Mark Lawrence welcomes readers back to Abeth with "Thaw," short story that takes place many years after the conclusion of Holy Sister. Any additional Mark Lawrence welcomes readers back to Abeth with "Thaw," short story that takes place many years after the conclusion of Holy Sister. Any additional time with Nona and friends is time well spent.
"Thaw" elaborates further on the relationships among Nona and her friends long after the conclusion of the Book of the Ancestor. It’s especially interesting to see how they’ve grown together or apart in the years since Holy Sister.
"Thaw" is a hidden gem for Book of the Ancestor fans. Be sure to check it out!...more
My SPFBOX Semi-Finalist review of Here There Be Monsters is published at Before We Go Blog.
Here There Be Monsters is the debut novel by Josh Wright, aMy SPFBOX Semi-Finalist review of Here There Be Monsters is published at Before We Go Blog.
Here There Be Monsters is the debut novel by Josh Wright, an action-packed urban fantasy that also delivers plenty of incisive social commentary. The story takes place in the city of Prodigium, an alternate version of New York City where humans and various paranormal races live (uneasily) alongside each other.
There are three lead protagonists in Here There Be Monsters. Lupe Herrera is a werewolf police captain facing down political corruption and other sordid crimes. Bennu Anippe is an ancient Egyptian mummy seeking to avenge past wrongdoing. Finally, Mallory LeBlanc is a Knight Templar cursed with immortality:
“His wounds always knit themselves back together, and once he’d even managed to regrow a toe, but there was always a scar. They were reminders of the countless wars he’d fought in and how often he’d chosen the wrong side.”
The plot of Here There Be Monsters revolves around the increasingly dire threats to paranormal existence. All of this is overlayered with biting social commentary, as the paranormals in the book experience the same type of bigotry faced by many minority groups in our own society. For example, Josh Wright expertly skewers the hypocrisy of certain rightwing Christian nationalists who use religion to justify hatred and xenophobia:
“Creatures like that, all these paranormals. Nothing but monstrous abominations. A mockery of The Lord’s creation, born into our world from the pits of Hell itself.”
At the same time, the paranormals introduce their own religious sects, representing Christ in their own image:
“A vampire Christ held high the cup of the new covenant, which was his blood, bidding his disciples to drink. A zombie Christ shuffled forth from the empty tomb. A spectral Christ ascended into heaven, floating towards the clouds. A mad scientist Christ knit together the pieces of a frankenstein Lazarus. A witchy Christ called forth endless loaves and fish from a bubbling cauldron.”
Here There Be Monsters is remarkably polished, especially for a debut novel. However, I do have a couple of minor quibbles. There is so much happening in the story that sometimes it’s difficult to keep everything straight. Also, I feel like the author circumvents the language problem too easily using a plot contrivance known as a Babel Particle:
“The Babel Particle is single-handedly the most useful remnant of The Cataclysm. It hangs around in the atmosphere and acts as a universal translator. No matter what language you speak, everyone hears you in the language they speak.”
But these are minor complaints in a remarkably well-written book that presents a highly engaging story with heartfelt thought-provoking social commentary. I am therefore happy to recommend Here There Be Monsters as a semi-finalist in SPFBOX. The story will continue in Walk Like an Egyptian, book two of the Out of the Shadows series....more
My SPFBOX review of Breaker of Fates is published at Before We Go Blog.
Breaker of Fates is a queer normative epic fantasy by Vaela Denarr and Micah IaMy SPFBOX review of Breaker of Fates is published at Before We Go Blog.
Breaker of Fates is a queer normative epic fantasy by Vaela Denarr and Micah Iannandrea featuring dragons and relationship drama aplenty. While the book is built on an interesting premise and worldbuilding, it ultimately comes up short on developing meaningful connections with its principal characters.
The problems begin with the book’s cover art, which to my eye (and to several other members of our judging team) appears to imply that Breaker of Fates is an explicit read. I fear the cover art will be an immediate turnoff for many epic fantasy readers. At the same time, readers looking for erotica or romantasy will need to look elsewhere, as the level of spiciness in this book is moderate at most.
The second problem arises with an overly long (roughly 15-page) preface from the authors in which they justify a long list of choices made during the writing of this book. These introductory remarks have a defensive tone, in which the authors respond to imagined criticisms of their work, covering everything from their choice of measurement units (a mixture of metric and imperial units) to their choice of obscenities. The tone of this preface left me feeling rather salty before I even started Chapter One of the book. For example, at the end of their preface the authors call for “the crash of the housing market, death of capitalism,” telling the reader, “if you disagree…please go read a different book.” I have no idea why my enjoyment of a fantasy book should be contingent upon a desire to inflict economic calamity on the real estate market. I found this to be a rather jarring introduction to the book before the story even gets underway. Personally, I’d rather let a story stand on its own and allows readers a chance to draw their own conclusions about the narrative choices and themes pursued by the authors instead of telling readers exactly how they should view the work.
As for the story itself, Breaker of Fates has the feel of an overwrought soap opera. We are thrown immediately into a love triangle romance where two characters, Roderick and Keeva, come to realize they are both dating the same person, Mateo. At the same time, Mateo is addressing an internal struggle about transformation into a dragon. Although draconic transformation introduces a very interesting aspect of worldbuilding, this is fundamentally a character-driven story.
