Adrian Collins's Blog, page 131

REVIEW: Thieves’ War by Clayton Snyder

Clayton Snyder’s manic concoction of whimsical satire continues in his second installment of the Thieves’ Lyric series. Thieves’ War brings Cord and Nenn back together for their greatest heist yet. A heist that, if successful, could destroy the foundation of what it means to be human.

After their involvement in a slew of deaths and destruction of an entire city, Nenn and her group of ragtags find themselves once again broke. Their rotten luck continues as they find themselves in Gentia, a land in the midst of war and great social disparity. A  foul place where Harrowers walk freely. Unsurprisingly, Nenn’s accomplice Cord further complicates thievery by hatching a plan to not only earn money but also bring an end to all wars.

Somehow always finding a way to say something both crude and philosophical, Cord is a larger than life character. As a thief, Cord aims for more than stealing riches for himself. His schemes involves enriching the lives of those shunned by society. There is a sincere depth to his character that balances his constant cheeky banter. While I usually find righteous characters disagreeable, I am particularly fond of Cord.

Thankfully, Cord’s eccentric character does not overshadow Nenn. As Nenn is the main point of view character throughout the series, I am thrilled we learn more about her history and truly see her develop in this book. The revelations in her character arc floored me. While the plot in Thieves’ War is grand, my favorite moments were the lore and discovering Nenn’s past.

Between scenes of utter chaos and tomfoolery, Cord and Nenn quietly reveal the stark truths of their world. Their truth transcends the fantastical worldbuilding Clayton Snyder created and becomes a message that mirrors real life. I rallied behind Cord’s ambitions. I truly felt Nenn’s grief. Snyder intensifies all the best qualities from River of Thieves in his second installment. Thieves’ War is more offbeat, wild, and more wholehearted.

Thieves’ War is just as graphic as the first book. While Thieves’ War is comical Clayton Snyder certainly does not shy away from portraying violence with detail. Snyder was a finalist from the most recent SPFBO 7 contest. His cowritten novel with Michael R Fletcher Norylska Groans did receive some polarizing reviews due to its unapologetically grimdark elements.

I thoroughly enjoyed Thieves’ War. Clayton Snyder’s ability to graft such oppositional elements of satire, wholesome themes, and extreme violence together is talent. Thieves’ War is a brilliant absurdity.

Read Thieves’ War by Clayton Snyder

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An interview with Andrew Caldecott

Momenticon by Andrew Caldecott is a true joy to read – a unique novel set in a dystopian future around a museum and its unusual occupants, with a strong streak of Alice in Wonderland woven through. Read our review of the novel here, and read on to hear Andrew Caldecott talk more about his new novel, his writing process and museums more generally. His answers are just as much a joy as his novel is!

Can you pitch Momenticon in one sentence for our readers?

An adventure story which sets misfits against a corrupted establishment, a riff on the Alice books and the role of art in our lives, and an off-piste examination of how mankind might fare without nature.

I loved how much the story referenced Alice in Wonderland (my favourite classic) – what inspired you to craft your story around those references to literature and art?

Tenniel’s Alice illustrations match the characters as well as any graphic novel. And what characters: the psychotic, the monstrous, the kind, the eccentric, the bossy, the put-upon and the plain disturbed. When young, you were bewitched and thought them fantastical. As you grow older, you discover they have their real-life equivalents; even Cheshire cats who appear and disappear when you least expect it. And topicality too: as an image of despoiling Nature for avarice, what can beat the Walrus and the Carpenter? The Alice books have lived on because they are internally coherent but externally bizarre which is the hallmark of the best speculative fiction. Gormenghast still grips for the same reason.

As this is partially a story about museums and archives, what are your favourite ones to visit, or exhibitions that have left lasting impressions?

If you have a time machine to hand, I recommend the marvelously chaotic Cairo Museum of Antiquities before it entered the twenty first century, where you half-shared the experience of Howard Carter stumbling on the jumble of Tutankhamun’s tomb. For an exhibition, perhaps the Royal Academy’s bumper Van Gogh show of 2010, which married his letters with his work and showed what the self-taught and mentally troubled can conjure up against the odds. For a permanent oddity, go see Francis Bacon’s exactly preserved studio in Dublin or at least view it online.  You’ll never feel untidy again.

