Tag: SF/F

Review – The Mountain in the Sea

Posted November 17, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Mountain in the Sea

The Mountain in the Sea

by Ray Nayler

Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 456
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

There are creatures in the water of Con Dao.
To the locals, they’re monsters.
To the corporate owners of the island, an opportunity.
To the team of three sent to study them, a revelation.

Their minds are unlike ours.
Their bodies are malleable, transformable, shifting.
They can communicate.
And they want us to leave.

When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn’t pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA- a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence – has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research.

But the stakes are high: the octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence and there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of their advancements. And no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.

Lately, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting immersed in books like I (think I) used to. I’ll read 50 pages and feel like it’s been forever; read 10 pages and get distracted by wondering if that email I’m waiting for has come in; a 500 page book is just daunting because it seems like it’ll take forever. And I know, I know, it’s all the fragmentation caused by mobile phones, etc, etc — but while I was reading Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea, I wasn’t paying any mind to that. My brain was quiet and I was totally focused on the story; I say this by way of introduction because I think it bears saying when a book cuts across that fidgeting and demands attention.

There are essentially three threads to the story, which twine together but never quite meet: there’s Ha Nguyen, a scientist, who is brought to a remote island owned by a company called DIANIMA in order to study octopus behaviour that appears potentially much more intelligent than baseline; there’s Rustem, a hacker with a unique way of thinking, who is given a fascinating task to hack into an extremely complex artificial intelligence in order to use it as a weapon; and there’s Eiko, a captive aboard an AI-controlled fishing ship, forced to clean and sort the catch with no sign of escape.

Of the three stories, Dr Ha’s is the most fascinating, and I admit it could be a little annoying to switch to Eiko or Rustem. Ultimately, I’m not sure their stories were entirely necessary: I admire the overall effect, the details that the other two stories lent to Dr Ha’s, and the satisfying click as things came together, but Eiko’s story didn’t lend a lot to it (and his mind palace is overdescribed for something so ultimately useless to the plot — though I think in terms of themes, it does add to the overall inquiry into how thought works).

Despite how much I liked the reading experience, I think there are still things the book could’ve dug into deeper. Evrim’s cognition is important to this question of intelligence, and yet it’s rather brushed under the rug by Ha, who readily declares them to be human all of a sudden, based on the fact that they can interact with humans on human terms. I’m not sure I agree with that definition, or the simplification of it all. There were tantalising bits of inquiry here about artificial intelligence as well as alien (octopus) intelligence, but it feels like it didn’t quite go deep enough; perhaps Eiko’s thread should’ve been reduced in order to give more space for that.

The same goes for the octopus cognition, really: sometimes Ha comes to conclusions rapidly based on fairly little evidence. Is something built of human skulls necessarily an altar? Does it necessarily mean that they’re worshipping humans or trying to appease them? Are you sure it’s not a war trophy?

That makes the book sound unsatisfying, and I don’t think it is: personally, I found it fascinating and riveting. There’s just so much space to expand, as well.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Arch-Conspirator

Posted November 13, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Arch-Conspirator

Arch-Conspirator

by Veronica Roth

Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 137
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Outside the last city on Earth, the planet is a wasteland. Without the genes of the fallen, humanity will end.

Antigone's parents have been murdered, leaving her father's throne vacant. Passing into the Archive should be cause for celebration, but with her militant uncle Kreon rising to claim her father's vacant throne, all Antigone feels is rage. When he welcomes her and her siblings into his mansion, Antigone sees it for what it really is: a gilded cage, where she is a captive as well as a guest.

But her uncle will soon learn that no cage is unbreakable. And neither is he.

Veronica Roth’s Arch-Conspirator is a sci-fi dystopian take on Sophocles’ Antigone, which follows the steps of the plot fairly closely (inasfar as it can given the different setting). The basics are there: the two sisters, the two brothers, the tainted birth (though for a different reason here), the betrothal to Haemon, and the struggle of wills with Kreon.

However, a lot of the background is missing: Oedipus didn’t commit any great sin here (he seems to have been a democratic leader), and it isn’t really about the themes of Greek tragedy. Tiresias is entirely missing, and the concept of offending the gods likewise, so all in all it’s not quite a retelling of Antigone, but something which uses the basic shape of the story to say something else.

