Beth Tabler's Blog, page 152
November 16, 2022
Review – Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
There is Always Hope
“And, most importantly of all, there is hope. I didn’t see it through the weeds of most of the book. It was frustrating and tiresome at times. I wanted to be blasted in the face with hope. Please give me something Wendig. Give me something to grab on to, don’t let me be pulled out to sea to drown with these characters. But hopes shining light would stick out now and again amongst the pages, muck, and mire. There is hope, that most magnificent of human emotions that leads us through tragedy and Wendig writes about it. “
What is Wanderers About?A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope. In the tradition of The Stand and Station Eleven comes a gripping saga that weaves an epic tapestry of humanity into an astonishing tale of survival.
Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and are sister are not alone. Soon they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other “shepherds” who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead.
For on their journey, they will discover an America convulsed with terror and violence, where this apocalyptic epidemic proves less dangerous than the fear of it. As the rest of society collapses all around them–and an ultraviolent militia threatens to exterminate them–the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart–or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.
MY THOUGHTSOne morning in Maker’s Bell Pennsylvania on June 3rd, Shana stood looking at her little sister’s empty bed and her first thought was: Nessie ran away again. This little sister is gone, having left the farm on an outing with nothing on but a dress. She is sleepwalking or as she becomes known, a walker. She begins the long walk. Nothing can deter her. Shana is not far behind. As the days pass, the group grows. They pick up walkers, and shepherds (people who help take care of their flock of walking friends and family). The whole time American and the whole world is split on what type of creature these walkers are. Are they aliens, science experiments, do they carry disease? Whatever they are, the right-wing side Kreel (Trump) can agree that there is something unholy about them and they should be stopped. Kreel goes to rallies and muckrakes against the sitting president Hunt (Clinton). How is she is not doing anything? How is she not acting fast enough and putting our children at risk? It would be perverse if it wasn’t so plausible. All of the political machinations of the two-party system tear each other apart and turn to civil war in the background of the story.
“Wanderers is a work of fiction,” reads the edition notice at the start of Chuck Wendig’s new novel. “Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.”
“As boilerplate legal disclaimers go, okay! Sure! Except with Wanderers, it’s… kind of a lie? The good kind of lie. A lie that, like Wanderers, brings truth into the light.”
– Portland Mercury (Hometown newspaper)”
Chuck Wendig is digging in his heels and drawing in some whopping lies, the parallels are too great between some of the main background characters, the characters that shape world events behind the main characters to be coincidental. I don’t mind these kinds of lies, especially right now because they buzz and resonate so hard with people living in this backward world. It makes the reactions of the characters all the more visceral and real.
In the foreground of the story, we have a few intersections of some very well thought out and interesting characters. First thing I noticed about this story is that it doesn’t feel like there are any protagonists, either that or everyone is a protagonist. No one truly is a hero. This seems like it would be wrong, but it is a very long and very well thought out story. Everyone develops in one way or another. There is so much change.
Except maybe Marcy. She kicked all ass all of the time.
Secondly, the characters are written like people, warts and all. You will like them, you want them to live. You will hate them, and maybe want them to suffer a little bit. There are good guys especially Benji, Aram, and Pete. Maybe, they aren’t always good. Wendig draws no lines in the sand. There are not amateur black and white characters. The world is full of grays. Much like real life, no one thinks of themselves as the villain. Also, I tell you this as one reader to another, this author is not kind to his characters in this book. This book is The Stand meets Nevil Shutes On The Beach with some Techno-Thriller Johnny Mnemonic stuff that is impossible to explain without spoilers. Half the time I had no idea where the hell the story was going. I said, “huh” more times than I could count.
The pacing was a real issue for me. The book was so well written chapter for the chapter but it lacked the oomph. The zing chapter to chapter that sped you along. It was slow for the first half of the book till around the 48% mark and it started to pick up the pace dramatically. To Wendig’s credit, he had a bit of a magnum opus in this book. It is a symphony of parts that came crashing together in a grand sforzando that left me stunned and unable to read much for a few days.
And, most importantly of all, there is hope. I didn’t see it through the weeds of most of the book. It was frustrating and tiresome at times. I wanted to be blasted in the face with hope. Please give me something Wendig. Give me something to grab on to, don’t let me be pulled out to sea to drown with these characters. But hopes shining light would stick out now and again amongst the pages, muck and mire. There is hope, that most magnificent of human emotions that leads us through tragedy and Wendig writes about it.
I would absolutely recommend this as a must-read. I have never encountered a Wendig book that I was not fond of, this included. The reader should be aware of the exciting and interesting, heart busting, soul-crushing time they are in for.
But remember to look for the hope.
Check Out Some of Our Other ReviewsReview – The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
Interview With Author Chuck Wendig
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An Interview With Brandon Sanderson
Occasionally you are lucky enough to interview your hero. In October, Beth and Adrian had the honour of speaking with fantasy legend Brandon Sanderson about his upcoming release, The Lost Metal, plans for the future trilogy of the Mistborn saga (including a little exclusive reveal about the future of the Mistborn series you won’t want to miss), and we dive into the production his epic, record smashing kickstarter.
We’ve also transcribed the interview below.
Beth: Thank you for taking some time out of your, I’m sure, extremely busy schedule right now!
Brandon: It is a little crazy these days, but I’m more than happy!
…
Beth: My first question is one that’s a little near and dear to my heart: now, I’m going to ask this, but I don’t think you’re going to remember me. But about ten years ago, 2010, you were in Portland, Oregon, and had set up at a Fred Meyer grocery store…
Brandon: Oh, man, the only one of those I ever signed at! That was a really interesting experience!
Beth: You had two people come up to you at the Fred Meyer grocery store: tall lady, short guy… I’m the tall lady!
Brandon: Well it’s good to see you again! Yeah, that was an interesting experience, because I’ve never sat and signed in a supermarket. Just, the publisher was like “hey, we have this deal with them so we want to send some authors,” so I did. It was not the best place to sign, for people showing up, but they did have nice chairs they found for me. Because, you know, they sell chairs, so…
Beth: It was cool, I got to talk to you! At the time, I hadn’t read any of your books yet and that was when you gave me Warbreaker. Warbreaker became near and dear to my heart, and that has kind of set me on the circuitous path of where I am now. I wanted to say thank you!
Brandon: I am so glad that signing accomplished something!
Beth: It was really cool!
Brandon: You never can tell, right? You do these signings where only, like, two people show up, and you weren’t the only two, but it still was not a great signing, and you’re like man, that signing was a waste. And then you find out ten years later that no, indeed, that signing was not a waste.
Beth: It absolutely was not!
Beth: So, I wanted to ask you about the sequel to Warbreaker. I know that you are crazy busy, I know! But is that on the radar for the next…?
