Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 269

The unsatisfying ending

Here’s a post about unsatisfying endings at Book View Cafe:

Lovely characters, amazing setup, incredible building of the plot . . . It was all going so well. I so trusted the author to end it well. I was fairly wriggling in my chair to find out how she’d pull it together. And then—

She didn’t.

What did she do? She cliffhangered the ending into a part two book.

Oh, yeah. We’ve all been there. In fact we could have a WORST OFFENDER EVER contest for Surprise! Cliffhanger! endings

Personally, I don’t think any book ever is going to beat Pegasus by Robin McKinley.

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Recent Reading: a potpourri

Okay, I’m so behind with reviews, it’s just ridiculous. So I’m going to try to catch up all at once, which means I’m going to take a stab at writing a handful of reviews that are actually, you know, short. Let’s see how that goes! No promises!

1. House of Secrets by Stephanie Burgis

My father’s house is full of secrets. They cling to the thick, dusty curtains that he keeps tightly drawn all day and night, muffling the sound of his friends’ low, intent whispers and blocking out the sunlight. I can hear the dull echoes of carriages outside, rattling past at all hours, but I never see them.

Okay, so that’s a nice opening, isn’t it? Goes well with the “chilling first lines” thing in yesterday’s post. I mean, the very first sentence could go either way, because secrets don’t have to be creepy, but the second sentence makes it clear that in this case, we’re definitely talking creepy secrets.

This is a novella, which is a form that usually works for me. Short stories, not so much; but novellas work so much like novels in terms of character development and worldbuilding. “House of Secrets” is a Gothic fantasy, with a close focus on the protagonist and plenty of atmosphere. If the story gives the protagonist’s first name, I’ve forgotten it. The story is first person, which suits the Gothic style but means we never see the protagonist’s first name. She is generally addressed as Miss Norton, so that’s how I think of her. Anyway, Miss Norton was raised in an extremely isolated cottage in the country and now that she’s of age, she has just been brought to town, on her father’s orders, by his servant Achilles. Exactly why her father had her raised in this peculiar fashion is not clear. Nor why he’s nailed shut the window in her room, not to mention the heavy curtains so that his daughter can’t even look out . . .

The reader is going to catch on pretty quickly to what is actually going on, in broad outline. Miss Norton is so naïve that of course she has no idea. That makes her an ideal protagonist for a Gothic story. While Achilles is a good male lead and does his best to rescue Miss Norton in the face of significant obstacles, I particularly appreciated how Miss Norton saves herself in the end. That’s something you don’t always see in Gothics, but I personally want both – the hero to strive to save the girl, and the girl to take effective action to save herself. I really enjoyed how everything worked out in this story.

The writing is lovely and the setting highly atmospheric. If you like Gothics but sometimes find them rather slow, this novella may be just the ticket: the whole package tucked into a shorter length.

2. Lost Things, Steel Blues, and Silver Bullet by Melissa Scott and Jo Graham.

These three books are the first three of a five-book series. The second book, Steel Blues was actually included in the noblebright fantasy bundle I picked up semi-recently, so I read it first. I’m glad to say that it stands perfectly well alone, and then I liked it enough to pick up the omnibus of the first three ebooks – that was more cost effective than buying the first and third separately. So I read them in this order: Book II, Book III, Book 1. That worked fine. Actually, I believe I wound up liking the second book the best of the three, though they were all good. A series gives the authors room to stretch out, but Scott and Graham handle the four (five) protagonists well. I didn’t generally feel too impatient to get back to one protagonist when the pov shifted, which is really quite an accomplishment when there are so many pov characters.

Let me see. I did say I would keep this short. Let’s see if I can manage that:

Okay, so these are historical fantasy. WWI has recently ended and WWII has not yet begun, so that adds a poignant note as characters think about their recent lived experience of the Great War and hope nothing like that ever happens again.

Alma was an ambulance driver in the war. Now she is a pilot and owner of a small company that flies freight and passengers around the country. She is possibly a little too good to be true, but only strained credulity a little bit. Oh, and for those of you who, like me, appreciate female protagonists: Alma is forty-two.

Those of you who know more than I do about the airplane technology of the time will surely appreciate all the details about the planes and flying, which as far as I can tell are meticulously researched. I enjoyed all that very much even though I know almost nothing about the subject.

The other three main characters are Louis Segura, another pilot, who in the second book had recently married Alma; Mitch, an wartime ace who is also a pilot though still dealing with the aftermath of wartime injuries; and Jerry, a historian and archeologist who is missing part of his leg because of ditto. Oh, and the deceased Gil, Alma’s first husband, who is practically a character himself even though he died before the first book opens. I don’t mean he’s a ghost. It’s just his memory exerts a big influence on all the actual characters.

Oh, plus they all belong to a small group of magicians dedicated, in their own small way, to helping save the world. Definitely a good choice for a noblebright collection. Also, well written and fun to read.

The first book involves a little problem with an ancient demonic type of entity that was recently freed; also a pretty snazzy airship. In it, we pull the group together, establish the world, and totally wreck the airship. I was sorry about that last.

