Beth Tabler's Blog, page 150
December 5, 2022
Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
What is Piranesi About?Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
My ThoughtsI could not put this book down for the life of me. It’s been a long time since a story gripped my imagination the way that this one did and as I sit in the aftermath of it, I feel like I’ve just awoken from a dream I can still feel but can’t quite remember.
Coming in at 245 pages, Piranesi is much shorter than a lot of the books I pick up, but it packed no less of a punch. I was told by others before going in that I should approach this book without knowing anything about the premise and I have to agree that I think that’s the best way to experience it. It may seem a little odd at first, but let the beautiful prose take you on the journey.
It’s a story that delves deeply into themes of human nature, the supposedly immutable qualities of time and memory, and how one can choose to interact with the world around them. Despite dealing quite obviously with some of these themes, it’s also one of those books that hit me in the heart without me being able to exactly pinpoint why. Was it the prose? The atmosphere? The plot revelations? I’m not sure; all I know is that the urge to shed a tear was dredged up from somewhere.
If you are looking for something completely unique to sweep you away, I highly recommend picking up this book. You may just find what it was you were looking for.
5 Stars!Check Out Some of Our Other ReviewsReview; THE BIG SHEEP by Robert Kroese
Review; The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik
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Review – Star Wars Andor
Disney’s stewardship of the Star Wars brand has been somewhat spotty in its handling. I’m going to spare you my opinion on the subject because we would be here all day but I was a Legends fanboy and religiously cultivated my love of the Expanded Universe for a good ten to twelve years of my life. Suffice to say, my opinion of the sequels was less than stellar and I feel like with the exception of Lost Stars, the novels have been nothing of particular note either. Thankfully, Disney has been doing somewhat better with the television shows as both The Mandalorian and Kenobi were pretty good. I’d even go so far as to say that Kenobi should have been a movie in theaters rather than on Disney+.
Andor, by contrast, is it’s own beast and I honestly think it may be among the best Star Wars media ever created. I bring up all of my above Star Wars experience because I’m putting that into context. I’ve read everything from The Lost City of the Jedi to the New Jedi Order. I’ve watched Droids, Ewoks, Clone Wars, and Resistance. I can tell you the difference between a Quarren and a Klantooine. What I’m saying is I know shit.
I don’t know if Star Wars: Andor justifies the existence of Disney’s Star Wars but it is a compelling argument by itself. The Mandalorian is what I wanted from a Boba Fett series since I was eight years old but Andor does something different. Andor is actually of artistic merit. That’s a bit of a loaded pair of buzzwords but it’s the best way to describe what this show does for me. There’s nothing wrong with entertainment that exists to entertain but Andor manages to do that while also actually having something to say. A lot of things to say actually. All of which it does with imagery, storytelling, and strong characters.
The funny thing is that I was going to give this one a pass. I mean, who the Nine Corellian Hells cares about Cassian Andor? He was okay in Rogue One but it’s not like he was a particularly important character that I was dying to learn more of. If I had to choose any character from the Disney movies I would want to watch a series about, I’d probably choose Jyn Erso, Rey, Finn, Rose, Q’ra or Tobias Beckett. Hell, I’d watch an office comedy starring Admiral Krennic. Not that I was dying for any of these movies but Cassian didn’t leave much of an impressive. Here, he does.
Getting into the actual review, Andor is ostensibly the story about the titular character. It’s not quite twenty years into the reign of the Empire and he’s a petty thief working on the planet Ferrix as he’s struggling to find his lost sister. Cassian is an indigineous native of a planet that got separated from his family due to the Clone Wars and thinks he can track her down. The different kind of story this show is can be summarized by the fact he looks for her in a brothel and ends up murdering two cops, one of them begging for his life, in the first five minutes.
Now that might give you the impression this is a grimdark show or ridiculously gritty but this is definitely a far more grounded show than the typical Star Wars universe. This is not Luke Skywalker or even Han Solo’s Star Wars. This is maybe not even Wedge Antilles’ Star Wars, this is Uncle Owen and Rebel Soldier 271#’s Star Wars. There are many people who have 9-5 jobs under the Empire, Stormtroopers are terrifying, and you can have your life ruined by an Imperial beach cop sending you away for six years for loitering.
This is the first Star Wars work to really give us an idea of what “normal” life in a galaxy far far away is like. The oppression of the Empire is everywhere but it’s just close enough to what we experience in our day to day life to be disquieting. The Empire has put the squeeze on everyone but Cassian, like many others, is determined to keep his head down until events actively prevent him from being able to do so. We get to see what life is like on worlds occupied by the Empire, how the upper crust live, the inside of a minimum security prison, and more.
