Siavahda's Blog, page 43

2023 Mid-Year Freak Out Book Tag

I always have such fun with this tag, and now that we’re into Q3 I can finally look at all my stats for the first half of the year!

HOW MUCH HAVE YOU READ?

I set myself a MUCH lower reading goal this year – it’s just no fun if you’re stressing out over it – but clearly my reading pace has stayed pretty steady; this time last year I’d read 114 books, just six less than this year.

Huh.

I’ve definitely noticed myself having a harder time focussing – the ADHD diagnosis is one I really should have seen coming – but my flitting between books even more than usual doesn’t seem to be affecting how many books actually end up read. Not a bad thing!

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN READING?

This time last year Fantasy made up 64% of my reading, and I’m amused by how little that’s changed. Sci Fi and Science Fantasy both have slightly smaller slices of the pie than they did in 2022, but this is also my first year using Spec Fic as a category, which might have made some of the difference.

Interestingly, last year’s Other was 6.1%, almost exactly the same as this year. Seems like my desire for non-SFF books is pretty steady. Honestly, I’m still surprised it’s as high as it is.

FAR less of my reading ended up as DNFs this year; only 12.6% compared to last year’s 23%. That’s almost halved! I wonder what’s changed – have I just gotten lucky with the books I’ve picked up, or am I getting better at guessing which books I’m going to like?

Pretty much exactly the same as this time last year, which I guess is better than it getting worse? But still pretty disappointing. I thought I was doing better this year!

BEST BOOK/S YOU’VE READ SO FAR IN 2023

Not counting sequels, even though some of the ones I read are among the best books I’ve read this year, because they feature in the next section…

I’ve read a lot of amazing books so far this year, but these are definitely the stand-outs. (Not including rereads, anyway – this would be a much longer list/graphic-thing if I did!)

BEST SEQUEL/S YOU’VE READ SO FAR IN 2023

Again: all of these knocked my socks off and left me utterly delighted. (I mean – Lost in the Moment and Found was heartbreaking, but also beautiful.) A Restless Truth even made me care about the Last Binding series again, which I did not, much, after the first book.

NEW RELEASE YOU HAVEN’T READ YET, BUT WANT TO

To be clear, I’ve STARTED all of these! My brain just doesn’t like commitment at the moment, so sticking with stuff is hard. *flails*

MOST ANTICIPATED RELEASE/S FOR THE SECOND HALF OF THE YEAR

Interestingly, a lot of the books I expected to care about in the last half of the year…I no longer really do. I’ve been lucky enough to get arcs of a lot of them, and I now feel a bit meh about quite a few of the ones I was most excited for. (I’m not sure whether this is because they’re genuinely not as great as I’d hoped, or if my brain just isn’t very good at appreciating things at the moment.) But that still leaves a bunch of books I’m dying to read!!!

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT/S

What is there to say? These were all books I was really excited for, which I ended up not-loving. C’est la vie. (In fairness to Translation State, I loved most of it – I just thought the ending was really weak.)

BIGGEST SURPRISE/S

The Sphere of the Winds was a surprise just by existing – I had no idea Neumeier was working on a sequel to her incredible Floating Islands until it suddenly popped up on my feed! And while I was expecting to love Saint of Bright Doors and Archive Undying, I consider them both surprises because they took me by surprise on basically every page.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe was a book I requested on Netgalley on a whim, and ended up loving; Between Two Fires is graphic, historical horror, and I still can’t really believe I enjoyed it; and The Lies of the Ajungo is a book I would have said is not my thing at all, and yet I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

NEW FAVOURITE AUTHOR/S (DEBUTS OR NEW TO YOU)

Aubrey Wood, author of Bang Bang Bodhisattva, for sure, and Marissa Crane, whose debut I Keep My Exoskeletons To Myself knocked it out of the park. And I might count Indra Das, as well, although that’s a bit of an odd situation because I have consistently been unable to read his debut Devourers – and yet I loved The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar more than maybe anything else I’ve read this year!

UNDERRATED GEMS YOU’VE DISCOVERED RECENTLY

Kirith Kirin is relatively old – first published in 2000, if I have that right – but the rest are from this year or last, and I haven’t seen anyone talking about them! YO, BOOK COMMUNITY, YOU ARE SLEEPING ON SOME SERIOUS GEMS, HERE!!!

REREADS THIS YEAR

A lot of sequels this year means a lot of rereading – but also, some books I just had to revisit. Empress of Timbra is one I reread almost every year, as is Artifact Space, and I’m not the slightest bit surprised I needed another hit of Saint Death’s Daughter – just thinking about it still takes my breath away.

This time last year I’d only reread nine books – this year, a bit over four times as many. Is it just needing to reread to prep for sequels, or is this a symptom of my brain flitting from book to book? I suspect the latter, honestly – it seems easier to focus, when my head’s like that, on books I already know I love.

BOOK/S THAT MADE YOU CRY

I really don’t cry at books very often at all, and I don’t remember any making me do so this year.

BOOK/S THAT MADE YOU HAPPY

All of these filled me with that fizzy glittery JOY that is a feeling I definitely chase after in my reading.

MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOK YOU’VE BOUGHT SO FAR THIS YEAR

I missed the chance to buy a signed first edition of Martha Wells’ Wheel of the Infinite, and I’m still kicking myself over it – but I did get my hands on an Illumicrate edition of her Witch King, and Fairyloot’s super gorgeous edition of Dowry of Blood. I do not have the spoons for pictures, but you can find some if you google!

WHAT BOOKS DO YOU NEED TO READ BY THE END OF THE YEAR?

Not counting those in the New Releases You Haven’t Read Yet section…

All three of these are books I can’t believe I still haven’t gotten around to reading yet!!! And I’m sure there are more, but it’s these three that are really, REALLY demanding to be read!!!

And that’s a wrap! Now that I’m done, I shall finally indulge in going and reading everyone else’s take on this tag…!

The post 2023 Mid-Year Freak Out Book Tag appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

In Short: June

Repetitive strain injury has left me mostly unable to use my hands, and an adjustment to my meds resulted in a pretty bad depression spiral. Luckily, I have no arc deadlines in July, so I may be quieter next month. We’ll see!

ARCs Received

SO MANY ARCS! I have been spoiled rotten this month, and I regret nothing.

I learned about Lilith from the marvellous Elyse Johnson, who featured it in an insta post: I still can’t believe I didn’t hear about it long before! I’m literally sitting here wearing a pendant of the Seal of Lilith as I type this; she’s a big deal for me. I’m always looking for books about her so I’m immensely excited to give this a try!

I had no idea that Kathe Koja was working on a sequel to Dark Factory – which was not my usual kind of thing at all, but that I loved – until the publisher, Meerkat Press, sent me an email with the arc!!! And WHY WOULD I TURN THAT DOWN?

The rest were all books I was interested in and crossed my fingers for, but I wasn’t actually expecting to get approved for this many!!!

Read

I felt like I was really struggling to read this month, but the numbers don’t bear that out at all… 24 books read this month, and wow, did June provide some stunners! The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar was an instant forever-book; Master of Samar, Pomegranate Gate, and If Found Return to Hell all delighted me in very different ways. I’m really looking forward to writing up I Feed Her to the Beast and The Beast Is Me; I read the entire book in one sitting! And I’m very glad I read Shades of Grey with only a year to wait for the sequel, rather than ages ago when it first came out – THAT ENDING!

Quite a few rereads, especially towards the end of the month, which is when I started to spiral. And novellas too, for much the same reason.

To the best of my knowledge, 45.8% of this month’s books were by BIPOC authors. That might be the most I’ve ever managed since I started keeping track!

Reviewed

I managed to meet most of my arc deadlines this month, but only barely, and I missed one – both of which distress me. And there were so many incredible books this month that I desperately want to review, but I just wasn’t able to. Here’s hoping my hands (and spoons!) get back to normal quickly so I can get on that.

DNF-ed

Four DNFs isn’t so bad; but I did finally call it quits (with much swearing) on the War of Light and Shadow series by Janny Wurst.

ARCs Outstanding

I realise I should probably be intimidated, but honestly, looking at all these I just want to give a happy sigh, so. Think I’m still doing okay.

Misc

I celebrated Every Book a Doorway’s fourth birthday with a round of Pride flag-themed recs! Still can’t believe that this little blog is four whole years old!

And then there was the cover reveal for ST Gibson’s Education in Malice, which was fun! Looking forward to getting to read it.

Roseanna Pendlebury of Nerds of a Feather wrote a scathing and entirely accurate essay on how fucking boring the wave of mythical retellings of the last decade or so have been (as a whole; she acknowledges all the stand-outs I’ve read and a few I haven’t!) especially re Greek mythology. I wanted to stand up and applaud, as I feel exactly the same (The Witch and the Tsar, I’m looking at you).

I am, of course, now worried Marmery’s Lilith will succumb to the same ‘sweet-washing’. But Elyse Johnson enjoyed it, so I have hope!

In a deeply-meaningful-to-me blog post, Jacqueline Carey has confirmed that trans and nonbinary people would be welcome in the world of her Kushiel’s Legacy series (even if she, herself, did not know enough to include them at the time). The Kushiel series is one of the most important in the world to me (‘WHAT?!’ I hear you cry. ‘Really?! The books you mention semi-constantly?! We never would have guessed!’ Yes yes, you’re all hilarious!) and I both appreciated the message and the honest admission that it was just not something she knew about when she wrote those books. The implication that she’d include it if she wrote them now makes me happy – and just the tiniest bit hopeful that she might come back to Terre d’Ange someday (again, I mean – I know and am VERY HAPPY about the upcoming Cassiel’s Servant!)

Looking Forward

July isn’t really packed full of releases I’m excited for, but hopefully that will give me a chance to play catch-up on all the books I have yet to read!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Pride – now, onwards to July!

The post In Short: June appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

June DNFs

Four DNFs this month – and only one of them an ARC, this time!

A Thousand Recipes for Revenge (Chefs of the Five Gods, #1) by Beth Cato
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Brown MC
Goodreads

A world on the brink of war and a mother and daughter on the run, in a thrilling novel of swashbuckling adventure, culinary magic, and just desserts.

Adamantine “Ada” Garland has an empathic connection to food and wine, a magical perception of aromas, flavors, and ingredients. Invaluable property of the royal court, Ada was in service to the Five Gods and to the Gods-ordained rulers of Verdania—until she had enough of injustice and bloodshed and deserted, seeking to chart her own destiny. When mysterious assassins ferret her out after sixteen years in hiding, Ada, now a rogue Chef, and her beloved Grand-mère run for their lives, only to find themselves on a path toward an unexpected ally.