The second book involves a coast-to-coast airplane race, and as I say, was probably my favorite. I particularly enjoy a new character who was added to the permanent cast during this story. She’s a con artist and a thief and a medium who can call up the dead and she’s just a lot of fun. I’m sure she’s one big reason I liked the second book better than the first.

Then the third book involves a little experimental device Nikola Tesla put together a few years ago, now causing unanticipated problems, so our protagonists have to fight off the bad guys while Tesla himself arranges to shut the device down.

I enjoyed the first three books enough that I expect I will be picking up the fourth and fifth books pretty soon.

3. The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst

Charlotte is the one who put this book on my radar and I’ve been looking forward to it for a while. I did enjoy it very much, though not quite as much as I’d hoped.

The best thing about it is Daleina, who provides a wonderful twist on The Chosen One trope because she is soooo not the chosen one. She has to just do her best anyway. And does, with sheer hard work and grit.

This world is filled with spirits – of earth, air, fire, water, ice (different from water) and trees. They are all, or nearly all, intrinsically malicious and inimical to people. They want two things: to build and to kill. People harness them to build villages and grow crops and so on; they also fear them (rightfully) and do their best to ward against them. Only girls are born with the ability to sense and control spirits, and the girls with the strongest talent in that area train to become queen. The queen doesn’t do much actual ruling, as far as I could tell. She mostly controls the spirits.

Daleina has a rather weak affinity for spirits and a fairly limited ability to command them, but she is very stubborn. I loved her to pieces. Lots of the supporting characters were also pretty snazzy, especially Merecot. I was not the least bit surprised to find Merecot reappearing in the distance at the end of the book.

The worldbuilding was interesting and visually beautiful, but . . . kind of . . . I guess I would start by saying many details seem implausible and then add that the world seems to lack a truly solid foundation. Why can women control spirits, but not men? No idea. Why do the spirits have to obey humans at all? No idea. That command that pauses the destructiveness of the spirits when the queen dies so an heir can be chosen, wow, that sure is convenient. It all suggests Authorial Whim rather than Coherent World to me.

The broader political landscape is puzzling. Apparently there are different regions with different queens, some of whom are “ambitious.” What in the world can we mean by “ambitious” in this context? There is no indication whatsoever that territory is something people fight over in this world. You wring useable territory out of, apparently, wastelands, by controlling spirits. It’s not clear why different human populations would go to war. Yet the potential for war seems implied.

On a more mundane level: the wire roads, really? Gosh, how nice that those wires apparently never turn out to be broken at inconvenient moments. That sure is unexpected given that wires in the real world are kind of fragile. Who puts those wires in place so you can apparently get anywhere via that means? Who maintains them? … No idea.

Why exactly do people live in trees anyway? I mean, the trees are great! Giant trees with villages in them have enormous visual appeal. But there are only references to dangers like wolves on the forest floor. Believe me, wolves are not nearly dangerous enough to make people risk their toddlers falling out of trees. I mean, seriously, wolves?

… which leads me to just mention the particular wolf in this story. Which is not a wolf. This goes well beyond the typical wolf-that-is-really-a-dog trope that I personally really dislike. This particular creature is a wolf-that-is-really-a-furry-person, which is a trope I *hate even more.* It bears no resemblance at all to any wolf (or dog) you have ever or will ever meet. It might as well be Lassie, only more so. *Rolls eyes.*

But! I have to re-emphasize, I did truly enjoy this book a lot and I will be interested in the sequel, which is coming out in July. But for me, it’s the characterization that makes it worth reading. Daleina is just so wonderful, and the unusual spin on The Chosen One is fabulous. Also, I wonder whether some of these questions are going to be answered in the sequel. I mean, not the thing about the wire roads; I think that’s just a detail to accept without trying too hard to explain how it can possibly work. But I am holding out hope for some faintly reasonable explanations for at least some of the other worldbuilding details that made me pause in this book.

Incidentally, Charlotte says that though marketed as adult, she could see this as a MG story. I wholeheartedly second that opinion. I think there’s a lot here to appeal to a younger reader who loves fantasy and saving-the-world plots, isn’t keen on too much romance, and may perhaps not tend to notice any implausibilities with the worldbuilding.

4. The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima

I am sorry to say that for me this was a DNF at about page 40. It’s got zillions of reviews and a great rating on Goodreads, but I just could not get interested and I am not sure why not.

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Charlotte’s Web

I like this long post analyzing Charlotte’s Web, by PJ Parrish on Kill Zone Blog — rather a change of pace from that blog’s focus on thrillers and mysteries.

The Lessons for All Writers Woven into ‘Charlotte’s Web’

I fell in love with this book the first time I read it. I was maybe eight or nine, just around the age of the heroine Fern. But a couple years back, on the 60th anniversary of its publication, I decided to read it again.