Strangely, my favorite part of the story is Mon Mothma’s part. They somehow got Genevieve O’Reilly back twenty years later after only a walk on cameo for Revenge of the Sith with most of her story removed from it to reprise the character. The founder of the Rebellion isn’t doing much founding, though. Instead, she’s doing the infinitely less glamorous role of financing petty rebel cells while hoping to be able to do more. Her husband and child don’t know what she’s up to and they’re put in danger with every act she does.
This is a Star Wars show that reckons with the politics of fascism and how it is an insidious and not always overly visible force. It’s not about Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine but the petty prison wardens and smug rent a cops who revel in the power their positions grant them. Resistance to tyranny is something that goes beyond simply shooting up baddies and it is sobering how easy it is to believe things aren’t “that bad.”
Andor•Andor•Andor•Andor•Andor•Andor•Andor•Andor•
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December 3, 2022
Books that Made us – Peter David’s New Frontier
This is something that occurred to me when I was looking over the reports of his multiple strokes and Go Fund Me request. It was always vaguely on my bucket list to attend a convention or somehow make it a point to find Peter David someday so I could thank him for it in-person. I only began being an author in 2015 and became comfortable referring to myself in that professional capacity around 2020 but really, truly, wanting to make the effort to meet one’s idol was kind of put on hold by the cataclysmic events of the past few years.
Now this is something I’m probably never going to be able to do. His condition is something that hit me as someone who has never met the man but was still profoundly affected by his works. I encourage people to donate to his Go Fund Me as a man who has made such incredible art that has brightened the lives of millions deserves better than to have to do this in America’s health system: https://www.gofundme.com/f/peter-david-fund
I hope Peter David is able to make a dramatic recovery but it puts it into perspective he’s probably not going to have time to shake hands with yet another fanboy. So, thinking about that and hoping for the best, I decided to share this article about what Peter David’s writing has meant for me.
It’s really hard to narrow it down as to what exactly I should even focus on because he’s actually been a constant presence in my life. I didn’t even always know it but very often, throughout my childhood, I was either reading or watching something that he created. I watched Space Cases when it was on Nikalodeon, I read Spiderman 2099 when I hadn’t yet realized cyberpunk would be a massive part of my life, and I recall how his Aquaman single-handedly redeemed the character from the Super Friends joke he used to be. It’s why I prefer Arthur Curry with Dolphin over Mera and created my love of pretty white-haired girls before Daenerys Targaryen solidified it.
Hell, it was a neck and neck contest over whether or not I should talk about his Supergirl run versus the subject I did decide to talk about. His version of Linda Danvers is one of the most formative media discussions of religion and morality that lives rent-free in my brain. It, along with Star Wars, helped create my version of Christianity and is a helluva lot healthier I imagine than the rather nasty people in RL who tried to force an intolerant authoritarian version on me growing up. Not naming names but I mean you, Pastor Todd.
No, for this article, I’d like to thank Peter David for Star Trek: New Frontier. Bluntly, I would not be a writer without this book series and even if I somehow was, I would not write the same way. Every writer can list someone who had a formative effect on their style. Someone who you can say, at some point, you read the prose of and it dinged in your head, “I want to write like this.” Tolkien, Raymond Chandler, Stephen King, and so on.
This isn’t about my writing but Peter David’s and it’s not even his signature style but it was the style for this series. Star Trek: New Frontier is a comic space opera that is full of rapid fire dialogue, absurd situations, fantastic characters, incredible wiseasses, constant lampshade hanging, and self-referential humor that only a truly dedicated Star Trek fan could appreciate. Kevin Smith, Jim Butcher, Joss Whedon, and now Mike McMahan are all people to think of when talking about the story.
Running from 1997 to 2015, Star Trek: New Frontier deals with the adventures of Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the crew of the USS Excalibur. It is a wholly original set of adventures unrelated to any TV series save for some minor characters from various episodes. Inspired by the fall of the Soviet Union, the Thallonian Empire has collapsed and our heroes are there to offer humanitarian relief in the feuding warlord states that have emerged.
The crew is fantastic with the straight laced first officer, Elizabeth Shelby (of TNG: “The Best of Both Worlds”), the hermaphroditic Burgoyne 172, the literal rockman Zak Kebron, half-Romulan half-Vulcan Soleta, Robin Lefler (also from TNG), and later some refugees from Star Trek: The Animated Series back when it was still exiled from continuity. Mackenzie Calhoun, himself, is sort of an human-ish alien William Wallace who liberated his planet as a teenager but found out he had no taste for ruling.
It’s a beautiful series with over a dozen novels, multiple spin-off tie-ins, a comic book series, and a few nods in Star Trek: Online as well as Star Trek: Prodigy. It often goes in unexpected directions with the pathos of tragedy striking right after its funniest moments. The series ended with The Returned in 2015 but, I admit, I always hoped we’d get one more book out of the author. That was selfish of me but they became good friends over the books twenty-odd-year-life span.
