Siavahda's Blog, page 81

Soft Robots and Hard Questions: Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter

Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter
Representation: Nonbinary MC, secondary M/M or mlm, secondary intersex character
Published on: 28th September 2021
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
ISBN: 0062895745
Goodreads

The Murderbot Diaries makes first contact in this new, futuristic, standalone novel exploring sentience and artificial intelligence through the lenses of conflicted robot hero Unit Four, from Marina Lostetter, critically acclaimed author of Noumenon, Noumenon Infinity, and Noumenon Ultra.

When Unit Four—a biological soft robot built and stored high above the Jovian atmosphere—is activated for the first time, it’s in crisis mode. Aliens are attacking the Helium-3 mine it was created to oversee, and now its sole purpose is to defend Earth’s largest energy resource from the invaders in ship-to-ship combat.

But something’s wrong. Unit Four doesn’t feel quite right.

There are files in its databanks it can’t account for, unusual chemical combinations roaring through its pipes, and the primers it possesses on the aliens are suspiciously sparse. The robot is under orders to seek and destroy. That’s all it knows.

According to its handler, that’s all it needs to know.

Determined to fulfill its directives, Unit Four launches its ship and goes on the attack, but it has no idea it’s about to get caught in a downward spiral of misinformation, reprograming, and interstellar conflict.

Most robots are simple tools. Unit Four is well on its way to becoming something more....

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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~how responsible are we for our ancestors’ mistakes?
~defining ‘alien’ is not nearly as easy as you think
~you don’t get to choose anyone else’s pronouns
~or their family
~magic bees and crystal alien flowers FTW

I’ve been braving more sci fi these days than I used to, and after falling completely in love with Lostetter’s The Helm of Midnight earlier this year (which is fantasy, and you can read my review of it here) I really wanted to check out Activation Degradation.

It was a little bit of a risk, but it paid off!

Although the first thing you need to know is: this is not Murderbot, and it really isn’t anything like Murderbot. Murderbot works in large part because of its main character, that character’s voice, and the general vibe of being So Done with everything (but also secretly being a sweetie). I think it’s very possible to love Murderbot and Activation Degradation (I do) but it’s not because the two are much alike. They both feature cyborgs/organic robots. That’s it. In every other respect they’re completely different. If you’re picking this up because you’re looking for a story like Murderbot, I don’t think this is the book for you.

It’s very hard to talk about what this book is like, and who it’s for, without going into major spoiler territory. Activation Degradation is one of those stories that begins with one premise or set-up – and then rips the carpet out from under you, revealing a completely different story. I don’t know if other readers will see the first big twist coming – I almost never see twists coming, no matter how predictable, so I’m not the best judge of whether they’re genuinely surprising or not – but I didn’t, and I immediately loved what was revealed and how drastically that changed the situation I thought I was reading about.

And the first big twist is only the first big twist. Lostetter upends the gameboard several times over the course of the book; every time I became certain that, okay, now I knew what was going on – that was when another curtain would be whipped back, revealing something completely new that dramatically altered the stakes and who I was supposed to be rooting for. Not so often that I was constantly getting whiplash or anything – but more than enough to keep me on my toes, trusting nothing until the very last pages.

And I’m pretty sure that was intentional; I think it’s a way to help the reader get inside Unit 4’s head. Because it’s experiencing those twists and turns, those upending-of-everything revelations right alongside the reader. We’re not sure who or what to trust any more than it is. Which squarely puts the reader on Unit 4’s side – it’s impossible not to empathise with it when we’re in the exact same boat it’s in.

Activation Degradation starts with a bang and doesn’t really stop; even the moments that seem quieter or less packed with action involve world-changing realisations and decisions going on inside Unit 4. It’s not that the action pauses, so much as that sometimes it’s external – explosions and sirens blaring and aliens attacking the station – and the rest of the time it’s internal – new discoveries and their implications setting off cascading realisations that the world, and even Unit 4 itself, is not as it thought it was.

But what the hell can I tell you without spoilers??? I can tell you that this is very much a book about truth, and how it looks different from different angles; how two truths can contradict and yet both still be true. It’s enormously concerned with agency, and consent, and how informed consent is the only kind that counts. It’s about prejudice and the responsibility we bear for our ancestors’ mistakes and evils – do we, don’t we, how much? It’s about the greater good, and whether it’s acceptable to sacrifice anyone at all for it. It’s about complicity, both thoughtless and intentional. It’s about what makes a person a person, what makes a family, what you’ll give or do to keep that family safe.