Brandon: It is. So, I feel the way the Cosmere is outlined, Elantris is more relevant as a planet. The planet cell. So getting the Elantris sequels, I feel like responsibly, I need to slot in before Nightblood (which is the title of Warbreaker 2) but at the same time it is going to be more fun to write Warbreaker 2 just because, you know, the Warbreaker books are just… I mean, there’s dark stuff to them, but there’s also a certain fun to the style that I like to use in that book and the next one.
Beth: There’s a bit more whimsy.
Brandon: Yes.
Beth: And I love the magic system that you have, it’s one of my favorite magic systems that I’ve read about.
Brandon: Well, it is on the radar. I do get a number of requests.
Beth: Sure!
Brandon: And with characters from Warbreaker being so integrated into Stormlight, people are like “come on! How did they get here? Fill in the blanks, Sanderson!” So, yeah.
Beth: And it’s crazy how big the Cosmere has gotten. I keep up fairly well with your books (the chonkers that they are) and I don’t even think I’ve even scratched the surface!
Brandon: I have a lot of fun with this, and so… yeah, it’s a thing I always wanted to do, right? And the publishers… when I was breaking in, before always told me it was a bad idea.: “Nobody wants this. Don’t do this, Brandon. Nobody’s interested in this.” And then, I finally managed to do it, and you know, Elantris came out in 2005 and Mistborn came out in 2006, which were the first two in the Cosmere, and then the MCU started in 2007 and it turns out I was very well positioned for doing the large-scale continuity between series, having already started that. Granted, both the MCU and me were being inspired by the people in the seventies who did it, right? Marvel, but also Michael Moorcock was doing complicated continuity between his series in the seventies, and of course Stephen King with Dark Tower has been doing his own weird thing all along! So we’re all kind of standing on the shoulders of giants for this, but it’s the sort of thing that the publishers are like “nobody wants this. None of this stuff ever sells,” but it turns out they were wrong in that case.
Beth: There are books that are specifically dedicated to figuring out the linkage between all of the books. And websites. It’s really exciting stuff!
Brandon: Yeah!
Adrian: Hey, Brandon! I’m a massive publishing geek / Kickstarter nerd.
Brandon: Ooh!
Adrian: I love running them, and the mechanics of them. As probably of all our listeners will know, you’ve just recently crowdfunded I think – if I remember correctly – the largest project in Kickstarter history, in any format?
Brandon: We doubled the previous [highest] Kickstarter, which I believe was the Pebble watch. Or I could be wrong, it might have been the cooler or something. In any case, it was one of those tech companies.
Adrian: So, you did pretty well, mate!
Brandon: It’s been wild! We just got, this week, ninety thousand boxes we have to make.
Beth: Ninety thousand?!
Brandon: Ninety thousand. For the first month. We have twelve months of this! Or, was it… it was over ninety thousand. It was a hundred and something thousand. It was ninety pallets. You know those pallets, that they put stuff on?
Adrian: Yeah.
Brandon: They have ninety pallets of boxes that just arrived. We’re like “okay, we’re gonna have to fill ninety pallets of boxes to start shipping.” Which is both daunting and exciting! I don’t think people understand, you know, the logistics. I think many people would have hired someone else to do this, but my team and I are… we like to have fun with things, we designed the boxes, we spent a lot of time making them look cool, and now we have ninety pallets of them to build. So, my son, the teenager, is going to join us, and we’re going to have all sorts of people out there!
Beth: A fun family bonding moment!
Brandon: Yeah, exactly!
Beth: I have one of your sets coming, actually.
Brandon: Awesome! Oh, man, my team, the things they’ve done for the art on these books, I’m so excited! Isacc Stewart’s our art director, and he is just, ah, I can’t wait for people to get the books and just see how beautiful they are.
Adrian: Was there ever a time where you and your team were kind of watching in the publisher graph that tells you how many backers there are… was there a time when you were just sitting there rubbing your head going “oh, dear, this is getting big.”
Brandon: That would be day one. So we had ordered 25,000, from the publisher, of each book, right? And we thought 25,000 was pretty well covering it. We figured 25,000 copies, even if we don’t sell all 25,000 in the Kickstarter, it’s good to have some stock left over. So we were ready to sell 12,000 or 15,000 and have 10,000 left over. And then we sold over 100,000 of each of them. And so I went back to my team on that first day – because I usually get up late in the day, about 1:00pm, and it’d been going already, and they’d had a party, and they were all watching at the warehouse, and so I pulled aside my fulfillment manager, Karen, and I’m like “Sooooo…” And she’s like, “we’re gonna do it! We’re gonna need a new warehouse.” That’s what she said. “Gonna need a bigger boat.” So we went and bought a much bigger warehouse, or leased one, so we can store things like ninety pallets of just boxes. And, you know, the nice thing is we had done a Kickstarter before. We had done the Way of Kings leatherbound. And it wasn’t nearly as many, but we had done a big enough project that we had moved from small scale to large scale, right? And now this is still another order of magnitude, but this order of magnitude is in many ways a smaller jump. Even though, you know, it’s adding many more books, because we already have these processes down, we have a really good customer service team in-house that are just members of my team, and we have a ticket system for fulfilling those, and we have a warehouse, and we had to get a bigger one but we already know how to do stations in a warehouse for putting things together and sending them out. We already have the local post office, like, “alright, this is how you do it when you’re shipping this many things.” We did have to bulk up our teams and hire a bunch of people to fulfill, but we were where we could already do that, right? So we kind of eased into this over the last, ah, almost ten years. Starting with our leatherbounds.
Adrian: When I look at some of the people publishing through Kickstarter, so you know, Michael Sullivan, he and his wife Robin, hit 100,000 a couple of times. Shawn Speekman hit 100,000.
Brandon: All smart individuals, that really know their stuff. They’ve been helpful to me in the past, in things I’ve done.
Adrian: A massive shout-out to Shaun who has helped me a lot over the years.
Brandon: I love Shaun! Incredible resource, incredible human being.
Adrian: Definitely, both! With those, you know, hitting a hundred thousand is one thing. But hitting forty-one million is to me kind of Earth-shaking. I’m wondering, in the circles of people you work in, your colleagues, your publishing… what sort of conversations has this created around the power of Kickstarting in publishing, and hybrid publishing for authors like yourself?