I strongly encourage you to pick up a copy of these books if you have any love of Star Trek or even just space opera in general but any of Peter David’s works carries some of his awesome talent. Certainly, the Supervillainy Saga and United States of Monsters wouldn’t exist without his writing. Space Academy Dropouts absolutely wouldn’t exist and has more than a little New Frontier in its DNA, perhaps driven by my desire for those more books that will never come. But most of all, say a prayer or nod your head in appreciation for Peter David.
He made magic happen with his pen.
So sayeth the Great Bird of the Galaxy and Xant.
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PETER DAVID•PETER DAVID•PETER DAVID•PETER DAVID•PETER DAVID•PETER DAVID•PETER DAVID•PETER DAVID•
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December 2, 2022
Review – The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik
The Golden Enclaves and the entire Scholomance series have been a long dark road full of twists and turns. What started as a run-of-the-mill dark academia story became a gripping grimdark story with a morally gray heroine that you may not like, but you can certainly get behind. Because while the story has solid side characters, especially in The Golden Enclaves, the journey is that of Galadriel, or El as she likes to be called. El, could be a dark sorcerous who can make mountains bow before her, and all mothers of the world cry out in weeping anguish. To quote her namesake the original Galadriel, “Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair!”
That is, if she chooses to go down that path, which is the crux of the story and her nagging fear.
The Golden Enclaves starts out just as we left off, with El and company having fought a host of maleficaria hell-bent on their destruction. El released her power and a spell that could crack the Earth if she chose to. Instead, it split the Scholomance dimension off this plane, and hopefully all the demons with it. Did it work? As the book blurb can attest, sorta. “Ha, only joking! Actually it’s gone all wrong. Someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in my stead, and probably everyone we saved is about to get killed in the brewing enclave war on the horizon. And the first thing I’ve got to do now, having miraculously got out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in.”
El is out of the immediate danger of Scholomance but has been thrust into an entirely different sort of danger, that of intrigue and guile. As she puts it, “my own personal trolly problem to solve.” This is where her friends and supporting characters truly shine. El might be unimaginably powerful, but she sucks when it comes to people. She has had to have a wall of outright unapproachability to protect others. “My anger’s a bad guest, my mother likes to say: comes without warning and stays a long time.”
Her having to play nice with the different enclaves to achieve a single goal is very new. And this is where Liesel, of all people, steps in. We met Liesel in earlier books. Liesel is a social climber and so practical in her approach to things it skirts being robotic. She sees angles in everything and, in her blatant practicality, is immune to all of El’s “charms.” Because only the outcome matters, she is the embodiment of all El has hated her entire life. But El discovers that while Liesel’s nature is of brutal practicality is offputting; she has developed it to survive, much like El has developed her cantankerous shell. As much as El hates it, they have a lot of similarities. The first and foremost is surviving Enclave life.
Plotwise, The Golden Enclaves is not the type of book one can talk about without ruining it. But I can tell you that The Golden Enclaves soars to the finale. It is a mile-a-minute story where every page is revelatory. Instead of crashing at the end of this series as many authors do, their stories spent and the characters tired, Novik soars and rages on. Her characters do not going gently into that goodnight. I loved The Golden Enclaves and am so glad I took the journey through Scholomance with Novik. It was a hell of a ride.
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Review – A Gamble Of Gods (The Order Of The Dragon, #1) by Mitriel Faywood
A Gamble Of Gods, the debut release from Mitriel Faywood, is a high-quality, action-filled mix of fantasy and science fiction. The novel is tight, polished, full of humour, and features many exciting and memorable set pieces.
Throughout A Gamble Of Gods, we mainly follow the point of view perspectives of three main characters, each of which are from different timelines in history (and planets too). Kristian is essentially the main character and he is a sort of advanced technology lecturer at an educational establishment in the year 5102. Conor, another key player (pun totally intended), is a womanising, infamous adventurer from the Kingdom of Coroden, and we meet him in the year 1575. The final member of this ensemble is Selena, a seemingly average young lady who struggles with her mental health and finding her place in the world (which in this instance is Earth, 2037).
Creating a cohesive story that combines a classic fantasy world/setting, an extremely high-tech far future, and a familiar almost present reality should not work, it shouldn’t gel and it should be too disjointed and awkward. Faywood’s a proficient writer who took a gamble with this concept and it works in an admirable fashion in A Gamble Of Gods.