What a revelation. It is, of course, maybe the most famous kid book ever. It won the Newbery and remains the bestselling children’s paperback even today. But what I didn’t realize is that it is a terrific story for adults. …

[I]s there a more chilling opening line in all of fiction: “Where’s father going with that ax?” Fern asked.

THE LESSON: Don’t waste time with pages of gorgeous description. Find the right moment to parachute the reader into your story. Build tension as quickly as you can.

As I say, this is a long post. It goes through the whole story point-by-point. But I enjoyed reading the post and now kind of feel like perhaps re-reading Charlotte’s Web myself.

However, though the cited line is indeed a very catchy opening, there are in fact undoubtedly more chilling first lines in fiction. Here are some contenders:

“Ironically, since the attacks, the sunsets have been glorious.”

Angelfall by Susan Ee

“I’ve confessed to everything and I’d like to be hanged. Now, if you please.”

Chime by Franny Billingsley

Anybody got another example of a first line that is especially chilling? I’m sure I’m missing plenty.

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Finished! With Black Dog #3

Okay so this past weekend was like:

In fact this whole spring has kind of been like:

Very disappointing — would not buy again

But hey, being trapped inside for 48 hours while rain poured and winds blew gave me all the time in the world to write 51 pages and finish the dratted manuscript of Shadow Twin. I had been kinda stuck and also busy with other things. As it happened, I worked out exactly what should happen in the last couple of chapters just last week, so I was ready to go Saturday at 5:00 AM. Because I was up at 4:00, see, because did I mention the thunderstorms we had all night? Which re-sensitized poor Dora so that now she is flinching and nervous if the wind even picks up. Poor baby. I hope she will desensitize again fairly easily. It took a couple years last time she was really frightened by a storm. Perhaps that experience will speed things up this time?

Anyway, this morning I finished off the last detail work, which actually means the last detail work for this draft, of course. But a few people will now be getting copies associated with request for critiques.

I do have one general question for you all. Please pick one:

A) A slowish first chapter that re-introduces the cast along with handling the Initiating Event of the story is probably the best way to handle things when you have accumulated a huge number of characters.

B) No no no just put a Dramatis Personae section in the back!

C) Other: ______________________________________________________________________

I think the story does get going relatively soon, but I’m not necessarily the best judge. I often like a slower pace in the beginning. This is something I will specifically ask my first readers, since they will actually be seeing the chapter in question. But it would be interesting to see whether there’s a general opinion one way or the other.

Incidentally, it’s not like every character ever introduced plays a large role in this particular book. Working out how to thin the crowd was the hardest part of the initial writing process and then I thinned it some more on the first important revision. But yeah, by this time the world is pretty well populated. That’s probably one reason this draft is 455 pages instead of the 350 I was kind of aiming for.

Still — finished for now! Yay!

This coming weekend: on to the next project that’s waiting plus every. single. dog. deserves to go to the park after being cooped up in the house so much lately.

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One more under-the-radar post before we move on

From @DefGrappler onTwitter:

1. Godsdoom by Nick Perumov. “What starts out as a “power behind the throne” story turns into a bananas fight for all of existence. So fun.”

From Goodreads:

His thousand years of exile were meant to teach Hedin, Sage of Darkness, the error of his ways. Instead, he had ten centuries to learn new and powerful magics, knowledge he intends to use to challenge not just the Mages of his Generation who sentenced him but the very gods themselves. From bestselling Russian fantasist Nick Perumov, voted best European SF writer in 2004, comes a sword-and-sorcery adventure in the classic mode of Robert E. Howard with an added dash of Beowulf.

From Katy K in the comments here:

2. Dust Girl by Sarah Zettel

Callie LeRoux is choking on dust. It seeps through the cracks in the hotel that Callie and her mother run in Kansas. It’s slowly filling her lungs. Callie’s begged her mother to leave their town, like their neighbors have already done, but her mother refuses. She’s waiting for Callie’s long-gone father to return.

Just as the biggest dust storm in history sweeps through the Midwest, Callie discovers her mother’s long-kept secret. Callie’s not just mixed race — she’s half fairy, too. Now, Callie’s fairy kin have found where she’s been hidden, and they’re coming for her. The only person Callie can trust may be Jack, the charming ex-bootlegger she helped break out of jail.

From the despair of the Dust Bowl to the hot jazz of Kansas City, from dance marathons to train yards, to the dangerous beauties of the fairy realm, Sarah Zettel creates a world rooted equally in American history and in magic, where two fairy clans war over a girl marked by prophecy.

3. Also Fool’s War by Zettel

Four centuries after humanity has colonized the galaxy, information freight companies are used as an alternative to electronic communication. On one of her frequent trips into deep space, Katmer Al-Shei, owner of one of the smaller information companies, is accused of smuggling artificial intelligence. When Al-Shei tries to clear her name, she uncovers conspiracy after conspiracy, all set against the backdrop of a looming war.

4. Elaine T adds Michael Scott Rohan’s Winter of the World series

About which Goodreads says merely: The first volume in The Winter of the World fantasy trilogy, this novel of a young boy’s rise to power is set in a world where an ice age threatens a brilliantly imagined world similar to our own.