Do you have any favourite characters or bits in your own work?

In the moment of writing, maybe, but you forget; afterwards, not really.

How did this writing experience differ from your last trilogy? Did you work similarly or did you create a completely new routine for the new project?

The Rotherweird trilogy had a multitude of starting points in time and place, which slowly came together, and was set in a broadly recognisable English market town. This has a diametrically opposite scheme which pitches a single character into a macabre dystopian setting where he thinks he’s the last man standing.  He isn’t, of course, and it mushrooms outwards from there.

As to routine, it’s the same and old-fashioned – scribble in manuscript, then type up. Coffee shops work best; real people passing you by without intruding.

What is your favourite part of the writing and publishing process?

To list the ingredients first: a founding idea, lesser ideas from which the story is woven, description, character and finally the craft of polishing and pruning. I suspect they engage quite different parts of the brain. Most satisfying perhaps is removing a false step (in my case often one character too many), because the pain of losing hard hours gives way to the realisation that clearance has allowed other characters to grow. That said, nothing beats the afterglow when a storyline appears from nowhere which you instinctively know should work (if you can do it justice).

As for the publishing process, get-togethers with the like-minded. And covers. In a perfect world they wouldn’t matter, as the label on a bottle shouldn’t. In the real world they don’t get you the purchase, but they may earn the glance which does. Artists are a pleasure to work with.

What were some of your challenges writing over the last couple of years?

My caffeine oases (see above) were closed thanks to Covid.

How do you celebrate a new book being released?

Good thought. I’d better do something about that.

What books or other media have filled your creative well recently?

Re-reading Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, when the devil and a talking cat revel in the madness of Stalin’s Russia. The two chapters which pitch Pontius Pilate (secular power) against Christ (ethical force) are remarkable – don’t ask how Bulgakov fits this in. Finished in 1940, the year of the author’s death, it only emerged when smuggled out to Paris in 1967. How spoilt we Western authors are. As for other media, the Green Planet any day.

Read Momenticon by Andrew Caldecott

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REVIEW: Momenticon by Andrew Caldecott

Andrew Caldecott’s Momenticon is one of the most unique books I’ve read. Set in a future where humanity has conglomerated into domes due to environmental degeneration, this particular story largely takes place in a dome dedicated to the past – the Museum Dome. Here, unknown curators have selected a range of items to represent humanity’s history, from artefacts to paintings, and our intrepid hero, Fogg, has been taking care of them as the current curator with only an AI for company. In the three years he has been present in the Museum Dome, he has not experienced a single visitor. And then the museum starts getting visitors, two men called Dee and Dum – starting a thread of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland woven through the story.

As the cover of Momenticon already hints at, classical literature and art are a strong influence, particularly Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. Characters come alive, there are scattered illustrations with elements taken from these source materials and it is generally woven in as a strong thread on the story, not merely passing mentions. The Museum Dome – and the artefacts kept within – are a living, breathing, entity, in essence, taking up space and momentum in the story.

Having been essentially on his own for three years, Fogg is not the most stable or well-adjusted of main characters. He is twitchy, lonely and neurotic, and thoroughly confused when things start to change. Intertwined with his is Morag’s story, a girl with a mysterious past who shows up in the Museum Dome shortly after Fogg’s first interactions with characters from Wonderland. Their banter and interactions are an absolute joy to read, as is the book more generally. I adored Momenticon from start to finish, and loved how Caldecott managed to craft something that is utterly his own.

This is Jo Fletcher Books’ lead title for spring 2022 and this is well-deserved. Momenticon is a book that is hard to place within (sub)genre boundaries, but it is a compelling and enrapturing story that captures the reader from the first page to the last. It may not be the best fit for readers who like straight-forward action novels, as it is more thoughtful and character-driven, but as the layers slowly unravel and peel off to reveal what is hidden underneath, the pay-off is worth it. For me, this was a five-star read, and I am looking forward to reading the second book in the duology when it comes out.