I enjoyed reading it and puzzling over how it was adapting the original story, and I don’t necessarily think it needs to engage with the same themes as the original in order to be interesting. Still, in some ways I think it’d have benefitted by departing further from the source material, to explore what it was really going for.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 8

Posted November 11, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 8

Heaven Official's Blessing

by Mò Xiāng Tóng XiÚ

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 384
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #8
Rating: five-stars
Synopsis:

A BATTLE FOR FREEDOM, A LOVE FOR THE AGES

White No-Face’s mask is off, and the final conflict has begun. Deep in the ancient caverns and lava flows of Mount Tonglu, Xie Lian must face the one whose hatred has plagued him for centuries—but this time, he won’t have to do it alone. His beloved, Hua Cheng, has spent his long existence amassing the power to protect him, and now with their feelings for each other out in the open, they have all the more reason to fight for survival.

In this thrilling conclusion to Heaven Official’s Blessing, can Xie Lian and Hua Cheng triumph against an all-powerful foe?

Also included in this final volume are five bonus tales of romance, celebration, and adventure.

And here we are: I’ve run out of volumes of Heaven Official’s Blessing to read and review, unless the revised editions are made available in English. I’d be fascinated to see how much that adds to or changes the story, but I’m very satisfied with how it turns out as it is. Hua Cheng’s love for Xie Lian, and Xie Lian’s slow journey toward accepting it and returning the feeling is amazing — and it’s wrapped around and through a satisfying story about conflict between powerful beings, and the repeated testing of Xie Lian’s resolve to never change, to never be less than he is.

This volume has a few chapters left of the main story, and the rest is made up of extras. The conclusion is a heck of a thing, with some very heart-wrenching moments, and I find it very satisfyingly done.

The extras are a lot of fun, and include some very sweet moments. I must say that I do not understand how anyone can read these English language editions and think that Xie Lian remains a virgin once Hua Cheng returns. It’s blatantly obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense that the two of them are going at it on the regular, including on the altar in the Thousand Lights Temple. If you can’t even read into a thin veil of subtext, then it’s explicitly stated in the amnesia story: Xie Lian’s old method of cultivation is gone because he’s no longer a virgin.

I have no idea why people want to imagine that Xie Lian continues to be “chaste”. This is a man who has been through so much pain, sometimes unrelenting physical pain for years at a time due to his inability to die, and the most violating of situations (which it takes no effort at all to read as metaphorical rapes) — and folks are offended and weirded out if you suggest that ultimately he falls in love and allows Hua Cheng to show him that his body isn’t just a tool or a vessel for pain?

People can read the scene where an amnesiac Xie Lian dreams/remembers having sex with Hua Cheng, and Hua Cheng’s words to him during that memory (“don’t be afraid, Your Highness”), and refuse to understand what’s happening there?

Check yourselves and your homophobia and bizarre purity culture, folks.

I don’t want to end this review on that sour note, so I’ll just reiterate again: Heaven Official’s Blessing is a heck of a journey, a story about a very good (though not flawless) man who reaches great heights and falls, and struggles his way to redemption and then to freedom — with the help of someone who believes in him no matter what, and would do anything for him.

The one standing in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is ‘you’ and not the state of you. 

Rating: 5/5

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Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 7

Posted November 5, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 7

Heaven Official's Blessing

by Mò Xiāng Tóng XiÚ

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 404
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #7
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

LIFETIMES OF CRUELTY, CENTURIES OF DEVOTION

The Kiln is open, and White No-Face is back to his full power. The past eight hundred years have not blunted his hatred nor his obsession with Xie Lian — he aims to break Xie Lian down to nothing, even if all of humanity and the heavens themselves are collateral damage.

This time, however, Xie Lian will not face him alone. Together with Hua Cheng — powerful ghost king, stalwart protector, and devoted love — can Xie Lian finally reveal the face behind the mask and put an end to the nightmare forever?

It was perhaps a mistake to dash on and read book eight of Heaven Official’s Blessing before I wrote a review for book seven, but here we are, so I’ll do my best! And to be honest, I would recommend reading them that way too. Book seven is back in the “present” (after the flashback in book six), and it’s hurtling rapidly toward a final confrontation which takes up the first half of book eight (the latter half is extras). You won’t want to stop at the end of book seven, especially not given where it ends.

