supernatural elements, and it’s got a classic “end of the world” scenario on the horizon. So definitely check it out.

His Hideous Heart

His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler, 480 pages

Whether the stories are familiar to readers or discovered for the first time, readers will revel in Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tales, and how they’ve been brought to life in 13 unique and unforgettable ways.

Contributors include Kendare Blake (reimagining “Metzengerstein”), Rin Chupeco (“The Murders in the Rue Morge”), Lamar Giles (“The Oval Portrait”), Tessa Gratton (“Annabel Lee”), Tiffany D. Jackson (“The Cask of Amontillado”), Stephanie Kuehn (“The Tell-Tale Heart”), Emily Lloyd-Jones (“The Purloined Letter”), Hillary Monahan (“The Masque of the Red Death”), Marieke Nijkamp (“Hop-Frog”), Caleb Roehrig (“The Pit and the Pendulum”), and Fran Wilde (“The Fall of the House of Usher”)

I wish I didn’t have such high expectations for this book going in, or I might have been less disappointed by it. I love Poe’s work so much, so seeing this anthology come-up I was thrilled at the prospect of reimagined tales. Sadly, I felt like the stories included here were just okay. One or two caught my attention, but overall, the feeling was less disturbing, more mildly spooky. Some of the stories just didn’t feel well put-together.

Would I still recommend this book? Yes, because I think it’s important that Poe’s writing is still being talked about and is being brought to new readers in a contemporary way. If you are a major fan of Poe, like me, just don’t go into this book with the bar set high. Give to those who are looking for an introduction into horror and want to start off with something light.

Princeless: Raven, the Pirate Princess vol III

Princeless: Raven, the Pirate Princess vol III, Jeremy Whitley, 128 pages

A member of Raven’s crew has been gravely injured in the struggle against her brothers, and the crew flees to find a healer. Crewmembers tell stories of romance to keep each other company, and Raven attempts to persuade the healer to help a pirate.

What a great series. Romance begins to develop, and more awesome women join the cast. I really liked the part where Raven stops beating up a guard to help her with an asthma attack. A worthy follow-up to the earlier books.

Princeless: Raven, the Pirate Princess vol II

Princeless: Raven, thePirate Princess vol II, Jeremy Whitley, 128 pages

Bent on justice, Raven finally has a crew for her ship, but now she needs a heading! They set sail for the Island of Free Women in hopes of finding where her evil brothers have hidden themselves, but there’s trouble brewing no one could expect. And worst of all, the crew has to deal with each other!

This is a great continuation of the first volume. There’s action, adventure, hints of romance, and plenty of nasty men getting gloriously beaten up. Definitely a solid read.

Railhead

Railhead, Philip Reeve, 333 pages

Zen Starling is a petty thief, whose sister works overtime at the factory and whose mother sits in paranoid delusions. He’s no one important, spending his free time riding the K-Bahn, that quasi-mystical railroad between planets. But when Nova, a mysterious android in a red jacket, approaches him about stealing something from the Noon train, belonging to the ruling family of the Network, Zen is plunged into a heist bigger than anything he could have dreamed of, one that will shake the very foundations of the K-Bahn and the Network.

Philip Reeve wrote one of my favorite YA series (the Mortal Engines quartet), and I’d thought I’d read everything of his. Somehow I missed out on this gem. Zen is a very good protagonist, full of street smarts and with a remarkably insightful mind. Nova could be a stock figure (the android who wants to be human), but somehow she never comes off that way. The plot is full of twists and turns, and though the climax isn’t quite satisfying, the rest of Railhead makes up for it. Reeve excels at atmospheric descriptions, giving a feeling almost of magical realism to this imaginative science fiction world. Railhead is definitely worth a read.

Sound

Sound, Alexandra Duncan, 489 pages

Miyole has finally achieved her dream of taking to the stars, working as a research assistant on a deep space mission, and even if things aren’t perfect, how can she complain? But when her ship intervenes in a pirate attack on a rover ship, rescuing most of the beleaguered crew, her world is thrown upside down. A rover girl, Cassia, convinces Miyole to help her on a dangerous rescue mission. Will Miyole throw her lifelong dream away for this girl she’s only just met? What dangers await them in the vast emptiness of space?

This is a very good young adult sci-fi book. Miyole is dealing with some repressed trauma, which informs many of her major decisions. She felt real and complicated, although some of the supporting characters, Cassia in particular, were less fleshed out. That being said, Miyole is a solid enough protagonist that the book doesn’t suffer for it. This is the companion novel to Salvage, which I have not read, but I heard they could stand independently, and I never felt I was missing out on some crucial piece of information.