Read Momenticon by Andrew Caldecott

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REVIEW: The Heron Kings’ Flight by Eric Lewis

The Heron Kings’ Flight is the second novel in Eric Lewis’ The Heron Kings series. I would like to thank independent publishing house Flame Tree Press and Eric Lewis for sending me an eARC of the novel so that I can review The Heron Kings’ Flight for Grimdark Magazine.

The Heron Kings’ Flight is set in the same medieval low fantasy world as its predecessor but the events of this novel take place a century on from its conclusion. So although reading The Heron Kings may help you to understand the history or geography of this world, it is not essential pre reading. The Heron Kings’ Flight can stand on its own and be enjoyed as the introduction to Lewis’ world if you have not already discovered this series.

Due to the time jump, all of the characters of The Heron Kings’ Flight are new, though there are some nice nods to some of the key characters from the first novel. Our main characters in this instalment are Linnet and Aerrus who are young members of the Heron Kings. The titular band of guerrilla fighters from the first novel has grown into a more organised guild of forest rangers. They have an uneasy truce with the crown and work in the shadows to protect those in need. The Heron Kings have become a forgotten legend in the century of peace and even those they have been helping do not really believe in them after all this time. The betrayal of the Heron Kings and the impending invasion of their surrounding lands threatens this existence and Linnet and Aeruss, along with former soldier Eyvind, have to discover the traitor and try to form a new resistance against the invading god emperor Phynagoras.

I enjoyed Lewis’ writing style in The Heron Kings’ Flight. Much like its preceding novel Lewis has written a clear and concise story, I was never confused as to where we were in the world or what was going on. It still has the dark humour and witty character conversations that I liked and, as with before, the exchanges between characters are where the reader gets the majority of their world building information.

There is also a distinctive difference in Lewis’ descriptions of the violent events in the novel. The Heron Kings’ Flight is still set in an exceptionally brutal and violent world, but this violence is no longer hyperbolic in its extreme. However the explicit and gruesome depictions of violence (including rape) will be too much for some readers and I think are deliberately described to show the harrowing atrocities that humans are capable of committing against one another. There is no fantastical ‘bad guy’ who can be blamed for the events in Lewis’ world; the savagery is entirely down to the choices made by the characters. I did find some of this very hard to stomach and personally would prefer the escapism of more fantasy elements.

However The Heron Kings’ Flight is not relentlessly dark and there are some very humorous or touching lighter moments. The characters and their arcs are engaging and, certainly for the main trio, relatable and mostly likable. There are layers of political intrigue and subterfuge as well as fast paced action. The Heron Kings’ Flight is not for the faint hearted but I think would appeal to fans of medieval style fantasy worlds with a high threshold for gritty and realistic gore. 3.5/5.

Read The Heron King’s Flight by Eric Lewis

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REVIEW: Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

The GdM faithful will probably be familiar with author Ed McDonald from his brilliant, bestselling Raven’s Mark trilogy. His latest offering is Daughter of Redwinter which sets its own, distinct flavour from the opening. Does that mean a departure from everything dark and ominous that we hold dear in our fiction, I hear you ask? Hell no.

To begin with there’s Raine, our protagonist. From the very beginning of the riveting first chapter, we learn that she can see the dead. That is, she can see the restless dead; those who have been unable to find peace in the afterlife. Whilst this may seem like a useful gift at first, there are caveats. She inhabits a world where the crown and the chivalric class (known as Draoihn) view such skills as punishable by death. A fact which hangs like an impending blade over Raine throughout. She has to be one of my favourite protagonists in recent years. She’s gloriously flawed and cursed with a knack for making terrible decisions which both she and those close to her live to rue. But that is easily forgiven because she is so young and personally it made me care about her even more and need to see her succeed.

After the mesmeric opening scene and a short yet perilous journey, Raine finds herself living within the titular Redwinter (the citadel of the Draoihn). There, the main part of the story unfolds and the threats which the first act hinted at become real and immediate. Her abilities start to become clear but it is unclear to all whether they will prove to be Raine’s undoing or the saviour of an entire nation. Tropes are used skilfully in Daughter of Redwinter and a variety of creatures and adversaries come to life in Raine’s new home. The world-building is spot on – just the right amount is revealed at the tip of this iceberg to suggest a vast imagining (which should contain plenty to make this another well received series) without sacrificing reader interest. What I particularly enjoyed was the distinction between the physical world around the characters and the concealed one which only the most gifted Draoihn and their apprentices can ascend to – known as ‘gates’.