A foreign princess in a strange court, Solenn unknowingly shares more with Ada than an epicurean gift. They share blood. With her newfound magical perception, she becomes aware of a plot to kill her fiancé, the prince. It’s part of a ploy by adversarial forces in the rival country of Albion to sow conflict, and Solenn is set up to take the blame.

As Ada’s and Solenn’s paths converge, a mother and her long-lost daughter reunite toward a common goal, and against a shadowy enemy from Ada’s past who is out for revenge. But what sacrifices must be made? What hope is there when powerful Gods pick sides in a war simmering to eruption?

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I made it two chapters in. So it’s possible this got immensely better after that!

But I don’t think so.

Cato has come up with what looked at first like an interesting world: we have a pantheon of five gods all related in some way to food, cooking, and/or homemaking, and capital-c Chefs, who have…there’s no clever way to say this: they have magic tongues. They can, and are almost compelled to, cook everything they touch perfectly; if I understood correctly, they’re also the ones who can best utilise magical ingredients, which can be, as you might expect, hard to do. Very gifted Chefs are also taste-empathic: they can psychically/magically sense a person’s tastes and cater a meal to those tastes.

I love the idea of food-magic, and pounce on it wherever I see it. And I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, at least in the country that is the book’s main setting, Chefs have mandatory military service and are thus kind of ridiculously badass. I confess, this made no sense to me – presumably it would have been explained later in the novel. If I still have questions after only reading two chapters, that’s on me, not the author.

But very rapidly, it became clear that Cato was utilising a lot of – tropes seems the wrong word – that I am heartily sick of: Verdania, the main setting, is overtly racist and sexist, and I’m just fucking tired of this shit. I do not want to read about girls and women having to fight to have even the crumbs of respect; I do not want to read about mindlessly racist assholes looking down on a) anyone who isn’t white and b) anyone who isn’t [insert their own nationality here]. This obviously doesn’t make the book bad, because this is a personal taste thing; I am fucking TiredTM of reading about fantasy worlds that thoughtlessly mimic our world’s issues. I want fantasy worlds that have other problems, okay? I want queernorm, gender-blind settings where everyone’s skin colour and ethnicity are respected. I realise that is Not Realistic or whatever, but since I want to read fucking fantasy, I do not see why it should be a problem.

Irrespective of my own personal tastes, though, the writing is just plain bad. Or at least not-good. The language is kept very simple, and the rhythm of the prose coughs and jerks and stutters like a dying car. The dialogue had me rolling my eyes or cringing, and there was a lot of info-dumping – although to be fair, that may well be another thing that smoothed out as the book went on; the info-dumping might just have been to get the story started.

I had to put it down for good after two chapters. I didn’t even make it to my usual 20% cut-off point, that’s how much this was like nails on a chalkboard for me. So: hard nope.

Grand Conspiracy (Wars of Light and Shadow, #5) by Janny Wurts
Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
ISBN: B002RI9TXC
Goodreads

Where there is light, there must always be shadow… The fifth volume in Janny Wurts’s spectacular epic fantasy, now re-released with a striking new cover design along with the rest of the series.

The wars began when two half-brothers, gifted of light and shadow, stood shoulder to shoulder to defeat the Mistwraith. Their foe cast a lifelong curse of enmity between them that has so far woven three bitter conflicts and uncounted deadly intrigues.

It is a time of political upheaval, fanaticism and rampaging armies. Distrust of sorcery has set off a purge of the talented mageborn – none reviled more than Arithon, Master of Shadow. Through clever manipulation of events at the hands of his half-brother Lysaer, Lord of Light, Arithon’s very name has become anathema. Now the volatile hatreds that spearheaded the campaign against Shadow have overtaken all reason.

Those that still stand in Arithon’s desperate defence are downtrodden, in retreat and close to annihilation. The stage is set for the ultimate betrayal.

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FUCK THIS FUCKING SERIES.

That’s it; I can’t put up with this shite any longer. Four and a bit-more-than-half is my limit with this series. I can’t even hate-read my way to the end of book five. If I were reading paper copies instead of ebooks, I swear to the gods I would dump them in a trashcan and set them on fire. Because rehoming them would mean subjecting someone else to their honestly impressive levels of FUCKING SUCK, and that would just be cruel and inhumane.

FUCK YOUR FATPHOBIA.

FUCK YOUR OBSESSION WITH THE LETTER A.

FUCK YOUR PETTY, POWERLESS [IN COMPARISON] SORCERESSES.

FUCK YOUR UNTHINKING PATRIARCHY.

FUCK YOUR ALL-POWERFUL BUT UTTERLY POINTLESS SORCERERS.

FUCK YOUR TWELVE YEAR TIMESKIPS.

FUCK YOUR ASSHOLE HERO AND YOUR EMO OTHER-HERO.

FUCK YOUR LAZY HOMOPHOBIA.

FUCK YOUR ‘SOULMATES AFTER THREE MINUTES IN AN ATTIC THREE FUCKING DECADES AGO’.

FUCK YOUR SIX WAYS OF REFERRING TO EVERY CHARACTER INSTEAD OF USING THEIR FUCKING NAMES.

FUCK YOUR ‘WHY USE ONE WORD WHEN TEN WILL DO’.

FUCK YOUR USING THE SAME SIMILES OVER AND OVER AND FUCKING OVER.

FUCK YOUR CONSTANT REMINDING US OF EVENTS THAT WERE LITERALLY ONE CHAPTER AGO.

FUCK YOUR WISHY-WASHY ‘NATURE > CIVILISATION’.

FUCK YOUR DOMESTIC ABUSE JOKES.

FUCK YOUR OBSESSION WITH SHIPS AND SAILING JARGON.

FUCK YOUR LONG-WINDED SENTENCES THAT MAKE NO FUCKING SENSE.

FUCK YOUR COMPLETE LACK OF UNICORNS DESPITE YOUR CONSTANTLY TEASING THEM.

FUCK YOUR HAVING DRAGONS BUT THEY’RE ALL DEAD.

FUCK YOUR TEA IN A WORLD WITHOUT A CHINA.

FUCK YOUR DARK SKIN = SAVAGES RACIST BS.

FUCK YOUR REFUSAL TO JUST USE THE WORD ‘SAID’ LIKE A NORMAL PERSON.

FUCK OFF AND NEVER COME BACK.

The Witch & The City by Jake Burnett
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 24th October 2023
Goodreads

The prison-city of Osylum floats in the midst of an endless abyss. The reclusive Lady rules it; distant, inscrutable, and never seen. Her will is imposed by the Wardens, eldritch creatures who tend to the convicts’ needs but also ruthlessly purge anyone who tries to escape.

Osylum’s newest inmate, the witch Oneirotheria, has no memory of who she is, where she came from, or why she is imprisoned. Instead, her mind is a mess of spells and lore and other people’s voices. The city mirrors her internal confusion; a jumble of broken buildings covered in hundreds of snippets of graffiti.

As Oneirotheria re-assembles her own shattered past (aided by a few inmates of dubious intent), she learns she may hold not just the key to escape, but the intertwined secrets of the city’s origin and a lost love that transcends countless lives.

For readers of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi and Madeline Miller’s Circe, The Witch & The City introduces a lyrical and baroque fantasy world, where an ocean lurks behind every mirror, puppets pull the strings of the living, and even the skulls have secrets to tell... if a witch knows how to listen.

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I think the blurb of this book is a bit misleading, or else I misunderstood it. ‘For readers of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi and Madeline Miller’s Circe, The Witch & The City introduces a lyrical and baroque fantasy world’ – for one thing, that’s a huge promise to be making, and for another, that’s a very particular image you’re painting for the potential reader – and not only does it not deliver on the promise, the image it’s painted in the blurb doesn’t match the reality at all. The Witch & The City is strange and confusing, which I guess is a similarity to Piranesi – but it doesn’t have Piranesi‘s almost-cosy whimsy. The main character is a witch, which is something it shares with Circe, but the deep richness of Miller’s prose is missing here.

And I was hoping ‘lyrical and baroque’ referred to the writing style, but it doesn’t seem to be so.

I don’t think The Witch & The City is bad; I don’t even think the prose is bad. But the strange aesthetic isn’t backed by really beautiful writing, which means that you’re thrust head-first into a lot of confusion with nothing to grip on to. Piranesi can be as confusing as it is because the writing is appealing and beautiful, so there’s something to enjoy until we start piecing the world and plot together. The Witch & The City doesn’t have that kind of writing, so all I am is confused. There’s nothing to hold me while I wait for things to start making some kind of sense. Plenty of mysteries are introduced very quickly, and for some readers the desire for answers to those mysteries will be enough – and the book does move along at a good pace. There’s definitely going to be people who enjoy this.

But I was hoping for something very different, so alas, a DNF from me.

The Hidden Palace (The Golem and the Jinni, #2) by Helene Wecker
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
ISBN: 006246874X
Goodreads

In this enthralling historical epic, set in New York City and the Middle East in the years leading to World War I-- the long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Golem and the Jinni--Helene Wecker revisits her beloved characters Chava and Ahmad as they confront unexpected new challenges in a rapidly changing human world.

Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, who can hear the thoughts and longings of those around her and feels compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a restless creature of fire, once free to roam the desert but now imprisoned in the shape of a man. Fearing they'll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and try to pass as human--just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. Brought together under calamitous circumstances, their lives are now entwined--but they're not yet certain of what they mean to each other.
Both Chava and Ahmad have changed the lives of the people around them. Park Avenue heiress Sophia Winston, whose brief encounter with Ahmad left her with a strange illness that makes her shiver with cold, travels to the Middle East to seek a cure. There she meets Dima, a tempestuous female jinni who's been banished from her tribe. Back in New York, in a tenement on the Lower East Side, a little girl named Kreindel helps her rabbi father build a golem they name Yossele--not knowing that she's about to be sent to an orphanage uptown, where the hulking Yossele will become her only friend and protector.
Spanning the tumultuous years from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of World War I, The Hidden Palace follows these lives and others as they collide and interleave. Can Chava and Ahmad find their places in the human world while remaining true to each other? Or will their opposing natures and desires eventually tear them apart--especially once they encounter, thrillingly, other beings like themselves?

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I remember being extremely in love with The Golem and the Jinni when I first read it – over a decade ago! – but rereading it just before the release of The Hidden Palace didn’t fill me the same adoration, and I have yet to be able to get through The Hidden Palace.

I think this was my third or fourth attempt at reading it. I was actually trying it out as a bedtime book – something to read aloud to get my husband to sleep and my own brain to calm down so I can sleep. And for that, The Hidden Palace isn’t so bad – it has a kind of soft, rolling rhythm to the prose that works really well to calm and soothe; I can imagine curling up in a comfy chair on a rainy day and whiling away the hours with this book.