Princeless: Raven, the Pirate Princess vol I

Princeless: Raven, thePirate Princess vol I, Jeremy Whitley, 96 pages

This is a spinoff series from Princeless, in which Raven (the Pirate Princess) embarks upon a quest to revenge herself against her father and brothers for locking her in a tower and stealing her throne. But first, she needs a crew!

I liked this book quite a bit. Her crew is diverse and dynamic, with their own personalities and motives for joining. The art is good, though at first I found the coloring style a bit flat (I quickly got used to it and stopped feeling that way). I’m always nervous with these serially-published graphic novels that the art style will change suddenly, so I hope the next volume has the same artists.

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant

Delilah Dirk and theTurkish Lieutenant, Tony Cliff, 167 pages

All Selim wants is peace and quiet and a good cup of tea (make that a great cup of tea). But when Delilah Dirk, a swashbuckling, outrageous, exuberant adventurer-slash-thief-slash-do-gooder, escapes from prison after he questioned her, he is a suspected accomplice and the two must flee together. Delilah Dirk takes him on a rip-roaring, rambunctious trip around the land (on her scientifically unfeasible winged sailboat), and he finds himself becoming more and more enamored of the life of a wandering adventurer.

This is a great graphic novel. Delilah Dirk and Selim make up a classic comedy duo, full of banter, and the faces they pull at each other are truly spectacular. Cliff’s art is stunning – the action scenes are dynamic and visually interesting, and the panels often open up into gorgeous tableaus. But more important than the swashbuckling action and the beautiful art is Selim’s character development over the course of the book, and the trust and friendship that grows between him and Dirk.

The Hate U Give

The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas, 444 pages

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does--or does not--say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Oof. This was a hard read – I spent a lot of the book on the edge of an anxiety attack. But it’s a critically important book, and stunningly written. Thomas puts the reader squarely into the head of a teenager and a community devastated by police brutality and racism. The Hate U Give grapples with all sorts of deep, complicated social issues with honesty, care, and grace, and Starr is a wonderful heroine, full of life and rich with emotion. The Hate U Give is written with detail that makes her, her family, and her neighborhood feel heartbreakingly real. It is a must-read. Content warnings for the obvious. If you’re prone to anxiety or might have a strong emotional reaction to the subject matter I would recommend reading this in small doses.

The Tiger's Watch

The Tiger’s Watch, Julia Ember, 180 pages

Tashi, though meek and mild-mannered, is bonded with a rare golden tiger – odd, since animals usually choose Inhabitors who match their personalities. However, with the Myeiki army invading, having a tiger could come in handy. Tashi and their friend (and longtime crush) flee to a hidden monastery and shelter there, but a battalion of the Myeiki army is close behind, led by the brutal, yet conflicted (and staggeringly handsome) Captain Xian. Tashi must go against their nature to spy on Xian and learn why he’s really at the monastery, while fighting their growing attraction for him.

Honestly, I’m not sure how I felt about this book. I thought Tashi was a very compelling main character, even when making bad decisions, and the nonbinary representation was very good. But the love triangle was unnecessary at best and disturbing at worst – Xian is objectively horrible, and his internal conflicts don’t redeem him (the best that can be said is that he’s not as awful as he could be). Also, The Tiger’s Watch is very short, and the worldbuilding and plot feel rushed as a result. I can’t justifiably call it badly writing – Ember’s writing style comes off smooth and polished in the small scale – but overall it feels like it needs more development and expansion.

The Black Tides of Heaven

The Black Tides ofHeaven, JY Yang, 237 pages

Twin siblings Mokoya and Akeha, children of the Protector, have grown up away from her tyrannical influence, in the Grand Monastery. Mokoya has developed the ability to prophecy the future, and Akeha has always blended into the background, keeping an eye on everything and everyone. But as they grow, they grow apart, and the Rebellion against their mother’s rule grows as well. Is Mokoya merely a pawn under the Protector’s influence? Should Akeha join the Rebellion, or will that put the two twins in opposition?

I feel like this novella suffered from the same affliction as Everfair, trying to span too great a length of time with too low a page count. Thankfully, it’s less glaring in this book, being shorter and only have two major characters. I thought the worldbuilding was good, especially the magic system and how it complemented technological advances – it reminded me of The Legend of Korra in a way. As much as I love traditional swords-and-sorcery fantasy, it’s nice to mix it up with some actual technological development (isn’t it incredible how weaponry hasn’t changed in well over six thousand years in The Lord of the Rings). Generally I liked The Black Tides of Heaven, I just found it slightly unsatisfying.