Unfortunately, the authors do not give the readers an opportunity to connect with the characters individually before throwing them into the deep end of relationship drama. As a result, the emotions feel both hollow and overblown, rather than something we can connect with.
The authors’ writing is quite good overall, although Breaker of Fates could use another round of editing to address stray typos and reduce repetition. While this is a cut from SPFBOX, readers looking to explore a new epic fantasy in a queer normative world may wish to check this out....more
“Normal people didn’t get chased by vampires, abducted by werewolves, or threatenedMy SPFBOX review of Hear My Call is published at Before We Go Blog.
“Normal people didn’t get chased by vampires, abducted by werewolves, or threatened by fairies…I had no idea how to make it stop.”
Hear My Call is a fast-paced urban fantasy thriller by Yvette Bostic and a spinoff from her Call of the Elements series. Hear My Call alternates chapters between two lead protagonists. First up is Jess, a young woman who is currently working as a mechanic in northwestern Texas:
“I loved being a mechanic. Taking something broken and making it work again always felt good. Having that accomplishment at the end of the day made it a whole lot easier to walk into my broken home each night. Something I could never fix.”
Jess has a close relationship with her mother, but the two have been on the run for most of her life. Jess is in awe of her mother’s ability to peer into people’s souls and see the goodness or evil inside, but she didn’t understand the origin of this paranormal talent until later in life. Nor did she understand the reason for their peripatetic lifestyle.
Hear My Call introduces the second point-of-view character, Garret, by throwing us directly into the middle of an action scene. Garret is the leader of a team of bounty hunters hired to kidnap individuals with magical talent. Garret’s chapters are especially fast-paced, and unfortunately Hear My Call never slows down enough for readers to form the type of emotional bond with him that the book establishes more successfully with Jess.
With plenty of vampires, werewolves, and fae, Yvette Bostic throws everything but the kitchen sink into this urban fantasy. It’s a bit too much for me, giving an overly chaotic feel to this short novel. Hear My Call also has some ill-advised romance, which never felt quite believable.
Overall, Hear My Call is recommended for urban fantasy fans looking for a fast-paced thriller. However, I believe the characters could have been given more depth if the author had adopted a less hurried approach to the novel. For this reason, Hear My Call is a cut from SPFBOX....more
“‘It never ends well in myths,’ he said. ‘But the old stories exaggerate everything, don’t they?’”
Howard Andrew Jones sets a new standard for sword and sorcery with the Hanuvar Chronicles. The third volume of the series, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain, continues in the same tradition of excellence on display in his first two books, Lord of a Shattered Land and The City of Marble and Blood.
The worldbuilding in the Hanuvar Chronicles is derived from real history, viz., the Punic Wars between the Roman Republic and the North African empire of Carthage. While much of modern fantasy has embraced anti-heroes, Hanuvar, the lead protagonist of Shadow of the Smoking Mountain, is a classic altruistic hero. Hanuvar is directly inspired by Hannibal of Carthage, the renowned statesman and general who led the war against Rome during the Second Punic War.
The parallels between the Punic Wars and the fantasy world of the Hanuvar Chronicles are evident starting with the map at the beginning of the book. Hanuvar’s homeland of Volanus is a fictionalized version of Carthage after it had been decimated at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, all its people either killed or enslaved by Rome, which is represented by the Dervan Empire in Shadow of the Smoking Mountain.
Like the first two books in the series, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain is told in episodic format over fourteen chapters that serve as interconnected short stories. Each chapter recounts one of Hanuvar’s adventures to liberate and protect his people. While the individual stories are enjoyable on their own, the greatest payoff is seeing how the various plot threads come together at the end of the book.
Once again, Howard Andrew Jones shows his versatility as a writer in Shadow of the Smoking Mountain, leveraging the episodic format to flex his writing style, often in subtle ways. Jones writes with a skill and gravitas that reminds me of Umberto Eco at his best.
Altogether, the Hanuvar Chronicles is sword and sorcery at its finest, a must-read series for fantasy fans. This series is also the perfect entry point for readers curious to explore the sword and sorcery subgenre....more
Check out my new interview with Mitriel Faywood at Grimdark Magazine!
My complete review of A Gamble of Gods is published at Grimdark Magazine.
A GambleCheck out my new interview with Mitriel Faywood at Grimdark Magazine!
My complete review of A Gamble of Gods is published at Grimdark Magazine.
A Gamble of Gods is the highly imaginative, world-hopping debut by Mitriel Faywood. With this ambitious novel, Faywood has established herself as an exhilarating new voice in speculative fiction.
Faywood’s debut is a genre-defying story, impossible to categorize using conventional literary classifications. The experience of reading A Gamble of Gods is more like watching a blockbuster movie: a hugely entertaining, immersive experience, where the heart-pounding action is balanced by a cheerful levity and even some romance.
The story is told from the first-person perspectives of three main characters who come from very different worlds spanning both science fiction and fantasy.