One of the main facets that made Daughter of Redwinter an excellent read for me though was McDonald’s crisp prose. His style is excellent and immensely quotable. His descriptive passages really immerse the reader in his world whilst at the same time being clean, original and concise. Not a sentence is wasted. Similarly, the author’s passion for and expertise in the HEMA martial arts world serves him well. One of his skills is using this knowledge to craft exciting, realistic battle scenes without the terminology becoming overbearing.

As with Blackwing (McDonald’s previous series opener), a strength is in the depth of the supporting characters and the relationships which form between them. One of Raine’s main challenges is to learn fast whom she can trust. Is the level-headed Sanvaunt all he seems? Do clan heir Ovitus’ flaws run as deep as they seem and will they be as problematic as we suspect they are? I particularly enjoyed seeing the friendship with Esher blossom and wonder where this will lead in the next instalments as it has proven pretty influential on the story thus far. Hess provides an intriguing worldview and provides a nice gateway into a literal underworld and subplot as well.

Overall this piece signifies a change of tone; something different from its highly successful predecessor. It isn’t as dark in its pitch or mood but it certainly has its moments as is still bathed in grit and ambiguous, 3D characterisation.

Daughter of Redwinter is an outstanding opening for what deserves to be another phenomenally successful series for Ed McDonald. Once again he has taken us to a world which oozes menace and enthrals with beautifully imperfect characters and its own rich, dark mythology. A must devour read for the summer of ‘22.

Read Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

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REVIEW: Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton was a novel that was not too dense but explored future ideas with enough gravitas to get me thinking, but not enough to bog me down. Mickey7 wasn’t full of Earth and perspective-shattering ideas, but damn, it was a fun way to spend an afternoon or two. 

The premise starts with Mickey Barnes, the titular Mickey7. He is the seventh iteration of himself—a clone of a clone, and so on. “Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact.” Do you need someone to take a fatal dose of radiation, try out an experimental vaccine, or introduce themselves to a non-friendly planet entity? Mickey is your guy. That is why he gets paid the big bucks… errm. That is why he gets all the food! Wait, that isn’t it either…Moving on. 

Mickey7, having dealt with six violent or gruesome deaths, has a better idea of what death is than anyone else in his colony. Furthermore, because humans have different views of death, many in his colony shun him or want to sleep with him. It makes for odd working conditions for him. He is either reviled or secretly worshipped, and not a whole lot in between. 

While out on a scouting mission with his best friend, Mickey takes a tumble into a ravine through pure bad luck. It would be difficult to get him out, his friend tells him to open a vein and he would see him soon. Mickey is truly touched by the care that his friend is showing him in what could be his final moments. But Mickey stumbles along, for once refusing to die, and makes it back to the base colony. However, Mickey8 had already been created and had all his memories downloaded into his skull. 

The colony and society have rules regarding the number of clones in existence, 1. It is also very biologically expensive to create new humans. It takes a lot of potential calories to create muscles and bones. On the colony calories equal currency. When Mickey7 meets Mickey8, they decide that neither would like to die, and they will work together. But this leads to a mountain of philosophical and practical problems. The story repeatedly asks, if we are not our bodies, are we still us? It is not new territory, any clone story has to eventually ask this question. But I like that in Mickey7, it is asked subtly. Mickey7 does not ponder life’s meaning while staring into the yonder, he is too busy working and trying to stay alive another day. But the undercurrent of that idea is there. 

The Mickeys work to keep themselves out of the recycler. The recycler is where anything biological is thrown to melt down and recycle to be used again in some capacity. A threat that is hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles.  But, staying out of the recycler is the least of Mickey’s issues. They are not the only creatures on this planet, and things are about to get way more interesting for this couple of clones. 