That’s pretty lame, but with a recommendation from Elaine I will probably check it out.

5. Also Chase the Morning by Rohan.

During a nostalgic visit to the docksides of his youth, Steve, an unassuming import/export agent, steps into another universe, where buccaneers, demigods, and mythic heroes mingle.

6. Also Helen Lowe’s Heir of Night quartet, which Elaine suggests sticking with into the second book. The description is indeed promising:

An award-winning poet and acclaimed author of Young Adult fiction, Helen Lowe now brings us The Heir of Night—the first book in her four-volume Wall of Night series, a brilliant new epic fantasy saga of war, prophecy, betrayal, history, and destiny. A thrilling excursion into a richly imagined realm of strife and sacrifice, where the fate of a dangerously divided world rests in the hands of one young woman, The Heir of Night is a fantasy classic in the making, sure to stand alongside the much beloved works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Robin McKinley, and Guy Gavriel Kay.

… and one last one that I thought of:

7. The Sword of Winter by Marta Randall

By far my favorite of Randall’s, I read this at least half a dozen times.

In the cold and dangerous land of Cherek, emerging from an era of magic and confronted by technological advancements, Lord Gambin of Jentesi lies dying and chaos reigns. During his four decades in power, Gambin has wielded a tight and tyrranical hold over his province, and his four heirs jockey to inherit his vast power, the people of Cherek teeter on the brink of change and watch the passing of the sword in Jentesi. For if Gambin’s power passes intact to his heirs, Cherek could lose the promise of its bright future and tumble irrevocably into a dark and vicious past.

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Below the Radar: What do you wish readers would try?

Okay, here’s a summary of the titles that have come up so far in comments related to the last post, here and on Goodreads:

1. The Steerswoman series by Kirstein. A couple of you said no no, it’s not under the radar! But I think it kind of is now, among the general population of readers, even if it was more noticed at the time it was originally published. I mean, *I* didn’t notice it in 1989, and I never would have realized it existed, much less tried it, if some of you here hadn’t mentioned it. So I’m tentatively leaving it on the under-the-radar list.

If you ask, she will answer. If she asks, you must reply. A steerswoman will speak only the truth to you, as long as she knows it—and you must do the same for her. And so, across the centuries, the Steerswomen— questioning, searching, investigating—have slowly learned more and more about the world through which they wander. All knowledge the Steerswomen possess is given freely to those who ask. But there is one kind of knowledge that has always been denied them: Magic.

When the steerswoman Rowan discovers a small, lovely blue jewel of obviously magical origin, her innocent questions lead to secret after startling secret, each more dangerous than the last—and suddenly Rowan must flee or fight for her life. Or worse, she must lie.

2. Enchanted, Inc. by Shanna Swendson.

Katie Chandler had always heard that New York is a weird and wonderful place, but this small-town Texas gal had no idea how weird until she moved there. Everywhere she goes, she sees something worth gawking at and Katie is afraid she’s a little too normal to make a splash in the big city. Working for an ogre of a boss doesn’t help.

Then, seemingly out of the blue, Katie gets a job offer from Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc., a company that provides tricks of the trade to the magic community. For MSI, Katie’s ordinariness is an asset.

Lacking any bit of magic, she can easily spot a fake spell, catch hidden clauses in competitor’s contracts, and detect magically disguised intruders. Suddenly, average Katie is very special indeed.

She quickly learns that office politics are even more complicated when your new boss is a real ogre, and you have a crush on the sexy, shy, ultra powerful head of the R&D department, who is so busy fighting an evil competitor threatening to sell black magic on the street that he seems barely to notice Katie. Now it’s up to Katie to pull off the impossible: save the world and–hopefully–live happily ever after.

3. ThiefTaker Chronicles by D.B. Jackson.

Boston, 1767: In D.B. Jackson’s Thieftaker, revolution is brewing as the British Crown imposes increasingly onerous taxes on the colonies, and intrigue swirls around firebrands like Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty. But for Ethan Kaille, a thieftaker who makes his living by conjuring spells that help him solve crimes, politics is for others…until he is asked to recover a necklace worn by the murdered daughter of a prominent family.

Suddenly, he faces another conjurer of enormous power, someone unknown, who is part of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of power in the turbulent colony. His adversary has already killed—and not for his own gain, but in the service of his powerful masters, people for whom others are mere pawns in a game of politics and power. Ethan is in way over his head, and he knows it. Already a man with a dark past, he can ill afford to fail, lest his livelihood be forfeit. But he can’t stop now, for his magic has marked him, so he must fight the odds, even though he seems hopelessly overmatched, his doom seeming certain at the spectral hands of one he cannot even see.

4. Twelve Kingdoms series by Jeffe Kennedy

The tales tell of three sisters, daughters of the high king. The eldest, a valiant warrior-woman, heir to the kingdom. The youngest, the sweet beauty with her Prince Charming. No one says much about the middle princess, Andromeda. Andi, the other one.

