Of Bone and Thunder, Chris Evans
Received to review via Netgalley

Once I read some reviews pointing out this is essentially a novel about a fantasy version of Vietnam, “slyts” and all, I couldn’t unsee it. I found it surprisingly absorbing at first, though I’m generally not that interested in war stories. There are some amazing bits of description — mostly gross, but it still makes you really feel the world in which the characters live, the heat and dirt, the discomfort of riding a dragon, the futility of the fight.

But… the dull grind of it started to get to me. When they talk about this being anything like Tolkien, they really mean just because it’s got dragons. It’s basically a very thinly veiled version of Vietnam. Everything’s dirty and futile and there’s no justice in it. I couldn’t keep track of the characters, given their fantasy-fied names (which made me wonder if Evans actually bothered thinking about the language these people speak and what their naming conventions are, because I couldn’t really detect patterns), and I just… lost interest.

If you’re into war novels, though, it might be more up your alley. It’s definitely more Abercrombie than Tolkien in terms of tone, though. If you’re reading this for the dragons… to me, they were just a prop, a way of making the Vietnam War into a fantasy war.

Rating: 2/5

The Seventh Bride, T. Kingfisher
Recieved to review via Netgalley

I actually bought this initially, but the Netgalley page said something about it being an updated version, so I went for it. I originally picked it up for the promise of a heroic little hedgehog, and I was very happy with that aspect — the hedgehog is brave, helpful, clever, and funny. It can’t speak, so it communicates with the protagonist via miming and yes/no answers. It sounded so cute. I want one!

The story itself, aside from the hedgehogs, is a nice reimagining of a Bluebeard fairytale — but darker, really, because instead of death, the antagonist steals things of worth from the women he marries — their voices, their eyes, their ability to die — and leaves them alive. I found the tone somewhat at odds with the perceived historical/mythological time it was set in; the protagonist was too modern in thought and sensibility in some ways, it seemed. But overall, I found it very enjoyable, and I loved the way it treated the other characters. The other wives, for example, are each different, some very strange, and each of them copes with what has happened to them in a different way. As people do.

And, just to reiterate: hedgehog!

Rating: 4/5

Of Sorrow and Such, Angela Slatter
Received to review via Netgalley

I wasn’t as sure about this one as I was some of the other Tor.com novellas, so I didn’t buy it outright, but I was curious enough to request it on Netgalley. Especially since the cover wouldn’t be out of place on one of Patricia McKillip’s books, or Juliet Marillier’s, perhaps. Well, it wasn’t exactly like either of those, but it was enjoyable. The main character, Patience, is just so wonderfully practical. Even when that means doing pretty horrifying things. It makes sense, given her life, and I was glad it wasn’t sentimentalised or smoothed over. It happens, and she deals with it as practically as she does it.

The writing itself was a bit uneven, for me — the opening chapter was a bit too much of being told about the world and the character and her life, especially when the setting is fairly typical. There was nothing really that surprised me about that; medieval Europe with witches who are actually witches, really.

It was enjoyable enough that I read it in one go, but I don’t seem to have much to say about it.

Rating: 3/5

The Dark Blood of Poppies, Freda Warrington

However sceptical I am about the whole lush dark vampires thing, these books do captivate me. I love the way the mythology works: the way different people believe different things, and ultimately the way those beliefs shape the whole world. It’s not even really allegory — we really do that, in a way. I wasn’t so sure about her foray into Lilith and Samael and that sort of mythology, but actually, she handles that pretty well too, without forcing religiosity on the books. (In fact, that’s often a danger with her characters, something which blinds them to truth.)

And Warrington still does really well with these amoral, dreadful, detached and yet deeply emotional vampires. She does so well at making me see the monstrous in even the characters we sympathise with, and the human even in characters you want to despise. You get captivated by the power of the vampires and forget their atrocities, even without their magnetic presence to enforce it the way it is within the book. It takes skill.

I really enjoy Warrington’s writing, and really must look into her other series. But first: The Dark Arts of Blood! I’m so glad Titan reissued this series and brought out the next.

Rating: 4/5

The Great Zoo of China, Matthew Reilly

Jurassic Park, but Chinese, there are journalists mostly rather than scientists, and the creatures are dragons. And it’s really not a cutting edge idea: even without Jurassic Park, there’s stuff like Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons and plenty of other things which have dragons being real and in a real-world setting. The writing wasn’t good enough to sell this idea to me again: I’d rather get round to finishing Jurassic Park, or reread Brennan’s books.

It’s not bad as a light thriller, but it feels definitely gimmicky, like a cash-in. Particularly since I started hearing buzz about it when Jurassic World came out.

One thing in its favour, though: a strong central female character. It’s not so great that apart from her scars she’s conventionally attractive — like the author thought oh, she still has to be pretty — but it is great that she has them, and that they’re a legacy of her actual work with actually relevant creatures.

Rating: 2/5