Tag: SF/F

Review – Sand and Ruin and Gold

Posted March 19, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Sand and Ruin and Gold by Alexis HallSand and Ruin and Gold, Alexis Hall
Received to review via Netgalley

This is… not a romance. It’s something strange and sad; a fairytale with an ending that isn’t precisely happy or sad. The writing is lovely, and the descriptions of the mermaids as something wholly other really works. The relationship — is it a relationship? — between the narrator and the merman is strange, and the more realistic for being ambiguous, for being… what it is, a strange union between two species where one has more power over the other, where one is a captive and the other is, nominally, in control.

It’s not a very long story, at all, but it’s just the right length; someone else commented that it feels like the background to a novel rather than a story in itself, but I definitely didn’t feel that way. I would’ve liked more, more explanations, more depth to the world, but I didn’t feel as if it was necessary.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Impossible

Posted March 15, 2015 by in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Impossible by Nancy WerlinImpossible, Nancy Werlin

It’s difficult to say how I feel about this book. There are a lot of things I liked: the supportiveness of Lucy’s adoptive family, the relatively sex-positive attitudes and the emphasis on women’s autonomy and right to choose what’s right for them, the very fact that it’s built on a folk song (there are so many stories in those). The part that worried me somewhat was the fluctuating attitude to abortion: at times it’s suggested as a natural solution (which it is in the situation described here), and at others there’s very much a “no, every life is sacred” thing. There’s a risk of glorifying teen pregnancy, and glorifying martyrdom-by-having-your-rapist’s-baby which I’m very uncomfortable with.

And yet, as I said, free choice is emphasised so often; several positively portrayed characters express their support for abortion… I think it’s just a factor of the story’s set-up: if Lucy has an abortion, there’s no story, and there’s hints that the adversary in the story is manipulating things.

One thing it does glorify that I’m not sure about is very hasty marriage. The characters don’t seem mature enough for it, and it’s so immediate upon their realisation. She’s having a baby -> we must get married. And then, of course, there’s the fact that the whole plot of the story hinges upon centuries of rapes.

I’m not entirely sure what that comes to, overall. The writing is fairly simple and functional, though once or twice it does capture some moments perfectly — particularly Zach and Lucy’s relationship, and Lucy and Sarah’s friendship. I did feel a push to finish the book; I had to know how the mystery/riddle/curse worked out. I’m not sure I’d recommend it, but I found it interesting.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Very Best of Kate Elliott

Posted March 10, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Very Best of Kate ElliottThe Very Best of Kate Elliott, Kate Elliott
Received to review via Netgalley

I should’ve got round to this sooner; my apologies to the author and Tachyon Publications. My ARCs have piled up rather, but I requested this one anyway because I’ve been meaning to try Elliott’s work for a long time. I keep picking up her books in the library, eyeing her post about where to start, eyeing the books on Kobo… So I decided to start here: she mentions in her post that short stories are not her favourite form, her usual thing, but this collection does introduce you to some of her worlds, and to her ways of thinking.

I’m still a little bit on the fence, to be honest. I enjoyed these stories, but some of them felt a little too long — which may just be that Kate Elliott is more of a novel writer, and I’m very sensitive to the natural end for a story, the degree of baggage it can carry. I enjoyed the detail, the world-building, and especially the perspectives she writes from (the essay included at the end about writing with a female gaze rang very true), but… I’m still not convinced, or something.

I think it does make a great taster for what Kate Elliott’s work is like, but I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy her novels more.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Acceptance

Posted March 7, 2015 by in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeerAcceptance, Jeff VanderMeer

Let me just say up front: if you’re looking for a resolution, a concrete simple answer, this isn’t the book for you. I think that’s the point: VanderMeer gives us the uncanny, the unknowable, the impossible, and posits that maybe when we come across alien life we’re not gonna know what the heck to make of it. That we might not see any rhyme or reason in what they do — that to us, there may not be any rhyme or reason.