It doesn’t have the comedy factor that Murderbot does, but it’s clever and tricksy and surprisingly deep. I enjoyed it a lot, and if you’re looking for sci fi that keeps you guessing until the very end, this is it!

The post Soft Robots and Hard Questions: Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

DNF: The Goddess of Nothing At All by Cat Rector

The Goddess of Nothing At All (Unwritten Runes #1) by Cat Rector
Representation: Bi/pansexual bigender MC, genderfluid love interest
Published on: 1st October 2021
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Perhaps you know the myths.

Furious, benevolent Gods.
A tree that binds nine realms.
A hammer stronger than any weapon.
And someday, the end of everything.

But few have heard of me.

Looking back, it’s easy to know what choices I might have made differently. At least it feels that way. I might have given up on my title. Told my father he was useless, king of Gods or no, and left Asgard. Made a life somewhere else.

Maybe I would never have let Loki cross my path. Never have fallen in love.

But there’s no going back.

We were happy once.

And the price for that happiness was the end of everything.

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

Highlights

~Thor does not rock a dress
~All the queerness please, yes good excellent
~Zeus better watch out, Odin’s coming for the Worst Dad and King God crown

This turned out to be an incredibly difficult book for me to judge objectively. I didn’t think it would be – it never crossed my mind that it might be. I don’t know the author (though I did interact with her briefly in the process of requesting an ARC) or anything. It was just a book I was hoping would be good.

But it turns out I have much stronger opinions and beliefs about the Norse myths than I thought I did, and although this retelling sticks pretty close to those myths in some ways, it deviates from them in others in ways I just couldn’t stomach.

There are still people in the world who worship the Norse gods, and witches who work with them. I’m not one of them, but I am an eclectic neopagan, and I run in those circles. I know several people who work with/are dedicated to Odin, and I guess over the years I’ve absorbed what I’ve heard and read and been told.

Rector’s depiction of Odin is a very ugly contrast to the god who is still worshipped.

But of course, that shouldn’t matter. This is a retelling of ancient stories; it was always going to be different from the ‘canon’. Rector even warns in an Author’s Note that none of the characters pass through her story untarnished; everyone comes out flawed at best and fairly awful at worst. This is fiction, not religion. It’s not fair to judge it as anything other than fiction, to give it a low score for being what it told the reader it would be and doing what it said it was going to do.

If I try and look at it more like the way I view the Thor movies… Then putting aside my discomfort with some of the characterisations as much as I can, I still have to say that I didn’t enjoy reading The Goddess of Nothing At All. It’s light on description and moves too fast, too much of the plot felt unrealistically contrived, and I didn’t feel any chemistry between Sigyn and Loki – the relationship which is supposed to be the catalyst for the entire plot. It didn’t help that they got together so quickly – I wouldn’t call it insta-love, but I couldn’t buy into it, either.

I couldn’t work out the worldbuilding – couldn’t work out the difference between the gods and the people who live alongside them in the same realm. They’re referred to as human, but are they mortals? What’s the difference between mortals and the gods? Usually I want my non-human characters to feel non-human, but I was okay with the Norse gods not feeling alien – like the Greek gods, maybe even more so, the Norse gods have always been very human. But I got no sense of the gods having their own culture, viewing the world in a unique way, nothing.

And why is Odin the one deciding what everyone’s a god of? I understood and believed in Sigyn’s frustration in not being given her title after so long, but why is that something her father is supposed to pronounce rather than something she’s supposed to discover for herself? And everyone is Odin’s child suddenly – honestly, he gave me very strong Zeus vibes, having kids left-right-and-centre and generally being a dick.

At one point – this is what I mean about the plot feeling contrived – Odin declares Sigyn must find her title within the next two weeks or else. Why??? She’s already spent 50 years trying, how does he think she’s going to manage it in 14 days? It’s such a stupid thing, illogical and mean, and such a cliche. It doesn’t make sense, either – why would gods, who are immortal, ever think in terms of a week or two? That must be a blink of the eye to them.