First, Kristian del Rosso is a university lecturer from a futuristic planet. Kristian’s sci-fi world is teeming with robots, artificial intelligence, and even teleportation. Kristian lives a reclusive academic existence, unable to move past the trauma of a friend’s death several years ago. But when his entire research group is mercilessly slaughtered by an identity-changing madman, he must leave the university to hunt down the killer. Kristian’s no-nonsense, matter-of-fact attitude is a bit reminiscent of Philip Marlowe from the works of Raymond Chandler.
In marked contrast to Kristian’s serious demeanor, Conor Drew is an effusive playboy adventurer who hails from a more traditional medieval-type fantasy world. Conor is tenacious in his quest for treasure and perhaps even more relentless in his pursuit of women.
The third point-of-view character is Selena Soto, an office worker from a near-future London who is seeking therapy for her anxiety attacks. She lacks self-confidence in both her professional career and her personal life. Of the three main characters in A Gamble of Gods, Selena undergoes the most satisfying growth over the course of the novel.
Mitriel Faywood has created a distinct voice for her three main characters, making it easy to identify the narrator of each chapter without even looking at the chapter headings. I particularly enjoyed seeing how the paths of the three characters intersect and how their relationships evolve over the course of the book.
Faywood is best known to the grimdark community as the long-time beta reader for Mark Lawrence. Given her extensive work with Lawrence, it is natural to expect some influence on Faywood’s debut. Mark Lawrence’s influence is most evident in Faywood’s crisp writing style, especially in the chapters narrated by Conor Drew. Conor’s womanizing and exuberant sense of humor reminded me a lot of Jalan Kendeth, the narrator of Prince of Fools and the rest of Lawrence’s Red Queen’s War trilogy, but with Jalan’s cowardice replaced by Conor’s assured bravado. Like Jalan, Conor does not try to hide the significant shortcomings of his personality.
Kristian’s mentor, Dr. James Montgomery, also reminds me a bit of Lawrence’s recurring character, Dr. Elias Taproot, the time-traveling physicist extraordinaire. In a fun Easter egg, Faywood even quotes Dr. Taproot’s catchphrase, “Watch me!”, in the latter part of her novel.
But the similarities stop there. While it’s also tempting to compare Faywood’s blend of fantasy and science fiction to that of Mark Lawrence’s trilogies, the two authors take very different approaches. Whereas Lawrence’s work typically focuses on the fantastic elements sitting atop a more subtle sci-fi core, Faywood immediately brings the sci-fi elements to the forefront in A Gamble of Gods.
Overall, Mitriel Faywood has done a great job absorbing a broad range of influences but then turning them into something so original that I cannot really point back to say that the book follows anyone’s particular mold or style. Her approach reminds me of the movie title, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” but of course, with a completely different plot.
Faywood somehow keeps up the fast-paced action throughout A Gamble of Gods without ever having a dull moment. There is truly something here for everyone, and I particularly enjoyed the lighthearted comedy throughout much of the book. I laughed so hard during one scene at around the 75% mark that it almost caused me bodily injury. Let me just say that you should definitely look a gift horse in the mouth, especially if that horse is an AI-powered robot.
In the end, A Gamble of Gods gives the reader a satisfying conclusion while still setting up for a sequel. Faywood’s worldbuilding is full of details that will reward multiple rereads. My only minor complaint is that many aspects of the worldbuilding are not fully explained. You just need to accept them and enjoy the ride. A book spanning so many genres—science fiction, high and low fantasies, comedy, romance—could easily have become an unfocused mess. But Faywood pulls it off brilliantly, making A Gamble of Gods a joy to read.
So, grab yourself a big vat of popcorn to munch on as you enjoy this blockbuster debut. A Gamble of Gods is a rollicking good time.
Merged review:
Check out my new interview with Mitriel Faywood at Grimdark Magazine!
My complete review of A Gamble of Gods is published at Grimdark Magazine.
A Gamble of Gods is the highly imaginative, world-hopping debut by Mitriel Faywood. With this ambitious novel, Faywood has established herself as an exhilarating new voice in speculative fiction.
Faywood’s debut is a genre-defying story, impossible to categorize using conventional literary classifications. The experience of reading A Gamble of Gods is more like watching a blockbuster movie: a hugely entertaining, immersive experience, where the heart-pounding action is balanced by a cheerful levity and even some romance.
The story is told from the first-person perspectives of three main characters who come from very different worlds spanning both science fiction and fantasy.
First, Kristian del Rosso is a university lecturer from a futuristic planet. Kristian’s sci-fi world is teeming with robots, artificial intelligence, and even teleportation. Kristian lives a reclusive academic existence, unable to move past the trauma of a friend’s death several years ago. But when his entire research group is mercilessly slaughtered by an identity-changing madman, he must leave the university to hunt down the killer. Kristian’s no-nonsense, matter-of-fact attitude is a bit reminiscent of Philip Marlowe from the works of Raymond Chandler.
In marked contrast to Kristian’s serious demeanor, Conor Drew is an effusive playboy adventurer who hails from a more traditional medieval-type fantasy world. Conor is tenacious in his quest for treasure and perhaps even more relentless in his pursuit of women.
The third point-of-view character is Selena Soto, an office worker from a near-future London who is seeking therapy for her anxiety attacks. She lacks self-confidence in both her professional career and her personal life. Of the three main characters in A Gamble of Gods, Selena undergoes the most satisfying growth over the course of the novel.