Mickey7 is a super fun book to read; there isn’t a lot of development. The period it takes for the story to take place is relatively short and thus doesn’t allow for any solid growth for Mickey. The story is more of the Mickey’s escaping one problem to throw themselves into another, very much like a kamikaze pigeon bouncing against cars on the freeway. But the way that Mickey is written is rather charming. He is a rather affable fellow who loves history, his girlfriend is written as someone who loves him despite his neurosis and his best friend is a chump. But not enough of a chump to be the antagonist of the story. Mickey is just a normal dude, thrust into unique circumstances time and time again. 

I would certainly recommend this to those looking for some light science fiction. The idea of an expendable was enough to cinch it for me. Check it out. 

Read Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

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An interview with Adam Oyebanji

Adam Oyebanji works in counter-terrorism by day, and writes by night. His debut science fiction novel Braking Day about everything that could possibly go wrong when a generation space ship slows down to approach its final destination came out from Jo Fletcher Books in April (see our review here) – it is a brilliant addition to the corpus. We’re thrilled that Adam took out the time from his busy life to have a chat with us about Braking Day, writing and dragons (because, yes, there are dragons of a sort in his space opera and yes, that makes us love it even more)!

Can you pitch Braking Day in a one-sentence pitch to our readers?

Politics, mystery and a coming of age drama aboard a miles-long generation ship.

What is it that draws you to space opera specifically?

I hesitate to say this in front of an audience of grimdark aficionados, but I love the optimism of it. Even if the story is dark, the fact that it’s in space, kind of means we made it as a species.  We fixed global warming, didn’t nuke ourselves, avoided a return to the Middle Ages, and developed kick-ass tech that got us off the planet.  Humanity is going places!  What’s an oppressive interstellar empire and ruthless clone army compared to that?

On your website you say that you’d travel into the future rather than the past if given the choice – so a question about the future is in order: where do you hope science fiction will be in a decade? What developments are you hoping for?

I think, as different kinds of people start to slip past the gatekeepers and into publishing, we’ll get a wider, a richer, array of stories to choose from, which will be great for everybody, especially readers. I saw the movie CODA the other day and it was awesome. That movie, that story, would never have had a chance 10 years ago.  Now I can go see that and the latest Marvel blockbuster.  More CODA doesn’t mean less Marvel.  SF will be the same, I hope.  More stories.  A lot more.

Also, ebook brain implants, so I can download and read without having to bother with hands.

What has been the greatest joy in your journey to publication?

Working with people who want your book to be the best it can be. Joy is absolutely the right word.  Writing, for me anyway, is a pretty solitary endeavor.  So, when you suddenly find yourself in conversation with people who’ve read what you’ve written, believe in what you’re trying to do, and want to help you do it, it’s an incredible feeling.  Like thinking you’re alone in the world and suddenly stumbling into a beautiful city.

How do you plan to celebrate the release of Braking Day?

Because the world is more grimdark than I would like, I don’t think I’ll have time to do much of anything. My day job is financial counter-terrorism, which means, among other things, that I’m one of those people who make the sanctions you hear about on TV actually work.  With the situation in Ukraine being as it is, my colleagues and I are working 16/7 right now.  On the plus side, no one is trying to drop munitions through the roof of our homes. Hopefully I will get to crack a bottle of champagne with the family before stumbling off to bed!

Is there something that has taken you by complete surprise during the writing or editing process?

“Next level” is an overused term, but a good agent and editor can really get you there. I had no idea how much they can help you craft your story.  What you submit to the agent and then publisher as your manuscript is not the last word by a long shot.  My agent and editor had a ton of great suggestions for tightening things up and diving deeper into certain characters and plotlines.  I will be forever grateful to them.  The final product is so much better than the original draft.

Do you have any advice for aspiring authors to juggle writing with a demanding career?

It’s a cliché, I know, but you have to make the time to write. And time isn’t free.  Something else has to give.  For me, it’s TV.  And admin.  Right now, I really should be doing my taxes and getting someone in to fix the washing machine.  If you wait until everything else is sorted before hitting the keyboard, you are unlikely to get anything done.

Without going into too much details because spoilers, but I loved that you included dragons of a sort in your book. What are some of your favourite literary dragons?