But I also found it really dull. I’m pretty sure if I pushed on with it, the magical elements would come more and more to the fore – Wecker is clearly getting her ducks in a row for a few different magical plotlines, including another golem and another jinni – but so much of the beginning just drags with this kind of…historical mundanity? And it feels like the story is skimming over time, like what you’re reading is more a summary of events than following the events themselves – a necessity, because Wecker needs several characters to grow up and get older, and better than an outright timeskip, but it didn’t quite work for me. It was the same when our golem and jinni changed their relationship from friendship to romance; it felt very underwhelming, when I thought it ought to be fireworks. I really couldn’t feel their passion for each other – or really any passion at all, from any of the characters we encountered.

It’s possible I might come back to this one for a fourth or fifth try someday, but for now, it’s going back on the shelf.

Fingers crossed for fewer DNFs in July!

The post June DNFs appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #143

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

TEN books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

Hearts Forged in Dragon Fire by Erica Hollis
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 26th June 2023
Goodreads

For fans of Abigail Owen and Samantha Shannon comes a breathtaking, energetic novel where the only way to defeat a dragon is to outsmart it…

Most dragontongues don’t live long enough to learn from their mistakes. Lotte Meer is luckier than most, surviving long enough to communicate with the fierce, sullen, and temperamental dragons who are not above enjoying a human as a light snack. And she has the scars to prove it.

Now a massive, foul-tempered dragon has taken over the town of Morwassen's Pass, taking the citizens hostage. As long as they bring him their gold and treasure, he won’t reduce their city to a smoking heap of ash and death. Only, the treasure is running out and Lotte—with the help of sharp-tongued, unbelievably cute Maryse Basvaan—is their last and only hope.

But this dragon is more cunning—and more cruel—than any other. Not only is he holding Lotte’s estranged mom captive, but he has a taste for betrayal…and somehow he’s stricken some kind of secret deal with the girl who’s already gone and stolen Lotte’s heart.

Lotte won’t fail. She can’t.

Because if she does…everyone dies.

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I’ve been hearing about this one for quite a while, and mostly great things! And I must admit I’ve been craving some dragons lately, so this might be fun!

The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence #1) by Emma Mieko Candon
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Asian-coded setting and cast, gay MC, M/M
Published on: 27th June 2023
Goodreads

War machines and AI gods run amok in The Archive Undying, national bestseller Emma Mieko Candon's bold entry into the world of mecha fiction.

WHEN AN AI DIES, ITS CITY DIES WITH IT
WHEN A CITY FALLS, IT LEAVES A CORPSE BEHIND
WHEN THAT CORPSE RUNS OFF, ONLY DEVOTION CAN BRING IT BACK

When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to life: its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he's seen. He's run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.

The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon's Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies.

Come get in the robot.

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As I think I managed to get across in my review, I absolutely adored this – it went straight onto my Best of 2023 list! I suspect most readers will either love it or hate it; basically, if you didn’t mind how confusing the Locked Tomb books are, you should be fine here. If the wtf-ery of the Locked Tomb bothered you, though, you might want to skip this one. (Although I must emphasise that, other than having similar levels of wtf-ery, Archive Undying and Locked Tomb are nothing alike!)

The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 27th June 2023
Goodreads

A delightful romantic comedy about love, alien invasions, and the incredibly silly things people are willing to believe in—some of which may actually be true—from the Nebula and Hugo Award–winning author of Blackout.

When Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate's UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer groom—she can't help but roll her eyes at all the talk of aliens, which patently don't exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she gets abducted by one.

Her abductor is not your typical alien—not gray, or a reptilian, or anything else the popular media might have led her to expect. Instead, the creature is more like an animate tumbleweed—a mass of lightning-fast tentacles and unexpected charm, given that it has no apparent ability to communicate beyond pointing.

Worse, the alien’s second abductee—an endearing con man named Wade—only compounds the problem, for Francie was supposed to spend the weekend talking her roommate out of the wedding, not falling in love herself. How can a guy who sells anti-abduction insurance for a living still manage to be the most sensible, decent man she has ever met?

The more Francie gets to know her abductor, however, the more certain she becomes that the alien is in trouble and needs her help—though she has no idea what the problem is, or how to solve it. Especially as the alien’s abduction spree seems far from over.

But with Wade’s assistance, Francie is determined to get their new friend to its destination—wherever that might be. Because who knows what could be at risk should they fail?

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I loved Willis’ time travel books – even though they featured time periods I’m not interested in; that’s how great a writer she is! Now we’re getting a completely different kind of sci fi, and I am HYPED. This sounds like it’ll be delightful from start to finish, and I can’t wait to pounce on it!

Gods of the Wyrdwood (Forsaken, #1) by R.J. Barker
Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Published on: 27th June 2023
Goodreads

In a world locked in eternal winter and haunted by prophecy, a young boy trains for years to become the Chosen One, only for another to rise and claim his place in the start of an unmissable epic from a rising star in fantasy. 

The northlands of Crua are locked in eternal winter, but prophecy tells of the chosen child – who will rule in the name of their God, and take warmth back from the South. Cahal du Nahere was raised to be this person: the Cowl-Rai, the saviour. Taken from his parents and prepared for his destiny.

But his time never came.

When he was fifteen he ceased to matter. Another Cowl-Rai had risen, another chosen one, raised in the name of a different God. The years of vicious physical and mental training he had endured, the sacrifice, all for nothing. He became nothing.

Twenty years later, and Cahal lives a life of secrecy on the edges of Crua’s giant forests – hiding what he is, running from what he can do. But when he is forced to reveal his true nature, he sets off a sequence of events that will reveal secrets that will shake the bedrock of his entire world, and expose lies that have persisted for generations.

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Barker knocked it out of the park with the Tide Child trilogy, so I know I’m far from the only one Very Interested Indeed to see what his new series is like! From what I’ve heard, the worldbuilding is very different from Tide Child, but just as unique, and I’m always excited for stories where multiple gods are involved.

The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
PoV: 27th June 2023
Goodreads

A wild and hallucinatory reimagining of Elizabethan London, with its bird worshippers, famed child actors, and the Queen herself; a dazzling historical novel about theatre, magic, and the dangers of all-consuming love     

London, 1601—a golden city soon to erupt in flames. Shay is a messenger-girl, falconer, and fortune teller who sees the future in the patterns of birds. Nonesuch is the dark star of the city’s fabled Blackfriars Theatre, where a cast of press-ganged boys perform for London’s gentry. When the pair meet, Shay falls in love with the performances—and with Nonesuch himself. As their bond deepens, they create the Ghost Theatre, an underground troupe that performs fantastical plays in the city’s hidden corners. As their fame grows the troupe fans the flames of rebellion among the city’s outcasts, and the lovers are drawn into the dark web of the Elizabethan court. Embattled, with the plague on the rise throughout the country, the Queen seeks a reading from Shay, a moment which unleashes chaos not only in Shay’s life, but across the whole of England too.

      A fever-dream full of prophecy and anarchy, gutter rats and bird gods, Mat Osman’s The Ghost Theatre is a wild ride from the rooftops of Elizabethan London to its dark underbelly, and a luminous meditation on double lives and fluid identities and the bewitching, transformative nature of art and power, with a bittersweet love affair at its heart. Set amid the vividly rendered England of Osman’s imagination and written in rich, seductive prose, The Ghost Theatre will have readers under its spell from the very first page.

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I found out about Ghost Theatre last minute, and I’m not sure what genre it falls under – I’ve seen it described as magical realism, outright fantasy, and historical fiction, so??? Nevertheless, I’m intrigued; I love the sound of secret theatres, and a falconer gifted at ornithomancy, and even if I didn’t, the promise of rich, seductive prose gets me every time.

Sing Me to Sleep (Sing Me to Sleep, #1) by Gabi Burton
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Black MC, all BIPOC cast
Published on: 27th June 2023
Goodreads

In this dark and seductive YA fantasy debut, a siren must choose between protecting her family and following her heart in a prejudiced kingdom where her existence is illegal.

Saoirse Sorkova survives on lies. As a soldier-in-training at the most prestigious barracks in the kingdom, she lies about being a siren to avoid execution. At night, working as an assassin for a dangerous group of mercenaries, Saoirse lies about her true identity. And to her family, Saoirse tells the biggest lie of all: that she can control her siren powers and doesn't struggle constantly against an impulse to kill.

As the top trainee in her class, Saoirse would be headed for a bright future if it weren't for the need to keep her secrets out of the spotlight. But when a mysterious blackmailer threatens her sister, Saoirse takes a dangerous job that will help her investigate: she becomes personal bodyguard to the crown prince.

Saoirse should hate Prince Hayes. After all, his father is the one who enforces the kingdom's brutal creature segregation laws. But when Hayes turns out to be kind, thoughtful, and charming, Saoirse finds herself increasingly drawn to him-especially when they're forced to work together to stop a deadly killer who's plaguing the city. There's only one problem: Saoirse is that deadly killer.

Featuring an all Black and Brown cast, a forbidden romance, and a compulsively dark plot full of twists, this thrilling YA fantasy is perfect for fans of A Song Below Water and To Kill a Kingdom.

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I would happily nab a copy of this just for that stunning cover, but the story also has my attention – creature segregation, and having to play detective on a case where you’re the murderer??? I’ll definitely be giving this a go!

Hymn of Memory by S. Jean
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 27th June 2023
Goodreads

As the Divine of Blackburn, Morgan sends its departed souls into the afterlife. It's a sacred job spanning generations of Divines before him, but there's a problem: the process invites the dead's memories inside and those memories quickly erode and erase his own. Before long, he fears he will completely lose who he is and no one seems to care.

Then Fin, a familiar face from town, sneaks into Morgan's room to beg for a resending of his grandmother and Morgan quickly agrees, knowing it means an opportunity to escape.

As escape quickly turns into a road trip with Fin to replace the memories he's lost, Morgan has to confront what it means if he never returns. Without him to send souls, they die completely, leaving a void in the world where nothing will live or grow. Returning, however, means he will lose himself.

And so, Morgan must decide if never returning and living his life as himself—not the Divine—is worth more than the souls he's leaving behind.

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Another super-beautiful cover, another story I’m very interested in! Trying to choose between your existence as a person or the salvation of souls sounds heartbreaking and terrible, and I’m hoping S. Jean does it justice!

Of Knights and Books and Falling In Love by Rita A. Rubin
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M, Black love interest
Published on: 29th June 2023
Goodreads

A slice-of-life fantasy, perfect for fans of Legends & Lattes and Howl's Moving Castle.

Jayce has little memory of life before entering servitude to the Dark Lord, and no hope of ever escaping. Until he meets Alexius, the knight with a heart of gold. He offers Jayce, his enemy, a chance to break free of the Dark Lord's clutches, and Jayce is not about to let such an opportunity pass. When the war comes to an end, Jayce finds himself finally free, with Alexius's help, and surrounded by a new world of opportunity. And the prospect of a new love. The more time Jayce spends with Alexius, the more he finds himself falling for this knight in shining armour.