Mitriel Faywood has created a distinct voice for her three main characters, making it easy to identify the narrator of each chapter without even looking at the chapter headings. I particularly enjoyed seeing how the paths of the three characters intersect and how their relationships evolve over the course of the book.
Faywood is best known to the grimdark community as the long-time beta reader for Mark Lawrence. Given her extensive work with Lawrence, it is natural to expect some influence on Faywood’s debut. Mark Lawrence’s influence is most evident in Faywood’s crisp writing style, especially in the chapters narrated by Conor Drew. Conor’s womanizing and exuberant sense of humor reminded me a lot of Jalan Kendeth, the narrator of Prince of Fools and the rest of Lawrence’s Red Queen’s War trilogy, but with Jalan’s cowardice replaced by Conor’s assured bravado. Like Jalan, Conor does not try to hide the significant shortcomings of his personality.
Kristian’s mentor, Dr. James Montgomery, also reminds me a bit of Lawrence’s recurring character, Dr. Elias Taproot, the time-traveling physicist extraordinaire. In a fun Easter egg, Faywood even quotes Dr. Taproot’s catchphrase, “Watch me!”, in the latter part of her novel.
But the similarities stop there. While it’s also tempting to compare Faywood’s blend of fantasy and science fiction to that of Mark Lawrence’s trilogies, the two authors take very different approaches. Whereas Lawrence’s work typically focuses on the fantastic elements sitting atop a more subtle sci-fi core, Faywood immediately brings the sci-fi elements to the forefront in A Gamble of Gods.
Overall, Mitriel Faywood has done a great job absorbing a broad range of influences but then turning them into something so original that I cannot really point back to say that the book follows anyone’s particular mold or style. Her approach reminds me of the movie title, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” but of course, with a completely different plot.
Faywood somehow keeps up the fast-paced action throughout A Gamble of Gods without ever having a dull moment. There is truly something here for everyone, and I particularly enjoyed the lighthearted comedy throughout much of the book. I laughed so hard during one scene at around the 75% mark that it almost caused me bodily injury. Let me just say that you should definitely look a gift horse in the mouth, especially if that horse is an AI-powered robot.
In the end, A Gamble of Gods gives the reader a satisfying conclusion while still setting up for a sequel. Faywood’s worldbuilding is full of details that will reward multiple rereads. My only minor complaint is that many aspects of the worldbuilding are not fully explained. You just need to accept them and enjoy the ride. A book spanning so many genres—science fiction, high and low fantasies, comedy, romance—could easily have become an unfocused mess. But Faywood pulls it off brilliantly, making A Gamble of Gods a joy to read.
So, grab yourself a big vat of popcorn to munch on as you enjoy this blockbuster debut. A Gamble of Gods is a rollicking good time....more
The Hod King is the third volume in Josiah Bancroft’s masterful Books of Babel tetralogy, My review of The Hod King is published in Grimdark Magazine.
The Hod King is the third volume in Josiah Bancroft’s masterful Books of Babel tetralogy, combining the best features of the first two books of the series, Senlin Ascends and Arm of the Sphinx, while bringing new emotional depth to this tragic story.
The lead protagonist of the series is Thomas Senlin, a rural schoolteacher on his honeymoon at the famed Tower of Babel. Although Senlin considers himself to be well-educated on all things Babel-related, his scholarly knowledge is no match for the overwhelming chaos of the real Tower. Senlin’s hubris gets the best of him as he immediately loses his bride, Marya, near the entrance of the Tower. The main plotline of the series concerns Senlin’s quest to rescue Marya from the labyrinthine Tower.
The Tower of Babel is an overwhelmingly massive structure, taller than any modern skyscraper. The building is divided into layers called “ringdoms,” each with its own peculiar culture and politics. In the first book, Senlin Ascends, our hero struggles to make his way upward through the ringdoms, believing that he will find his wife at the Tower’s famous baths. Senlin must overcome a series of Kafkaesque absurdities at each level to continue his ascent. By the second book, Arm of the Sphinx, the previously naïve Senlin is determined to take charge of his destiny, assembling a ragtag crew of makeshift pirates, traveling through this steampunk world on a stolen airship.
The Hod King strikes just the right balance between the Kafka-inspired absurdity of Senlin Ascends and the multi-point-of-view adventures of Arm of the Sphinx. More importantly, The Hod King deepens the emotional impact of the story as we finally encounter Marya. A year has passed since the newlyweds were first separated outside the Tower. Senlin’s bride may not be as he remembers, and the question arises of whether she actually wants to be “saved.”
Senlin’s personal struggles are set against the backdrop of the greater mysteries of the Tower, including those of the enigmatic Sphinx and the Hod King. As unlikely as it seems, Senlin’s journey may be inexorably linked with the fate of the Tower itself.
Among the many brilliant aspects of the Books of Babel, I am particularly impressed with Josiah Bancroft’s use of theatrical motifs to deepen the story. The author skillfully hones his theatre-related imagery in The Hod King, driving home the theme of finding our true selves behind the many literal and figurative masks that we wear throughout our lives.
