Warren Rochelle's Blog, page 3
January 23, 2024
Iron Flame, by Rebecca Yarros
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Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow.
Book 2 in this in-progress series does not disappoint. It's Violet Sorrengail's second year at Basgiath War College, and now "the real training [has begun]." The training will be even more "grueling and maliciously brutal.' It's meant to "to stretch the riders' capacity for pain beyond endurance" (front cover). Can Violet survive another year tougher than the last? The new vice commandment [has] made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is--unless she betrays the man she loves "(front cover).
Frailer and weaker than the others, Violet might be. But she is smart and has a "will of iron' (front cover). Will that be enough? There's more. Violet has learned a "secret hidden for centuries," and she knows this secret is about to be exposed, and this could be it. Will any of the survive>
IAnd did I mention the surprise at the end? I can't wait for Book 3!
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Iron Flame by Rebecca YarrosMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow.
Book 2 in this in-progress series does not disappoint. It's Violet Sorrengail's second year at Basgiath War College, and now "the real training [has begun]." The training will be even more "grueling and maliciously brutal.' It's meant to "to stretch the riders' capacity for pain beyond endurance" (front cover). Can Violet survive another year tougher than the last? The new vice commandment [has] made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is--unless she betrays the man she loves "(front cover).
Frailer and weaker than the others, Violet might be. But she is smart and has a "will of iron' (front cover). Will that be enough? There's more. Violet has learned a "secret hidden for centuries," and she knows this secret is about to be exposed, and this could be it. Will any of the survive>
IAnd did I mention the surprise at the end? I can't wait for Book 3!
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
January 20, 2024
Where the Cross Turns Over: Australian-based Stories, by Sylvia Kelso
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Where the Cross Turns Over: Australian Based Stories by Sylvia Anne Kelso
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
According to the back cover of the print edition, of Where the Cross Turns Over: Australian-Based Stories, these stories “happen where the Cross turns over: a regional urban Australian backyard, a regional suburban housing development, a state capital, over a century ago; an Outback waterhole. Another regional townscape, whose characters end up off-Earth; a future planet whose fauna, are at least, unusual. But even the Outback can prove weird here.”
Weird indeed, and not just the Outback, either. I want to look briefly at three of the collection’s six fine tales. “The Cretaceous Border” is the first tale, set in the fictional Australian town of Ibisville. Like all the stories in this fine new collection by Sylvia Kelso, this is rich with vivid and strong details of place and culture, flora and fauna, or how something is done. I had to remind myself that parts of Australia are tropical, green, and dense.
One day, when the narrator is out on her morning run, she comes across something new, strange foot prints, and a dead cane-toad that’s “been ripped apart, and legs, and head and bits of gut spread all over [her] concrete path.” A day or so later, she hears sounds of an “almighty brawl” under the “big, ground-sweeping fronds of the Chinese fan-palm in the back-yard corner.” She feels intense, wet heat,” and the smell of beast, of jungle. Almost a week later, she finds a dead rat, also gutted. “And hanging in the just-dawn air, the smell. Rotting leaves, swamp water heat … the tang of beast.” And stranger foot-prints, the tracks of something that shouldn’t be in her back yard.
When she and her running partner, Cat, decide to trap whatever this creature is, to their surprise, they find a raptor, a micro- allosaur in the cage. How did this happen? One answer is an alternate universe next door, the border seems to be in the back yard. Does the allosaur come back? Will there be more strange visitors?
In “Acreage,” also set in Ibisville, we meet Mr. and Mrs. Asquith, suburban folk, who happen to be interested in local history. Mr. Asquith discovers a wild and woolly past, and “tales of wickedness and braggadocio,” of murder and mayhem. He laments the lack of “bushrangers,” the Australian equivalent of outlaws and highwaymen. Google says they are “any of the bandits of the Australian bush, or outback, who harassed the settlers, miners, and Aborigines of the frontier in the late 18th and 19th centuries, whose exploits figure prominently in Australian history and folklore.”