If you’re looking for solutions to some of the smaller mysteries, like what the creation of Area X was like, or why Saul Evans is involved, or anything like that, there’s some of that here. You can find out what happens to some of the characters, like Control and the biologist (though Grace and Ghost Bird are less certain). You get a lot more mystery, atmosphere, weirdness — basically, more of everything you’d expect if you’ve read the previous books.

And I don’t know about anyone else, but I found that I’d got quite attached to the characters. I cared about Saul Evans and Charlie (and excuse me while I’m incredibly pleased about the casual gay couple); I cared about what happened to the biologist and to Grace; I cared about Gloria/Cynthia.

Overall, this is a brilliant trilogy for the pure atmospherics of it. The weirdness. The sense of place. The actual real alienness of Area X, and the paltry efforts of humans to understand, define, dissect it.

Rating: 5/5

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Review – The Errant Prince

Posted March 5, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Errant Prince by Sasha L. MillerThe Errant Prince, Sasha L. Miller
Received to review via Netgalley

The Errant Prince is a fantasy novella, with an LGBT romance at the heart. It’s set in the kind of world that I love in fantasy, where we haven’t automatically copied over the things we’re bigoted about. Even the fact that Myron is trans doesn’t get as much attention as it might in our world, and as we would assume it would’ve done in medieval-esque societies. It’s also awesome that the issues in this story are not to do with the sexuality or gender of the characters.

It’s also nice that this is a romance story in which there aren’t Terrible Misunderstandings. There’s one, but it doesn’t really count, because they actually communicate about it and sort themselves out before it escalates.

The fantasy aspect isn’t just backdrop, either. There’s some worldbuilding, though I’d welcome more; there’s a lot of information on magic and how it works; there’s a fair idea of the politics and society surrounding the story. It’s not as immersive as I like my secondary worlds to be, but it isn’t two dimensional. Overall, it’s a sweet and enjoyable story — and wonder of wonders, there’s no sex shoehorned in, despite the delicate balance of tension between the two main characters.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The House on Parchment Street

Posted March 2, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The House on Parchment Street by Patricia McKillipThe House on Parchment Street, Patricia McKillip

This book isn’t really quite what you’d expect if you know McKillip’s other work; it’s for a younger audience, and it feels like a different sort of story altogether. It’s more like… Famous Five, with ghosts; it’s not the total magic of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld or Winter Rose. It’s fairly specifically placed in time and space, and it has a lot of concrete, real-world detail.

The writing is still absorbing, the characters well portrayed, but the magic is really what I read McKillip’s work for, and this wasn’t at all like that. It’s also, as I said, rather younger; the kids are very frustratingly kids. Realistically, but yeesh. Puberty is not so interesting when you’re out on the other side of it.

I’m fairly lukewarm about it, in the end; it was fun enough to read, but it’s not by any measure a favourite and I wouldn’t have minded having to skip it.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Ludo and the Star Horse

Posted February 28, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Ludo and the Star Horse by Mary StewartLudo and the Star Horse, Mary Stewart

Took me a while to get hold of this, as I don’t think it’s currently in print. I wasn’t expecting much of it, since I knew it’s a children’s story, but I do love Mary Stewart’s work, and this morning I was feeling moderately dreadful, so something comforting sounded like the perfect plan. And this was just right: a little bit like Seaward, but with more the maturity level of The Dark is Rising; a little bit Narnia, but sans Christian allegory.

It’s a quest story, relatively simply: it goes through the zodiac, to catch up with the sun, to allow Ludo’s old horse Renti to join the horses of the sun now that he’s old and lame and beyond working any more. Ludo isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, in the sense that… well, to borrow the imagery from the book itself: he’s still an unshaped piece of wood, a little rough, not the best quality. But inside that, there’s a shape just waiting to be carved out, one full of life. He’s a plain sort of boy, with no special talent, but that doesn’t mean he’s not worthy, or that he won’t grow up into someone perfectly capable, maybe even very gifted.