The Hod King is arguably the best volume in Josiah Bancroft’s Books of Babel series. Grimdark readers will especially love the complexity of this dark world, as well as Bancroft’s consistently outstanding characterization. The tetralogy concludes with The Fall of Babel....more
Lake of Darkness is the new hard science fiction novel by Adam Roberts that asks whethMy review of Lake of Darkness is published at Grimdark Magazine.
Lake of Darkness is the new hard science fiction novel by Adam Roberts that asks whether an intelligent being could evolve inside the infinite darkness of a black hole. As the novel opens, two starships are in orbit around a black hole known as QV Tel. Although the crews have been sent to gather data near the event horizon of the black hole, they are suffering from severe physical and psychological trauma after traveling near the speed of light.
The journey takes an especially large toll on one of the starship captains, Alpha Raine, who suffers a complete psychological breakdown, murdering his crew. While others question his sanity, Raine believes he is receiving communication from a being that resides within the black hole itself. Raine undergoes evaluation by Saccade, the other lead character of Lake of Darkness, a historian of twentieth century Earth culture specializing in the psychology of serial killers.
The title of the novel is an allusion to King Lear by William Shakespeare: “Frateretto calls me and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.” Frateretto is the name of a devil, and the Nero reference points back to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, where the Roman Emperor is found fishing in hell. This quote accurately captures the pitch-black vibes and demonic overtones of Lake of Darkness. Although this is a hard sci-fi novel saturated with astrophysics, Roberts delves just as deeply into both the philosophical and theological implications of a black hole developing sentient life.
Adam Roberts is a professor of nineteenth century literature at Royal Holloway, yet he clearly knows his physics. The author’s grasp of challenging concepts from general relativity to cosmology is spot on. The true genius of Lake of Darkness is how Roberts constructs a story from the so-called black hole information paradox, which arises when applying a combination of general relativity and quantum mechanics to black hole physics. The paradox concerns the ultimate fate of information sucked into black holes: when a black hole decays due to Hawking radiation, is the information truly lost or could it be re-emitted? More specifically, could the information serve as fuel for evolving an intelligent entity within the black hole itself?
Although Lake of Darkness is a heavy read, there are also some lighthearted moments, especially related to the characters’ misunderstanding of twentieth century Earth. For example:
“…whatever the actual name of the first individual to walk on the Earth’s moon, it was clearly not Arm-Strong. ‘That’s a title, not a name: clearly it reflects the warrior ethos of that belligerent and martial age. Whoever they sent to the moon, he would be a great hero—a masculine figure, since antique Earth valued the male over the female—and an individual of immense physical strength. Hence strong-of-the-arm.’”
Lake of Darkness is not a casual read by any means, but it is highly rewarding for readers willing to devote the necessary effort. It is rare to find a book that delves so deeply into science, philosophy, religion, and psychology, while also delivering a compelling story with complex, morally gray characters. Personally, I found myself unable to resist the gravitational pull of this dense yet darkly alluring opus....more
My SPFBOX review of Splintered Magic is published at Before We Go Blog.
“Please, no more cat food. He tilted his lovely face and blue eyes at me. I preMy SPFBOX review of Splintered Magic is published at Before We Go Blog.
“Please, no more cat food. He tilted his lovely face and blue eyes at me. I prefer premium cuts of chicken, fish, and beef. Oh, and make sure you get some cream, the cat said.”
Splintered Magic is Jilleen Dolbeare’s contemporary low fantasy starring Brigid Donovan and her magical talking cat, the illustrious Mr. Mittens.
Brigid is recently divorced, forty-two years old, and seeking to begin a new chapter of her life at her recently inherited family estate. The building itself resembles a haunted house more than a quaint country home, and Brigid intends to give it some much-needed tender loving care.
In a move that would make Haruki Murakami proud, Brigid also inherits the home’s hyperintelligent talking cat, Mr. Mittens. Brigid quickly forms a friendship with her new feline companion. The banter between Brigid and Mr. Mittens becomes one of the most entertaining aspects of the novel.
There is a strong HGTV quality to Splintered Magic. The author devotes significant page time to Brigid’s home repair adventures and the personal relationships that develop with her contractors. There is plenty of magic hiding beneath the surface of her hometown. Brigid also discovers magical powers of her own as she pieces together the secrets of her family history. The action in Splintered Magic is fairly low stakes for most of the book, but it builds up to an intense climax that kept me flipping the pages.
While all the characters in Splintered Magic are fully-grown adults with plenty of life experience, the book is written in a rather young adult style. Jilleen Dolbeare’s prose is very easy to read, but I felt a major disconnect between her writing style and the maturity of the characters involved.
Splintered Magic is not a complicated book: it’s fun summer reading for fantasy fans who also enjoy watching the occasional HGTV. Brigid is a relatable, easy-to-root-for protagonist, and Mr. Mittens is an absolute delight. However, I felt that the writing style fell short of expectations, which warrants a cut from the SPFBOX competition....more
Arm of the Sphinx is Josiah Bancroft’s swashbuckling sequel to Senlin Ascends and the second entrMy complete review is published at Grimdark Magazine.