Andi doesn’t mind being invisible. She enjoys the company of her horse more than court, and she has a way of blending into the shadows. Until the day she meets a strange man riding, who keeps company with wolves and ravens, who rules a land of shapeshifters and demons. A country she’d thought was no more than legend–until he claims her as its queen.

In a moment everything changes: Her father, the wise king, becomes a warlord, suspicious and strategic. Whispers call her dead mother a traitor and a witch. Andi doesn’t know if her own instincts can be trusted, as visions appear to her and her body begins to rebel.

For Andi, the time to learn her true nature has come. . .

5. Another Twelve Kingdoms series, this one by Fuyumi Ono. This one seems harder to find than some, but (fairly pricey paper) copies are available on Amazon.

For high-schooler Yoko Nakajima, life has been fairly ordinary–that is until Keiki, a young man with golden hair, tells Yoko they must return to their kingdom. Once confronted by this mysterious being and whisked away to an unearthly realm, Yoko is left with only a magical sword; a gem; and a million questions about her destiny, the world she’s trapped in, and the world she desperately wants to return to.

6. Jasper Fford’s work. Here’s one that’s not part of the Thursday series and in fact looks like a much more serious SF kind of story: Shades of Gray.

Part social satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, Shades of Grey tells of a battle against overwhelming odds. In a society where the ability to see the higher end of the color spectrum denotes a better social standing, Eddie Russet belongs to the low-level House of Red and can see his own color—but no other. The sky, the grass, and everything in between are all just shades of grey, and must be colorized by artificial means.

Eddie’s world wasn’t always like this. There’s evidence of a never-discussed disaster and now, many years later, technology is poor, news sporadic, the notion of change abhorrent, and nighttime is terrifying: no one can see in the dark. Everyone abides by a bizarre regime of rules and regulations, a system of merits and demerits, where punishment can result in permanent expulsion.

Eddie, who works for the Color Control Agency, might well have lived out his rose-tinted life without a hitch. But that changes when he becomes smitten with Jane, a Grey, which is low-caste in this color-centric world. She shows Eddie that all is not well with the world he thinks is just and good. Together, they engage in dangerous revolutionary talk.

Stunningly imaginative, very funny, tightly plotted, and with sly satirical digs at our own society, this novel is for those who loved Thursday Next but want to be transported somewhere equally wild, only darker; a world where the black and white of moral standpoints have been reduced to shades of grey.

7. Lazette Gifford’s work, such as the Devlin’s Team series . Hanneke warns that this self-published author lets more typos and grammatical errors slip through than would be ideal, but recommends her work anyway. I must say that the description below sounds catchy to me. I like the idea of the native creature. If Gifford’s done her homework with species design, I might really like that.

Devlin is a top agent for the Inner Worlds Council Security force — a spy in common terms — and she’s not very happy with an assignment to the backwater world of Forest. Settled by the Work for Man fanatics, the government has restricted not only the use of tech equipment but also regulate nearly every aspect of life for the small population. The settlement is boring and the people don’t like outsiders.

There is one anomaly, though: The brutal show known as bear dancing pits a human against a native life form. Devlin’s work is to learn about the show and report what she can about the bears themselves because there is suddenly outside interest.

The people involved in the bear dance are secretive. She’s gathered all the information she thinks she can, and she’s ready to move on. However, when a top-ranking scientist arrives on world, Devlin thinks she might be able to pick up a little bit more information.

And that’s something the locals fear.

8. The Summer King Chronicles by Jess E. Owen

Shard is a gryfon in danger. He and other young males of the Silver Isles are old enough to fly, hunt, and fight–old enough to be threats to their ruler, the red gryfon king.

In the midst of the dangerous initiation hunt, Shard takes the unexpected advice of a strange she-wolf who seeks him out, and hints that Shard’s past isn’t all that it seems. To learn his past, Shard must abandon the future he wants and make allies of those the gryfons call enemies.

When the gryfon king declares open war on the wolves, it throws Shard’s past and uncertain future into the turmoil between.

Now with battle lines drawn, Shard must decide whether to fight beside his king… or against him.

9. In a comment on Goodreads, Sherwood Smith suggested Ghost Point by James Hetley. I will add that I loved Hetley’s duology Powers and Dominions and highly recommend them. If I’d thought of them the other day, those are the ones I would have suggested rather than Steerswoman, because Hetley’s work is definitely under the radar.

About Ghost Point, Goodreads says:

Eight years ago, Dennis Carlsson returned from Vietnam with a chest full of medals, a head full of nightmares, and a plastic foot. Now he just wants the world to leave him alone on his isolated point of Maine coast, caring for injured animals and living as simply as he can.

However, both real and spirit worlds have other plans for his guardian strength. His nightmares have followed him home in a face from those memories, wildlife biologist Susan Tranh — prickly as a porcupine and with some strange bond to eagles, stalked by criminals for no reason she can see.

Tied deep into land and lore, the Haskell Witches know a lot more about Ghost Point than he does. The Naskeag tribe calls his home Spirit Point, a place to meet spirits and find visions. They avoid the place because they know the spirit world is dangerous.