An Accident of Stars

An Accident of Stars, Foz Meadows, 496 pages

Sixteen-year-old Saffron is just a normal high school student, dealing with creepy boys and an uncaring faculty. But when she accidentally follows middle-aged Gwen through a rip in the world behind her school, she stumbles into a strange, overwhelming new world, and is immediately thrust into the middle of a civil war. As a new worldwalker, Saffron must deal with the pain of leaving her family and everything she knew behind, as well as the unexpected, awful trauma dealt by Gwen’s opponent.

It’s hard for me to get more into the plot, because there’s a lot going on – lots of POV characters, lots of backstory and history, a rich and only-lightly-explored magic system. The civil war plot is, by any stretch of the means, Gwen’s story, not Saffron’s. Her error put a tyrant on the throne, and she must bring him down. But Saffron as our protagonist and audience surrogate allows us to enter the action in media res, learning what is important as it comes up and never being given too much information at one time.

I feel like this is an unsatisfactory review, but again, there’s so much in this book that I don’t know what to focus on. Regardless, I really enjoyed it – I thought the worldbuilding was complex and fascinating, the plot was engrossing, and above all, Meadows’s handling of the immense stress and trauma placed upon the characters (and Saffron in particular) was masterful and above all kind. There are some lovely, gentle sentiments expressed in elegant, simple language, and I appreciate the care that went into it. I would definitely recommend this book.

Three Sides of a Heart

Three Sides of a Heart, Natalie C. Parker, 448 pages

This is a collection of short stories, all having to do with love triangles of various kinds – taken very loosely, which is a fun twist. Many of the stories are queer, some are abstract, and some are fairly run-of-the-mill. Most of them I enjoyed, although there was one in particular I found completely confusing – it shifted POV-character constantly and presented the same three characters in different settings, with little indication of a shift. Maybe I would’ve enjoyed it more upon a second, more careful read, but by the time I finished that story I was so relieved to be done with it I didn’t think of going back.

This is a pretty good collection. The diverse and many-faceted interpretations of what exactly a love triangle could be bring unexpected pleasure to the read, and if one particular story doesn’t catch your interest, they’re all pretty short and the next one might.

Everfair

Everfair, Nisi Shawl, 383 pages

It is the late 1800s. The American Civil War is over, but racial injustice still runs rampant, and King Leopold is blazing a swath of destruction through the Congo. African-American missionaries combine forces with the Fabian Society, made up of utopians and socialists from Great Britain, to set up a refuge for escapees from the Congo, as well as people of African descent from all over the globe. Using steampunk technology and spiritual guidance, they struggle to hold their own against the depredations of Belgian mercenaries and build Everfair, a land where all can live in harmony.

I picked up this book hoping for a decolonialist narrative with an emphasis on environmental harmony (for, of course, much of the history of colonization in Africa is about stripping the land of its natural resources). This expectation was certainly influenced by the recent film Black Panther. Unfortunately, that is not really what I got. Most of the founders of Everfair are white, only one POV character is native African, and the new colonists are nearly as bad as the old ones – it’s seen as a big step forward when they invent the internal combustion engine. Additionally, Shawl opts to tell a twenty-five-year history of the country, concentrating neither on a character-driven story nor a plot-driven one, but on an overly broad picture communicated in too-short vignettes, reminiscent of the worst aspects of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. I honestly think I would’ve liked Everfair much more if it had been a ten-book series, where each book could really do these characters justice. As it is, the pacing feels simultaneously rushed and drawn out.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers, 443 pages

Rosemary has begun a new job as a clerk aboard the long-haul tunneling ship the Wayfarer, under Captain Ashby Santoso. As the ship makes a year-long voyage to the planet Hedra Ka to open up a new wormhole connecting the aforementioned small, angry planet to the rest of the Galactic Commons, Rosemary and her new crew bond through assorted adventures and misadventures.