Then, he starts calling his wife the name of another woman, Lu. He swears at her, an unheard-of event. He’s strange compulsions, he has to start a fire, and sets the compost pile ablaze. He has to buy stockmen’s’ spurs. A clear case of possession, it seems, of a bushranger up to no good.
What to do? Mrs. Asquith seeks help, from a psychic paranormal expert. The past, it seems, is the present. How? Is their yard a crossing, “a place where the walls thin…”? The spirit has to be dislodged. And be careful what you wish for.
The last story I want to take a look at here is “Slick,” one of my favorites. This story is about the intersection of the mythical and the mundane. I would also call it a prose poem; the language is so lush and beautiful. In a waterhole, the narrator discovers a “raggedy, ten-foot wide oil slick, not quite above or under water.” But is it really oil? Her mare reacts fear, stares at what is it? She falls asleep there and hears music, something like a song, and she finds herself “[imagining] all the water in the world, all the world there has ever been. And it has a memory. It remembers everything from the first beginning. Fog. Mist. Cloud. Raindrop. Snow. Running water …”
She awakes crying, “water answering water.” It comes to her, the slick out of the water, now a male. Is it a god, water made incarnate? Regardless, the narrator and this water-made-flesh make love, they make, a baby, a girl. Will she choose land or water, this child of myth?
The rest of the tale are no less compelling: the travails of a woman doctor in a time when speed limits were eight miles an hour, aliens seeking fireworks and two unlikely human lovers, and a distant world recreating certain parts of French culture and a mysterious sharpshooter. I was struck by the strong women characters as well. These beautifully written stories will linger, and come back to the reader. Kudos for Kelso’s research, which is deftly woven into the story, research she clearly loves. The history that inspired some of the stories, the historical personages, the details of a how particular works, all add depth and meaning. These stories are true in their worlds. Don’t be put off by Australian terminology and slang, and the names of plants and creatures. Most can be easily understood in context, or quickly looked up. They are a pleasure to read.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Where the Cross Turns Over: Australian Based Stories by Sylvia Anne KelsoMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
According to the back cover of the print edition, of Where the Cross Turns Over: Australian-Based Stories, these stories “happen where the Cross turns over: a regional urban Australian backyard, a regional suburban housing development, a state capital, over a century ago; an Outback waterhole. Another regional townscape, whose characters end up off-Earth; a future planet whose fauna, are at least, unusual. But even the Outback can prove weird here.”
Weird indeed, and not just the Outback, either. I want to look briefly at three of the collection’s six fine tales. “The Cretaceous Border” is the first tale, set in the fictional Australian town of Ibisville. Like all the stories in this fine new collection by Sylvia Kelso, this is rich with vivid and strong details of place and culture, flora and fauna, or how something is done. I had to remind myself that parts of Australia are tropical, green, and dense.
One day, when the narrator is out on her morning run, she comes across something new, strange foot prints, and a dead cane-toad that’s “been ripped apart, and legs, and head and bits of gut spread all over [her] concrete path.” A day or so later, she hears sounds of an “almighty brawl” under the “big, ground-sweeping fronds of the Chinese fan-palm in the back-yard corner.” She feels intense, wet heat,” and the smell of beast, of jungle. Almost a week later, she finds a dead rat, also gutted. “And hanging in the just-dawn air, the smell. Rotting leaves, swamp water heat … the tang of beast.” And stranger foot-prints, the tracks of something that shouldn’t be in her back yard.
When she and her running partner, Cat, decide to trap whatever this creature is, to their surprise, they find a raptor, a micro- allosaur in the cage. How did this happen? One answer is an alternate universe next door, the border seems to be in the back yard. Does the allosaur come back? Will there be more strange visitors?
In “Acreage,” also set in Ibisville, we meet Mr. and Mrs. Asquith, suburban folk, who happen to be interested in local history. Mr. Asquith discovers a wild and woolly past, and “tales of wickedness and braggadocio,” of murder and mayhem. He laments the lack of “bushrangers,” the Australian equivalent of outlaws and highwaymen. Google says they are “any of the bandits of the Australian bush, or outback, who harassed the settlers, miners, and Aborigines of the frontier in the late 18th and 19th centuries, whose exploits figure prominently in Australian history and folklore.”