As the story progresses, the main characters’ paths cross, initially, in bizarre and exhilarating fashion. The three characters have a unique connection. An empathetic, deep bond that transcends boundaries and possibilities, leading them to really care for, and want to support each other. This bond, I believe, explains two criticisms I could have had with A Gamble Of Gods if I hadn’t analysed it this way. Firstly, the three point of view perspectives are each in the first-person, and althought this works well and they are distinct for the majority of the novel, a similar charisma, wit, banter and mannerisms can sometimes be seen across all three. That being said, this could be down to their bonds and their shared feelings and experiences. To me, at least, sometimes the characters’ voices blended slightly. Another potential issue is that when these characters do travel to alien and absolutely different realities to which they are used to, they aren’t as shocked and amazed as I would be personally, and, again, the reasoning I put behind this is their unity and shared understandings through their special relationship making the transitions more bearable.
I had a really enjoyable reading experience with A Gamble Of Gods and I was excited every time I picked it up to see where this story would go next. There are elements of romance, advanced technology, high fantasy warfare, royal curses, and, most importantly, a talking animal sidekick! The novel features some intense showdowns, political maneuverings, and it contains a few dungeon-crawling segments that reminded me of some LitRPG favourites of mine.
A Gamble Of Gods is the first entry in Faywood’s The Order Of The Dragon series and even though this novel is self-contained, the fact there are many more adventures to be had in the author’s well-crafted worlds is a very exciting prospect. Faywood shines throughout A Gamble Of Gods, there’s a great amount of talent that is fully on show here and I’m intrigued to see where she goes next with this addictive science fiction fantasy adventure.
I received a review copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Mitriel Faywood.
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November 29, 2022
8 Lovecraftian Fiction Recommendations
Howard Phillips Lovecraft remains one of the more controversial writers of the 20th century. A fantasy and science fiction visionary, he helped create a whole new concept of horror with his weird fiction concepts. The Great Old Ones, Necronomicon, Nyarlathotep, and creatures like the Deep Ones have resonated with generations of readers. He was also personally kind of a dick with racial beliefs extreme even by his time (so much so that Robert E. Howard told him to dial it the fuck down) as well as politics we can safely say were “questionable.”
Nevertheless, his perhaps most admirable quality as a writer was the fact that he was never afraid to let alone else play with his toys. An early advocate of what we’d now call “open source” writing, he happily shared concepts and ideas with his fellow writers. There’s a reason so many unnameable horrors and weird gods appear in Robert E. Howard’s work. Also, he and Robert Bloch of Psycho fame took turns killing each other off in their stories. Howard Phillips would be delighted at the longevity of his creations and the fact that he has entertained thousands of people through things like the Call of Cthulhu tabletop games or Re-Animator movies.
Speaking as the author of the Cthulhu Armageddon books as well as participant in such anthologies as Tales of the Al-Azif and Tales of Yog-Sothoth, I thought I would share some of my favorite post-Lovecraftian fiction created by writers willing to play around with HPL’s concepts.
1.The Trials of Obed Marshby Matthew Davenport
Obed Marsh remains one of HPL’s more fascinating characters despite the fact he never appears on screen. A sea captain, he sold the entirety of his community’s souls and future to the Deep Ones in exchange for gold as well as fish. However, in any time there is economic despair, it becomes understandable when you might be willing to make a deal with the (Sea) Devil. Matthew Davenport is also the author of the Pulpy fun Andrew Doran novels but this remains my favorite of works.
The Trials of Obed Marsh
he Exciting Prequel to Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth!
Innsmouth was a corrupted and fallen town, consumed by its greed and controlled by the Esoteric Order of Dagon. In 1928, the Federal Government destroyed Innsmouth and the nearby Devil Reef based on claims made by a man who had visited the town.
Four years after the mysterious disappearance of Robert Olmstead, the man who sent the FBI to Innsmouth, his closest friend has discovered new evidence into the reality of what Innsmouth truly was: He has found the Journal of Captain Obed Marsh.
The journal paints an intense scene of a vibrant town and how it takes only one man’s good intentions to pave the way to Hell itself.
Or in this case…to Y’ha-nthlei.
What can test a man so intensely as to break him from his righteous path?
Only the journal can shed light on that.
These are the Trials of Obed Marsh.
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2.The Atrocity Archivesby Charles Stross
Combing the absolute horror of the Great Old Ones with the mundanity of being a British civil servant, even one that just happens to be a field agent and spy. The Laundry is a fantastic book that is somehow humorous, terrifying, and philosophical all at once. Bob Howard is a great character and is the only man in the world who can stand against the forces of darkness through the power of mathematics. Except, really, he knows he’s eventually going to lose and he’s mostly just trying to delay CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN for a few years at best.
The Atrocity Archives
NEVER VOLUNTEER FOR ACTIVE DUTY …Bob Howard is a low-level techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob’s under a desk restoring lost data. His world was dull and safe – but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob is up to his neck in spycraft, parallel universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than a full system reboot to sort this mess out …This is the first novel in the Laundry Files.