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I am HERE for the adorable vibes – and I’m always pretty curious about Dark Lords and their minions, so I hope that’s explored a little too.

City of Stolen Magic by Nazneen Ahmed Pathak
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Indian MC
Published on: 29th June 2023
Goodreads

A spellbinding, epic and heart-racing magical adventure from an exquisite new storytelling talent.

'An unexpected gem of a story . . . A stellar setting, a gut-punch of a twist, and an unforgettable heroine. This has all the hallmarks of classic children's storytelling' - Nizrana Farook

'A wonderful writer who paints a thoroughly convincing heroine' - The Daily Telegraph

'Phenomenal' - Sophie Anderson

'Dazzling from start to finish' - Abi Elphinstone

India, 1855. The British rule, and all across the country, Indian magic is being stamped out.

More terrifying still, people born with magic are being snatched from their homes. Rumour is that they are being taken across the sea - to England - by the all-powerful, sinister Company.

When Chompa's home is attacked and her mother viciously kidnapped, Chompa - born with powerful and dangerous magic that she has always been forbidden from using - must travel to the smoky, bustling streets of East London in search of her. But Chompa will discover far more treachery in London than she had bargained for - and will learn that every act of her rare magic comes with a price . . .

'A gripping and spellbinding fantasy woven together with threads of magic, secrets and colonial history . . . An incredible cast of characters and a truly multicultural Victorian London that we don't see often enough' - Rashmi Sirdeshpande

'A wonderfully vibrant debut . . . A vivid magical adventure' - Jasbinder Bilan

'Cracking pace, fabulous magic system, characters, relationships . . . The whole package' - Louie Stowell

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WE ARE SO SPOILED WITH GORGEOUS COVERS THIS WEEK! I’m going to have to grab a copy of this for my little sister – and I might give it a read myself first!

Unpainted (The Weirdwater Confluence) by Dan Fitzgerald
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC/s
Published on: 30th June 2023
Goodreads

"I'm ready."

In the hermetic society of the Painted Faces, pale, unblemished skin is rewarded with station, wealth, and power.

Tera would almost rather go unpainted than enter into an arranged marriage with a total stranger, but that would mean giving up the only life she's ever known. Not to mention her share of her family's Pureline fortune.

She’s always thought love was a fairy tale and sex a joyless chore, but the alternative might be worse.

Enter Aven, a soft buttercup of a man, the kindest and most considerate person she’s ever met. A tropical honeymoon awaits, and with the help of her intimacy consultant, Tera is determined to make the best of this awkward ritual. Amid the island breezes, she and her new spouse form a bond neither of them knew they were capable of.

But trouble stirs beneath the polite veneer of the Painted Faces’ society, threatening to tear them—and their entire world—apart.

Unpainted is a queer arranged marriage fantasy romance, a standalone in the Weirdwater Confluence universe. It features a dual POV, magical currency shenanigans, mind magic, and inordinate amounts of steamy, fluffy goodness with a soft femdom dynamic. Coming June 2023.

Content warnings

Unpainted contains numerous explicit, consensual sex scenes, including light bondage and sex toys, as well as drug use and minor violence. It is intended for an adult audience and should not be read by anyone under 18.

Author's note

Unpainted has cameos from several characters in The Living Waters and The Isle of a Thousand Worlds but contains no spoilers, and no prior knowledge of these books is required to enjoy Unpainted .

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The Weirdwater Confluence verse was recently recommended to me, and this new standalone seems like it might be a good place to start – I like the hints of worldbuilding in the blurb, and the promise of a femdom dynamic, which is something I’d like to see more of in my fantasy, honestly.

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #143 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Baroque, Bizarre, Brilliant: The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon

The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence #1) by Emma Mieko Candon
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Asian-coded setting and cast, achillean MC, M/M
PoV: Third-person present tense, second-person present tense
Published on: 27th June 2023
ISBN: B0B9KV5G7Z
Goodreads

War machines and AI gods run amok in The Archive Undying, national bestseller Emma Mieko Candon's bold entry into the world of mecha fiction.

WHEN AN AI DIES, ITS CITY DIES WITH IT
WHEN A CITY FALLS, IT LEAVES A CORPSE BEHIND
WHEN THAT CORPSE RUNS OFF, ONLY DEVOTION CAN BRING IT BACK

When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to life: its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he's seen. He's run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.

The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon's Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies.

Come get in the robot.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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~prepare to be confused
~but in the best way
~relatable!MC is way too relatable
~really not your typical mecha story
~just get ‘wtf Sunai?!’ tattooed, it’ll be faster

Sometimes, a book is a total mindfuck. And sometimes, that is very much okay.

*

What you need to understand is: I have no fucking clue what just happened. I mean, I do, kind of. Superficially.

But deep down, in my heart of hearts, I know the truth: I have no fucking clue what just happened.

And it is AWESOME.

Hope is not an act for which the universe is beholden to reward you.

The Archive Undying isn’t what I call an LSD book, where the speculative elements are wacky as fuck and everything seems so random and also there are a lot of colours. I could sit down and explain the world of this book to you just fine, and it would make sense. It’s perfectly coherent. It’s not even hard to believe in – I was never sure if this story is set in another world, or our world’s future, because I don’t have to stretch my suspension of disbelief very much to buy that this could be us in a few hundred years or so. Nor is there any issue with Candon’s prose; her writing is graceful and sharp, and when she puts words together they make sense! They have meaning! They convey information that you can process and comprehend!

And yet…when you finish reading this book, and put it down, I can very nearly guarantee you will have no idea what just happened.

Both their brains are riddled with scars earned by enduring the faithless whim of the universe, hopped up on their ill-advised impulse to survive.

But! But. This is important. The Archive Undying is not confusing because it’s bad. I think most readers have, at some point, run into that kind of book; one that is messy, stopping-and-starting, all over the place, like the author was on drugs while writing it.

The Archive Undying feels instead like a book where the author is in complete control, knows exactly what is going on, is deftly keeping all the balls in the air – but I’m the one on drugs.

After literal months of brainstorming, that is the best way I have come up with to describe the sensation to you, dear reader. Because the whole way through this book, the sense that it all fits together comes through loud and clear. I am unshakeably certain that Candon knows exactly how this world works down to the smallest detail; that she understands, absolutely, the dynamics and histories between the various factions, cities, AIs, rebel groups, et al; that you could throw any fanfic-esque scenario you like at her, and she wouldn’t hesitate a beat before being able to tell you how any one of her characters would react to it, how they would act within it. She knows her story and the world it’s set in and the characters running around in it inside-out-and-backwards.

But we don’t.

It’s not that we’re being shown a very narrow piece of Sunai’s world; we actually see, if not a geographically huge slice, certainly one that cuts across many different classes, power structures, and other anthropological strata. No, we’re given all the pieces we could possibly need to put the puzzle box together…except the character motivations.

I don’t mean that the characters are not motivated. They absolutely are. But Candon draws a veil between the reader and the inner workings of her cast; she’s blown up the bridge that connects us and them, and because we can’t see inside the minds of the characters it feels so much more like we’re observing real people in the real world doing real things. It allows for mystery on a scale that most books are not capable of, gives room for more twists and reveals than could be packed into a story where we know the characters’ minds. The cast of Archive Undying can – and very much do – take us by surprise in a way they simply couldn’t if we could see inside their heads the way we’re used to doing. We’re not blind, exactly – it’s not that we get none of our main character’s thoughts – we’ve just not been given the advantage we’ve taken for granted so long we didn’t realise it was an advantage until it was gone.

We’re left, instead, to know these characters by what they do rather than what they think; and there’s something pretty powerful in that. In the real world, it’s only by what you do that you can be known; it is only what you do that matters, in the end, not what you think or feel. And so choosing to tell a story this way feels deliberate, feels pointed, feels like Candon is making a point. Maybe it’s something about how we treat characters so very differently from real people, because we understand and sympathise with them in a way we don’t – and can’t – with real people; maybe it’s about how wildly our self-image can conflict with how other people see us, with what we look like to the world instead of what we look like in the mirror. (A mirror is not perfectly accurate, after all; it shows us inverted, and according to some sources, not at our true size.) Maybe it’s about how little motivations matter, when push comes to shove; it doesn’t matter why you do a thing, only what you do and what effect that has. If I say something that hurts someone, the fact that I didn’t mean to hurt them is irrelevant; it certainly doesn’t undo the hurt. If I give a million dollars to charity because I want to look like a good person, my selfish motivation has no bearing on the good that comes from the act. I’m not willing to say motivations are meaningless, but…

Maybe it’s about making us question what the reality of a person is, making us think about how we form our understanding of others, making us ask how we know anybody at all and how accurate can that knowing ever be.

Selfishness is the worthiest trait of living creatures, for it preserves and nurtures you. You, I think, could do with more of it.

There’s definitely a dissonance between what Sunai, our main character, thinks of himself, versus how he appears to others around him, and to us. Sunai thinks he’s a coward, but his actions speak very differently; he thinks he’s worthless, but the events of the book show us someone not just sympathetic but actively wonderful. And we have to depend on what he does, not what he thinks, not just because Candon hides most of his motivation from us but because most of what we see of Sunai comes to us from others. A big chunk of Archive Undying is the second-person narration of something-like-an-AI which gets inside Sunai early in the book, and talks to him. Its reflections on him are our clearest window into him – but how trustworthy is that view? Not just in the sense of, how well can an AI and flesh-and-blood mortal ever really know each other, comprehend each other, make sense to each other, but: can we trust this thing? Is it telling us the truth? Is it fucking with Sunai, or genuinely out to help him?

Sometimes you don’t get to go back to being who you were. Sometimes, the changes kill you.

The cumulative effect of all this? I think it’s very appropriate to have a quote from Tamsyn Muir on the cover, because her Locked Tomb series make for a good comparison here. No, Archive Undying is not about necromancers in space, or swords, or Very Sapphic Girls with a Very Complicated Dynamic. But the wtf-ery you get with Locked Tomb is the closest I can think of to that of Archive Undying.

Let me put it this way: if you found the Locked Tomb books annoyingly confusing? Archive Undying is probably not for you.

Alternatively, if you, like most of us, enjoyed the wtf-ery (not necessarily understood it all – I know I didn’t – but enjoyed it) of the Locked Tomb, then please hop aboard, because I think you’ll be quite at home here.

“We talked about you getting shanked, I know we did. This is shank-worthy behavior, Adi.

The blurb tells you about all that you can be told about this book without getting into spoilers, so I’m not going to talk about the story so much. There is one, and it isn’t so baroquely convoluted that you can’t follow it – I could explain it to you in maybe a mid-sized paragraph. Not so bad! But I think it would be better for each reader to uncover it on their own, so instead I want to give you a quick rundown on why you are likely to love this, to try (probably fruitlessly) to explain what this book feels like.