Smaug from The Hobbit, has to be in there. That book was read to me as a child, and while he wasn’t the first dragon I’d come across, he was the first one who had real character, as opposed to being slain by the charming prince in a couple of paragraphs.  Then there’s Saphira from Eragon, where the dragon is not only (shock horror) good, but also a major character in her own right.  And lastly, one of the oldest of them all, the unnamed dragon in Beowulf.  It terrorizes far and wide because someone stole a cup from its hoard and then takes a mortal chomp out of our hero.  It may have been slain in the end, but it got its licks in first!

What are the three items you’d make sure to bring from Earth onto a generation ship?

Ooh, this is like the end of that movie, The Time Machine, where Rod Taylor takes three books back to the future to help him rebuild civilization, but no one sees which ones he picked! Let’s see…  This is a serious question.  There’d be chocolate.    There’d have to be chocolate.  And then maybe some more chocolate.  And finally, chocolate.

What books or other media have filled your creative well recently?

I’ve been catching up on some military space opera that I missed the first time around. I’ve been reading Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, starting with Dauntless, and I’ve just finished Planetside, the first in a trilogy by Michael Mammay.  And right at the moment, for a complete change of pace, I’ve picked up The Gossamer Mage by Julie Czerneda.  I fear I’m never going to look at pens in quite the same way again.

Read Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji

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REVIEW: Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji

Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji is the sort of science fiction that keeps readers on their toes throughout. Set on a generation ship on the way to what is intended to be salvation, the story is centred around the titular Braking Day. This is the mid-point in the journey, where the ship starts slowing down rather than accelerating in preparation for their destination. But in this case, this is where things go wrong. Set around a young engineer, it is a fast-paced story, blending classic space opera with elements of a psychological thriller and playing with both the reader and the characters’ minds, creating a strong sense of the uncanny.

Ravinder MacLeod is in the middle of this story. He knows Braking Day means there is no going back – once the brakes are on, for better or worse, their course is set. This is a source of anxiety for him, as he quite liked his status quo, where he was able to ignore some of his personal anxieties. But now shit’s getting real, and as the story progresses, Ravi is torn between his role as an engineer within the Archimedes’ officer corps and his humble origins – especially his cousin Boz, who may be brilliant and ambitiously creative in her own experiments, but also an ex-con. I especially liked Boz, with her no-nonsense attitude and inventiveness, but Ravi himself was a great character as well.

The world building in Braking Day was stellar. Not only did the generation ship Archimedes feel like a community and a world with distinct cultures, but each of the ships that Ravi encounters along the story does too. There are clear remnants of Earth culture that have survived through the generations – the Archimedes has been on its journey for over 130 years – but also elements that have developed out of that contained environment into something truly its own. And I thought it was brilliant how different each of the ships was, which really helped my sense of immersion. Oh, and there are space dragons. Of a sort. So that’s absolutely awesome!

In Braking Day, Adam Oyebanji manages to write a strong debut. The reader, along with Ravi, is unsure about which parts are real and which aren’t as events unfold. It is a fast-paced, but still character driven story, full of action and compelling twists. Oyebanji is definitely an author to watch – his next book will be a spy thriller, so a very different genre – and I am very curious to see where his writing career takes him. I’m a fan.

Read Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji

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REVIEW: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean starts with a twenty-nine-year-old being refused booze at a corner shop because she does not have ID. As a young looking twenty-nine-year-old who still gets carded on a regular basis, that made me fall in love with the book instantly. But Devon isn’t your ordinary woman. She is a book eater. Humanoid, but not human, they devour books as sustenance. And that is written beautifully. One passage that stuck with me is when one if the characters eats a book on the page: “He wrested free his emergency book, […]. Flashman novel, his favourite kind of comfort food. Bit through a corner, pleased by the creamy texture of the pages. Gunfights and sex sizzled on his tongue.” It combines the imagined physicality of books as flavours with the spice of plot elements, and that makes my story-loving heart sing and my imagination go wild with excitement. The Book Eaters is one of those books that doesn’t come by very often, magical and mundane at the same time, hitting all the right spots.