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3.14 by Peter Clines
Peter Clines and I were notably both coming up in Permuted Press when that company got bought out by people who subsequently began printing Oliver North and other Far Right authors. Abandoning ship, both of us found better deals. I was overwhelmed by how much I loved his Ex-Heroes books where superheroes fought zombies. They had their flaws but got better each book until they were cancelled. 14 is even better as our protagonists are staying at a surreal apartment building where the mysteries of what its purpose as well as horrors is an onion to unpeal.
About 14
Padlocked doors. Strange light fixtures. Mutant cockroaches.
There are some odd things about Nate’s new apartment.
Of course, he has other things on his mind. He hates his job. He has no money in the bank. No girlfriend. No plans for the future. So while his new home isn’t perfect, it’s livable. The rent is low, the property managers are friendly, and the odd little mysteries don’t nag at him too much.
At least, not until he meets Mandy, his neighbour across the hall, and notices something unusual about her apartment. And Xela’s apartment. And Tim’s. And Veek’s. Because every room in this old Los Angeles brownstone has a mystery or two. Mysteries that stretch back over a hundred years. Some of them are in plain sight. Some are behind locked doors. And all together these mysteries could mean the end of Nate and his friends.
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4.The Elder Ice by David Hambling
Despite the popularity of the Call of Cthulhu games, there’s a surprising lack of Lovecraftian detective fiction out there. You’d think the company would have been marketing books like TSR had been fantasy in the Eighties and Nineties. The Harry Stubbs series, starting with the Elder Ice, is as close to it as I’ve found. A WW1 British boxer, he is always coming within a hair’s breadth of destruction at the Mythos’ hands but avoids enough of it to keep his sanity and life. For the most part.
About The Elder Ice
Lovecraftian weird fiction set in 1920s London.
In this atmospheric novella, ex-boxer Harry Stubbs is on the trail of a mysterious legacy. A polar explorer has died, leaving huge debts and hints of a priceless find. His informants seem to be talking in riddles, and Harry soon finds he isn’t the only one on the trail — and what he’s looking for is as lethal as it is valuable. The key to the enigma lies in an ancient Arabian book and it leads to something stranger and more horrifying than Harry could ever imagine.
Harry may not be an educated man, but he has an open mind, the bulldog persistence and a piledriver punch — all vital for survival when you’re boxing the darkest of shadows.
The story of mystery and horror draws on HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and is inspired by Ernest Shackleton’s incredible real-life adventures.
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5.The Burrowers Beneath
by Brian Lumley
The Titus Crow series is one of the biggest influences in my writing career because it is such an incredibly batshit crazy series. A Sherlock Holmes and Watsonian pair of occultists, Titus Crow and his assistant Henri de Marigny start with a war against a new Great Old One sending monstrous sandworm-esque monsters around the world to hunt them. Then it goes from there. I love this book and think its the Masks of Nyaralthotep literary equivalent I always needed.
the Borrowers Underneath
The Titus Crow novels are adventure horror, full of acts of nobility and heroism, featuring travel to exotic locations and alternate planes of existence as Titus Crow and his faithful companion and record-keeper fight the gathering forces of darkness wherever they arise. The menaces are the infamous and deadly Elder Gods of the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Chthulu and his dark minions are bent on ruling the earth–or destroying it. A few puny humans cannot possibly stand against these otherworldly evil gods, yet time after time, Titus Crow defeats the monsters and drives them back into the dark from whence they came. Volume One contains two full novels, The Burrowers Beneath and The Transition of Titus Crow.
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6.The Ballad of Black Tom
by Victor Lavalle
Victor LaValle has a complicated relationship with HPL, being a man of color who loved the writings of the author but felt excluded by his world. Adapting The Horror of Red Hook, Victor LaValle tells the story of a (not very good) jazz musician who finds himself immersed in a complicated occult conspiracy with the police, an eccentric millionaire, plus unlimited power to a man who might be able to overthrow a corrupt power structure.
About The Ballad of Black Tom
People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn’t there.
Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father’s head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.
A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?
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7.Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff
Probably the most famous book on this, Lovecraft Country has already been adapted into a series by HBO that (sadly) only lasted one season. The story of a family of motorist guide writers who find themselves invited to a millionaire occultist’s home only to become involved in a series of fascinating encounters with the supernaturals. The book is, in my opinion,better than the series as well as significantly lighter. Which is impressive given how dark the book can be at times.
About Lovecraft Country
Now an HBO® Series from J.J. Abrams (Executive Producer of Westworld), Misha Green (Creator of Underground) and Jordan Peele (Director of Get Out)
The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy.
Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.
At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.
A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.