Then, he starts calling his wife the name of another woman, Lu. He swears at her, an unheard-of event. He’s strange compulsions, he has to start a fire, and sets the compost pile ablaze. He has to buy stockmen’s’ spurs. A clear case of possession, it seems, of a bushranger up to no good.
What to do? Mrs. Asquith seeks help, from a psychic paranormal expert. The past, it seems, is the present. How? Is their yard a crossing, “a place where the walls thin…”? The spirit has to be dislodged. And be careful what you wish for.
The last story I want to take a look at here is “Slick,” one of my favorites. This story is about the intersection of the mythical and the mundane. I would also call it a prose poem; the language is so lush and beautiful. In a waterhole, the narrator discovers a “raggedy, ten-foot wide oil slick, not quite above or under water.” But is it really oil? Her mare reacts fear, stares at what is it? She falls asleep there and hears music, something like a song, and she finds herself “[imagining] all the water in the world, all the world there has ever been. And it has a memory. It remembers everything from the first beginning. Fog. Mist. Cloud. Raindrop. Snow. Running water …”
She awakes crying, “water answering water.” It comes to her, the slick out of the water, now a male. Is it a god, water made incarnate? Regardless, the narrator and this water-made-flesh make love, they make, a baby, a girl. Will she choose land or water, this child of myth?
The rest of the tale are no less compelling: the travails of a woman doctor in a time when speed limits were eight miles an hour, aliens seeking fireworks and two unlikely human lovers, and a distant world recreating certain parts of French culture and a mysterious sharpshooter. I was struck by the strong women characters as well. These beautifully written stories will linger, and come back to the reader. Kudos for Kelso’s research, which is deftly woven into the story, research she clearly loves. The history that inspired some of the stories, the historical personages, the details of a how particular works, all add depth and meaning. These stories are true in their worlds. Don’t be put off by Australian terminology and slang, and the names of plants and creatures. Most can be easily understood in context, or quickly looked up. They are a pleasure to read.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
January 6, 2024
Haunted Place and Other Stories, by Mark Allan Gunnells
Haunted Place and Other Stories by Mark Allan GunnellsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Haunted Places and Other Stories, by Mark Allan Gunnells, is another fine addition to the horror genre by this talented author. The stories range from the title story's twist on the concept of what a haunted place-in this instance, the body of the surviving lover, to "The Book Hunter," a twist on Fahrenheit 451, where the hunter is yes, looking for books in homes, but not to burn them. Rather, finding books saves the owner from execution. Indeed, the twist, the flip in perspective, is what shines in this collection, and in Gunnells' work. That these stories are almost told from a queer perspective, or through a queer lens, makes them all the stronger and powerful.
I want to call just couple of the other fine stories here. I loved "Door to Door," which is both making of an recurring motif in American fiction, the traveling salesmen, and the idea that we must have a belief system. Here, the salesman is selling belief systems, made to order, and the options available and her choices, reveal her biases, and the consequences thereof. One of my favorites is the concluding story, "I Just Worry." Two thirteen-year-old boys, Zeke and Gregg, best friends, are up to mischief. They are trying to sneak into a drive-in to catch a horror flick. I wasn't surprised that doing so brings them into contact with real monsters. But there is more going on here: this a story of friendship, of coming of age, and coming out, as feelings are revealed. There, is of course, a twist at the end.
Horror fans, take note. Recommended.
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Reflections on Ruled Britannia, by Harry Turtledove
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Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm a big fan of Harry Turtledove, and his amazing alternate histories, and Ruled Britannia, a tale of England had the Spanish Armada prevailed, is no exception. The novel is also a tale of an alternate Shakespeare, or rather a tale of what he might have done, had history been different. That his genius as a playwright and poet proves pivotal to the English resistance, is no surprise. I took great delight in that Shakespeare was "given the opportunity to pen his greatest work--a drama that will incite the people of Britain to rise against their persecutor--and change the course of history" (backcover).