Brandon: There are lots of good conversations happening, right? That I think are useful. I will say that everyone in the business who works with me, it was more of a “oh, Brandon’s doing his thing again,” right? Like, I’m the one that would get together with my friends, and we’ll be talking, and they’ll be like “Brandon, stop being such an adult. We all became writers so we didn’t have to adult. Why are you talking about adult stuff?” So, “of course he did this,” right? Publishing is a bit of a different thing. We did warn them ahead of time that this is what we were doing. They didn’t expect it to go this far, we didn’t either. But it has definitely become a permanent part of the conversation. And I am having lots of interesting conversations now. I didn’t do this in order to “fire shots” at the publishing industry, but I did this maybe to make a wake-up call. There’s a lot of things I’ve been saying for years that they haven’t been doing. I had a number of calls with John Sargent who was the CEO of MacMilllan which is the publisher that owns Tor. For years, I’m like “hey, there are things that are really consumer-friendly that we should be doing, and we will be rewarded in the long run if we look after our consumers. Things like bundling e-books and audiobooks and print books together, right? Like every other industry’s figured this out, John, why don’t we? Why are we expecting people to buy multiple copies of the same book? They’ll be much longer fans and support us more if we bundle these things together for them.” And it’s just so hard making any progress in the publishing world. There are a lot of passionate people who are wonderful and delightful but it is a very slow business to change. I think that we should have changed in many ways before now. So I’m hoping this will, you know, shake things up a little bit? Help me get some things changed, but at the same time… I don’t know? I mean, Amazon scares me. Again, Amazon is full of wonderful people that I really like working with on the publishing side. But they control such an enormous segment of the market that I think every author, including the indie authors, should be frightened of the hold Amazon has over this market. Do you want to be an indie author? Unless you want to go through Kickstarter, you’re going through Amazon.
Beth: And the indie authors that I’ve talked to, they are. They’re terrified.
Brandon: Yeah. I know that Amazon’s been pushing them around. When they added in so many things… for instance, Amazon limits their book prices at 9.99 in the U. S., right? But doesn’t limit the New York publishers. Amazon, if you’re really indie friendly, why don’t you let the indie author decide what the price of their book should be? Rather than, you let your publishers decide. Why are you charging so much for advertising, on your own platform, for indie authors to make their money? You’re basically just charging them another royalty in the form of advertising. There are all sorts of things that just make me worried because there’s no competition to force Amazon to back off on these things.
Beth: And with the connection of Goodreads. Goodreads is an Amazon…
Brandon: Goodreads is an Amazon affiliate. Audible’s an Amazon affiliate. Brilliance Audio is owned by Amazon…
Beth: There’s no other real choices, yet…
Brandon: There’s one thing I should mention. There is definitely the Patreon route, which is doing things for free. On, like, Wattpad on AO3 … there’s the Worm model, the web serial… but it’s basically, release the story for free, be supported by fan enthusiasts through Patreon and things like that. And that is a viable model also. I don’t want to imply that it isn’t.
Beth: Webcomics do that.
Brandon: The webcomic model, exactly. And if publishing were to completely collapse, that might become the primary model by which authors make an income. A lot of people on Youtube, that is how they make their income, and the webtoonists and things. So I’m glad that model is there, and we shouldn’t discount that and the people using that as their model. For the majority of us, it’s Amazon, and that’s frightening.
Beth: Yeah.
Beth: Let’s talk about your new novel: The Lost Metal.
Brandon: It’s taken me way too long to finish this series! I started writing… so these books, for anyone who might not be familiar: I had this idea, back in 2005, maybe 2004, when I was designing the Mistborn series. One staple of epic fantasy is this kind of unchanging world, where everything is kind of the same and has been for millenia. And this is fun, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this. It’s okay that people have been locked in medieval society for thousands of years, it allows you to tell certain kinds of stories. Right? But I’d love to tell the story of an epic fantasy world that started actually moving through eras of technology. Where, you know, wouldn’t it be fun to do an epic fantasy trilogy and then jump forward and do another trilogy where that epic fantasy trilogy became the foundation for myth and legend and religion in an urban fantasy? And then jump forward and do a cyberpunk, jump forward and do a space opera, right?
Beth: I knew there was cyberpunk!
Brandon: Yeah…
Beth: I was going to ask you!
Brandon: There’s certainly going to be a cyberpunk at some point. I originally pitched it to my editor as nine books: I was going to do an epic fantasy, then a 1980s urban fantasy style, and then I was going to do a space opera, far-future, Fifth Element-style thing, the idea being that the magic runs through it all in different ways. I added the Wax and Wayne series as kind of a jump between epic fantasy and 1980s, this is more of turn-of-the-1900s tech level. I love that era, and I realized I couldn’t leave it alone. The era in which we’re first getting electricity and stuff like that is just such an interesting era in history! And I also was working on Wheel of Time at the time, and I needed to jump to something else. I find that when I’m writing something enormous, it is really cathartic and good for my writing self to keep from being burned out, if I can jump to something that has a different pacing style than the three- and four-hundred thousand word books. So I finished a Wheel of Time book, and I wrote Wax and Wayne one as a hundred-thousand word detective mystery, set in the Mistborn world, hundreds of years after the first trilogy. And I enjoyed it so much, it became my go-to project to do between other projects. But that means it’s taken me, now, twelve years to finish this series of four books. Which I feel bad for, but it’s there to kind of keep in Mistborn peoples’ minds, but also to give me a break between series. Between giant books.
Beth: You know what’s really effective about this style, is that you’re hitting on all the different facets of the reader. Like, the “fantasy reader,” because you’ve got high fantasy, low fantasy, you’ve got urban fantasy, you’re going to have fantasy/sci-fi… you’re going to hit on everything, and it’s going to have a cohesive timeline, and all of these different people are going to get to talk to each other and get excited…
Brandon: It’s going to be a lot of fun!
Beth: It’s a really great idea!
Brandon: The difference between what I’m doing and what the MCU is doing is, my original concept for this was: this will be lots of cool character crossovers, right? But the goal is not the Avengers, the goal is Star Wars or more Star Trek. It’s getting to a universe where you can go between these planets, and there’s galactic politics and things like that, and that’s kind of my end-game. That was really an exciting concept to me. It’s fun to kind of see it playing out now. I was worried when I first started this because everyone was telling me, this is a bad idea. About doing crossover stuff. I had a very light touch in my early books, and I think this is a good thing. What the danger of continuity like this is, is that you don’t want someone to pick up a book they would otherwise love, and then they feel left out. They feel they’re not in on the joke, because so much of it is inside material. You want a story to stand on its own. Lots of people have tried to build these enormous, you know, the Dark Universe. I don’t know if you remember that? They were trying to build Universal Monster Movies Monster Universe. They forget to make the stories themselves interesting… they’re counting on the crossovers to be the interesting part and that’s a mistake. You need to make sure the story you’re reading is awesome in its own right, and that the connections are icing on the cake so to speak. You can’t have a cake of only icing – well, my children would like that, but most people would not. And so, early on, it was very, very light touch. As I’ve gotten further I’ve gotten a better feel for how much the fans want, how much I can get away with, and how much I want to have. And I like that it’s kind of a gradual ramping up. But Lost Metal is the most cross-over that we’ve seen, and I hope it’s not too far!