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8.The Litany of Earth by Ruthanna Emrys
The top recommendation here is by Tor reviewer, Ruthanna Emrys. An interesting interpretation of HPL’s world from a reversed position. Basically, the Deep Ones and their human families were put in internment camps as of The Shadow of Innsmouth but released after WW2. Aphra Marsh is one of the few survivors and is struggling to reintegrate into American society. Dealing with a cult of white people who have misinterpreted her people’s religion, it sets up the excellent Innsmouth Legacy books. It is available for free on the Tor site: https://www.tor.com/2014/05/14/the-litany-of-earth-ruthanna-emrys/
About The Litany of Earth
The state took Aphra away from Innsmouth. They took her history, her home, her family, her god. They tried to take the sea. Now, years later, when she is just beginning to rebuild a life, an agent of that government intrudes on her life again, with an offer she wishes she could refuse. “The Litany of Earth” is a dark fantasy story inspired by the Lovecraft mythos.
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November 27, 2022
NEPHILIM: A BEHIND BLUE EYES ORIGINS STORY volumes I through III by Anna Mocikat
NEPHILIM: A BEHIND BLUE EYES ORIGINS STORY volumes I through III by Anna Mocikat is a trilogy of prequel novellas for her wildly entertaining BEHIND BLUE EYES series that I’ve been reviewing as they’ve come out. The main series is a fantastic cyberpunk series that I absolutely love and have devoured every installment of so far. They are about a bunch of cybernetically modified corporate assassins working for the sinister Olympias Corporation.
When the author, Anna Mocikat, announced she was doing a prequel series around its protagonist, Nephilim, I was extra excited. Reading the first novel, I found it was a story of how Nephilim was kidnapped from her family and turned into the murderous death machine she is in the main books.
I feel like this is a really tragic and interesting story as she is slowly taught to be a killer and indoctrinated into the poisonous Olympias Corporation ideology. Fans of the main series will also come to hate villain, Metatron, more because his treatment of the per-pubescent Nephilim now has shades of grooming since he later attempts to make her his lover. Thankfully, there’s nothing to that in the actual book-book, just him brainwashing her into a killer.
The Guardian Angel school reminded me a lot of the Black Widows’ Red Room from Marvel comic, despite including boy candidates, and that was a definite plus. I am definitely picking up more of these novellas as they come out, though. It is good for reading as both a stand-alone separate from Behind Blue Eyes and a companion piece.
Each book follows the character as she’s increasingly made more and more robotic as well as devoted to the cause of the Olympias Corporation. Despite being a profit driven entity, the company surrounds itself in ideological shields that claim they have eliminated poverty and strife while obviously lying their butts off. After all, you don’t need a cybernetic death squad to eliminate dissent if you’ve destroyed the forces that divide us.
Despite using the auspices of a coming of age drama and large sections of the story taking place from the perspective of an adolescent to teenage Nephilim, they are not children’s books but really a dark and twisted story of indoctrination. It deals with adult subject matter like sexuality, fascism, authoritarianism, and cults of personality. At several points, child characters do not make it to adulthood and our young heroine must simply soldier on.
I really enjoyed these three books even as sometimes the points they raise made me squirm. Cyberpunk is a genre meant for social satire and not just mirror shades as well as motorcycles. This had elements that reminded me of the movie Soldier starring Kurt Russel, Ender’s Game, and the works of both George Orwell as well as Aldous Huxley. Anna does a great job of making her handlers sound reasonable even as what they’re teaching is objectively insane. It’s a delicate balance and she threads the needle nicely.
Nephilim: A Behind Blue Eyes Origin Story can be read before or after the main series or even independently. The writing may not be for everyone as the early parts have a simplified writing style to reflect the naivite of our heroine as a child but gradually becomes far more complex.
Each book contains subject matter that some people may find controversial but nothing that isn’t found in, say, The Hunger Games. Which if you’ve read that series properly isn’t much of a defense. It’s not YA but people who like the darker of that genre will enjoy this as well as adults. They’re easy reads too and can be read separately or one after the other.
Buy Volume 1 from Amazon Buy Volume 2 from Amazon Buy Volume 3 from Amazon
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The post NEPHILIM: A BEHIND BLUE EYES ORIGINS STORY volumes I through III by Anna Mocikat appeared first on BEFOREWEGOBLOG.
November 26, 2022
Review – THE BIG SHEEP by Robert Kroese
THE BIG SHEEP by Robert Kroese is probably the funniest detective novel I’ve read since Bubbles in Space: Tropical Punch by Sarah Jensen and may actually be even better, though it’s a tight race. Fundamentally, there’s just something about cyberpunk and noir detective fiction that goes together exceptionally well. It worked very well in Blade Runner and I’ve never stopped enjoying stories where the Big City was a place full of high tech gizmos as well as dirty cops. It’s the same reason I love the Easytown novels by Brian Parker. So with that introduction, I begin my review of this book: I love it.