Arm of the Sphinx is Josiah Bancroft’s swashbuckling sequel to Senlin Ascends and the second entry in his Books of Babel tetralogy. This second book has a very different feel compared to Bancroft’s debut, which focused almost exclusively on its lead protagonist, Thomas Senlin, a small-town schoolteacher whose honeymoon at the Tower of Babel turns into a Kafkaesque nightmare as he searches for his lost wife, Marya, across stratified layers of absurdity. In contrast, Arm of the Sphinx adopts a more conventional narrative structure, with multiple points of view from Senlin and his companions.
Arm of the Sphinx opens with Senlin in the guise of Captain Tom Mudd, an airship pirate causing fear and disruption outside the walls of the Tower of Babel. Senlin’s motley crew includes the scrappy fighter Iren and siblings Adam and Voleta Boreas. Adam is an engineer of questionable loyalty who committed the original sin against Senlin upon his initial entry into the Tower. His adventurous sister, Voleta, is a delight and proves to be one of the highlights of the book.
However, the real star of Arm of the Sphinx is Edith Winters, Senlin’s friend who lost an arm due to an infection in the first book. Edith is a beacon of feminism, refusing to be put down in this male-dominated world. She turns her disability into a strength with a steampunk prosthetic arm. However, a question arises about whether Edith controls her arm or the arm controls her.
Senlin himself has grown significantly since the first book, where he was a mostly passive character falling victim to the schemes of the Tower. Senlin’s new take-control attitude in Arm of the Sphinx is welcome character development, although his assertiveness diminishes some of the Kafkaesque aspects of the story that I thoroughly enjoyed in the first book. It’s also frustrating that he makes at least as many bad decisions as good ones.
Plotwise, there is plenty of adventure but less vertical ascent in Arm of the Sphinx. Much of the book is spent trying to regain access to the Tower so that Senlin can resume the search for his missing wife, Marya. The focus on piracy in this second volume recalls a similar approach taken by Scott Lynch in Red Seas Under Red Skies, the follow-up to The Lies of Locke Lamora in his Gentleman Bastard series. While I’m personally not a fan of the pirate trope, I found the pirate adventure more convincing in Arm of the Sphinx compared to Red Seas Under Red Skies. Also, as a longtime Final Fantasy fan, I must say that airships are objectively cooler than the normal seafaring variety.
While I personally preferred the Kafka-inspired absurdities of the first book, I believe fantasy fans will find Arm of the Sphinx more immediately accessible than the labyrinthine Senlin Ascends. Arm of the Sphinx offers more straightforward adventure thrills while also providing new perspectives on this dark world. The Books of Babel tetralogy continues with The Hod King and finally The Fall of Babel....more
Lost Souls, the debut novel from indie author Ryan Skeffington, is a dark science fiction thrill ride that leaves plenty of emotional devastation in its wake. The novel opens in the year 2070 with passengers on a spaceship awakening from a three-year cryogenic freeze after fleeing global destruction on Earth. But the cryogenic freezing process takes its toll: many passengers wake up to find themselves missing limbs, and some never wake up at all.
The spaceship’s destination is an asteroid composed entirely of xantium, a “bio-metallic rare-non-earth metal” that can absorb incredible amounts of energy to be released at a later point in time. Xantium is reminiscent of another fictional extraterrestrial metal, viz., the coveted vibranium which pervades the Marvel Universe. Like vibranium, xantium has seemingly miraculous properties when interacting with organic matter such as biological tissue. Hence, xantium is considered an essential building block for humanity’s long-term survival in space and may provide a pathway toward the so-called Infinite Existence.
The first few chapters in Lost Souls jump quickly through time, advancing from year 2070 to 2123 and then 2133. Interestingly, the thirteen chapters in Lost Souls are named sequentially after the songs from the critically acclaimed “Deep Blue” album by Australian metalcore band Parkway Drive. Each chapter starts with a quote from the corresponding Parkway Drive song, echoing the main themes from that song throughout the chapter. I really enjoyed deciphering the multiple layers of meaning that Ryan Skeffington incorporated in this work. As an added bonus, “Deep Blue” provides the perfect soundtrack for reading the book.
Although Lost Souls bounces among various perspectives, the main point-of-view character is Maximus, a brilliant xantium engineer who is trying to meet (or exceed) the impossibly high expectations set by the work of his father and grandfather while also determining his own unique path. His personal struggles are set against the backdrop of an epic battle between freedom and tyranny. With the fate of humanity in his hands, the stakes could not be any higher.
It's hard to believe that Lost Souls is a debut novel. Ryan Skeffington writes with a strong command of both the hard science and emotional aspects of the novel, balancing the large-scale conflict with heart-wrenching personal struggles from Maximus and several side characters. Although the writing feels a bit dense at times, the author propels the story forward at a steady pace, building up to an astonishing climax that left my mouth agape in disbelief. Skeffington also makes effective use of gray morality throughout the novel.
Altogether, Lost Souls is a stellar debut by an electrifying new voice in dark science fiction and a must-read for grimdark fans looking for their next sci-fi fix. The story will continue with the next installment in the Infinite Existence series....more
My SPFBOX review of Rites of Passage is published at Before We Go Blog.
“Those of us who can do magic—I prefer the term magicians, but you can call us My SPFBOX review of Rites of Passage is published at Before We Go Blog.