Book seven sees Xie Lian break out of the Kiln, reunite with Hua Cheng, return to the heavenly court, discover the big bad, play hide and seek with his captor around the heavenly court, and then essentially re-enact some Gundam series or other in an epic battle that takes him into Black Water’s domain. It’s full of action, and the end of the book isn’t really a natural break — it’s a cliffhanger moment, and it makes some sense to end a volume there, but as a reader it’s super annoying (and in terms of actual plot, there’s only half a book left).

This volume also sees Hua Cheng and Xie Lian comfortable in their feelings for each other (if not, in Xie Lian’s case, always happy with public displays of affection, or other people knowing about their relationship). More than ever, Hua Cheng’s total devotion is on show — and so is the answering strength his support wakens in Xie Lian. It’s lovely to read.

The story that’s been building over the previous six volumes is so satisfying at this point, with so many threads (which didn’t always tie together yet) coming together. I keep wondering when I’ll rate any given volume five stars, and it’s difficult to say: no volume alone makes me think “it’s perfect”; it’s the whole that gives me that feeling.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Haunt Sweet Home

Posted November 3, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Haunt Sweet Home

Haunt Sweet Home

by Sarah Pinsker

Genres: Fantasy, Horror
Pages: 163
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

On the set of a kitschy reality TV show, staged scares transform into unnerving reality in this spooky ghost story from multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Sarah Pinsker.

“Don’t talk to day about what we do at night.”

When aimless twenty-something Mara lands a job as the night-shift production assistant on her cousin’s ghost hunting/home makeover reality TV show Haunt Sweet Home, she quickly determines her new role will require a healthy attitude toward duplicity. But as she hides fog machines in the woods and improvises scares to spook new homeowners, a series of unnerving incidents on set and a creepy new coworker force Mara to confront whether the person she's truly been deceiving and hiding from all along—is herself.

Eerie and empathetic, Haunt Sweet Home is a multifaceted, supernatural exploration of finding your own way into adulthood, and into yourself.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Sarah Pinsker’s Haunt Sweet Home takes a while to unfold and show you the SF/F side: at first it feels like a coming of age story, albeit one which occurs on the set of a show that tries to renovate people’s houses while convincing them that they’re haunted. The main character, Mara, hasn’t yet managed to achieve anything she set out to do, and her family view her as a bit of a loser — but her cousin manages to give her a spot in the show, and an opportunity to prove herself.

The rest develops a bit more slowly, but give it time; I found it pretty satisfying, and at novella length, it doesn’t take that long to reveal the real haunting. Meanwhile, Mara’s well written; I feel like a lot of us know her type, and instantly find her familiar.

There are some lovely descriptions of Mara’s grandmother’s carving, and the process of creativity around woodworking, etc, too, which will stick with me.

I did find one particular thing a little obvious, but it was still fun to stick around and watch it properly unfold.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – .self

Posted October 31, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – .self

.self

by Christopher Sebela, Cara McGee, Rebecca Nalty, Aditya Bidikar

Genres: Graphic Novels, Science Fiction
Pages: 146
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Postscript backs up everything about a person into a file ready to be loaded in a printed body that offers one final chance to wrap up loose ends after they’ve died.

Nat Winters has finally achieved something like a perfect life. No more scraping or getting by. She has a home, a husband and a job turning into a career.

When Nat’s Postscript gets hacked and her file is torrented, her life gets set on fire by these tweaked copies of her running around the world, chasing down their own versions of her deferred dreams. As more of them begin coming to town, looking for her, Nat will be forced to confront a dozen different sides of herself and try to fix the mess they’ve made. But as she tries to contain things, Nat finds out there’s a contingent of Blanks out there who want to hurt her, even kill her, on the orders of a mysterious enemy who is looking to make this identity theft permanent.

.self starts with an interesting concept: there’s a service that allows you to record all your experiences, right up until you die. Once you die, you’re uploaded into a blank body in order to allow you to move around, meet people, and provide closure. But what if that file gets out into the world early? What if dozens of people torrent it, download you, and put create copies of you? What will those copies do?