The premise is Holmes and Watson-esque duo Erasmus Keane and Blake Fowler was private investigators (though Keane preferred a more elaborate title) in the post-Collapse world of 2039. The Collapse was when a good chunk of Los Angeles fell to anarchy like the opening of Demolition Man and was walled off like Escape from New York.
This book is full of oblique and less than oblique references like that and it’s part of why I really enjoy it. Either way, our heroes receive a peculiar pair of cases in a missing genetically grown sheep named Mary as well as a beautiful star named Priya Mistry that insists that someone is trying to kill her.
As befitting neo noir fiction, both of these cases turn out to be far more closely tied together than might initially be assumed. Mary the Sheep is a marvel of science but no one knows why someone would want to steal a buffalo-sized sheep. Even if she’s a very attractive sheep as Keane conspiratorially alludes to the widow of a deceased worker at the laboratory. Might that have been the motivation? No. Though Keane thinks it’s hilarious to insinuate that it is. That’s the kind of person that Erasmus Keane is.
The funniest thing about The Big Sheep is that it isn’t a comedy book. It is humorous because everything is played so incredibly straight. There’s a buffalo sized sheep, clones, Lord Humungous style warlords, and social satire about how Hollywood actresses often have only four or five years of shelf life before they’re put down in a most literal manner. All of it merges together in something absolutely ridiculous and yet entirely coherent.
The characters are extremely likable, interesting, and deal with their circumstances (extreme as they are) in a believable manner. The story can get surprisingly bleak at times with some of the villains getting away with their crimes, characters unexpectedly dying, and other twists you wouldn’t expect from such a fun light-hearted novel.
I strongly recommend this novel and I immediately picked up the sequel after finishing it. If you are a fan of detective novels, sci-fi, cyberpunk, and just oddball premises then this is certainly going to be right up your alley.
Buy from Amazon
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November 25, 2022
Tour – Wistful Ascending by JCM Berne
Purchase on Amazon
What is Wistful Ascending About?
The il’Drach have conquered half the galaxy behind the terrifying Powers of their halfbreed children. Half-human Rohan has won free of their control after a decade of war, but at an awful, secret price. He lives on the remote space station Wistful attempting to live a normal life. A long-dormant wormhole opens into her system, disgorging a shipful of refugees from a distant system. As the Empire’s attention focuses on Wistful, Rohan struggles to figure out how to protect his friends, his comrades, and his secrets, without turning back into the weapon of mass destruction he was born to be.
OR:
Retired from a career as a weapon of mass destruction for the Imperial Fleet, Rohan wants little more than decent coffee, a chance for romance, and a career that doesn’t result in half a galaxy shuddering at the mention of his name.
When a long-dormant wormhole opens near his employer, the sentient space station Wistful, the Empire takes renewed interest in the system. As scientists and spies converge, Rohan struggles to protect his friends and his peaceful life without again becoming the type of monster that can’t have either.
Book Information:
Wistful Ascending by JCM Berne
Published: 2020
Series: Hybrid Helix #1
Genre: Science-Fantasy/Superhero/Space Opera
Intended Age Group: Adults
Pages: 395
Publisher: The Gnost House (Self Published)
Content/Trigger Warnings:
Shown on Page (things clearly told to the reader):
Violence (possibly gratuitous, including action/combat scenes and some visceral descriptions of death)Alluded to (things only mentioned in passing or hinted at):
NoneAuthor Bio & Information:
JCM Berne has reached middle age without outgrowing the notion that superheroes are cool. Code monkey by day, by night he slaves over a hot keyboard to prove that superhero stories can be engaging and funny without being dark or silly.
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/jcmberne
Author Website: https://jcmberne.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoeBerne1
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joe_berne/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JCMBerne
Free short story: https://storyoriginapp.com/directdownloads/b06ed389-2016-45a2-bf20-c8578c719a40
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November 24, 2022
Review – For The Throne by Hannah Whitten
What is For The Throne About?Red and the Wolf have finally contained the threat of the Old Kings but at a steep cost. Red’s beloved sister Neve, the First Daughter is lost in the Shadowlands, an inverted kingdom where the vicious gods of legend have been trapped for centuries and the Old Kings have slowly been gaining control. But Neve has an ally–though it’s one she’d rather never have to speak to again–the rogue king Solmir.
Solmir wants to bring an end to the Shadowlands and he believes helping Neve may be the key to its destruction. But to do that, they will both have to journey across a dangerous landscape in order to find a mysterious Heart Tree, and finally to claim the gods’ dark, twisted powers for themselves
ReviewHello again dear reader or listener, I come bearing praise for a phenomenal sequel!