Beth: No, I thought it was great! I thought it was absolutely great, and it makes me so excited for when you get an opportunity to dive into the next…
Brandon: The next era, yeah.
Beth: I can’t call Wax and Wayne a trilogy…
Brandon: Because it’s four books, yeah. Have you heard how that happened? So this happens to me a lot. I write a first book as kind of a proof-of-concept to myself that the characters and setting are working, and I write it and when I get done with it, then I’m like “now that I know this is working, let me build a story with these characters.” And about half the time I go for two more books, but half the time I build a build a trilogy jumping off of that. And that was the right thing with Wax and Wayne. So it’s kind of like Wax and Wayne One is a stand-alone, then there’s a trilogy that digs deeper into things. This fourth book, I made sure to relate back to the first book as well, so they’re all pretty well interconnected.
Beth: One of the things I was particularly impressed with about Wax and Wayne books, generally, was how you spent detail on the female characters. As somebody who grew up reading male-stories with male protagonists, you know, it was just really cool to see how they were real people, warts and all!
Brandon: I appreciate that! I blame Anne McCaffrey, Melanie Rawn, and Barbara Hambly, they were my introduction to fantasy and they taught me how to do it right. So, Anne McCaffrey… I always want to be writing books, that if Anne McCaffrey were to read them, she’d be like “alright, you’re allowed to say my name as one of your inspirations, Brandon.” It’s hard for a lot of writers, but it’s more difficult for male writers, I’ve found, early in your career, to shake out of the idea of putting people into roles, and writing each character as an individual. With, you know, everyone is the protagonist in their own story. Shaking yourself out of that… you want to people in boxes when you start writing. You want to say, “this person is the love interest, so they can only do the things that love interests do in a story.” And instead say, “this is a person whose story is intersecting with my main character’s story – but it’s only intersecting. What would they be doing if the plot hadn’t run into them? Who are they? What do they want out of life, and how are they the protagonist in what’s happening to them?”
Beth: To continue on from that: your handling of characters who have mental illness, or any sort of disability: they don’t become defined by the disability.
Brandon: Yeah. My wife has depression, and when I started working on the Stormlight Archive, one of the things I was thinking is, “why are there so many books that are about peoples’ depression, where that’s the only aspect to them? That’s what you know about them: this is the person with depression. Defined by their mental illness rather than as a person with a mental illness, right? I know there’s some disagreement in the disability community, but a lot of people would rather be known as a person with a disability rather than as a disabled individual. And simply that phrasing, right? Realizing there are people who don’t want to be called blind, they want to be called a person with blindness. Because the person is the most important part. And again, there is a discussion here: no community is a monolith, and I’m not saying…
Beth: It’s nuanced.
Brandon: Yeah. But knowing that exists, makes you think “yeah… why aren’t there characters… I know depression is something a large number of people in our society deal with. And the more that I’ve learned about people, the more I realize that everybody’s struggling with something. Some aspect of their personality that they’re wrestling with. Some mental illness… it varies as much as people vary. But everybody, there’s no “normal,” right? There’s people. And I wanted to write stories about people. And if you’re going to write stories about people, then I think it’s kind of on me in the way that I’ve decided to do this, to do it as well as I can. So I really appreciate all of the beta readers who come on board to help me, to figure out how to get this right. Because writing about someone with autism, like, you can do damage. I feel like my first book, Elantris, I did the pop culture version of it, and didn’t do my research. And, you know… I’m glad that people don’t hold me to the fire for that, because it’s obvious I was trying, but I could do better. And I’m always trying to better.
Beth: It’s great. My husband’s on the spectrum, and Steris is… I saw similarities.
Brandon: Yeah, I have some dear friends. So, Peter Ahlstrom, who is my editorial director, and my VP of editorial, and Karen, who is my continuity editor, both are on the spectrum. Very different experiences with autism; there’s a reason we call it a spectrum. There are so many different experiences. They’ve been a huge resource, but I actually started writing Steris in the first place based on my experiences getting to know Peter, where I realized I was bringing all kinds of judgments and mis-interpretations to him, that I think is very common for people with autism. And my goal with this series was to lead the reader to having that same experience I had getting to know Peter, where your preconceptions in the first book melt away as you get to know the person and not the autism.
Beth: The way of being.
Brandon: The way of being. That’s a perfect way to put it.
Original interview can be found here
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November 15, 2022
Season One, Rings of Power Review
I realize this review is probably delayed in the terms of fandoms but, much like Tolkien needed time to create his inspirational works, so did I need time to digest Season One of Amazon’s The Rings of Power. Now, I’m not so arrogant as to think my musings are as weighty as the influence Tolkien wielded on epic fantasy but nevertheless, some may be interested.
I looked forward to Rings with more excitement than most children wait for a visit from Santa Clause. The previews and trailers gave away nothing and yet, sucked me in like a whirlwhind. If the teasers were any indication, viewers were in for gorgeous cinematography and heretofore unseen tales. In this, Amazon did not disappoint. As I understand it, showrunners and developers were crafting narratives and histories based primarily on the appendices available in The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. I’ve read these and for anyone to pull a cohesive storyline, much less several, out of them is quite impressive.
Because viewers do not have clear canon to fall back on, some of the narrative and relationship arcs were disconcerting. Yes, I am aware of the controversy surrounding the casting of people of color in the series. Sure, for a known world, which has been brilliantly depicted on-screen already, to suddenly include non-white actors can be startling. My question though, is why? I mean, remember how shocked people where with the diverse casting of Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Hamilton? That seems to have worked out beautifully. Other than the harfoots described in the beginning pages of Fellowship, Tolkien never specifically mentions skin color when describing the different races in his books. The diversity of casting, and the decisive roles played by female characters, is refreshing! And, I daresay, more powerfully serves the overall message of “We’re all in this together in this fight against evil” than a white-washed presentation. (Please spare me the “There’s no such thing as black elves!” argument because ahem…there’s no such thing as elves.) Anyway, putting all that aside, that’s not why I’m here.
Yes, at times the storylines were clunky and jarring. Bouncing back and forth between Galadriel and all of her roles and interactions, Arondir and Bronwyn, Nori and The Stranger, Elrond and Durin, meant it took a few episodes to really understand what was happening. Yes, showrunners played some things very close-to-the-vest. Who is The Stranger REALLY going to turn out to be? Gandalf? Saruman? Sauron? But, by the end of Season 1, the disjointed storylines had started to merge together into a cohesive narrative as character met character and joined forces in the struggle against the gathering darkness. This was very satisfying.
I was immensely pleased with the scene setting and cinematography in Rings of Power. The production crew wisely steered clear of the slick, too-slippery CGI effects which plagued The Hobbit films and opted for texture and depth similar to the CGI in the LOTR trilogy. Green screens and visual effects are useful tools but should be compliments to production, not underpinnings of an entire project. I’m sure Ian McKellen feels the same.