And winter has its own deadly agenda…

10. Also from a comment on Goodreads, Megan says as far as she can tell Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace is still under the radar, even though it was nominated for multiple awards last year. I would certainly love to see it on everybody’s TBR list — it’s a great book, one of my favorites from last year.

Wasp’s job is simple. Hunt ghosts. And every year she has to fight to remain Archivist. Desperate and alone, she strikes a bargain with the ghost of a supersoldier. She will go with him on his underworld hunt for the long-long ghost of his partner and in exchange she will find out more about his pre-apocalyptic world than any Archivist before her. And there is much to know. After all, Archivists are marked from birth to do the holy work of a goddess. They’re chosen. They’re special. Or so they’ve been told for four hundred years.

Archivist Wasp fears she is not the chosen one, that she won’t survive the trip to the underworld, that the brutal life she has escaped might be better than where she is going. There is only one way to find out.

Update:

11. From Twitter, @quartzen adds several more recommendations, starting with Nina Kiriki Hoffman.

I definitely second the motion for Hoffman! I only discovered her a few years ago. My personal favorite of hers is A Fistful of Sky, which incidentally is one of the stories that reads exactly like YA but with a protagonist in her early twenties.

The LaZelle family of southern California has a secret: they can do magic. Real magic. As a teenager, a LaZelle undergoes “the Transition”–a severe illness that will either kill him or leave him with magical powers. If he’s lucky, he gains a talent like shape-changing or wish-granting. If he’s unlucky, he never experiences Transition. If he’s especially unlucky, he undergoes Transition late, which increases his chances of dying. And if he survives, he will bear the burden of a dark, dangerous magic: the ability to cast only curses. And curse he must, for when a LaZelle doesn’t use his magic, it kills him.In Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s A Fistful of Sky, Gypsum LaZelle is unique among her brothers and sisters: she has not undergone Transition. She resigns herself to a mundane, magic-bereft existence as a college student. Then one weekend, when her family leaves her home alone, she becomes gravely ill…

Other works and authors @quartzen adds:

12. Five-Twelfths of Heaven and the rest of the trilogy by Melissa Scott.

In a space-faring civilization where a single woman is increasingly sisenfranchised, the star pilot Silence Leigh is defrauded from her inheritance by a greedy competitor. Forced to ally with two men, Silence is dragged into a deadly political struggle, and is tantalized by the hints of the legendary Earth, as well as the dread and the glory of Magi’s power. Her dreams of having her own ship and of escape from the Hegemony’s oppressions take on new direction and focus when she joins the crew of “The Sun-Treader.”

13. Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi

You’ve never read a fantasy novel like this one! The deep well of Japanese myth merges with the Western fantasy tradition for a novel that’s as rich in place and culture as it is hard to put down.

Balsa was a wanderer and warrior for hire. Then she rescued a boy flung into a raging river — and at that moment, her destiny changed. Now Balsa must protect the boy — the Prince Chagum — on his quest to deliver the great egg of the water spirit to its source in the sea. As they travel across the land of Yogo and discover the truth about the spirit, they find themselves hunted by two deadly enemies: the egg-eating monster Rarunga . . . and the prince’s own father.

Update 2

In the comments to the previous post, Mona added:

14. Spinning Starlight by RC Lewis.

Sixteen-year-old heiress and paparazzi darling Liddi Jantzen hates the spotlight. But as the only daughter in the most powerful tech family in the galaxy, it’s hard to escape it. So when a group of men shows up at her house uninvited, she assumes it’s just the usual media-grubs. That is, until shots are fired.

Liddi escapes, only to be pulled into an interplanetary conspiracy more complex than she ever could have imagined. Her older brothers have been caught as well, trapped in the conduits between the planets. And when their captor implants a device in Liddi’s vocal cords to monitor her speech, their lives are in her hands: One word and her brothers are dead.

Desperate to save her family from a desolate future, Liddi travels to another world, where she meets the one person who might have the skills to help her bring her eight brothers home—a handsome dignitary named Tiav. But without her voice, Liddi must use every bit of her strength and wit to convince Tiav that her mission is true. With the tenuous balance of the planets deeply intertwined with her brothers’ survival, just how much is Liddi willing to sacrifice to bring them back?

Haunting and mesmerizing, this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans strings the heart of the classic with a stunning, imaginative world as a star-crossed family fights for its very survival.

15. As Old as Time by Liz Braswell, which is a Beauty and the Beast retelling I hadn’t previously heard of:

Belle is a lot of things: smart, resourceful, restless. She longs to escape her poor provincial town for good. She wants to explore the world, despite her father’s reluctance to leave their little cottage in case Belle’s mother returns—a mother she barely remembers. Belle also happens to be the captive of a terrifying, angry beast. And that is her primary concern.

But Belle touches the Beast’s enchanted rose, intriguing images flood her mind—images of the mother she believed she would never see again. Stranger still, she sees that her mother is none other than the beautiful Enchantress who cursed the Beast, his castle, and all its inhabitants. Shocked and confused, Belle and the Beast must work together to unravel a dark mystery about their families that is twenty-one years in the making.