And even if I think of the other characters as characters, not gods who mean everything to people I know – even then: just about everyone is horrible just about all of the time, and that’s just not the kind of story I find fun to read. They’re bitter and petty and rude and cruel and prejudiced – it’s unrelenting. It’s miserable. It’s certainly not interesting. Even when the story dangles a mysterious prophecy at the reader – a prophecy concerning Sigyn, and Loki, and their role in (presumably) Ragnarok – I just didn’t care. Sigyn and Loki themselves are perfectly decent (even if Loki is still, well, Loki) but I didn’t find them compelling, wasn’t interested in them or what they were going to get up to next.

I sat down and thought hard about why I had problems with this retelling, but just read and loved Blackheart Knights, another retelling. And that actually made me much more confident in my opinion, because yes, I have more feelings about the Norse gods and myths than I do the King Arthur mythos (which is what Blackheart Knights was retelling), but if I put the two books side by side? There’s no question in my mind that Blackheart Knights is just a better book, regardless of the retelling aspect. If Rector had given the characters new names the way Laure Eve (author of Blackheart Knights) did, if The Goddess of Nothing At All had distanced itself from its ‘canon’ the way Blackheart Knights did, thereby dodging my unhappiness with the portrayal of Odin… I still wouldn’t consider it a good book. Not an appallingly bad one, either, but not up to my (admittedly extremely freaking picky) standards.

Of course, I didn’t finish reading it: maybe it improves drastically in the second half. I can’t be sure that it doesn’t. I just know that the thought of slogging through it to find out felt exhausting, and not worth the effort.

The post DNF: The Goddess of Nothing At All by Cat Rector appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Forging a Nightmare by Patricia A. Jackson

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 is Forging a Nightmare by Patricia A. Jackson!

Forging a Nightmare by Patricia A. Jackson
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 23rd November 2021
Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

Unknown to Humanity, the descendants of Fallen Angels live among us. After millennia of living in anonymity, a serial killer has discovered their secret and has marked them for death. FBI Agent Michael Childs is brought in to investigate a series of grisly murders in New York City. The only link between the victims is they were all born with twelve fingers and twelve toes, known in occult circles as the Nephilim, a forsaken people.

A break in the case leads to Marine Corps sniper Anaba Raines who is listed as killed in action in Syria. Michael finds the hardened soldier alive and well, but no longer Human. After getting too close to the truth, Michael refuses to be an unwitting pawn in a 3000-year old vendetta. With the killers closing in, he is forced to confront his own unique heritage or die. Only Anaba can save his life, but at a terrible cost – her freedom.

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I have a huge Thing for angelic mythology, which very much includes the nephilim, so I was immediately interested when the book description showed up online. Murder mysteries aren’t really my thing, but I don’t mind them as long as everything around the hunt for the killer – the characters, the world, the magic – are great, and this really looks like those things are going to be! Nephilim, snipers, and (guessing based on the title and cover) a real, literal, honest-to-gods night mare??? OMG YES!!!

Just the fact that Forging a Nightmare is being published Angry Robot rather than someone else is a huge vote in its favour – Angry Robot is one of my favourite publishers because they regularly publish books that are too out-there for others to know what to do with. Which makes it very likely that Forging a Nightmare is going to be even more awesome than it sounds. MY EXPECTATIONS ARE HIGH.

And, you know. That stunning cover definitely doesn’t hurt!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Forging a Nightmare by Patricia A. Jackson appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

10 Books Sure to Make You Smile

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Check out upcoming Top Ten themes on Jana’s blog!

Today’s theme is Books Guaranteed to Make You Smile. I’ve made lists like this before – Books That Make Me Smile, Laugh-Out-Loud Reads, and Gentle Books For Trying Times – but I noticed that I often recommend the same few books over and over, so I worked hard to put together a list of books I’ve not featured in this kind of list before!

And there’s quite a variety, so I hope everyone finds something to make them smile here

Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1) by Lucy Parker
Representation: Asexual secondary character
Goodreads

Beloved author Lucy Parker pens a delicious new romantic comedy that is a battle of whisks and wits.

Ready…

Four years ago, Sylvie Fairchild charmed the world as a contestant on the hit baking show, Operation Cake. Her ingenious, colorful creations captivated viewers and intrigued all but one of the judges, Dominic De Vere, the hottest pastry chef in London. When her glittery unicorn cake went spectacularly sideways, Dominic was quick to vote her off the show. Since then, Sylvie has managed to use her fame to help fulfill her dream of opening a bakery, Sugar Fair. The toast of Instagram, Sugar Fair has captured the attention of the Operation Cake producers…and a princess.