A year ago – almost to the day, as I reviewed For the Wolf on the 23rd of June hah – I caught whiff of a new author bringing together all the good fantasy tropes found in a Gothic romance, with fairy tale undertones, plant magic, abandoned keeps, sentient forests, and grumpy and tired male leads. Needles to say I didn’t walk, I ran to it, and while I found it an incredible debut with all the promise in the world, I still had a few small hang-ups that I felt confident the author would work past in her sequel.
Now, I get the chance to pull an Alfred and say ‘I told you so, Master Wayne’ (Michael Caine voice for dramatic purposes).
Hannah Whitten, you brilliant being, you delivered on everything you promised and more! I bow to you deeply.
For The Throne really is everything you wish for in a sequel/series conclusion, in that it wraps up all the threads in a satisfying manner that isn’t necessarily what you’d expect, it honors already established characters while also giving the right amount of space to the ones who are now the main focus and, it does all that by improving on all that worked well before to make it even better. Gone is the slight heavy handedness of lyricism and metaphors that impaired the pacing of book one a touch, but the atmosphere and ambiance is still as powerful as ever. Whitten’s prose is evocative and mystifying, but it is also more streamlined and more optimally paced to fit the action on the page. (Something she’d already begun doing in the second half of the first book to be fair). Moreover, the author picks up the plot soon after the end of book one and she does so in a manner that is easy to follow even if it’s been a while since you last read For The Wolf.
Structure wise, For The Throne, presents us with multiple pov characters so they’re all more relevant to the story as opposed to book one’s use of interludes to show how they lived at the metaphorical margins of Red and Eammon’s story. As I said already, this worked really well in that it kept Neve and Solmir at the center as the now more relevant duo, but it didn’t sideline Red and Eammon either. Also, getting to read about established couples past the will they-won’t they stage always gives me the fuzzies and it offers the reader some solid ground to stand on while the rest of the plot unfolds and sweeps us away. Having the contrasting settings of the Wilderwood/ the real world, regularly alternate with the grayscale Shadowlands and their uncanny vibe, made it all the more impactful moreover.
As for her character work, Mrs. Whitten understood the assignment. Aside from the fact that this is an enemies to lovers tropes done amazingly, Neve and Solmir have a wildly different dynamic between them than what Red and Eammon have, and I personally thrived on this dichotomy. The first duo has sharp edges that don’t need to be smoothed over but accepted as they are. The result of misguided mistakes and betrayals that are not excused but understood and are now fighting to fix things. They are muted and colder colors but no less impressive and deep. Whereas the latter duo were the softness that comes after pain that is healing with care. The shedding of preconceived notions and the correcting of wrongful history. They are the warm and bright colors of autumn. Just like the ongoing layered metaphor that Whitten sets for them, Neve and Solmir are winter, and Red and Eammon are autumn.
Add to this, misunderstood villain, and villain decay, and aaah this book just gifted me with all of my favorite tropes. Perhaps the main reason I loved the way Whitten wrote these tropes though is more based on the fact that her characters do not try to redeem themselves in the eyes of others or seek to erase their past actions with some grand gesture in search of forgiveness. It’s more a case of, ‘I did terrible things in the attempt of stopping something worse and now I’ll do my part to make it right regardless of what that does to how others view me’. Certainly makes way for an interesting discussion on the ends justifying the means and what makes goodness, among another grocery list of big themes and topics, but I digress.
Lastly, and because I can’t speak of all that I loved without big spoilers, I’ll mention two things I particularly enjoyed. First, Whitten continues with a seamless integration of LGBTQ+ representation that she started with book one, mainly to do with Aro/Ace and Bisexual characters. And second, for the true shining moment of this sequel, Whitten improved on something she began with book one but well and truly developed and showcased with book two and that is, the men are the emotional messes that are unable to actually solve things or act impressively, while the women are the levelheaded problem solvers because they’re struggling yes, but there’s no point whining about this, let’s get it over with. Don’t get me wrong, every character in this series is a badass in their own way. But the feminism/equality continues to be chef’s kiss. Let the men be wrecks who are trying their best but get overwhelmed and let the women step on the damsel in distress trope to leave barely dust behind. Such human, much wow.
So then, as always with books I’ve deeply enjoyed, these words barely feel like enough justice being made but it’ll have to do for now and I hope that you’ll trust me dear reader or listener when I encourage you to do as I did when it comes to this series.
Don’t walk towards it, run!
It is a truly magical, modern in all the right ways, and satisfying to the core piece of fantasy, and I cannot wait to read more of Whitten’s books in the future.
Until next time,
Eleni A. E.
Read Original Review Here Buy from Amazon
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