There are six families of book eaters, and Devon is part of the Fairweathers. Family is a central element of the book as everything Devon does is motivated by her role as a mother, both actively taking care of her son Cai and in a more abstract role with her daughter Salem, taken away to be raised by others. It is a story of how far to go for the ones you love. Within the book eaters, there seems to be a lack of women. Which is very visible in the way Devon is treated by the rest of the families – both as a lesser member, and one that is highly needed for breeding. And I use breeding here on purpose. She is supposed to create the next generation of female book eaters – and when she gives birth not only to a son, but a mind eater, a variation of their kind sustained not by books but by minds, thoughts and souls of humans, she has to fight to break him out of the vicious cycle of tradition.

In that, The Book Eaters addresses issues of ableism that mirror those present in our world. Cai initially is refused a name by his father. He is shunned and to be sent away because he is born different. And essentially this leads to Devon’s separation from everyone and everything she had known – and catalyses events both extreme and entertaining for everyone who has ever experienced ableism. Because she is a mother, and it is no question to her that her child is more important than traditional prejudice.

The story is told with an abundance of dry wit, which draws the reader in. It is a fairly slow-paced book, but one rife with character exploration. Due to its focus on characters and immersive world-building, it doesn’t matter that the plot is slower, as it gives the story room to breathe, to capture the reader’s full attention. This is one of those books that you don’t devour, but savour slowly (despite the ARC’s instruction to devour it…). It is also a book for book lovers, having each chapter introduced by a different quote from literature, and making you think about how it relates to the events at hand. I adored this book, and I hope you will too. An easy five stars from me.

Read The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

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REVIEW: Bigfoot Hunters by Rick Gualtieri

Bigfoot Hunters is the first horror novel by Rick Gualtieri after a successful career as an urban fantasy and comedy writer. I was expecting something more like his Bill the Vampire series when I first heard this book announced rather than what I actually got: which is a literary slasher novel. Even the title is misleading because the cryptid hunters are not a group of badases prepared to take down a yeti. They are closer to a bunch of nature show enthusiasts who are badly outmatched by the events going on.

The premise is a typical slasher movie setup: a bunch of horny college students are going to the middle of the woods in order to find excuses to bang (or even do away with the excuses). Once there, they soon find themselves being stalked by a Bigfoot. Much to their surprise, they are rescued by a group of cryptic hunters. Unfortunately, what they think is a small problem with a lone predator swiftly turns into an enormous horde that makes 30 Days of Night look tame.

Bigfoot Hunters goes with the premise that sasquatch are normally quite peaceful and not a creature that would ever attack humans. These ones are suffering from a condition that has driven them mad and made them predatory. It’s an interesting take on a slasher movie monster and adds a small bit of sympathy to the creatures that are otherwise horrifying as well as relentless killers.

Much effort goes into the world-building of how sasquatch has been able to keep hidden from mankind for the entirety of human history. It’s not that believable but Rick Gualtieri still makes the attempt and for that I appreciate it. The cryptid hunters of the United States government are more like park rangers than dedicated monster hunters as well. They even have the cute job of running a show that seeks cryptids on television but is actually a cover for making them look fake.

Despite this cute premise, this is definitely in the horror genre rather than urban fantasy. The sasquatch are shown to be genuinely terrifying and there is a massive body count among the characters. Not just the ones you’d think would die, die too. No, this is a fairly brutal bloodbath and entirely worthy of Friday the Thirteenth or Halloween-style massacres. It actually feels like two separate 1:30:00 long horror movies, really, and that’s good value for my money.

The characters are a mixture of likable, dislikable, and in-between with Rick wisely making sure that they feel authentic even if they’re jerks or not. There are no heroes or villains but there are people who are brave versus those who are scummy. The body count doesn’t particularly favor one side or the other either. At least at the start.

Big Foot Hunters is notably not part of Rick Gualtieri’s Bill the Vampire universe despite the large role that sasquatch play in those books. Furthermore, they are entirely different from the spirit animals in that setting. It kind of makes me wonder what novels about those creatures would have been like. Still, I really enjoyed this one and recommend it for people who love trashy horror movies but intelligently written. This is a bit like Cabin in the Woods in that respect. I listened to the audiobook version and have to say I recommend it over the Kindle version, though both are excellent.

Read Bigfoot Hunters by Rick Gualtieri

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