Because gods, it is so full of emotion. The Archive Undying drips emotion, bleeds it, and there is no way to turn these razor-sharp pages without your bleeding for them too. Expect your heart to be lacerated with Feels and stitched back together with impossible giggles; brace yourself to lose your breath, and to find it again when you gasp with awe; be ready for a book that will hurt you, and make you so, so glad that it did.

You mustn’t ever say ‘yes’ to a god, even a little one. That’s how they become what they are. They will hate your ‘no’, and will strive to refuse it, for a god is only a god when it is absolute. Your ‘no’ unmakes them. That is why you must resist, Sunai. If divinity relies on our obedience, we survive only when we defy it.

It really will hurt. Because this is also horror, is the thing. Not capital-h Horror, not genre horror, but fucked-up and horrifying. God-level trauma, literally. And it’s the kind of beautiful horror that I find so much more terrifying than the ugly, gory kind. It’s all desperation and doing terrible things for maybe-good reasons, vicious intrigue and Look At The Bigger Picture (and ignore how it crushes those of us in the Little Picture). It’s about running as fast and as far as you can and still ending up with your leg caught in the trap. It’s about screaming that you’re you and you want to stay that way and fuck anyone who doesn’t like it.

Now their consent is asked for, because at last it is required.

But it’s not only horrifying. It would be easier, if it were; it would be an easier book to categorise, easier to make sense of, elicit less complicated feelings if it was just and only horrifying. But it’s not. It’s a mystery and an epic and a glimpse of a maybe-future, a world sideways-on to ours (mirroring us). It’s an escape and a thrill and a dream, sends shivers down your spine and runs in a loop over and over in your head, a puzzle box you can’t stop trying to solve because it’s so wonderful you have to see it whole, you have to make sense of it, it’s a compulsion.

All of which grabs you by the throat not just because of Candon’s amazing writing, but because she’s given us a main character who pickpockets our hearts before we realise we should be guarding them. Sunai is a sweetheart and a disaster!queer, one parts flirting to three parts trauma but totally able to handle himself (more or less) right up until someone expresses any kind of positive emotion towards him, at which point he dissolves into a mess – making him far too relatable to my entire social circle.

Sunai must, with great urgency, attend to absolutely anything except this tender regard.

And yet this is more than a little bit of a (very queer) love story, which means Sunai has to deal with Feels, and you will want to shake him and be unable to resist laughing at him, and you should definitely be prepared to want to pet him, like the adorable chaos-child that he is. He makes terrible decisions – seems to always find the worst possible option and pick that one – but I defy you not to love and adore and adopt him, nonetheless.

Or maybe because of.

Sunai thinks: Why is Adi so stupid! And: Why does he make me so stupid?

Gods, I am simply not smart enough for this book; I cannot write a review that will really do it justice. The Archive Undying is a labyrinth of pearl and bone and ceramic, smooth and elegant, and full of secrets and monsters, and I need to read it again, and again, and probably at least half a dozen times more after that, to really get it all. There are layers and layers here, in an intricate and kind of terrifying world, with a cast of sharp-edged misfits all walking around like their hearts are grenades with the rings pulled out. This is a book about personhood, and consent, and making stupid decisions because of your feelings; it’s about cooking and AI-gods and how much we value other people’s free will; it is sneaky and hilarious and beautiful and awe-full, a book that confuses you and demands you think.

Veyadi gives him a look of Don’t fucking patronize me, you goddamn clown man

The Archive Undying is a book you have to work at, not an easy read at all, but I have rarely come across one that was so hard but so worth it. I know this is going to be an incredibly polarising book – some readers are going to hate it, and honestly, I pity them. Because they are missing out on a wildly extravagant, astonishingly idiosyncratic, genre-redefining gem, and that is always something to be mourned.

This strange, gorgeous, sci-fi fever dream is out this coming Tuesday. I adore it, and I hope you will too.

You can read the first two chapters online here, or even download the sneak peek for free!

The post Baroque, Bizarre, Brilliant: The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #142

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

This week I have SEVEN books I’m excited to tell you about!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

The Infinite Miles by Hannah Fergesen
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Pansexual MC
Published on: 20th June 2023
Goodreads

Fans of Claudia Gray and Kelly Link will love Hannah Fergesen’s wild and poignant debut—a wacky time-traveling sci-fi odyssey wrapped in an elegiac ode to lost friendship and a clever homage to Doctor Who.

To save the future, she must return to the beginning

Three years after her best friend Peggy went missing, Harper Starling is lost. Lost in her dead-end job, lost in her grief. All she has are regrets and reruns of her favorite science fiction show, Infinite Voyage.

Then Peggy returns and demands to be taken to the Argonaut, the fictional main character of Infinite Voyage. But the Argonaut is just that … fictional. Until the TV hero himself appears and spirits Harper away from her former best friend. Traveling through time, he explains that Peggy used to travel with him but is now under the thrall of an alien enemy known as the Incarnate—one that has destroyed countless solar systems.

Then he leaves Harper in 1971.

Stranded in the past, Harper must find a way to end the Incarnate’s thrall … without the help of the Argonaut. But the cosmos are nothing like the technicolor stars of the TV show she loves, and if Harper can’t find it in herself to believe—in the Argonaut, in Peggy, and most of all, in herself—she’ll be the Incarnate’s next casualty, along with the rest of the universe.

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Apparently a love-letter to Dr Who, which, valid. The reviews seem a little mixed, but enough readers I trust have said good things that I want to try it out for myself!

Citadel by C.M. Alongi
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: Nonverbal autistic MC
Published on: 20th June 2023
Goodreads

Citadel, the only city on the planet Edalide, has a holy mission: exterminate the demons from the Flooded Forest. The unholy, vicious animals were a mistake made by their god that must be corrected.

Or at least, that's what everyone's been told.

When Olivia, a nonverbal autistic nineteen-year-old, has a chance run-in with a demon, she realizes that these beings are not vicious, animals, or unholy, but sentient people. Forever scarred by her mother's legally sanctioned murder, and determined to prevent either side from losing more loved ones, Olivia embarks on a hazardous journey into the Flooded Forest where she faces flesh-eating predators, telekinetic zealot-warriors, and the demons of her own past.

Olivia's quest for answers forces her to decide to either seek justice for both sides, or continue the cycle of war, revenge, and death.

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We do not get autistic MCs in SFF very often, and I don’t think I’ve ever come across a nonverbal one before! Between that and the rest of the premise, I definitely need to pounce on Citadel!

Night's Edge (Night's Edge, #1) by Liz Kerin
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists, Speculative Fiction
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: 20th June 2023
Goodreads

“This one’s a killer.” ―Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse

Liz Kerin’s Night’s Edge is a sun-drenched novel about the darkest secrets we hide and how monstrous we can be to the ones we love most.

Having a mom like Izzy meant Mia had to grow up fast. No extracurriculars, no inviting friends over, and definitely no dating. The most important Tell no one of Izzy’s hunger – the kind only blood can satisfy.

But Mia is in her twenties now and longs for a life of her own. One where she doesn’t have to worry about anyone discovering their terrible secret, or breathing down her neck. When Mia meets rebellious musician Jade she dares to hope she’s found a way to leave her home – and her mom – behind.

It just might be Mia’s only chance of getting out alive.

“Night’s Edge is a gruesome and surprisingly heartfelt page-turner.” ―Alexis Henderson, author of House of Hunger

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I’ve seen a few places calling this YA, but the author has been very clear that it is absolutely not, so with the Adult books it goes. Apparently it’s lots of toxic mother-daughter vibes, which means I’ll need to steer clear – triggers, aren’t they fun? – but it sounds so interesting I couldn’t not feature it!

Like Smoke, Like Light: Stories by Yukimi Ogawa
Genres: Horror, Sci Fi, Science Fantasy
Published on: 20th June 2023
Goodreads

“Ogawa’s debut collection of 17 speculative shorts stuns with its delicacy … There’s a gorgeous fluidity to these tales that makes them hard to pin down, as they often end somewhere very different from where they began. Harkening back to the oldest folk and fairy tales and raising pointed questions about how humans value and devalue each other, this is a showstopper.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Her work is unexpected, often horrific, and always enthralling. Weaving Japanese folklore in with the new, the weird, and science fiction horror elements, Ogawa’s body of work is prolific and evergreen.”
—Thea James, Tor.com

A monster wearing the stolen dress of a deceased mother agrees to help the woman’s orphaned son. A girl whose blood can cause hallucinogenic visions makes a daring escape from the merchants who traffic her. In a society where people are prized for their jewel-hued skins—indigo, silver, amber, emerald—one girl endures brutal bruises to shine brightest of all, while another, her eyes sealed inside a featureless helmet, risks death to retrieve colors from the outside world. In the future of that culture, one where androids serve with brimming resentment and artificially altering one’s skin color can be a crime, the most ordinary in appearance can prove the best detectives, and the most subtly effective rebels. On a far distant space station, another android encounters a goddess humans forgot.

“At pure surface level, these works appear rooted in the fantastical and magical, but as soon as you think you’ve found your footing and understand where you are, Ogawa warps your perception almost imperceptibly until the world is completely unfamiliar again.”
—Haralambi Markov, Tor.com

Like Smoke, Like Light, the debut collection of short fiction from Japanese author Yukimi Ogawa, gathers seventeen tales that Locus Magazine has described as constructed in a “wild—but still grounded, feeling more like SF than fantasy—fashion.” As novelist and poet Francesca Forrest writes in her introduction, “Ogawa is a remarkable light in the science fiction and fantasy firmament,” who “writes unsettling stories that are by turns horrifying and touching.” This book “give us space and time to think about how we really feel about tricky questions—like what makes a monster” and how loving families can be found when one accepts “the forms they choose to wear.”

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There are some publishers it’s simply good sense to keep an eye on, and Mythic Delirium is certainly one of them! So when I saw they were putting out a new collection, it mattered not that I don’t know the author – I fully intend to pounce on this anyway!

Might wait till I’m feeling a bit braver, though; sounds like the stories here will be plenty horror-y…

Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: 20th June 2023
Goodreads

The heart wants what it wants. Saddle up, ride out, and claim it.

A vibrant and cinematic debut set in the American West about a scrappy orphan who finds friendship, romance, and her true calling as a revenge-seeking gunslinger.

It's the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned. She's exhausted from caring for her ne'er-do-well alcoholic father, but when he's killed by a snakebite as they cross the Kansas prairie, she knows she has only her wits to keep her alive. She arrives penniless in Dodge City, and, thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, is soon recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow "sporting women."