Actually, my biggest criticism of the series lands on the direction Morfydd Clark received for how to portray Galadriel. Galadriel in lore is wise and diplomatic, which implies some hefty people skills. Clark’s interpretation is downright off-putting. Was she told to clench her jaw at all times? Is she suffering from tetanus which prevents her from using more of her face than just the front of her lips to speak? Does Morfydd worry about wrinkles caused by repetitive facial expressions? Surely not. I realize Kate Blanchett’s interpretation of Galadriel is a hard act to follow but for crying out loud…I have to believe this girl has more range than simple anger and stoneface. In this it seems, Forbes magazine agrees.
Admittedly, I have to squint my eyes to visualize Robert Aramayo, who plays ‘young’ Elrond in RoP, aging into Hugo Weaving’s ‘old’ Elrond. Still, if I’d never watched the LOTR movies, this wouldn’t be a problem. Aramayo does an excellent job balancing the patience of centuries with the delight of living so often attributed to Elves (and sorely lacking in Galadriel). Elrond and Durin’s friendship feels so genuine I would watch an entire series about just the two of them.
Speaking of everyone’s favorite dwarf…Durin and his wife, Disa, played by Owain Arthur and Sophia Nomvete, are truly magic. These two are everything fantasy fans have ever expected of dwarves (with the exception of Disa’s beardless face…maybe she shaves?) They are steadfast and gregarious, loud and loyal. I’d watch a series about them too.
And the harfoots. Bless’em. It is easy to see how their Second Age society evolves into that of the Third Age Shire Hobbits. Their love of growing things, their self-preserving isolationism, their commitment to family are just spot on. Production generously included so many delightful little details and insights. I’ve always wanted to visit Hobbiton. Now, I wouldn’t mind traveling with the wandering Harfoots in their little caravans. I’d happily help push a cart! No one walks alone, after all.
Amazon has committed to at least five seasons of Rings of Power. I think this is a wise decision and those of us who enjoyed Season 1 are looking forward to Season 2. The show is a lovely escape into a world many of us visit often, offering new characters and new journeys. I can hardly wait to go back to Middle Earth.
Read my post about R.L. Salvatore’s The Crystal Shard for the Books that Made Me series!
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Romancing the Fantasy by Grace Draven
“Writing stories set in broad fantasy worlds populated with magical beings and saturated in sorcery, where romance between my main characters plays as big a role as the quest they're on, is my ultimate catnip.”
I’ve been a longtime reader of both fantasy and romance – ever since I was a tween and consumed books by both Andre Norton and Jude Devereaux with equal gusto. Romance novels at that time were dominated by the historical romance subgenre while Fantasy only had the occasional barely-there nod toward romance. Those instances were like finding rare jewels in a sandbox. Basically the two genres were hugely popular with readers who, like me, read both. Regrettably, the twain never met.
I was in college and working at a bookstore when I started to see the first paranormal romances slide onto the shelves. While they weren’t fantasy romance, the genre was stretching its wings into something other than historical and contemporary romance. Yay! While I still wasn’t able to read about elf kings finding love with human, I could read about vampires doing the same.
With the rise of digital publishing, fantasy romance began to find its footing. I remember attending the Romance Writers of America convention in 2008 where I learned that C.L. Wilson had published her Tairen Soul series through Dorchester. A true fantasy romance where the author devoted equal time to both genres, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on those books and start reading. Since then, I’ve seen this wonderful genre fusion expand and grow in popularity, finding its place first among indie publishers and now also among traditional publishers. As for me, not only do I read it, but I also write it and love every moment. Writing stories set in broad fantasy worlds populated with magical beings and saturated in sorcery, where romance between my main characters plays as big a role as the quest they’re on, is my ultimate catnip. I really love my job.
–Grace Draven
Check Out Grace Draven’s Series, The Fallen Empire
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November 14, 2022
Review – The Lost Fleet: Incursion by Sarah Hawke
“Reading Star Trek erotica,” I replied.
“Fine, don’t tell me.”
-Real Life conversation
INCURSION is a bit outside my wheelhouse because I’m not someone who normally reads erotica, especially advertised as harem lit. It’s not something I look down upon, everyone should be able to read whatever sort of entertainment they enjoy. My wife has a great fondness for stories about women kidnapped by human traffickers who then fall in love with assassins or secret agents that promptly go Taken on their captors. [Edit: I have also been informed by my wife that I should add that they have BDSM overtones too].
However, this is a special case because this book was, first, written by a female author despite its male POV and also repeatedly was recommended to me for its story as well as world-building. Color me intrigued. I have always been a fan of books that manage to combine sexiness with being, for lack of a better term, decent writing. I can’t think of many books that do it aside from the Phadre series by Jacqueline Carey but I definitely know what I like.
Still, if this is all too much information, I certainly understand. This is a book with an extensive well-written plot, excellent world-building, and extremely likeable characters. It just so happens that it interrupts every four or five chapters to a protracted scene of snoo-snoo. If that’s not your bag, consider yourself warned and this is not your kind of book. I listened to the audiobook version and think the production values were very good for that and recommend the narrator(s). A smart decision was getting dual narration for the male and female voices.
The premise is Kal Zeris is a Commander Shepard-esque psychic Special Ops soldier that works for the Dominion. He’s good-looking, kind of a jerk, and still has a heart of gold. His favorite pasttime is beating up racists, helping the conspicuously hot alien sex workers living around him, as well as running covert ops to kill slavers. Tailor made to be the kind of guy that male gamers love to play in video games and are very popular fanfic subjects for women.
While investigating a ship that was subject to a massacre by the presumed-long dead Dowd race, Kal is forced to work with the cute genetically-engineered cadet named Miranda. Kal hates the genetically engineered ruling class of the Dominion, no matter how cute, and she is casually arrogant but soon impressed by the size of his battlefield experience. What? Did you think that was a euphemism? Either way, they soon end up together and weirdly I really got invested in their romance. Which I never do. Seriously, no romance in the history of fiction save maybe Picard and Crusher. I actually kind of resented when they introduced the other girls.
Either way, I actually was interested in the story and enjoyed the book thoroughly. I also rarely compliment the covers of these books but I really like the uniform Sarah Hawke designed because it fits what’s actually described inside. Book fidelity plus being pleasing to the eye. Whenever lit harem books are recommended, they tend to be, uh, well, cartoonish in their looks. It’s still a bit, uh, well, generous but not inhumanly so.
Ahem.
Two thumbs up. It’s the R-rated version of Mass Effect we all wanted.
