The Hawley Book of the Dead, Chrysler Szarlan
Received to review via Netgalley

This sounded great when I originally requested it; I’d forgotten most of that by the time I picked it up, but I was still interested. The set-up is great: the creepy/historic house and village, the magic in the family, the magic tricks on the stage, the mysterious Fetch coming after the family. The setting is great; I could easily picture both the theatre for the performance at the beginning of the story, and the little abandoned town in New England.

But. The family. There were details that seemed meant to be vivid — the black/white clothes of the twins, the red hair, the string Caleigh uses… it felt flat to me, and so did the described emotion. If the numbness after a loss was what I was meant to feel vicariously, then that would have worked, but there was also fear, a desire for vengeance, anger, and those didn’t come across to me.

Perhaps worst of all, this reminded me too much of Joanne Harris’ Chocolat (the woman fleeing bad magic with her children, the magic running in the family), The Night Circus (the magic, but here without the enchantment), and something else I can’t quite put my finger on. It didn’t feel “rich”, as the blurb on Goodreads had it. I can’t say it was terrible, but it was just so… flat.

Rating: 2/5

Roadside Picnic, Boris & Arkady Strugatsky

I suggested this book for the Cardiff SF/F bookclub.

Reading this again after finishing Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance), the debt is obvious. If VanderMeer hasn’t read Roadside Picnic, there’s a whole bunch of similarities: the central idea, that maybe humans and aliens won’t/can’t understand each other, the mysterious and unknowable purpose behind the alien presence, the transformations of people in and around the Zone, even the revenant people who come back (in the Southern Reach trilogy, as doubles which mysteriously and quickly die; here, as actual corpses).The introduction by Ursula Le Guin mentions other stories which tackle similar themes re: human/alien interaction, which I’m going to have to check out.

As a bit of classic SF, this stands up pretty well, although of course it has its problems too. The only women with speaking lines are Guta and Dina, and both are objects of desire, motivators for the men. Monkey, Red’s daughter, barely even gets chance to speak, and she isn’t really treated as human. But I still find the set-up compelling, and even though none of the characters are really awesome people or fleshed out, they’re human, with the usual mix of good and bad aspects. Enough that they feel more or less real, though there’s a definite Russian flavour to it — one I can’t quite put my finger on, a sort of absurdity through precise descriptions of movements, actions, dialogue.

The ending… is inconclusive. It’s like they got to the culmination of the idea and character, and didn’t want to show the aftermath — maybe didn’t even know what it would be. That’s for us to wonder.

Rating: 4/5

Dark Triumph, Robin LaFevers
Received to review via Netgalley

I was worried that my liking for the first book, Grave Mercy, was a fluke. After all, other bloggers I know were unenthusiastic about this series, the romance element is not my favourite thing, etc. But I continue to really enjoy the books. This one focuses on Sybella, the girl who went to the convent escaping something clearly so horrible that it traumatised her to breaking point. And we find out exactly what that was, not all at once but piece by piece, as she comes to trust the main male character of the book and begins to reveal herself to him.

And I seriously, seriously love that the main male character is Beast from the first book, and Robin LaFevers doesn’t make some big song and dance about how he’s actually physically attractive somehow, having said he wasn’t before. He still isn’t. He just has a lust for and a love of life, a core of decency, that means that doesn’t matter — and which makes him exactly what Sybella needs.

I really enjoy the historical fantasy setting here. I don’t know how close it is to the actual history, because French history of that period is really not my thing, but I like the way it’s woven together with historical alliances and rivalries, the political motivations behind the characters’ movements. This is a more personal book than Ismae’s, really dealing with Sybella’s trauma and bringing her some peace, but it does continue the political storyline as well, and brings out other aspects of serving their dark god, Mortain. It’s an interesting, though not entirely surprising, portrayal of a god of death — a multi-faceted one which takes in mercy, justice, love.

That multi-faceted treatment also comes in when talking about Sybella’s family. While at times both she and others treat simply being a member of that family as proof that they’re somehow terrible people, that clearly isn’t 100% the case, even when a character has done things they shouldn’t. There is a possibility of redemption, of a person who has done bad things also doing good things.

We do see characters recurring from the first book, but only Beast and Sybella are really dealt with in detail. We do see Ismae interacting with Sybella, though, sharing what she’s learned and how she’s changed. Those scenes are also very sweet, giving Sybella forgiveness — so that she’s not magically healed just by falling in love, but by revealing herself and then having that self be accepted, not just by Beast but by Ismae as well, by the people who matter to her.

I can’t wait to read Mortal Heart, now. When I looked at the page counts on these books I was a bit daunted, but it genuinely flies by!

Rating: 4/5