I think there’s a lot that could be done with this concept, but .self goes with a fairly straightforward route. Some clones want to kill Nat and take over her life, some want to punish her, some want to be their own person, etc, etc. I wasn’t sold on the idea that these clones were what they said they were: one tells Nat that they’re alternate versions of herself, versions that took a different path, but how? If they’re based on her recent data, they’re all the same. And they all seem to know what they are, and have no blurring of identity between their new self and Nat.

They’ve also all been downloaded into all kinds of bodies, not ones that look like Nat, but there’s little exploration of how weird that might be.

Overall, I thought that at each turn, the most predictable choice was made, and a story that could’ve dug into identity mostly just turned out to be about a modicum of personal growth for Nat, unconvincingly presented.

The character designs are cool, though.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 6

Posted October 30, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 6

Heaven Official's Blessing

by Mò Xiāng Tóng XiÚ

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Romance
Pages: 403
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #6
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

BODY IN ABYSS, HEART IN PARADISE

White No-Face, Xie Lian’s greatest fear and most hated enemy, has arrived…or so it seems. While the ghost with the half-crying, half-smiling mask is somewhere nearby, the creature is elusive as always, taunting Xie Lian from just out of reach and promising the total destruction of everything he holds dear.

As Xie Lian confronts the trauma of his last encounter with the terrifying ghost, Hua Cheng will do anything in his power to protect him. But White No-Face’s identity and purpose are not the only mysteries to unravel, as Hua Cheng also has a history in the labyrinthine tunnels beneath Mount Tonglu. Will Xie Lian finally discover the full connection they share—and learn the true depths of Hua Cheng’s devotion?

The sixth volume of MXTX’s Heaven Official’s Blessing is certainly full of ups and downs. The first section, in the “present” of the narrative, answers a few mysteries and gives us a moment we’ve been waiting for since the first book: Xie Lian acknowledges Hua Cheng’s feelings for him, and indicates that he returns them. It’s a lovely, lovely scene…

And then we slip off into a flashback even darker and sadder than the first. It’s better-paced, in my opinion, but it’s an extremely rough read, as Xie Lian is manipulated and cast down by his people. He loses his way severely, and it doesn’t really help to know that he ends up being true to himself again — you still have to read about him going through it.

Reading it with an eye for metaphor, and remembering how important Xie Lian’s virginity is as a theme, it’s hard to avoid drawing parallels with the incidents on Beizi Hill in the first flashback, and reading the mass-stabbing as a literal and metaphorical violation, so it’s all a bit dark.

There’s important stuff in this volume, but the flashback is a really rough read. It’s hard to decide quite how to rate it — but the scene from the cover is so good it has to be a 4/5, even with all the misery of the flashback.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – But Not Too Bold

Posted October 28, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – But Not Too Bold

But Not Too Bold

by Hache Pueyo

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Romance
Pages: 160
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

The Shape of Water meets Mexican Gothic in this sapphic monster romance novella wrapped in gothic fantasy trappings

The old keeper of the keys is dead, and the creature who ate her is the volatile Lady of the Capricious House⁠—Anatema, an enormous humanoid spider with a taste for laudanum and human brides.

Dália, the old keeper’s protégée, must take up her duties, locking and unlocking the little drawers in which Anatema keeps her memories. And if she can unravel the crime that led to her predecessor's death, Dália might just be able to survive long enough to grow into her new role.

But there’s a gaping hole in Dália’s plan that she refuses to see: Anatema cannot resist a beautiful woman, and she eventually devours every single bride that crosses her path.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Hache Pueyo’s But Not Too Bold is sort of a Bluebeard retelling, where “Bluebeard” is in fact a massive, ancient spider-like being called Anatema. The background to the story is mostly sketched in: there are Archaic Ones like Anatema in various places around the world, though each of them is monstrous in a different way, and their works are clearly desired by others for some reason — but other than that the details are thin on the ground. Which is fine, because what matters is the setting of the Capricious House, Anatema’s home, and DĂĄlia’s role within it as she takes over from her mentor, the old keeper of the keys, whom Anatema has eaten for stealing something.

There’s a genuinely creepy, claustrophobic feeling about it all, even as DĂĄlia sails through it all. In all of it, she’s happy where she is, happy serving Anatema, and that adds a sort of “Beauty and the Beast” feel in some ways, though it’s very much not the same story, as there is no transformation or any hint of one — we’re talking “romance with a monster”, not “redemption and transformation of the monster”.