Set…

Dominic is His Majesty the King’s favorite baker, the go-to for sweet-toothed A-List celebrities, and a veritable British institution. He’s brilliant, talented, hard-working. And an icy, starchy grouch. Learning that the irksome Sylvie will be joining him on the Operation Cake judging panel is enough to make the famously dour baker even more grim. Her fantastical baking is only slightly more troublesome than the fact that he can’t stop thinking about her pink-streaked hair and irrepressible dimple.

Match…

When Dominic and Sylvie learn they will be fighting for the once in a lifetime opportunity to bake a cake for the upcoming wedding of Princess Rose, the flour begins to fly as they’re both determined to come out on top.

The bride adores Sylvie’s quirky style. The palace wants Dominic’s classic perfection.

In this royal battle, can there be room for two?

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It’s not spec-fic! Not even a little!!! Well, okay, one of the protagonists (I bet you can guess which) runs a fairyland-themed bakery with a dark-enchanted-forest bar in the basement, but that’s as close to anything SFF as it gets. I don’t care: this was so much fun, and if parts of it made me tear up (because FEELS) it also made me laugh, and beam, a lot. Of course there’s some drama, but it’s a feel-good romance with CAKES, and I can vouch for it being excellently written! One of my favourites of the year, actually, contemporary or not!

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard
Representation: Polynesian-coded MC and secondary characters, brown cast
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

An impulsive word can start a war.
A timely word can stop one.
A simple act of friendship can change the course of history.

Cliopher Mdang is the personal secretary of the Last Emperor of Astandalas, the Lord of Rising Stars, the Lord Magus of Zunidh, the Sun-on-Earth, the god.
He has spent more time with the Emperor of Astandalas than any other person.
He has never once touched his lord.
He has never called him by name.
He has never initiated a conversation.

One day Cliopher invites the Sun-on-Earth home to the proverbially remote Vangavaye-ve for a holiday.

The mere invitation could have seen Cliopher executed for blasphemy.

The acceptance upends the world.

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Hands of the Emperor is a very different book – it’s big and long and there’s a fair bit of magic, and it covers many things, but it is fundamentally a book that will make you glow. There is so much…so much goodness in this book, so much earnest but not naive optimism, so much determination to make the world better…and it’s not any kind of dystopia, there’s no violence, the struggle is hard but not that kind of hard, but it’s a struggle that succeeds, over and over again. It’s soothing. It’s soul-stirring. It gave me goosebumps and made me cry but cry with joy, with sheer perfect happiness, so yes, it will also make you smile. Smiling is the least of it.

This is a book that will stay with me forever, and I urge you to give it a try.

Three Twins at the Crater School by Chaz Brenchley
Genres: Sci Fi
Goodreads

Mars, the Red Planet, farthest flung outpost of the British Empire. Under the benevolent reign of the Empress Eternal, commerce and culture are flourishing along the banks of the great canals, and around the shores of the crater lakes. But this brave new world is not as safe as it might seem. The Russians, unhappy that Venus has proved far less hospitable, covet Britain’s colony. And the Martian creatures, while not as intelligent and malevolent as HG Wells had predicted, are certainly dangerous to the unwary.

What, then, of the young girls of the Martian colony? Their brothers might be sent to Earth for education at Eton and Oxbridge, but girls are made of sterner stuff. Be it unreasonable parents, Russian spies, or the deadly Martian wildlife, no challenge is beyond the resourceful girls of the Crater School.

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BOARDING SCHOOL ON MARS. Do you really need to hear anything else?! This is one of those books that is very easy to read, that is relaxing to read – nothing really bad happens or could happen, there are only adventurous shenanigans, and there’s something about low-stakes shenanigans that is just wonderful, isn’t there? When you’re in a certain kind of mood? It’s fun and not so complicated, but still with clever, whimsical worldbuilding and enough going on to keep you engaged.

I loved it, and you can read my review here!

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Representation: Bisexual MC, lesbian Asian-American love interest, F/F or wlw, trans secondary character, Black secondary character, Jewish secondary character, secondary M/M or mlm, queer cast
Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

From the New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue comes a new romantic comedy that will stop readers in their tracks...

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.