16. Charlie N Holmberg’s work. Let’s see, here’s one that sounds unusual: The Fifth Doll.

After discovering a room full of matryoshka dolls wearing the faces of her village, a woman learns she may be trapped inside one–but unraveling the sorcery carved into each doll unleashes dark consequences that rip her from the only home she remembers.

17. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. It’s my turn to say I didn’t think this one was under the radar; it seems to me I’ve seen a lot of buzz about it.

Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with her enigmatic assistant Kai, she’s posted to an alternative London. Their mission – to retrieve a dangerous book. But when they arrive, it’s already been stolen. London’s underground factions seem prepared to fight to the very death to find her book.

Adding to the jeopardy, this world is chaos-infested – the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic. Irene’s new assistant is also hiding secrets of his own.

Soon, she’s up to her eyebrows in a heady mix of danger, clues and secret societies. Yet failure is not an option – the nature of reality itself is at stake.

18. Wolf Tower by Tanith Lee. Nothing of Tanith Lee’s has ever worked for me personally . . . not that I have tried a great many of hers . . . I don’t know, maybe I would like this YA title better?

All her life, Claidi has endured hardship in the House, where she must obey a spoiled princess. Then a golden stranger arrives, living proof of a world beyond the House walls. Claidi risks all to free the charming prisoner and accompanies him across the Waste toward his faraway home. It is a difficult yet marvelous journey, and all the while Claidi is at the side of a man she could come to love. That is, until they reach his home . . . and the Wolf Tower.

Feel free to add other under-the-radar titles in the comments!

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A post by MWT — Discoverability

Over at Fantasy Book Cafe, a post by Megan Whelen Turner, writing about the problem of discoverability.

I believe that Discovery, the process of finding books and authors that are new, is the most important aspect of increasing diversity in publishing. Some people find their new books by reading reviews regularly and getting newsletters in their inbox, but the vast majority of readers pick up the thing that’s on the endcap at Barnes and Noble.

Probably true, although in fact when I lived within 10 miles of a bookstore, I found most books and authors via the library. Physical bookstores are still really important for my sales, though. So I think that bit about tables at B&N is still basically true.

Here’s the bit I found most interesting:

I fall into reading ruts pretty easily. When I was a kid, I read all the Black Stallion books, all the Susan Cooper books, all the Alistair MacLean books. It took effort and sometimes blind luck to get me out of my comfort zones. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of my favorite books and I only read it because it was on the shelf in a small apartment where I was trapped as a nanny to a sleeping baby. I love Iain Banks and I am not sure I would have if his books hadn’t constituted 40% of all books in English in the Oslo Public Library the year I lived there.

… This is interesting because I really don’t think “reading all of x books” can be called a rut. I mean, I totally did that too as a kid, and still do as an adult. All the Black Stallion books, check, all of Alistair MacLean, check. Also everything by Dorothy Dunnett, say. Or everything by CJ Cherryh. Or much more recently: all of Martha Wells’ books, all of Andrea K Höst’s books.

But how can that be called a rut? Unless you read them and then re-read them and then read them yet again, rather than going on to something else. Does anybody ever do that? Because that’s a little hard for me to imagine.

If you read all of Martha Wells’ books, that’s only, what, fifteen or so novels. Then you’d go on to something else, right? So, that doesn’t sound like enough novels in a row to really count as getting into a rut.

Which of course does not derail the main point, which is that Discoverability Is Really Important and Really Hard.

MWT says: As more and more of my purchases are made online, as more of my reading is online, I worry about the algorithms that are used to put books in front of my eyeballs. Amazon’s whole imperative is to show me books just like ones I’ve read already. Even as I am trying to diversify, I can I see myself going down a narrower and narrower tunnel.

Which also makes me wonder, do any of you pay a significant amount of attention to Amazon’s suggestions? Or do you, like me, get nearly all your reading recommendations from bloggers? In that case, since no one’s taste overlaps perfectly, you should find yourself being pushed toward books you wouldn’t ordinarily notice, right? Chachic got me reading romances. Charlotte got me reading more MG. Brandy and Maureen got me reading contemporary YA. And I have no idea how many books on my TBR pile were recommended by commenters here, but lots.

Discoverability is still really hard, obviously. Bloggers don’t use algorithms to suggest similar titles, but on the other hand some titles come with a LOT of buzz and hype and every. single. blogger. in the entire universe reviews those books while a thousand others fall under the radar. I see no solution to that, basically.

But to do my tiny bit about the issue: in the comments, please mention one under-the-radar novel or series that you read recently (or semi-recently) and really loved.

I’ll start, obviously.

My pick: Rosemary Kirstein’s The Steerswoman

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Good News Tuesday

Forgot about these good news posts last week — that happens when I happen to take Monday off; Tuesday just doesn’t feel like Tuesday. But that means several links piled up.