This book is everything one could want out of a science fiction novel. Strongly grounded in rich, varied, internally consistent worldbuilding (that never wastes too much time focusing on specifics of how exactly an interplanar bore, an artigrav field, or algae-based spaceship fuel operates), The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet treats this drawn-out voyage not as a thrilling adventure full of swashbuckling action (in fact, Ashby and Rosemary, like almost all humans, are committed pacifists, which nearly ends poorly when they are boarded by space pirates), but a measured, thoughtful, kind reflection on what it means to be a family. The two mech-techs, Kizzy and Jenks, and their relationship with the ship’s AI, Lovey; the pilot Sissix and her natural Aandrisk need to express affection; even the algaeist Corbin and his distaste for the camaraderie the rest of the crew share: every member of the ensemble cast of this novel grows and learns and has their own character arc. Just like The Best of All Possible Worlds, each chapter is a semi-independent episode in the life of the crew of the Wayfarer, but Chambers absolutely nails the pacing. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet never feels rushed or choppy, but builds slowly and steadily to a deeply satisfying conclusion.

The Jumbies

The Jumbies, Tracey Baptiste, 234 pages

Corinne La Mer grows oranges by the house where she lives with her father on the edge of the forest, and in the forest dwell the nightmarish jumbies, if they’re even real, of course. But after she chases an agouti into the woods one day and is followed by a mysterious figure with glowing yellow eyes, things start to change. A beautiful woman nobody has seen before shows up at the market to deal with the witch, and when Corinne returns home, this woman, Severine, is making dinner for her father. Could Severine be a jumbie? What secrets might she know about Corinne’s mother? Corinne and her friends must save her father and the village before Severine’s plans come to fruition.

I wanted so much to like this book – I love the idea of bringing non-European fairytales and folklore to a wider audience (Baptiste is from Trinidad and very loosely based the book on the fairytale “The Magic Orange Tree”). However, the plot felt disjointed and rushed. There wasn’t enough build to the climax, and the relationships between the characters felt forced and ungrounded. It’s likely that this wouldn’t overly bother a younger reader, and since The Jumbies is aimed at a middle-grade audience, I understand why Baptiste left things fairly simple. I still found myself wishing for a richer story and a deeper-developed friendship between Corinne and the neighboring children. (For instance, how did Corinne grow up on this small island and manage not to befriend or at least know of Dru, the child of one of her neighbors? Or indeed have any friends or know anyone else at all?) I think The Jumbies is a wonderful concept, but unfortunately not very well executed.

The Best of All Possible Worlds

The Best of All Possible Worlds, Karen Lord, 307 pages

The planet of Sadira has been destroyed. Only a tiny percentage of the psychically gifted Sadiri survive, and of those, the overwhelming majority are men. Culturally and genetically adrift, the refugees come to Cygnus Beta, a melting pot of cultures, where Terran anthropologist Grace Delarua and Sadiri ambassador Dllenahkh cooperate to help the Sadiri reestablish their cultural traditions – or make themselves a new place in the universe.

This is a lovely, touching novel about cultural assimilation, the need for enduring traditions in a strange new world, and the desire to belong, as well as a slow-paced and tender romance. However, there are some confusing aspects to the worldbuilding (it wasn’t made clear until near the end of the book if the Sadiri were just humans who lived on a different planet or an alien race, and the technological level of Cygnus Beta seems inconsistent from region to region, though I suppose one could say the same about Earth), and the pacing feels more like a serially published set of vignettes than one cohesive narrative (though part of that is I am sure due to my preconceptions of what a science fiction plot should feel like – this excellent review describes the book as having a semi-paratactic structure, similarly to many television shows). Also, the point of view was almost always first-person, from Delarua’s viewpoint, but occasionally switched to third-person from Dllenahkh’s viewpoint, which was a bit jarring. Parts of Delarua’s narration also stuck out on occasion – she makes an awful lot of references to 20^th century movies considering she lives in the far distant future on another planet.

Despite this, I found the story compelling, and never lost interest in the disconnected scenes. In fact, I found myself wishing that each chapter had been longer, that the book had dwelled more on the small moments when Delarua and Dllenahkh’s lives intersected with strangers, and that the author had more consistently fleshed out their characters. I think one more solid round of editing and rewriting would have made The Best of All Possible Worlds truly remarkable, instead of merely very good.

A Meeting at Corvallis: Emberverse Book III

A Meeting at Corvallis, S.M. Stirling, 497 pages, audiobook length 23:07:05


On March 17, 1998, at 6:15 EST, all advanced technology in the world stopped working – nuclear power, gunpowder, electricity, internal combustion engines, steam engines, all mysteriously dead, causing mass chaos and death from starvation and disease. In Dies the Fire, the first book in the Emberverse series, the Pacific Northwest began to reform into several new nations – the Bearkillers, led by the Bearlord Mike Havel, the Clan Mackenzie, led by the Witch Queen Juniper Mackenzie, and the Portland Protective Association, led by the tyrannical Lord Protector Norman Arminger. Ten years later, things have stabilized – the cannibal Eaters have mostly been wiped out, and there are no more mass dyings, but the nations are at each other’s throats. Arminger threatens the uneasy peace, and only the capture of his daughter has kept him at bay – but for how long?

