Koko Takes a Holiday, Kieran Shea

Koko Takes a Holiday is definitely fun, in a rip-roaring blood and guts and plenty of sex sort of way. It rolls along at a tremendous speed, and it’s a really fast read because of it: there’s very little sitting around and thinking about what’s going to happen next, because what’s going to happen next comes straight through the door at you ready to pounce. That said, I was never really in any doubt that Koko would make it and probably shack up with a particular other character at the end, and I never really felt like her losses were earthshaking. She’s all ready to slide back in the status quo, no introspection, no bad memories, nothing.

Also, Flynn has the potential to be an interesting character, with his diagnosis of Depressus (which is basically depression only everybody encourages you to go top yourself because life’s not actually worth living and it’s untreatable, blahblahblah) and how he handles it, but since it’s basically handwaved away through danger and sex (“you’ve just got to change your life!” is almost literally what Koko says), it actually comes across as a little insulting (that’s not how depression works, even the ordinary kind). Depression can be a big problem, we don’t have any surefire treatments that will fix you right up, and this book’s portrayal of a society which is just all casually “yep, go kill yourself together in a regularly scheduled jump into the atmosphere from really high up” as a reaction sits really badly with me. More badly the more I think about it, actually.

Also, much grossness, like people literally pissing themselves with fear (described in loving detail) and biting people’s eyes out (also).

Ultimately, it’s popcorn, and that’s fine once in a way for me, but I can’t see myself reading any of the sequels. And I do have serious questions about the flippant treatment of depression implied in Koko’s “cure” for Flynn, now that I think about it. Ugh.

Rating: 2/5

The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, Margaret Killjoy

This one is kind of like an origin story for a hunter in Supernatural, only with more women and people in general who aren’t co-dependent white dudes, and deeply connected to an anarchic, footloose sort of life — the characters are all travellers and squatters, some more settled than others, which I found a fascinating new skew on the world. New to me, I mean; I’m neither an anarchist nor at all footloose.

There’s some really creepy-feeling stuff here, like the giant demon murderstag — not so much creepy in the “I don’t want to keep reading, gaaaah” sense, you know, where you start worrying a hand is going to come out from under the bed and grab your ankle if you get out of bed, but just wrong and unsettling.

And, you know, all the undead animals that would normally be hunted. There was something about the pacing that made me feel hurried through it, though; something I just didn’t quite get hold of. I’m sort of curious to read the sequel, but then I’m not sure (embarrassingly) that I’ve really grasped the characters and will remember all their interactions and relationships even if I pick it up really soon. Even though I found it different in terms of the cast and even refreshing for that, I’m mostly left with the murder deer, and he’s exited stage right at this point.

Still, I’ll probably give it a try!

Rating: 4/5

Fisher of Bones, Sarah Gailey

Wow, where to start with this. My thoughts are still all scattered! I wasn’t very wowed while reading it: that’s not what has me conflicted. It was an interesting enough story and setting, though at times it felt as if Fisher was just lurching from crisis to crisis, with no real indication of what happened in between. I wanted more characterisation, more meat on the bones of the ongoing tragedy, to make me really feel it and feel the strain of the characters’ journey, their isolation.

There are some really raw feelings here — hurt and betrayal and displacement and fear… but it was blunted by not knowing enough about the people it was happening to. I would’ve also enjoyed more background and depth to the world: it didn’t feel two-dimensional, but it felt like a sketch map rather than a painting, if that makes sense. The detail might’ve been there, but I couldn’t see it at this resolution.

Anyway, before I delve any further into mixed metaphors (ack! there I go again), I’ll just have to conclude that I found this tantalising and intriguing, but I wanted more from it, and I wanted a bit more foreshadowing of the conclusion, which was like a bolt from the blue for me as well as for the characters. It should fit in with all the other pieces, in hindsight, but it didn’t quite.

Rating: 3/5 

The Sisters of the Crescent Empress, Leena Likitalo

I still feel that the first book ended too abruptly, and really the two should have been published together. The first might’ve been a novella, but this was definitely long enough to qualify as a novel, leaving me really wondering why it was published as part of the novella line (though I see others in that line-up now that I wouldn’t have called novellas). Does The Sisters of the Crescent Empress satisfactorily complete what The Five Daughters of the Moon began? Well, sort of.

I did enjoy this a lot: the interactions between the sisters, the way it embellishes the basic story of the Romanov princesses in a fantasy world, the complex relationships and allegiances between the characters, torn between the old world and the new. I enjoyed the development of some of the characters, particularly Sibillia, and getting to see more of Celestia and what made her tick.

I did feel that it ended abruptly, again, and that there’s so much more of the story I want to know, and which the duology feels incomplete without. Does Celestia succeed in ending the riots? What role does Elise play? Does the body-swapping trick work, and how does that end up? Sibillia’s story just ends in a way that feels almost like wasting her character development, but she’s the only one who does get a solid end.

I also felt that sometimes the way the characters spoke felt wrong: the abrupt sentence fragments, for example, just left some of the characters sounding like automatons, when that plainly wasn’t the intent.

I definitely enjoyed this duology, but I wanted more from it, too.

Rating: 4/5