“Those of us who can do magic—I prefer the term magicians, but you can call us whatever tickles your fancy—do the impossible on the daily.”
Rites of Passage is a contemporary urban fantasy by M.D. Presley starring Corbin James, a young man trying to escape scrutiny from the FBI who ends up joining a society of magicians.
Magicians in Rites of Passage are divided into two main groups with different philosophical approaches toward magic. The larger of the two groups is called the “Circle” to emphasize equality among members, most of whom are city dwellers. The others are a loosely connected organization called the “Territories,” mostly living in rural areas.
Magicians in both groups follow a set of three rules to keep their powers hidden from non-magic users, to follow instructions from superiors (yes, a rule to follow rules), and to wear sigils indicating which group they belong to. However, there is also a group of rogue magicians called Orphans, who belong to neither the Circle nor the Territories, and reject all their rules.
The worldbuilding in Rites of Passage is contemporary American society overlaid with a secret class of magic-users. Following Ursula K. Le Guin, the power of magic is enhanced by knowledge of true names.
The prose in Rites of Passage is easily digestible but a bit rough around the edges. There are plenty of pop culture references, which I think are intended to be edgy but give the novel an overly self-conscious feel. The pop culture references in Rites of Passage work best when they are more subtle. For example, each chapter title in the book is named after a song. There is plenty of indie music representation here, including two of my favorite bands: Stars and Broken Social Scene. In a nice touch, there is even an enchanted iPod with a cracked screen and a mysterious playlist.
Despite these enjoyable aspects of the book, Rites of Passage never really gelled for me as much as I would hope. Much of the plot seems arbitrary, such as the gratuitous orgy that just comes out of nowhere, and the characters are never given enough depth to seem more than two-dimensional caricatures. Although Rites of Passage is a cut from SPFBOX, readers who are interested in a fresh take on urban fantasy may wish to check this one out....more
My complete review of Master Assassins is published at Grimdark Magazine.
Master Assassins by Robert V.S. Redick is desert fantasy par excellence, a grMy complete review of Master Assassins is published at Grimdark Magazine.
Master Assassins by Robert V.S. Redick is desert fantasy par excellence, a grimdark tale of two half-brothers, Kandri and Mektu Hinjuman, on the run after they are implicated in an accidental death. Kandri and Mektu love each other as brothers but are often bitter rivals consumed by jealousy.
Although the novel focuses closely on Kandri and Mektu, the worldbuilding in Master Assassins steals the show. Master Assassins takes place in the vast desert world of Urrath, which is battling against a horrifying pandemic. Kandri and Mektu are soldiers in service of the Prophet, a madwoman who incites religious zealotry and warmongering among her quarantined people. However, Kandri and Mektu have doubts about the Prophet’s divinity, and an unintentional killing sends them fleeing into the vast desert known as The Land That Eats Men, pursued by a band of elite hunters (and worse).
Kandri and Mektu have polar opposite personalities. Kandri is rational in thought and intentional in action. But with his paranoia and possible insanity, Mektu could have easily sprung out of a Fyodor Dostoevsky novel. The interplay between the two brothers is another highlight of the novel, always keeping the reader guessing about what will happen next.
The title and cover art of Master Assassins are a bit misleading, in my view. The casual book shopper could easily mistake this as a young adult novel. However, Master Assassins is grimdark to the core, featuring a very dark world riddled with violence, disease, drugs, and prostitution. But what makes Master Assassins most appealing for grimdark fans is Redick’s masterful characterization, featuring plenty of complex gray morality.
Robert V.S. Redick’s prose is literary without losing its accessibility. With its grimdark desert setting, nuanced characterization, and literary style, Master Assassins recalls Anna Smith Spark’s The Court of Broken Knives. The plague aspect of the book and the Middle Eastern-inspired worldbuilding also remind me of the Tower and Knife trilogy by Mazarkis Williams, although Master Assassins is decidedly darker in tone.
Master Assassins is grimdark fantasy of the highest caliber. Readers of Anna Smith Spark and Mazarkis Williams will find much to love in this novel, as will the growing legion of Dune fans. Robert V.S. Redick’s Fire Sacraments trilogy continues with Sidewinders, the second book of the series....more
“Liz wanted nothing more than to go out with the others and make the pirates leave theMy SPFBOX review of this book is published at Before We Go Blog.
“Liz wanted nothing more than to go out with the others and make the pirates leave them alone. She knew that she had the power to pull off such a feat.”
Lady Elizabeth Bryne, or Liz as she is known to her friends, is the somewhat sassy protagonist of T.L. Rolston’s young adult fantasy debut, Legacy’s Price. As the novel opens, Liz is invited to join her great-grandmother at a party of nobility hosted by the Duke of Caya, potentially to find an appropriate suitor.
However, Liz draws elitist ire after comparing some of the aristocracy to carrion birds. Liz is challenged to a duel, during which she unexpectedly exercises magical powers, leading to much intrigue about the source of her powers and her intentions for their use.
The plot thickens as Liz’s grandfather, the King, goes missing during a diplomatic mission. Liz finds herself on the defensive as she becomes a suspect in his disappearance. In order to clear her name, Liz sets out to save her grandfather herself.