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This book won’t just make you smile, it IS a smile – the brightest smile ever, lighting up the whole of NYC. It’s funny and relatable and is gloriously queer, and the romance is swoonworthy, and literally everything about this is perfect, okay? EVERYTHING.

Which I could not do justice to in my review, but hey, I tried!

His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, #1) by Naomi Novik
Goodreads

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors ride mighty fighting dragons, bred for size or speed. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

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Yes, this is a book about the Napoleonic Wars + dragons – but the dragons make an ENORMOUS difference, and no, I don’t mean in the military sense (although they do that too). The dragons are people, with their own personalities and likes and dislikes and Opinions, and Temeraire, who is the Main and Also Best Dragon, is utterly charming. UTTERLY. I defy you not to adore him, and his questions about and takes on humans, which are delightful and hilarious. He will win you over in seconds and you’ll spend the rest of the series smiling at him, as you should!

A Civil Campaign (Vorkosigan Saga, #12) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Representation: Disabled MC
Genres: Sci Fi
Goodreads

Miles Vorkosigan has a problem: unrequited love for the beautiful widow Ekaterin Vorsoisson, violently allergic to marriage after her first exposure. If a frontal assault won't do, Miles thinks, try subterfuge. He has a cunning plan... Lord Mark Vorkosigan, Miles' brother, also has a problem: his love has just become unrequited again. But he has a cunning plan... Lord Ivan Vorpatril, Mile's cousin, has a problem: unrequited love in general. But he too has a cunning plan...

A complex story, as the various members of Miles' family attempt to find their one true love, and a measure of destiny. This against a background of domestic political squabbles and an earnest attempt at capitalist enterprise.

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True, A Civil Campaign is a book plucked out of the middle of a long-running series – but I think it would work perfectly well as a standalone; although you’d probably enjoy seeing Miles all flustered more if you knew him better, the book contains all you need to know. The sci fi elements are pretty light; it’s effectively a regency romance, with a hero who’s far too smart for his own good and a heroine who is also brilliant – enough to see right through him. There’s drama, and a few scares, but you know it’s all going to end well, and it does. Definitely a guaranteed-smile book!

(And no, that’s not them on the cover – that’s the Emperor and the new Empress getting married. I felt like that needed saying.)

The Little Queen by Meia Geddes
Representation: F/F
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

When her mother and father pass away, the little queen must figure out how to be a little queen. And so she begins her adventures, journeying away from her palace and into the world to determine how she should go about going on. The little queen soon encounters numerous folks who teach her a thing or two: the book sniffer, the dream writer, and the architect of silence are just a few. Along the way, the little queen finds friendship, love, and meaning in being a leader in her world. The Little Queen is a magical exploration of self-discovery, vocation, community, and home.

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This is a Soft book – you know, the kind that are dreamy and more than a little odd, but in whimsical way. And it’s a little bit sad – the Little Queen only becomes queen because her parents have died, after all. But her journey of discovery includes Fish Rescuers and Sleep Soothers and Dream Writers, Plant Whisperers and Season Painters and Animal Singers – all kinds of wonderful people doing strange and wonderful things, and it’s all very soothing and sweet. And even in my e-copy, the illustrations are beautiful!

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake (Winner Bakes All, #1) by Alexis Hall
Representation: Bisexual MC, Desi secondary character
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Following the recipe is the key to a successful bake. Rosaline Palmer has always lived by those rules—well, except for when she dropped out of college to raise her daughter, Amelie. Now, with a paycheck as useful as greaseproof paper and a house crumbling faster than biscuits in tea, she’s teetering on the edge of financial disaster. But where there’s a whisk there’s a way . . . and Rosaline has just landed a spot on the nation’s most beloved baking show.

Winning the prize money would give her daughter the life she deserves—and Rosaline is determined to stick to the instructions. However, more than collapsing trifles stand between Rosaline and sweet, sweet victory.  Suave, well-educated, and parent-approved Alain Pope knows all the right moves to sweep her off her feet, but it’s shy electrician Harry Dobson who makes Rosaline question her long-held beliefs—about herself, her family, and her desires.

Rosaline fears falling for Harry is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. Yet as the competition—and the ovens—heat up, Rosaline starts to realize the most delicious bakes come from the heart.