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November 13, 2022
7 SFF Books That You May Not Have Heard of But Should Read – Vol 3
Here we are at Volume 3 of SFF books That You May Have Heard of But Should Read. Continuing with the theme of gems you might have not heard of, the lovely author Janny Wurts has provided us with another seven wonderful novels to add to our TBR. Adventures await in these books!
If you wish to see previous recommendations, go here:7 SFF Books That You May Not Have Heard of But Should Read – Vol 2
7 SFF Books That You May Not Have Heard Of But Should Read
1. (published 1991)Cloven Hoovesby Megan Lindholm About Cloven Hooves
Evelyn is a solitary child, preferring to wander in the woods in all weathers rather than socialise. Her secret is a fantastic companion: a faun with whom she plays in the woods.
Years later Evelyn finds happiness as a wife and mother, but life turns sour when the family move to Tacoma where her husband is asked to fill in at his father’s business. Evelyn’s husband’s wish for them to stay permanently with his family causes a rift between them and then a terrible tragedy makes the situation even more impossible.
Miraculously, when she needs a friend, Evelyn’s childhood companion reappears in Tacoma. Pan, now an adult satyr and a secret friend to both her and her son, eventually becomes her lover. He leads Evelyn on an odyssey out of her failed marriage to fulfillment in the woods of Alaska.
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2. (published 2003)Zulu Heartby Steven Barnes
“Not for the first time, Aidan reflected that those titillated by horror were least likely to have ever experienced it personally.”
About Zulu Heart
Zulu Heart returns to the 19th Century of Steven Barnes’s justly acclaimed novel Lion’s Blood, a brilliant alternate history in which black Africans have colonized the New World with white Europeans as their slaves.
As Zulu Heart opens, New World nobleman Kai ibn Jallaleddin is a senator of New Djibouti, an envied plantation owner, and a loving family man. His ex-slave and friend, the Irishman Aidan O’Dere, is on the Ouachita frontier, helping other ex-slaves build a settlement for themselves. But ex-slaves are always at risk, and an angry mob threatens Aidan, his family, and his entire village with slaughter or re-enslavement. Meanwhile, Kai is entangled in intrigues among not only his fellow senators, but the lords of Egypt and Abyssinia, who have sinister plans for the New World colonies. Pharaoh takes Kai’s sister hostage to manipulate Kai, even as Aidan discovers his twin sister, lost since childhood, is the property of a powerful foe of New Djibouti. Aidan has a slight possibility of rescuing his beloved sister, and of helping Kai thwart his enemies, but the only chance of achieving these near-impossible goals requires that Aidan go undercover–a slave once more.
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3.(published 1989)Ars Magicaby Judith Tarr About Ars Magica
Gerbert was a farmer’s son in an obscure town in France, but his gifts of mind and intellect were so remarkable that even in the feudal world of the tenth century, he could rise far above his station. Princes and prelates courted him; emperors called him friend and teacher. He brought the lost art of mathematics back into Europe; he was an astronomer, a musician, a builder of strange and wonderful devices. In the end he reached the pinnacle of the world, a seat so lofty and an authority so great that he answered only to God Himself.
But Gerbert was more than a simple professor of the mathematical arts, or even a prince of the Church. As a young student in Spain, guided by his priestly patron, he entered into the study of another art altogether, a hidden art, mastering mighty powers of mystery and magic.
Magic, as every student of the art knows, has a price—and the greater the magic, the higher the price. The magic that came to Gerbert was very great indeed.
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4. (published 1983)Arielby Steven R. Boyett About Ariel
At four-thirty one Saturday afternoon the laws of physics as we know them underwent a change. Electronic devices, cars, industries stopped. The lights went out. Any technology more complicated than a lever or pulley simply wouldn’t work. A new set of rules took its place—laws that could only be called magic. Ninety-nine percent of humanity has simply vanished. Cities lie abandoned. Supernatural creatures wander the silenced achievements of a halted civilization.
Pete Garey has survived the Change and its ensuing chaos. He wanders the southeastern United States, scavenging, lying low. Learning. One day he makes an unexpected friend: a smartassed unicorn with serious attitude. Pete names her Ariel and teaches her how to talk, how to read, and how to survive in a world in which a unicorn horn has become a highly prized commodity.
When they learn that there is a price quite literally on Ariel’s head, the two unlikely companions set out from Atlanta to Manhattan to confront the sorcerer who wants her horn. And so begins a haunting, epic, and surprisingly funny journey through the remnants of a halted civilization in a desolated world.
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5. (published 1998)Heroes Dieby Matthew Woodring Stover
“A lie is like a pet- you have to take care of it, or it’ll turn on you and bite you in the ass.”
About Heroes Die
Renowned throughout the land of Ankhana as the Blade of Tyshalle, Caine has killed his share of monarchs and commoners, villains and heroes. He is relentless, unstoppable, simply the best there is at what he does.
At home on Earth, Caine is Hari Michaelson, a superstar whose adventures in Ankhana command an audience of billions. Yet he is shackled by a rigid caste society, bound to ignore the grim fact that he kills men on a far-off world for the entertainment of his own planet–and bound to keep his rage in check.
But now Michaelson has crossed the line. His estranged wife, Pallas Rill, has mysteriously disappeared in the slums of Ankhana. To save her, he must confront the greatest challenge of his life: a lethal game of cat and mouse with the most treacherous rulers of two worlds…
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6. (published 2010)The Merro Treeby Katie Waitman About The Merro Tree
In the far reaches of our galaxy, the artist will face the ultimate censorship.
Mikk of Vyzania, the galaxy’s greatest performance master, commanded stages on all the myriad worlds. His sublime, ethereal performances were unforgettable, drawing on the most treasured traditions of every culture, every people, throughout inhabited space. His crowning achievement, and his obsession: the Somalite song dance, an art form that transcends both song and movement to become something greater and more spectacular . . . almost divine.
When tragic events caused performance of the song dance to be proscribed, Mikk was devastated . . . until his strong sense of justice forced him to defy the ban. His trial will be the most sensational in the recent history of the galaxy; the sentence he faces is death.
Now the greatest performance master must hope to become the greatest escape artist. Somehow Mikk must break the stranglehold of censorship and change the law . . . or die trying!
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7. (published 2007)Territoryby Emma Bull About Territory
Wyatt Earp. Doc Holliday. Ike Clanton.
You think you know the story. You don’t.
Tombstone, Arizona in 1881 is the site of one of the richest mineral strikes in American history, where veins of silver run like ley lines under the earth, a network of power that belongs to anyone who knows how to claim and defend it.
Above the ground, power is also about allegiances. A magician can drain his friends’ strength to strengthen himself, and can place them between him and danger. The one with the most friends stands to win the territory.
Jesse Fox left his Eastern college education to travel West, where he’s made some decidedly odd friends, like the physician Chow Lung, who insists that Jesse has a talent for magic. In Tombstone, Jesse meets the tubercular Doc Holliday, whose inner magic is as suppressed as his own, but whose power is enough to attract the sorcerous attention of Wyatt Earp.