Truly, this is an amazing novel. Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Ruled Britannia by Harry TurtledoveMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm a big fan of Harry Turtledove, and his amazing alternate histories, and Ruled Britannia, a tale of England had the Spanish Armada prevailed, is no exception. The novel is also a tale of an alternate Shakespeare, or rather a tale of what he might have done, had history been different. That his genius as a playwright and poet proves pivotal to the English resistance, is no surprise. I took great delight in that Shakespeare was "given the opportunity to pen his greatest work--a drama that will incite the people of Britain to rise against their persecutor--and change the course of history" (backcover).
Truly, this is an amazing novel. Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
January 1, 2024
Thoughts on Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros
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Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow!
Fourth Wing was a Christmas present and I waited a few days, as I finished another book, to open it, and kept reading and reading and reading, until this afternoon. It blew me away. Yarros takes such familiar fantasy themes as dragons and dragon riders as defenders, a school for their training, and makes it her own.
Enter Violet, an unwilling student at the Basgiath War College, where she has a target on her back, thanks to her mother, a general in the Navarrian dragon corps, and her actions in suppressing a rebellion. This mother forced Violet to enter the war college; she was meant to be a scribe. Enter Yaden, the son of the rebels who were all executed. Yes, it was easy to figure out these two, who hated each other at first, were meant for each other. But how they got there, through their dragons, to whom riders are bonded, is love story, but it is a story of survival, self-awareness, coming of age, and discovering what is true and what is a lie.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Fourth Wing by Rebecca YarrosMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow!
Fourth Wing was a Christmas present and I waited a few days, as I finished another book, to open it, and kept reading and reading and reading, until this afternoon. It blew me away. Yarros takes such familiar fantasy themes as dragons and dragon riders as defenders, a school for their training, and makes it her own.
Enter Violet, an unwilling student at the Basgiath War College, where she has a target on her back, thanks to her mother, a general in the Navarrian dragon corps, and her actions in suppressing a rebellion. This mother forced Violet to enter the war college; she was meant to be a scribe. Enter Yaden, the son of the rebels who were all executed. Yes, it was easy to figure out these two, who hated each other at first, were meant for each other. But how they got there, through their dragons, to whom riders are bonded, is love story, but it is a story of survival, self-awareness, coming of age, and discovering what is true and what is a lie.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
December 19, 2023
Adventures with a Promethean, by Sylvia Kelso
Adventures with a Promethean by Sylvia Anne KelsoMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
On the front cover (which is beautiful), one can read this: "Not your usual riff on Frankenstein ..." Definitely! Set in the 1820s, this "lovely romance" and "lovely adventure" is narrated by the "earnest and gallant" Anton Zyli, a Swiss banker, and begins when he happens to encounter the Promethean, the Creature in the original, here, known as William. He is as urbane and educated as his inspiration. William leads Anton to Mary, and so the adventures begin. This unlikely pair is in trouble. William's creator is after him, perhaps to eliminate him, perhaps to repeat the science that made him. William has vowed to prevent the latter. Anton must help them.
Complications ensue and Anton helps them to flee far from Geneva, to Brazil. Ten years later, he receives a letter from Mary: help, please come. He loves her, he is a hero. Anton goes across the Atlantic for more adventures, this time down the Amazon.
As Lois McMaster Bujold , author of the Penric and Desdemona series, notes, it is Anton's voice and character that make this novel a "delightful" read. The details of place and time, of culture and language, add to this adventure novel, making it rich and so very engaging. I loved it and found it compelling to the very end. To echo Candas Jane Dorsey, author of The Adventures of Isabel, this novel is a "joy to read."
Recommended.
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November 22, 2023
Love & Limitations, by J. Scott Coatsworth
Love & Limitations by J. Scott CoatsworthMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
J. Scott Coatsworth knows his way around love stories and all their turns and twists, broken and healing hearts, and one complication after another. And yes, happy endings--happy endings that are definitely earned and sometimes come with a cost.