Stirling’s exploration of how ordinary people react to extraordinary times is both charming and chilling in turn – the Clan Mackenzie, for example, is a neopagan utopia, where the folk live in harmony with the land and each other, whereas the Protectorate is a feudal dictatorship characterized by mistreatment and exploitation of the serfs who farm the lands. It’s difficult to tell if Stirling sees feudalism as inevitable and advantageous or merely a simple way of decentralizing government in an era without high-speed travel or communication, and in the long run the series probably suffers for this confusion – there is a strong running theme of the importance of a powerful leader to the development and improvement of a society. The books make an effort at diversity (one major and several supporting characters are gay, and there are a couple people of color, as well as a good number of powerful women), and as such probably deserves the tag of "diverse reads", but they aren’t always written with the care and tact one would hope for, something that unfortunately gets much worse as the series progresses onwards from this point.

It’s difficult to know whether to recommend this book. The concept of ancient technologies re-engineered with modern sensibilities is certainly fascinating, especially to this blogger – Arminger especially is often hampered by his devotion to purely historical methods, ignoring advances in engineering and social structuring even when they would benefit him, and the Bearkillers blend old and new with startling effect – but the frequent graphic violence (and in Dies the Fire, sexual violence) and mishandling of diversity issues certainly bear considering before starting this series.

Swordspoint

Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner, 329 pages


In Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner introduces the district of Riverside, in the city that is so ubiquitously known that it is only ever called “the city”. Here, the seedy underbelly operates by its own rules and code of conduct, and Richard St Viers, the greatest swordsman in the city, lives with the scholar Alec – when St Viers is not out killing men for hire or Alec is not gambling their money away. Meanwhile, on the Hill, the Duchess Tremontaine, the young heir Michael Godwin, Lord Horn, and the Dragon Chancellor all spin plots of their own – and who better to serve as a cog than the most talented duelist the city has ever produced?

Swordspoint conjures a neatly constructed, starkly gritty cityscape, and an intricate plot to match it. Readers who love the political machinations of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones will enjoy unraveling the webs of conspiracy. Keeping the action constrained to the city allows Kushner to layer details upon details, resulting in a rich tapestry of setting that beautifully informs and shapes the plot. Readers who enjoyed Swordspoint will be excited to hear that Kushner, along with new authors, has returned to Riverside in a selection of serial stories known as Tremontaine.

The Water Castle

The Water Castle, Megan Frazer Blakemore, 344 pages


After his father’s awful stroke, Ephraim Appledore-Smith and his family have moved to their old family home in Crystal Springs, Maine, where a hundred years ago the Appledores bottled water believed to have healing properties. Mallory, a new classmate of his, is struggling to cope with her parents’ separation and has found refuge in science and skepticism of her mother’s mystical tales of the Fountain of Youth. Will, another classmate, befriends the two of them, to his father’s dismay – there are generations of bad blood between their families. As Ephraim becomes obsessed with finding the Fountain of Youth and using it to heal his father, the three of them explore the dilapidated mansion, interspersed with flashbacks to Mallory’s ancestor Nora, who helped old Dr. Appledore with his scientific discoveries.

Blakemore skillfully negotiates middle-school fears of fitting in, and balances characters learning that their parents are right about some things with characters forging their own identity against their parents’ wishes – both important, and seemingly contradictory, lessons for teenagers to learn. Of course, there are also heavy topics such as a parent’s illness (Ephraim’s father is catatonic from his stroke, and the doctors aren’t sure if he’ll ever recover) or parents separating (Mallory’s mother has moved out), painted against a backdrop of school projects and science experiments. The flashbacks are a nice touch, taking place as Admiral Robert Peary’s expedition nears the North Pole, while Ephraim, Mallory, and Will learn about Arctic exploration in the present. Blakemore never holds the reader’s hand, and several plot threads are left deliberately not wrapped up (though not too difficult to solve for the attentive reader). Though Ephraim can be a frustrating protagonist at times, very cocky and self-centered at first, The Water Castle is an excellent book for science-, history-, or fantasy-loving middle-grade readers.