From its spirited “not like other girls” protagonist to its unveiling of hidden magical powers, Legacy’s Price embraces many of the well-worn tropes of the genre. There are also pirates, dragons, and a moderate dose of amnesia.
T.L. Rolston’s prose flows easily, helping this short book fly by extra quickly and making Legacy’s Price a low commitment for fans of young adult fantasy. This novel may serve as a good entry point for readers new to the genre; however, its overreliance on standard tropes is likely to be a turnoff for more seasoned readers. Personally, I feel like I’ve read all of this before, and for that reason this is a cut from SPFBOX....more
Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, The City and its Uncertain Walls, serves as his love letter to maMy complete review is published at Before We Go Blog.
Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, The City and its Uncertain Walls, serves as his love letter to magical realism and the transcendent power of the written word. The novel traces its origin to a short story of the same name, published in a Japanese literary magazine in 1980. Murakami was unsatisfied with the story and never included it in his anthologies. Nevertheless, its main premise of a time-bending alternate reality served as the starting point for one of the two storylines in his 1985 novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. However, the original short story still nagged at Murakami, and he decided to return to it decades later as a more mature, experienced writer. Murakami began work on the novelized version of The City and its Uncertain Walls in 2020, forty years after publishing his original short story. The novel became a pandemic project for Murakami, which feels apropos for a story steeped in isolation.
Like many of Murakami’s tales, The City and its Uncertain Walls is told from the first-person perspective of an unnamed male protagonist, conventionally known as “Boku,” one of the Japanese words for “I.” The novel begins as a love story between the seventeen-year-old Boku and his schoolmate, a sixteen-year-old girl who seems detached from reality. She tells Boku that her true self is not in this world, but in an alternate plane of existence, working at a library of dreams in a town surrounded by an immensely tall wall. She tells Boku that he can meet her in that world, becoming the Dream Reader at the library, but when they meet she will have no memory of having known him from outside the walls of that world. One day the girl disappears without warning, and Boku can only assume that she has gone to the fantastical library of her dreams.
In the second part of The City and its Uncertain Walls, we follow Boku into his isolated middle-aged existence. Unsatisfied with his career, he quits his job to become the head librarian at a privately endowed library in a rural community, where he starts to form meaningful attachments to other people. Of particular note is an autistic boy who devours books at the library and seems to retain all the information he reads, essentially becoming a library himself. The relationships that Boku forms at the library may also be key for him to understand what happened to the girl who captured his heart as a boy.
The fantasy world in The City and its Uncertain Walls will already be familiar to anyone who has read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. It’s a land where unicorns roam the streets and an imposing Gatekeeper forces people to separate from their shadows. While Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World paid much more attention to the shadows and unicorns, The City and its Uncertain Walls is more concerned with the nature of time, which ceases to have any meaning in this parallel world.
Although the back-of-the-book blurb describes The City and its Uncertain Walls as “an ode to books and to the libraries that house them,” I believe a more accurate description is that it’s Murakami’s ode to magical realism itself: the coexistence of the real and unreal, the living and the dead, the physical and the metaphysical. As in many of his other novels, Murakami uses magical realism to address the universal human desire for finding deeper meaning in a shallow and uncaring world. Murakami even includes a fitting tip of the hat to Gabriel García Márquez, the late Colombian author who was a pioneer in the magical realism genre.
Reading The City and its Uncertain Walls evokes similar feelings as watching a Hayao Miyazaki movie. Murakami includes several direct references to Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. But I think the more fitting comparison is with Miyazaki’s last film, The Boy and the Heron. As in this final opus from Miyazaki, Murakami is not treading any new ground in The City and its Uncertain Walls. Rather, he distills many of his favorite themes, including loneliness, aging, and the quest for spiritual transcendence, into one career-encompassing story.
The connections to Murakami’s other works are numerous. Given its shared world, Murakami’s latest novel links most closely with Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Both novels start with the same basic idea, but Murakami takes them in two very different directions. The City and its Uncertain Walls lacks the “hard-boiled wonderland” part of his previous work, giving it a more authentic, sentimental feel. As in Murakami’s most popular novel, Norwegian Wood, The City and its Uncertain Walls features young love doomed by sudden disappearance. The new novel also includes Murakami’s requisite Beatles reference, this time to “Yellow Submarine.” But the deeply introspective nature of the novel most closely recalls that of his greatest masterpiece, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
Murakami’s writing has aged like a fine wine, with eloquent ruminations on the nature of time and memory that recall one of his own literary heroes, the incomparable Marcel Proust. In terms of more recent literature, The City and its Uncertain Walls is recommended for fans of The Book that Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence. Both of these beautifully written novels pay homage to books and libraries, delivering insights on the nature of time and aging within a love story set across parallel worlds. However, while Lawrence delivers plenty of fantasy action, Murakami slows the pace down dramatically with meditations on isolation and social interaction. Although this is probably Murakami’s slowest-paced book to date, I savored every moment.
Altogether, The City and its Uncertain Walls is a well-earned victory lap for the marathon-running Haruki Murakami, forty-five years into his distinguished literary career. This is Murakami’s most refined and eloquent work to date, a Proustian novel full of nuance and emotion that leverages magical realism to take on the tyranny of time itself....more
Loading...