Then Spartan Lee, the legendary female gunfighter in the region, rides into town, and Bridget falls in love. Hard. Before long, though, a series of shocking double-crosses shatter the Buffalo Queen's tenuous peace and safety. Desperate for vengeance and autonomy, Bridget resolves to claim her own destiny.

A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre, Lucky Red is a masterfully crafted, propulsive tale of adventure, loyalty, desire, and love.

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Look, the blurb is hugely misleading here; very little of the book is Bridget wanting to be a gunslinger, so please don’t pick this up if that’s what you’re looking for! But this is a super addictive, surprisingly insightful and funny whirlwind of a read, and I adored it utterly!

My review!

And Break the Pretty Kings by Lena Jeong
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Korean-coded setting and cast
Published on: 20th June 2023
Goodreads

A crown princess. A monster the gods fear. A destiny no one can outrun.

Inspired by Korean history and myths, the first book in the Sacred Bone series is a rich and evocative high-stakes fantasy that is perfect for fans of Gallant and Six Crimson Cranes.

Mirae was meant to save her queendom, but the ceremony before her coronation ends in terror and death, unlocking a strange new power within her and foretelling the return of a monster even the gods fear. Amid the chaos, Mirae's beloved older brother is taken--threatening the peninsula's already tenuous truce.

Desperate to save her brother and defeat this ancient enemy before the queendom is beset by war, Mirae sets out on a journey with an unlikely group of companions while her unpredictable magic gives her terrifying visions of a future she must stop at any cost.

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Between the title – I am so here for kingbreakers – and the lovely descriptive prose I’ve been promised, I’m looking forward to giving this a try! I don’t read nearly enough Korean-inspired stories.

Veil Us in Gold (Sins of the Divine Book 1) by Shepard DiStasio
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Published on: 22nd June 2023
Goodreads

Find a weapon lost to myth, and Drake can save the world.
Find a creature lost to war, and they can save themself.

Drake Elýnus was never supposed to be in Tārāmen. They were never supposed to be working for Tārāmen’s royal family. They were never supposed to do the things they’ve done. But Drake hasn’t stood a chance since the day their home was burned to the ground, the boy they loved was executed in front of them, and wayward magic cast them into a life of lonely immortality far from anything they’d ever known. All they have is revenge.

But when the culmination of their efforts backfires into a death sentence, their only hope is to make a deal with the very queen they tried to ruin.

The world around Drake is unraveling. Whispers of ancient monsters bubble beneath the surface. Fights escalate on the borders of a country that has not been its own in fifty years. Treaties are no longer worth any more than the blood they were written in. And a mysterious general they all call the ‘White Rose’ is apparently the face of it all.
With the gilded gold of society finally peeling, Drake might have a chance to escape—but only if they confront who they were truly supposed to be.

The first book of the Sins of the Divine series and DiStasio's debut, Veil Us in Gold explores what it means to be good, the secrets people will do anything to keep hidden, and the monsters that prowl not only in shadows, but inside hearts as well.

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‘Blessed be those who kill gods’ is such a chilling and exciting tagline! This doesn’t sound like anything I’ve encountered before, which is a surefire way to get my attention, and every part of the blurb heightens my interest more than the last! GIMME!

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #142 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Get the Hell Into Dodge City: Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens

Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, F/F
PoV: 1st-person, past-tense
Published on: 20th June 2023
ISBN: B0BDD9TKDM
Goodreads

"A subversive take on Western fiction: a deftly told, absorbing coming-of-age story about a young woman's life in a Dodge City brothel, and one of the most heartfelt and thrilling books I've read in ages." --Lauren Wilkinson, author of American Spy

A vibrant and cinematic feminist debut set in the American West about a scrappy, stubborn orphan seeking a better life, who finds friendship and security working in a brothel, before realizing her true calling as a revenge-seeking gunslinger.

It's the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned. She's exhausted from caring for her ne'er-do-well alcoholic father, but when he's killed by a snakebite as they cross the Kansas prairie, she knows she has only her wits to keep her alive. She arrives penniless in Dodge City, and, thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, is soon recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow sporting women.

Then Spartan Lee, the most legendary (and only) female gunfighter in the region, rides into town, and Bridget falls in love. Hard. Before long, though, a series of shocking double-crosses shatter the Buffalo Queen's tenuous peace and safety. Crushed by the devastating consequences of her actions and desperate for vengeance and autonomy, Bridget resolves to claim her own destiny.

A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre, Lucky Red is a masterfully crafted, propulsive tale of adventure, loyalty, desire, and love.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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~make your own luck
~but keep the sheriff happy
~first loves ain’t gotta be forever
~twisty as a straight-up prairie twister
~except definitely not straight

Le gasp! A book that isn’t SFF!!! Yes, folx, it happens. Rarely, I grant you. But it does happen that I occasionally read non-SFF books, and sometimes I even review them!

Like this one. Because wow, people: Lucky Red is so freaking good!

And it’s an interesting premise, sure, but what makes it shine is Bridget’s incredible voice – aka, Cravens’ genuinely marvellous prose. Bridget comes alive on the page from the very first line, and she is hard not to love: wickedly (and usually unintentionally) funny, fierce, defiant, stubborn as hell, with a surprisingly soft centre beneath the grit. Despite all she goes through, she retains a streak of frustrating but appealing naïveté that makes you want to shake her and hug her tight. She’s such a real person, and damn if her perspective on the world isn’t sharp and clear, coming from an angle so alien to my own soft life that her reflections on Life, the Universe, and Everything are both eye-openingly incisive and, often, laugh-out-loud brilliant;

“You know, you think you know everything, but all you got is book learning, and that ain’t all there is to know. You think you’re smart but you’re just–world-stupid!”

I mean – world-stupid! That’s a term I’ve been looking for for most of my life, and Cravens just calligraphs it onto the page, just like that.

I think it’s that wordcraft that makes Lucky Red stand out from the crowd, even more than all its other great aspects (we’ll get to those in a minute, I promise!) Bridget is – she’s poor and uneducated and spends most of the book as a sex-worker, and that means her voice isn’t the kind of lush and decadent prose that I usually prefer (it’s quite a contrast to Kushiel’s Dart, for example, which I’m nearly finished rereading).

But there is nonetheless an unpretty but piercing poetry to Cravens’ prose; an almost shocking insightfulness in Bridget’s character, a way of seeing the world that rapidly becomes addictive.

the stars picked themselves out one by one against the woolly blackness like a mourning dress, half-sewn, with silver pins still tucked into the seams.

See? No describing the stars as diamonds; the night sky is not a piece of velvet. The image isn’t beautiful in the way we’re taught to expect, the way we’re used to. Instead, it’s…if I say mundane, I don’t mean boring, I mean down-to-earth and relatable, homey, earthy, something that feels like it comes out of a normal person’s life rather than a fairytale of princesses and treasure chests. And that makes it hit differently. It’s still a wonderful line, a clever way to describe the night sky, an image we haven’t seen used a thousand times before – but it also feels like something we can touch in a way diamond-stars are not. It feels real in a way I can’t quite put into words.

rage scrabbled in my chest like a pack of wolves all caught in one trap, biting each other’s legs and howling in each other’s faces.

Craven’s prose hits like a gut-punch because it perfectly puts into words things and thoughts and moments that you the reader have experienced too. There are no wasted words, and each one grabs you by the throat – and then pries between your ribs to snatch your heart out, too, just for good measure.

unlike the rope-twist I had grown accustomed to, now my chest was full of violin strings, each one carefully tuned to just the right pitch so that when next the fiddler took up her bow I would ring out clear and bittersweet to fill the room with music.

Well, what about the story? The story is also great! I don’t think Lucky Red would burn as brightly as it does if another author had written it – it’s Craven’s wordcraft and the life she breathed into Bridget that turns a great story into a freaking excellent book – but I loved how unconventional the actual plot was. By which I mean; if you’ve read (or watched, or heard, or whatever medium you prefer to use) a lot of stories, you get a sense of the patterns they tend to follow. The templates, let’s call them. And so I reflexively expected Lucky Red to go one way – and it did not.

And then it did not again.

And after that I did my best to stop expecting things, I really did, but I couldn’t help it and IT WENT ON TAKING ME BY SURPRISE AT EVERY TURN! Craven spun me dizzy with all the twists I didn’t see coming, and I loved every minute of it.

Every now and then, somebody says something about you that’s so true you just can’t do a thing about it.

One example of the unexpected I simply have to talk about a little bit, so I’m going to put it under a spoiler tag – it’s not a major spoiler, but, you know, I will not judge you for skipping over it! [View post to see spoiler]

A smarter reviewer than myself – and one with more spoons – would go into all the ways in which this is so fiercely a feminist novel, from the woman-owned and -run brothel, to depicting all too accurately how men tend to think of women when sex is involved (especially when it’s paid for), to all the reasons a happy sex worker has to reject a conventional life as wife-and-homemaker. I do not have the spoons, but allow me to assure that those themes are very much present, and they’re on-point and merciless and cut like glass. *chef’s kiss*

And then there’s the whole queer awakening aspect of Lucky Red, which I had no expectations about at all because I had no idea what that might look like in a Wild West setting. But yet again, I loved how Craven handled it, how it was simultaneously a huge deal and a tiny one, and so completely confusing for poor Bridget! You can’t help but empathise and wince and cheer and cringe and laugh, not at her but for her.

(Well. A little bit at her.)

Sallie laughed, and I felt a twist of what I now know was gut-level envy, though at the time I thought I was just hungry.

This is not, at all, a book I would have predicted myself enjoying – Wild West? Plucky orphans? A town literally called Dodge? Um. AND YET. I flew through this, only taking breaks to read the best bits out loud to my hubby, and look, the blurb is kind of appallingly misleading – Bridget’s wish to be a gunslinger is the tiniest part of this book, not a major plotline at all – but the truth of it is that Lucky Red is simply awesome. It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s much smarter than it lets you think it is, and Bridget is a main character I would happily follow through an entire series. I suspect it’s intended as a standalone, but if Craven ever comes back to it–

Who am I kidding; whatever Craven writes next, I’ll be pouncing on it!

And you can pounce on Lucky Red next week; it’s out this coming Tuesday!

The post Get the Hell Into Dodge City: Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Pluralities by Avi Silver

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Pluralities by Avi Silver!

Pluralities by Avi Silver
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Published on: 3rd October 2023
Goodreads

"Wait—rewind. I was still a girl back then, before the universes converged."

Guided by premonitions and a fateful car ride, a burned-out retail worker stumbles into the grand exit from womanhood. Meanwhile, in a galaxy not so far away, an alien prince goes rogue with his sentient spaceship, seeking purpose in the great glimmering void. As the two of them come together in a fusion of body and mind, they must reckon with their assigned identities.