Since it’s a Mary Stewart book, I wasn’t surprised at all by the very firm sense of place in the opening chapters in Bavaria. I liked that she didn’t just pick a kid from the English countryside, and that he really was just a plain ordinary boy with some potential, the same potential as anyone else.

It’s not deep, but it is charming; a fairy tale quest through the zodiac and, perhaps, home again.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Authority

Posted February 26, 2015 by in Reviews / 3 Comments

Cover of Authority by Jeff VanderMeerAuthority, Jeff VanderMeer

Coming after Annihilation, this book seems to make so much more sense, to be begin with. There are still aspects of mystery, confusion, and not just around Area X — there’s missing time, people who haven’t even been to Area X seeming contaminated by it, etc, etc. But the horror is muffled, the adventure is muffled, and instead it becomes more of a spy story, a sci-fi story. Still a mystery story, but a different kind of drive to the narrative.

Don’t kid yourself for a moment that’s actually going to work out by giving you answers. There are some answers, but they ask questions of your own. VanderMeer carefully avoids really ever explaining what is causing what is happening; I can only hope that we get some more on that in Acceptance. It’s driving me a little nuts not to have even a working theory, because I don’t even trust the evidence.

Still, if you’ve read Annihilation, you know what you’re signing up for fairly well. It’s still really weird. It’s still intriguing. It will still make you yelp “what the hell!?” at your ereader screen/the page of the book. Or the audio, if there’s an audio version. (I’m trying to imagine the right narrator for it. The right casting could really add to the creepiness.)

With most books, I’d adjust the rating down from what I gave the previous book, but since I think the three are working together to build the atmosphere, the mystery, and it’s unlikely anything will be irrelevant, I’ll leave it at a sort of overall rating of 4/5, with just a note that I didn’t like it as much as the first book.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Rose Garden

Posted February 17, 2015 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Rose Garden by Susanna KearsleyThe Rose Garden, Susanna Kearsley

I didn’t have to read much of this to realise that Susanna Kearsley’s work is going to be the perfect replacement for the comfort reading I got all the way through in the last two or three years (Mary Stewart’s romance/adventures). It has the same sense of place, the beautiful descriptions of landscape, and the same sort of heroine: female, curious, about to be swept up in bigger events than she’d ever have expected. And better: this is explicitly fantastical, where most of Mary Stewart’s books were more mysteries, sometimes with hints at fantasy.

And better again, whew, we don’t have first cousins getting married at the end.

It does start off with kind of a slow pace, and Eva is only rarely involved in actual action, despite the backdrop of free trading and other such types of derring-do. And it is indeed a romance, so the ending is a happy one for most of the characters (though there’s a sadder note, too, with Eva’s sister’s husband; I was glad there was some closure at the end of story with him as well, even if it was a sadder story), and there’s plenty of romance going on — not just for Eva, but in the background. And yeah, I think Fergal and Daniel take the time travelling woman a little too lightly. They’re curious, but not curious enough to feel realistic. They both just decide to protect her right away.

But I enjoyed it anyway: it has a great atmosphere, and the writing flows well. It’s a bit like The Time Traveler’s Wife, I guess, in that I wouldn’t want to examine how the timeline works too closely lest it fall apart, but it was the ideal fluff, and it had enough substance that I cared about the characters.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Adventures of Monkey Girl and Tiger Kite

Posted February 16, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Adventures of Monkey Girl and Tiger Kite by Kai SchalkThe Adventures of Monkey Girl and Tiger Kite, Kai Schalk
Received to review via Netgalley

This is a very short ebook — I’m not sure how long in words or pages, but it was a very quick read. It’s pretty fun and refreshing, in that it has a diverse cast with Chinese and LGBT characters, it’s a superhero story dominated by female characters, and it takes none of these things too seriously — even the teenage crush, which may or may not come to something, but turns out not to be as important as friendship anyway.

It is a very brief story, the more so because it includes flashbacks to the background of the characters, but all the same, it’s cute and fun. I did feel that with a more mature writing style, it might have felt like more; you can pack so much into a short story if only you know how.

Rating: 3/5

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