Like this one, for example:

Possible new treatment for neuroinflammation in stroke

Researchers have identified a potential new treatment to reduce the effects of intracerebral hemorrhage, or ICH, a severe form of stroke causing blood vessels to burst and bleed into the brain, which can lead to life-threatening edema and neuroinflammation.

I expect like every other treatment for stroke, timing is important. But anything that reduces the damage from strokes is definitely good news.

Here’s another, even better:

Scientists Halt Growth of Colon, Stomach Cancers

Australian researchers have discovered a “revolutionary” new way to stop the growth of colon and stomach cancers, which could lead to a new cancer-fighting drug within three years. … When researchers used a drug-like molecule to inhibit the protein in animal tests, existing colon and stomach cancers stopped growing. The appearance of new cancers was also reduced.

I expect we all know someone who has died of gastrointestinal cancer. I certainly do. Plus the rate of these cancers in younger people has been spiking, I believe. So this is very good news.

Here’s hoping this next one pans out:

After Decades of Work, a Malaria Vaccine Is Here

Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi will begin piloting the injectable vaccine next year with young children. The vaccine, which has partial effectiveness, has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives if used with existing measures. … Malaria infects more than 200 million people worldwide every year and kills about half a million, most of them children in Africa.

Well, even a partial vaccine would be a great thing. Good luck to those trying it!

Here’s a very cool one:

South Indian frog oozes molecule that inexplicably decimates flu viruses

A compound in the frog’s mucus—long known to have germ-killing properties—can latch onto flu virus particles and cause them to burst apart, researchers report in Immunity. The peptide is a potent and precise killer, able to demolish a whole class of flu viruses while leaving other viruses and cells unharmed. But scientists don’t know exactly how it pulls off the viral eviscerations. No other antiviral peptide of its ilk seems to work the same way….

Click through and read the whole mysterious thing.

Here’s a somewhat misleading headline:

Elon Musk Outlines His Mission to Link Human Brains With Computers in 4 Years

This instantly makes one think of real SF computer-brain interfaces, as is shown particularly well in the Touchstone trilogy, for example. But the immediate intention is to use these little devices in a medical capacity:

Tesla founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk said his latest company Neuralink Corp is working to link the human brain with a machine interface by creating micron-sized devices.

Neuralink is aiming to bring to the market a product that helps with certain severe brain injuries due to stroke, cancer lesion, etc, in about four years.

A bit creepy in its potential! But we’ll see.

Now, this last one is just cool:

Strange new ‘superfluid’ boggles the mind

Physicists have developed a fluid which has “negative mass” — meaning it accelerates toward you when it is pushed away.

Well, that sounds totally crazy. Maybe those of you who are more into physics than I am will understand better how this is even remotely possible. Very cool thing to use as SF handwavey magic technology, though.

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Possibly the most magical photo ever

Frans de Waal posted this on Facebook recently and I finally remembered to go find it. I may make it the background on my computer forever.

This image, by Ben Hall Photography, shows flamingos soaring through the Chilean Andes.

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Ex-classics: when classics are forgotten

Here’s an interesting post that I gather was pulled together from a reddit thread: These Books Were Once Considered “Classics” But Are Now Largely Forgotten

Neat idea for a post! Let’s see what’s on the list:

Telemachus by Francois de Fenelon — evidently a retelling of Ulysses from Telemachus’ point of view. That is an interesting idea, but I don’t know that I would rush right out.

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. That one I’ve heard of. Doesn’t sound like my kind of thing at all. “follows orphan Philip on a bildungsroman through Europe.” — yeah, no, not a very appealing description.

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington, “follows the decline of the superrich Ambersons in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.” Ugh.

Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini. Now, that one I actually have on my TBR pile. I will have to overcome my ingrained distrust of anything labeled a “classic” in order to read it, and so far that hasn’t happened. The first line is almost as famous as “It is a truth universally acknowledged” or “Call me Ishmael.” Probably you know it, right? “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.”

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. I faintly remember having heard of this one, which actually sounds quite inviting. “One would think, in creating what is believed to be the first modern English detective novel, you would solidify your place among the literary greats; that seemingly is not the case for Wilkie Collins, whose 1868 epistolary novel The Moonstone pioneered a new genre.” I like English detective novels and I like epistolary novels, so I guess I should look into getting this one. … Yes, it seems to be free for Kindle. Okay then, added to the TBR pile.

Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. Well, well. That one I’ve not only heard of, I think I read it. A while ago, though. I don’t remember it well, but yeah. I don’t really like the “blending into the cosmic mind” type of outcome.

Rope by Patrick Hamilton. Well, that is certainly a forgettable title that probably did not do the book any favors. Looks like it was a play, and it is described thus: “[a] Dickensian” portrayal of British street culture amid the World Wars.” Hmm. I think I would rather just read something by Dickens.

Okay, that’s it on the list. Anything you would like to add? I’ll include one that may never have been a classic, but should have been: An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden, published in 1956.

Practically any of Godden’s work ought to have been a classic, and should still be read today. My personal favorite is actually In This House of Brede.

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