Tender, witty, and daring, Pluralities is a slipstream-meets-space-adventure story honoring the long and turbulent journey into gender euphoria.

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I have been keeping an eye out for this book for literal YEARS, and last week we got this gorgeous cover!!! It’s by artist Lorna Antoniazzi, and I am head over heels for it. The ‘she’ text on the character’s cheek becoming blurred!!! The SPACE – literal outer space! – waiting behind the face! With what is almost certainly a sentient spaceship amidst the stars! The distortion of the title-text, like it’s rippling with all the possibilities that come about when universes converge!

I really, really, really love it!

Now for the book itself: literally everything about it sounds right up my alley – surely it’s not that hard to see why I’ve been looking forward to it? I am always craving more nonbinary MCs, and the fact that this is a gender-identity journey leading towards gender euphoria is such a big deal – I am so very tired of trans+nonbinary struggles and misery; yes, of course they’re real, and people can write about them all they want, but I want something more optimistic and joyful, and Pluralities seems to be promising just that.

And – an alien prince?! With a sentient spaceship?! I love getting to see different takes on non-humans (which real AIs/sentient spaceships definitely count as too) and after Avi Silver’s Two Dark Moons, which is packed full of marvellously interesting worldbuilding, I’m excited to see what kind of worldbuilding Pluralities is going to feature! Plus – universes converging? What’s that going to look like in practice? How and why will there be converging? Is it a good thing? A bad thing? A neutral thing? Eee!

If you’re interested in getting to read it early, there’s an application for early reading copies here, which I encourage any other bloggers or reviewers to go fill out! And/or, you can check out Silver’s Sãoni Cycle, which I recommend most strongly!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Pluralities by Avi Silver appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #141

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

SIX books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

The Surviving Sky (Rages, #1) by Kritika H. Rao
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Desi cast, bisexual MCs, queernorm world
Published on: 13th June 2023
Goodreads

This Hindu philosophy-inspired debut science fantasy follows a husband and wife racing to save their living city—and their troubled marriage—high above a jungle world besieged by cataclysmic storms.

High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity—plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science. In these living cities, architects are revered above anyone else. If not for their ability to psychically manipulate the architecture, the cities would plunge into the devastating earthrage storms below.

Charismatic, powerful, mystical, Iravan is one such architect. In his city, his word is nearly law. His abilities are his identity, but to Ahilya, his wife, they are a way for survival to be reliant on the privileged few. Like most others, she cannot manipulate the plants. And she desperately seeks change.

Their marriage is already thorny—then Iravan is accused of pushing his abilities to forbidden limits. He needs Ahilya to help clear his name; she needs him to tip the balance of rule in their society. As their paths become increasingly intertwined, deadly truths emerge, challenging everything each of them believes. And as the earthrages become longer, and their floating city begins to plummet, Iravan and Ahilya's discoveries might destroy their marriage, their culture, and their entire civilization.

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Queer Desi solarpunk featuring a couple of disaster bisexuals who live in a flying plant city.

Do you really need to hear anything else?

My review!

Junker Seven (Twin Suns Duology) by Olive J. Kelley
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC, major trans character
Published on: 13th June 2023
Goodreads

A romantic, queer sci-fi epic about changing the galaxy, one girl at a time.

Castor Quasar is a junker— a bounty hunter making a living off of collecting and selling valuable scrap. They live a quiet life, bouncing from job to job and not worrying about the brewing galactic rebellion.

Except, when they get a job offer for an irresistible amount of money, they find themself embroiled much deeper than expected. Their task? To smuggle transgender activist Juno Marcus across the galaxy under the watchful eye of the Intergalactic Police Force and a propaganda-informed galaxy.

It’s too dangerous to accept, but too valuable to refuse, and it doesn't help that Juno herself is charming and beautiful. Agreeing drags Cas into a whirlwind race against those who want Juno dead to make it across the galaxy to safety, risking it all for a cause they can’t– or won’t– believe in.

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I love the premise of this one, and I’ve been seeing a lot of love for it among early readers! Not sure if it’s going to be more serious or more sweet, but either way I’m definitely pouncing on it!

On Earth as It Is on Television by Emily Jane
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 13th June 2023
Goodreads

First Contact stories have never been as intoxicating and fun as in Emily Jane’s novel of the sudden arrival—and equally sudden departure—of spaceships above Earth.

The arrival of spaceships can bring up a lot of big questions: What does it mean that we’re not alone? Why did aliens come here? Who knew beforehand? Where…. are the aliens going?

Wait… They can’t just leave! Without inviting us into their galactic federation—or at the very least obliterating us!

In Emily Jane’s debut—a rollicking paean to what it means to be alive in the twenty-first century—the fleeting presence of alien vessels, and the certainty that humans are not alone in the universe, sparks intense uncertainty as to our place within it.

Blaine has always been content to go along with whatever his supermom wife and television-addicted, half-feral children want. But when the kids blithely ponder skinning people to see if they’re aliens, and his wife announces a surprise road trip to Disney World, even steady Blaine begins to crack.

Half a continent away, Heather, bored in a Malibu pool while the ships hover overhead, watches as the Arrival heralds the demise of her dead-end relationship and sets her on a quest to understand herself, her accomplished (and oh-so-annoying) stepfamily, and why she feels so alone in a universe teeming with life.

And Oliver, suddenly conscious and alert after twenty catatonic years, struggles to piece together broken memories and understand why he’s following a strange cat on a westward journey and into the greatest adventure of his—or anyone’s—lifetime.

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The title alone is enough to make to make me cackle, and everything about the book itself sounds like fun! I admit to being especially interested in the cat.

The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, F/F, secondary PoC characters
Published on: 13th June 2023
Goodreads

If you knew how dark tomorrow would be, what would you do with today?

The First Bright Thing by J. R. Dawson is a spellbinding debut for fans of The Night Circus and The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue.
Welcome to the Circus of the Fantasticals.

Ringmaster – Rin, to those who know her best – can jump to different moments in time as easily as her wife, Odette, soars from bar to bar on the trapeze. With the scars of World War I feeling more distant as the years pass, Rin is focusing on the brighter things in life. Like the circus she’s built and the magical misfits and outcasts – known as Sparks – who’ve made it their home. Every night, Rin and the Fantasticals enchant a Big Top packed full with audiences who need to see the impossible.

But while the present is bright, threats come at Rin from the past and the future. The future holds an impending war that the Sparks can see barrelling toward their Big Top and everyone in it. And Rin's past creeps closer every day, a malevolent shadow Rin can’t fully escape. It takes the form of another Spark circus, with tents as black as midnight and a ringmaster who rules over his troupe with a dangerous power. Rin’s circus has something he wants, and he won't stop until it’s his.

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This didn’t work for me, and I go into a fair bit of detail on why here, but lots have people have adored this, so your mileage may vary. If the issues that bothered me in the DNF review are fine for you, then give it a go!

Fat Witch Summer by Lizzy Ives
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Fat MC, major BIPOC
Published on: 13th June 2023
Goodreads

Dumplin’ meets The Craft in this body-positive fantasy novel for fans of summer road trips, female friendship, and magic.

Sixteen-year-old Thrash doesn’t enchant eyeliner over her lids or clear her acne with magic. She is plus-size, but she doesn’t hate what she sees in the mirror—that’s the realm of her mother, Osmarra, a slim and elegant Glamour witch. When Thrash unexpectedly breaks a mirror with her mind, she discovers she has a knack for magic and will receive one of the three sanctioned Gifts: Glamour, Growth, or Sight. The only problem is that mothers choose the Gifts, and Osmarra is convinced that the Gift of Glamour will fix her daughter’s looks.

When Thrash fails to persuade Osmarra to accept her as she is, a trio of cool witches who call themselves The Lunes offer her an out. Their leader, fiery and charismatic Cresca, recruits Thrash for a road trip to New Salem University, where the girls plan to steal their own Gifts. As Thrash crosses the magical Thirteen States of America, Osmarra hot on her heels, she discovers bewitched diners, haunted tourist traps, and a secret about the Gifts that will change the Thirteen States forever.

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Okay, my blood is already boiling at Thrash’s terrible mother, but everything else about Fat Witch Summer sounds amazing??? I am massively intrigued by the magical Thirteen States, and Thrash herself sounds fabulous. MUCH YAY FOR BODY-POSITIVE WITCHERY, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!

If Found, Return to Hell by Em X. Liu
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Chinese gay MC
Published on: 15th June 2023
Goodreads

Being an intern at One Wizard sounds magical on the page, but in practice mostly means getting yelled at by senior mages and angry clients alike. And so, after receiving a frantic call from a young man who’s awoken to a talisman on his bedroom wall—and no memory of how it got there—Journeyman Wen jumps at the chance to escape call-center duty and actually help someone for once.

But the case ends up being more complicated than Wen could ever have anticipated. The client has been possessed by a demon prince from Hell, and he’s not interested in leaving.

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Everything I’ve heard of this makes it sound like a lot of fun, with a very sympathetic MC (I think they initially have him just answering the phones?) and – a prince of Hell?! I’m really curious to know if Liu is pulling from the Christian or Chinese Hell for this – I’m betting on Chinese, given the setting, and the Chinese Hells have Kings, so why not princes? EITHER WAY I AM MOST EXCITED!

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #141 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Soaring High: The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao

The Surviving Sky (Rages, #1) by Kritika H. Rao
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Desi-coded setting and cast, bisexual MCs, secondary F/F, queernorm world
PoV: Third-person, past tense; dual PoVs
Published on: 13th June 2023
ISBN: B0B6ZJT7R1
Goodreads

This Hindu philosophy-inspired debut science fantasy follows a husband and wife racing to save their living city—and their troubled marriage—high above a jungle world besieged by cataclysmic storms.

High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity—plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science. In these living cities, architects are revered above anyone else. If not for their ability to psychically manipulate the architecture, the cities would plunge into the devastating earthrage storms below.

Charismatic, powerful, mystical, Iravan is one such architect. In his city, his word is nearly law. His abilities are his identity, but to Ahilya, his wife, they are a way for survival to be reliant on the privileged few. Like most others, she cannot manipulate the plants. And she desperately seeks change.