Mildred Benjamin is a young widow making her living as a newspaper typesetter, and–unbeknownst to the other ladies of Tombstone–selling tales of Western derring-do to the magazines back East. Like Jesse, Mildred has episodes of seeing things that can’t possibly be there.
When a failed stage holdup results in two dead, Tombstone explodes with speculation about who attempted the robbery. The truth could destroy Earp’s plans for wealth and glory, and he’ll do anything to bury it. Meanwhile, outlaw leader John Ringo wants the same turf as Earp. Each courts Jesse as an ally, and tries to isolate him by endangering his friends, as they struggle for magical dominance of the territory.
Events are building toward the shootout of which you may have heard. But you haven’t heard the whole, secret story until you’ve read Emma Bull’s unique take on an American legend, in which absolutely nothing is as it seems…
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November 12, 2022
Review – STAR TREK: DISCOVERY: THE WAY TO THE STARS by Una McCormack
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY: THE WAY TO THE STARS is a Young Adult novel based in the Star Trek universe. I have been enjoying the Star Trek: Discovery spin-off novels starting with Michael Burnham and Spock’s adventure in Desperate Hour and continuing in works like Drastic Measures. They’re a great mix of Star Trek: The Original Series lore with a new perspective on the life of characters from the 23rd century as well as their culture.
This book follows Cadet (later Ensign) Tilly of the show and discusses her backstory prior to showing onboard the U.S.S Discovery. Tilly is easily my favorite character and is a bundle of bright energetic fun in a very dark show. This story begins with Tilly’s sixteenth birthday on Earth and the fact she is the bitterly unhappy daughter of a high-ranking Federation diplomat. Pushed into going to an offworld boarding school she hates, Tilly decides to rebel against her upbringing by running away to the colonies.
Tilly is a tremendously lovable as well as believable character. One thing the book does well is that it never raises the stakes too high in what is really just a story about a teenage girl coming of age. Tilly’s idea of adventure is just going on a trip to some non-Earth Federation worlds in what is only about as dangerous as backpacking in Europe during the present day. Sure, she gets robbed at that point but even that crime is not violent.
I’ve always loved stories about “finding yourself” and Tilly is someone who doesn’t want to be a rich society girl but work as a mechanic and possibly astro-mycologist. Not the sort of thing that would be useful in the upper crust of the Federation (that isn’t that important in their society but thinks it is). Her mother, Siobhan, loves her but clearly has no idea about how her daughter thinks since she’s of the mind Tilly has the makings of a diplomat. Tilly not only has “foot in mouth” disease but doesn’t actually like socializing and doesn’t really even understand why diplomacy is important.
I really love the glimpse into the lives of Federation citizens during all of this. It’s generally a world without want, scarcity, hatred, or prejudice. It’s not a world without drama, though, as Tilly’s relationship with her mother shows. Personal troubles remain and the differences between generations are universal. Tilly wants to assert herself but her mother is used to seeing her as an extension of herself. I know Gene Roddenberry envisioned humans to be too evolved for the kind of problems Tilly’s family have but I feel the book is all the stronger for them being so relatable.
Part of what makes the book so effective is the fact that everyone in the book is genuinely nice. There’s no brutish Klingons, scheming Romulans, or mad Starfleet Admirals. The closest thing to a villain is Tilly’s overbearing mother, an ornery captain who hates stowaways, and some misguided natives. Tilly’s ultimate desire is to also make something of herself and shows that in the future, people really want to do labor for the value of doing it rather than material possessions.
In conclusion, The Way to the Stars is a really good book. As much as I love Star Trek, very few of the books can be said to be relaxing because they’re full of explosions as well as high adventure. It’s why we go to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants week after week, book after book. This is a very relaxing and comfortable book. Tilly is my favorite Discovery character as I’ve mentioned and this book is an excellent tribute to her. You don’t even need to be a fan of the show to enjoy this nice little “slice of life” science fiction.
Check Out Some of Our Other Star Trek ReviewsReview – Star Trek: Discovery – Desperate Hours by David Mack
Review – Star Trek Picard No Man’s Land by Kirsten Beyer & Mike Johnson
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Review – Fairy Godmurder by Sarah J. Sover
Thank you to the author for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Fairy Godmurderer is available now.
Before opening this book, I was already pretty much convinced that I would enjoy it. I happily cheered for the snarktastic, Doc Martens-wearing Gwen, an extremely atypical fairy godmother. Her job as fairy godmother went horribly wrong when her first princess was brutally killed. Gwen can’t let it go (understandably) and ends up trying to catch a serial murderer, rushing in where angels (and your normal fairy godmother) fear to tread.
She doesn’t go alone. Gwen’s best friend, Chessa, is a perky pixie who also happens to be a crime blogger. Gwen’s determination is matched with Chessa’s expertise- what can go wrong? Well, the answer is quite a bit, taking readers on a heck of a ride.
The book splits its time between the present-day and flashbacks. When not done well, flashbacks can be really disruptive to a plot. When done well, like in this case, they add nuance to characters and situations. I liked that this gave me a chance to get to meet Princess Frankie, making her murder more than just the catalyst. It meant more.
The dynamic between Chessa and Gwen was truly a joy to read. Gwen was cynical whereas Chessa was upbeat. They knew how to needle at each other, but like best friends do, they also knew what the other needed and when. They were fun and relatable. Gwen was a fairy godmother with an attitude (I love that I get to write that!), but she was also a bundle of insecurities, grief, and trauma. Her character development was fascinating.
I feel like I shouldn’t be calling a noir involving a serial killer “fun”, but it really was. It was a blast. I loved the world with its unexpected mesh of creatures. I mean, a griffin sergeant! How cool is that? The everydayness of mentioning protests and pandemics (thanks, 2020 on out), combined with the magical, made for an extremely entertaining juxtaposition. I appreciated that the fantastical mixed with the humans, instead of the two layered worlds being completely separate, if that makes sense.
The whodunnit aspect was well done, with clues scattered throughout the book. I didn’t pick up on nearly enough to figure it out but had a “how did I miss that” moment when things were revealed. Knowing that all the pieces to solve the puzzle were there made the ending even more rewarding.
I’m pretty sure that it’s obvious by now that I had no niggles at all. The book is fantastic, and Gwen is an awesome addition to the fantasy noir genre. Fairy Godmurder made its mark in the best of ways.
Check Out Some of Our Other ReviewsReview – Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton Walker
Review – SHIFTING DIRECTIONS by Eve Koguce
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Review: The Phoenix and the Sword by J.C. Snow
This is going to be a hard review to write without spoilers, but The Phoenix and the Sword by J.C. Snow is an unusual slow-burn queer romantic fantasy with phoenixes, a cultivation-based magic system, and an ambitious plot structure spanning millennia.