These tales, all MM and LGBTQ+ stories, explore various permutations of queer love. In the first story, "I Only Want to Be With You, " Derek likes Ryan. Ryan likes Alex. Alex treats Ryan like trash" (back cover). Why, then does Ryan stay with Alex? Love is complicated here by an abusive relationship. Can't Ryan see he deserves better? In "The Boy in the Band," one of Coatsworth's first crafting of a trans character, Ryan, an older gay man, finds Justin, a trans high school student, on the roof of his office building, getting ready to jump. Can Ryan connect with Justin before it's too late? Can Justin see himself as worthy of being loved? Can he survive high school bullying and an abusive mother? "Slow Thaw," one of my favorites in this collection, also features a trans character, Col Steel, a trans man and a climate scientist ,who contends with the deeply hurt and heartbroken Javier Fernandez, to whom he is attracted, as they struggle with the disastrous results of climate change in Antarctica. Sparks fly and ice melts, glacier splits. Will hearts melt as well.?
In all the stories, Coatsworth's skills at world-building shine. He has clearly done his homework. This is a believable future Antartica, this is how scientists live at the bottom of the world. The publishing world of New York is deftly described in "Translation," as are the tangled relationships in this story. I feel as if I got to know these characters; I believed them.
The stories in this collection are well-told and well-researched. Readers will feel at home in these different ways to explore human love. This collection is a celebration of queer love.
Highly recommended.
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July 22, 2023
The Escape Artist, by Jonathan Freedland
The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan FreedlandMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I think it is one of those that everyone read, the "astonishing true story of Rudolf Vrba, the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world of a truth too few were willing to hear} (back cover).
In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became "one of the very first Jews to escape from Auschwitz." Rudi and his "fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler," dodged Nazi bullets, "climbed mountains, crossed rivers," determined to bring to the world the "first full account of Auschwitz the world had ever seen." Yet too few "heeded the warning," too few took any action at all. Vrba "helped saved two hundred Jewish lives but he never stopped believing it could have been so many more." . He deserves to "take his place alongside Anne Frank, Oskar Schindler, and Primo Levi as one of the handful of individuals whose stories define our understanding of the Holocaust" (back cover).
This beautifully written book is heartbreaking and horrifying, and ultimately redemptive.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
June 23, 2023
The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donoghue
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The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow.
This is a beautiful and heartbreaking story of the influenza epidemic 0f 1918 in Ireland. At the same time, World War I is being fought in Europe. It is told from the POV of a nurse on the frontlines. Julia Power works "at an understaffed hospital in the city center of [Dublin], where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flue are quarantined together" (back cover). There are no vaccines. Julia's world is one of death, and rules, and struggle.
Into her world, come two other women who change everything for her: "Kathleen Lynn, a doctor rumored to be a Rebel on the run from the police, and Bride Sweeney, a young volunteer helper" (back cover).
The narrative covers three days, days of loss, change, and birth, and love.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
The Pull of the Stars by Emma DonoghueMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow.
This is a beautiful and heartbreaking story of the influenza epidemic 0f 1918 in Ireland. At the same time, World War I is being fought in Europe. It is told from the POV of a nurse on the frontlines. Julia Power works "at an understaffed hospital in the city center of [Dublin], where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flue are quarantined together" (back cover). There are no vaccines. Julia's world is one of death, and rules, and struggle.
Into her world, come two other women who change everything for her: "Kathleen Lynn, a doctor rumored to be a Rebel on the run from the police, and Bride Sweeney, a young volunteer helper" (back cover).
The narrative covers three days, days of loss, change, and birth, and love.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
June 14, 2023
Some Thoughts on The Boy in the Rain, by Stephanie Cowell
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The Boy in the Rain by Stephanie Cowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I found this book to be beautifully written, well-researched, and compelling. It was a page turner. The story of a love affair between a young artist and a socialist activist in Edwardian England, a time in which love such as theirs was illegal and punishable by imprisonment. The story is both beautiful and heartbreaking. There are compromises they must make, loss they must accept.
This is a human story.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
The Boy in the Rain by Stephanie CowellMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I found this book to be beautifully written, well-researched, and compelling. It was a page turner. The story of a love affair between a young artist and a socialist activist in Edwardian England, a time in which love such as theirs was illegal and punishable by imprisonment. The story is both beautiful and heartbreaking. There are compromises they must make, loss they must accept.
This is a human story.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