Their marriage is already thorny—then Iravan is accused of pushing his abilities to forbidden limits. He needs Ahilya to help clear his name; she needs him to tip the balance of rule in their society. As their paths become increasingly intertwined, deadly truths emerge, challenging everything each of them believes. And as the earthrages become longer, and their floating city begins to plummet, Iravan and Ahilya's discoveries might destroy their marriage, their culture, and their entire civilization.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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~Flying plant cities!
~which don’t have marriage counselling, I guess
~Desi solarpunk
~women single-handedly inventing archaeology
~a marriage as a microcosm of a world
~the most mindblowing of epic reveals

The Surviving Sky is a massively impressive debut with an underlying design drawn from Hindu philosophy. (Not mythology. Philosophy. The distinction is important.) Aside from one or two minor details – like the rudra beads worn by citizens, which in many ways mimic the Kimoyo beads of Wakanda in the Marvel comics – everything in this book was new to me. Rao has built a world like nothing I’ve ever seen before, down to its smallest parts, and listen, I read a lot. I read SFF a lot. It is not very often that I come across something in a SFF book that is not even a little bit like something I’ve encountered elsewhere. I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but I really want to drive home how incredibly unique Rao’s creation is. Even if it turns out that what is wholly new to me is very familiar to Hindu readers – I doubt that’s the case, but I don’t know nearly enough about Hinduism and the culture around it to be sure – it doesn’t change the fact that the majority of the English-reading community is going to be left absolutely floored by what is completely new to us.

I mean. When I finished reading Surviving Sky, I had to go and lie down. And then spend about four hours breaking down everything Rao had unleashed upon me, a poor helpless reader, in a vain attempt to process it all.

Initially I was actually very disappointed with this book – I was hoping for really lush, descriptive prose to match the beautiful setting, and Rao’s writing struck me as almost blunt; not what I was looking for at all. I came pretty close to DNFing it. But I’m so glad I pushed through the first few chapters, because it didn’t take long before I was swept up in Iravan and Ahilya’s complicated relationship (and relationship drama), and after that, the pages just flew by. I felt like a very frantic roadrunner, reading as quickly as I could, enthralled but also desperate to find out what would happen next, and next, and next.

And LAST. Because – oh my gods, that ending-reveal. That was a climax of mythic proportions and no, I am still not over it.

The Surviving Sky is two stories intwined: the end (or is it?) of a marriage, and the potential end of an era for the flying plant cities that are the last bastions of humanity (the surface of the Earth being constantly ravaged by devastating storms known as earth-rages). Not that it’s immediately obvious that the cities are in trouble, but from the opening pages we learn that the plant-magic – trajection – that keeps the cities functioning (and flying) is becoming harder and harder…even if the ruling bodies don’t want to believe that. And while at first it seems like Ahilya and Iravan are a couple who just happen to be born into this time, it eventually becomes clear that their relationship and the gradual failing of the cities are connected, in ways I guarantee you will not see coming.

Rao’s prose is surprisingly addictive; easy to read and fast-paced, despite managing to allow for a fair bit of (very necessary and plot-relevant) introspection. I say ‘surprisingly’ because, as mentioned above, I was hoping for a different kind of writing style, and Rao’s is a fair bit plainer and more direct than I generally enjoy. I’m not sure I can put into words why it worked for me, when similar styles from other storytellers have resulted in DNFs. Part of it is probably how…charismatic Ahilya and Iravan both are; they’re both characters that you can imagine dominating any room they walk into, powerful personalities that you can’t help but gravitate towards, irregardless of whether or not you actually like them. And I really did not like Iravan as a person at all – more on that in a minute – but he makes for an incredibly compelling character, just as Ahilya does. It’s not that the secondary cast is not so developed, but they feel less developed next to these two; every other character pales in comparison to these leads, seem faded and inconsequential even when they are, in fact, incredibly important to the city and/or plot. And that feels deliberate, and correct, because when push comes to shove this is Ahilya and Iravan’s story more than it is anyone else’s; not just because they happen to be the main characters, but because of who they are, what they are, the effect they have on those around them, on the city, on history. They are their world in miniature; the fate of their civilisation is played out in their interactions, their antagonism, their partnership.

It’s an incredible thing to witness; even more so when you recognise what it is you’re seeing. It’s masterful.

(I’ve done a lot of thinking about Surviving Sky since I finished it. Can you tell?)

The Marriage

I feel like I’m probably supposed to say that how well you ‘buy into’ Surviving Sky is dependant on how much you buy into Ahilya and Iravan’s marriage – but the thing is, that’s not true. I wasn’t rooting for them; I was screaming at Ahilya to divorce her utter dickhead of a husband for most of the book – and it didn’t matter. It in no way affected how deeply invested I was; it didn’t make it any easier to tear my eyes away; it didn’t jolt me out of the story or give me my breath back. These two are just that compelling, that even when I thought they needed to get the fuck away from each other, I couldn’t stop turning pages. I don’t think I’ve ever seen characters with this kind of charisma; I often see characters described as charismatic, but Rao is the first author I’ve come across to successfully write characters who are like gravity wells; characters I can’t disengage from even if I despise them.

It was certainly an experience.

And I mean: if I stop and think about it, then for the most part, Ahilya and Iravan’s relationship makes very little sense to me. Almost at once, I thought they ought to divorce; on an objective level, I feel like Ahilya’s love for Iravan, in particular, is inexplicable – and both the narrative and Iravan himself come to acknowledge that most of the issues in the marriage are of Iravan’s doing or making. Ahilya is far from perfect, but when she starts a fight, it’s because she has an incomplete picture of the truth – because either Iravan or their government have withheld or outright lied to her. Whereas Iravan is arrogant, withdrawn, cold, domineering – for crying out loud, when Surviving Sky opens, he hasn’t talked to Ahilya for seven months, while he was off sulking in his office! Why? Ahilya doesn’t want to have a baby with him, given the rocky shape of their marriage right now.

IRAVAN.

IRAVAN.

HI.

YOU’RE KIND OF A MASSIVE CHEESERIND.

Iravan is an interesting character to read about. But as a person, he’s an asshole, and even if some of his asshattery has understandable roots – even if, by the end of Surviving Sky, we know exactly what is so deeply, fundamentally wrong with him – that doesn’t really change the fact that I unequivocally sided with Ahilya and thought she deserved so much better. Iravan has a real problem with empathy (in that he has little) and arrogance (of which he has a lot). At one point in the book, he (accidentally) almost kills her and her friend, and that should have been it. Done. The ultimate dealbreaker.

But it wasn’t. And now that the book is over, that bothers me a lot – it bothers me that Ahilya wasn’t even mad about it; that she instead ran after Iravan to make sure he was okay (the one and only time she doesn’t call him out on his bs and confront him with it); that it is never mentioned or referred to again. If I’d been Rao’s editor, I’d have asked her to either remove or massively change that scene, because it tips the scales too far; everything that Iravan does up to that point can be fixed with open and caring communication, but that? No. That’s too much. Or it should be. But instead, it’s disturbingly easy to go along with it; to forget That Scene ever happened. Which is necessary: if we acknowledge That Scene, then nothing after it makes sense; the story (or at least Iravan and Ahilya’s marriage) should have ended there. But Rao’s writing is so mesmerising that it pulls you along even when you should really want to get off the ride!

I mean this as a compliment. I mean, I genuinely think That Scene was a bad call from a storytelling perspective; but the fact that Rao could convince me to forget about it – could in fact bring me around to becoming extremely invested, by the end of the book, in Ahilya and Iravan getting back together and making things work – is Exhibit A in how impossibly compulsive The Surviving Sky is.

Beyond the Marriage

Outside of Ahilya and Iravan’s marriage are several majorly important plotlines and threads. Trajection – which keeps humanity alive – is becoming harder, and Iravan, as an extremely important and skilled architect (which in this world means, someone who can use trajection) is becoming convinced that there is some Thing, maybe a conscious, living thing, inside the realm of trajection that is interfering with it. Humanity desperately needs more architects than it has, putting pressure on both the architects and the sungineers – think solarpunk engineers – to come up with an innovative solution. Ahilya’s friend is frantically trying to build a battery that would take some of the strain off the architects, and Ahilya is helping by smuggling very illegal plants into the city from her trips to the surface. At the same time, Iravan is being accused of losing control of his powers, a situation which worsens when the Council realise how badly his relationship with Ahilya has broken down. (‘Material bonds’, aka marriage and specifically parenthood, being mandatory for architects.)

To a(n initially) lesser degree, there is also the mystery of what causes the earth-rages that makes the planet’s surface uninhabitable – and Ahilya’s passionate drive to prove that non-architects are not second-class citizens; to trigger a shift in the public perception of architects being the only people who really matter. The architects claim that there is no way for humanity to survive without trajection; Ahilya is searching for proof that the yakshas – giant animals that mysteriously manage to exist down on the surface – have some adaptation or access to safe habitats that humans could utilise as well. The callous dismissal of her theories, and her search for alternate answers to those the architects provide, is written well-enough to make your blood boil; even as Rao also has you grudgingly admitting that you can see where the architects are coming from.

The situation is far from ideal, but there will be no easy fix. In that way, Rao has created a world that is as messy and complicated as ours, without simple answers, populated by characters as contradictory and multi-faceted as those of us writ in blood instead of ink.

I can’t do anything but applaud.

Mind: BLOWN!

I could probably write a full-on thesis on Rao’s incredible worldbuilding, which as I said, is so unique and interesting. It’s Desi solarpunk! But I think it’s going to be much more fun for the reader to discover the whole of it themselves, so I won’t go into much detail.

What I want to do is talk – a little bit, as vaguely as possible, without spoilers – about THAT ENDING.

Because look: as a general rule of thumb, reveals that the reader could never have guessed at annoy me. I never see it coming, but I love when I can look back and, in hindsight, see all the clues I didn’t put together. And that is not the case here. The reveal, when it comes, is a lot more telling than showing, and although the groundwork for tiny bits and pieces of it were laid down, most of it comes kind of out of nowhere.

And I don’t care.

It is AMAZING.

I don’t see how Rao could have pulled off this reveal without doing a lot of telling – and of course, telling-not-showing isn’t inherently bad anyway, only bad when it’s badly done. And although there’s a fair bit of it, I wouldn’t say Rao’s done it badly.

But honestly, even if she had, the sheer breathtaking SCOPE of that reveal would have negated any complaints from me. It’s not that Surviving Sky does a sudden 180; it’s not that what’s revealed contradicts established worldbuilding (I mean, it does, but it’s more ‘we didn’t know this’ rather than ‘we believed the exact opposite of this and are now being proved wrong’); it’s not that Rao rips the rug out from underneath us. It’s…it’s just so HUGE. We are talking literally mythic proportions; a zooming-out, a Big Picture revealed, that I could never have imagined, on a scale that the mortal mind can barely comprehend. It’s gorgeous and unprecedented by anything I’ve ever encountered; it makes it clear that the story hasn’t even started yet, that it’s the forces of the very universe that are going to be friends and foes and battlegrounds going forward.

No quibble I had with Surviving Sky survived the climax. All flaws and faults are forgiven and forgotten. I cannot emphasise this enough: if the premise interests you? Then read this book to the end. Don’t DNF it. You need to experience that – that – that APEX FINALE.

Okay?

All right then.

The Surviving Sky is out next Tuesday. Prepare for your very own galaxy-brain moment.

The post Soaring High: The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.