I picked up this book after asking on Twitter for recommendations for a queer fantasy romance that wasn’t too long and was moderately spicy or more. This book doesn’t technically fulfil several of these criteria—it’s more of a romantic fantasy than a romance, and it’s not spicy at all—but it’s still an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.
I loved the book’s opening. Aili, a combat medic about to ship out to war, meets an intriguing woman called Tairei. Plot shenanigans immediately ensue, and the process of discovering more and more about Tairei and the mysterious phoenix aspect kept me glued to the pages in the first quarter of the book. I adored Tairei, and the budding relationship between her and Aili was a delight. Part of the mystery involves Tairei’s apparent connection to Aili, which is teased but not revealed for quite a while. I loved Tairei and Aili. A lot. Which is why I had some reservations about where the book goes next.
About a quarter of the way through, we enter another realm through a portal of sorts, and we get introduced to an entirely new cast of characters, including a pair of male characters worth pining for: Liu Chenguang and Hong Deming. From this point on, the bulk of the story follows Liu and Hong, with occasional flashes back to Aili and Tairei.
Liu and Hong’s story is a complex one involving some quality fantasy storytelling: magic that must be cultivated, various sects practicing their own cultivation methods, and a looming war that sometimes pits the sects against each other. The love story between Liu and Hong was a pleasant surprise, but I kept longing for more of Aili and Tairei, which we only get in shorter bits. I did occasionally get confused about the dual storylines, but that’s par for the course with complex fantasy, and my brain eventually sorted it all out.
As the book progresses, the connections between the two storylines become clearer, and it’s quite an ambitious and interesting project. I wished we could have spent more time with the original couple, but I loved seeing an author shoot for the moon in terms of storytelling. The romantic arcs in this book are complex and fulfilling, though I wouldn’t call it a romance. The fantasy story is of equal importance, so the term romantic fantasy feels more appropriate.
Because at first I thought I was reading a romance, I was disappointed when we switched storylines, though in time I came to care a great deal about Lui Chenguang and Hong Deming, and their slow-burn romance is quite touching. And the ending wraps up the two storylines in a satisfying way, though I would have loved to see it a little more balanced between the two.
I should also mention an important side character, Zhu Guiren, who’s delightfully messy and mysterious in his own right. I love how we never know quite what to think of him, how much to love or hate him, so we end up doing both. Zhu might be the most complex character in the book, and he’s certainly the most entertaining.
You should read The Phoenix and the Sword if you want a complex romantic fantasy with queer characters, innovative storytelling, and of course phoenixes. It’s a lovely book that does something I’ve never quite seen before, so kudos to the author on that. Just don’t go into this thinking it’s a Romance with a capital R.
Read my Romantasy Roundtable panel discussion for more romantasy content!
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November 11, 2022
Review – Star Trek: Discovery – Desperate Hours by David Mack
I was hoping for the novels to be handed over to the same people who have always handled the novels for what I considered to be the “James Luceno effect.” Which is a reference to James Luceno getting offered to do a Star Wars novel after the canon reboot and the immediate effect being he incorporated as much previous Expanded Universe into the book as humanly possible. In this case, David Mack does an excellent job of handling a much bigger job of making it clear not only does Discovery fit into the timeline of the Original Series but there’s no reason to be exceptionally worried about it.
In fact, I didn’t see this as a likely problem from the beginning as while Trekkies would snarl and hiss about the Klingons looking different or the Saucer-size not being the right number of meters, I knew the novelists would provide explanations. Are they canon? Well, no, but they’re canon to themselves and really it’s all about satisfying YOUR vision of the galaxy isn’t it? What was that moment in Galaxy Quest? “The show is real.” “I knew it!” In this case, Desperate Hours explains away a few of the tech problems and states while the Constitution-class may look a little weird even in-universe, it’s fully capable of kicking the Discovery’s butt back to Earth Spacedock. Which makes sense because they have phasers that go “pew pew” while the Enterprise has phasers that can decimate continents.
The premise for the book is a surprisingly well-established colony of humans (300K+) on the edge of Federation Space has accidentally awakened a 2 kilometer creature I kept mentally picturing as one of Mass Effect’s Reapers. Captain Georgiou, who I hope gets a 22+ book series sort of like the Stargazer adventures, is assigned the task of dealing with the threat only to get Captain Pike added to her detail seconds later. Pike is full of Klingon gagh and vinegar with a desire to simply blast the Juggernaut (as they name it) out of existence. This leads to a conflict between the two which is only resolved by their first and second officers: Lt. Commander Michael Burnham along with Lt. Spock.
I was somewhat surprised to see Spock and Michael interacting as you’d think that’d be something they’d save for the television show but I suppose if they want to overwrite the novels they certainly can. In any case, their interaction is the highlight of the story as we get a sense of what makes the two characters similar as well as what makes them different. We also get a sense of why Spock changes from the somewhat angry young Vulcan in the Star Trek Pilot to the more established one in TOS. David Mack’s mastery of Trek history is full of little references here and there that seem primarily designed to make Discovery’s characters feel welcome as part of the franchise rather than the unwanted new neighbors so many friends are treating them as.
I really like Captain Pike’s portrayal because while the Abramsverse made him basically TOS Captain Kirk 2.0, the one seen in the pilot was kind of an [expletive]. He was angry, unhappy to be in Starfleet, sexist, and generally a piece of work. Here, it’s because he’s overcompensating for being extremely young in his command as well as just being plain meaner than your average Starfleet captain. It makes a nice contrast to Captain Georgiou, who is somewhere between Kirk and Picard in terms of being an officer and a gentlewoman. Mind you, I don’t think even Kirk ever considered firing on a fellow Federation vessel. If I have one complaint about the book, it’s the fact it did an excellent job of setting up the Governor as a villain with complex motives yet a truly despicable self-serving core yet she was dealt with anticlimatically. Really, I was looking forward to her getting her comeuppance far more than I was seeing the 9 million year old death machine being dealt with.
This book doesn’t really fit with the events of Star Trek: Discovery season two. There, Spock and Michael’s relationship was explored in a manner very similar to this book. However, it’s still quite entertaining despite no longer fitting into continuity. I very much enjoyed the book and am eager to read more Discovery spin-off novels. Pike, Georgiou, Michael, and Spock are all well-developed and well used in the story. It’s a bit bigger and more video-gamey than a typical Star Trek episode but that’s the benefit of a book’s unlimited effects budget.
Check Out Some of Our Other Star Trek Reviews
Review – Star Trek Drastic Measures by Dayton Ward
Review- Star Trek Picard No Man’s Land by Kirsten Beyer & Mike Johnson
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