I was completely riveted, and a little creeped out, all at once. It was a lovely read.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Umbrella Academy, vol 1

Posted October 24, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Umbrella Academy, vol 1

The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite

by Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba, Dave Stewart, Nate Piekos

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction
Pages: 184
Series: The Umbrella Academy #1
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

In an inexplicable worldwide event, forty-three extraordinary children were spontaneously born to women who'd previously shown no signs of pregnancy. Millionaire inventor Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of the children; when asked why, his only explanation was, "To save the world." These seven children form the Umbrella Academy, a dysfunctional family of superheroes with bizarre powers. Their first adventure at the age of ten pits them against an erratic and deadly Eiffel Tower, piloted by the fearsome zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel. Nearly a decade later, the team disbands, but when Hargreeves unexpectedly dies, these disgruntled siblings reunite just in time to save the world once again.

I thought I’d give Gerard Way’s The Umbrella Academy a shot, though I didn’t know anything about it other than that there’s a Netflix(?) series, and I kinda liked the violin-woman design on the cover.

It’s… a bit of a mess, to be honest; there are some interesting character designs, but it jumps around, motivations aren’t clear, characters don’t really have coherent arcs, etc, etc. The idea of taking a bunch of “special” kids and training them to fight/unlock their powers/etc is a classic, but barely really used here; why they’re so dysfunctional, alluded to but barely touched on; the whole situation for Vanya, nope…

I don’t really get it, overall. Though I still think the violin-body design is astounding to look at.

Rating: 1/5

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Review – Out of the Drowning Deep

Posted October 21, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Out of the Drowning Deep

Out of the Drowning Deep

by A.C. Wise

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction
Pages: 176
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

In the distant future, when mortals mingle with the gods in deep space, an out-of-date automaton, a recovering addict, and an angel race to solve the Pope’s murder in an abandoned corner of the galaxy.

Dreamy, beautifully written queer science-fantasy novella, for fans of Becky Chambers and This is How You Lose the Time War.

Scribe IV is an obsolete automaton living on the Bastion, a secluded monastery in an abandoned corner of the galaxy. When the visiting Pope is found murdered, Scribe IV knows he has very little time before the terrifying Sisters of the Drowned Deep rise up to punish all the Bastion’s residents for their supposed crime.

Quin, a recovering drug addict turned private investigator, agrees to take the case. Traumatized by a
bizarre experience in his childhood, Quin repeatedly feeds his memories to his lover, the angel Murmuration. But fragmented glimpses of an otherworldly horror he calls the crawling dark continue to haunt his dreams.

Meanwhile in heaven, an angel named Angel hears Scribe IV’s prayer. Intrigued by the idea of solving a crime with mortals, xe descends to offer xyr divine assistance.

With the Drowned Sisters closing in, Scribe IV, Quin, and Angel race to find out who really murdered the Pope, and why. Quin’s missing memories may hold the key to the case - but is remembering worth what it will cost him?

I had to sit with A.C. Wise’s Out of the Drowning Deep for a while to digest it, because I didn’t have any immediate coherent thoughts. I liked it a lot: the science-fantasy setting, the mystery, the idea of Scribe IV, and the complex darkness of the relationship between Quin and Murmuration. It felt like there was so much more going on around the edges of the story that the characters operated within: the way faith could make gods, and what gods are then, and what the Bastion is for, what the Bastion is like from other eyes… Fascinating.

For those looking for a murder mystery set within a science-fantasy setting, I can see it being pretty unsatisfying, though, because the mystery itself is more of a backdrop to the exploration of faith and addiction, to exploring the dynamic between Quin and Murmuration, and what Angel might want and decide to do. The mystery’s a fairly simple one, and there’s not a lot of time spent on unravelling it, even though it’s the cause for some of the movements of the plot.

I went into it fairly blind, just knowing I’d come across a review by someone who’d liked it, that it was a novella, and the library had stocked it, so I just took a chance, and found it fascinating. I’d love to have dug a bit deeper into Scribe IV’s evolving purpose, because it felt like he was left rather static at the end… but that’s a small point that isn’t even really a complaint.

Rating: 4/5

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