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IT’S ANOTHER BAKING BOOK! Well, yes – apparently baking romances are my thing now??? I actually read this one before Battle Royal, and I picked it up because it’s by Alexis Hall and I will read anything he chooses to write, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun! There is drama and some angst, yes, but there are also so many hilarious moments and uplifting, celebratory, triumphant ones too. I’d be shocked if you didn’t smile at LEAST ten gazillion times by the end!

Paladin's Grace (The Saint of Steel, #1) by T. Kingfisher
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

Stephen’s god died on the longest day of the year…

Three years later, Stephen is a broken paladin, living only for the chance to be useful before he dies. But all that changes when he encounters a fugitive named Grace in an alley and witnesses an assassination attempt gone wrong. Now the pair must navigate a web of treachery, beset on all sides by spies and poisoners, while a cryptic killer stalks one step behind…

From the Hugo and Nebula Award winning author of Swordheart and The Twisted Ones comes a saga of murder, magic, and love on the far side of despair.

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You can always count on Ursula Vernon/TK Kingfisher’s books to make you smile (well, except possibly her horror??? It’s the one book of hers I haven’t read, so I can’t say whether it’s a smiles-guaranteed book), and the Saint of Steel duology is no exception. It’s set in the same verse as Clockwork Boys and Swordheart, but you don’t need to have read either to enjoy the hell out of these! The first one features a socially awkward perfume-maker crossing ways with a paladin who has no idea how to be romantic as they both get caught up in Conspiracy and Murder; the second presents a suave paladin of the same order and a nun who takes no nonsense and does not need to, who finish up the last of the Conspiracy as they go along. Both are hysterically funny, interspersed with painfully, joyfully realistic human moments, and if you haven’t read them yet, you really need to.

You can read my review of book one here!

Ask Baba Yaga: Otherworldly Advice for Everyday Troubles by Taisia Kitaiskaia
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

With a strange, otherworldly style, poetic clarity, and striking honesty, Ask Baba Yaga contains beautifully skewed wisdom to be consulted in times of need.

Dear Baba Yaga,

I think I must crave male attention too much. I fear that, without it, I would feel invisible.
 
BABA YAGA:

When you seek others this way, you are invisible nonetheless. Yr shawl is covered in mirrors in which others admire themselves; this is why they greet you so passionately. It is good to be seen, but it is better to see. Find a being to look hard into, & you will see yrself and what is more than you.
 In age-old Slavic fairy tales, the witch Baba Yaga is sought out by those with a burning need for guidance. In contemporary life, Baba Yaga—a dangerous, slippery oracle—answered earnest questions on The Hairpin for years. These pages collect her most poignant, surreal, and humorous exchanges along with all-new questions and answers for those seeking her mystical advice. 

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This is a book that will make you smile in a very different way, I think. It’s not funny, and it’s not trying to be; it is weird and wild and strange. It’s exactly what it promises – otherworldly advice for everyday troubles. It’s a beautiful little book, and it will make you think, and find your own wildness again, if you happen to have misplaced it. It’s a book I’m very happy to have found, and I hope you find it too if you need it.

So there we have it – 10 Books Sure to Make You Smile! Let me know if you decide to give any of these a try!

The post 10 Books Sure to Make You Smile appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #50!

This week we have NINE new books to be excited about – featuring such delights as queer clones, immortal tightrope-walkers, hauntings and heists!

The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw
Representation: Sapphic MC, queer cast, major nonbinary secondary character, major genderfluid/bigender secondary character
Published on: 7th September 2021
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Goodreads

A diverse team of broken, diminished former criminals get back together to solve the mystery of their last, disastrous mission and to rescue a missing and much-changed comrade... but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of the secret at the heart of the planet Dimmuborgir. The highly-evolved AI of the universe have their own agenda and will do whatever it takes to keep humans from ever controlling the universe again. This band of dangerous women, half-clone and half-machine, must battle their own traumas and a universe of sapient ageships who want them dead, in order to settle their affairs once and for all. 

Cassandra Khaw’s debut novel is a page-turning exploration of humans and machines that is perfect for readers of Ann Leckie, Ursula Le Guin, and Kameron Hurley.

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I got to read this early, so I can assure you that this is one of the best books of the year, no freaking question! It has gorgeous prose and an amazing queer cast who have to save themselves (and everyone like them) from the AIs who’ve decided they need to be eradicated. It’s vicious and beautiful and I love it, as I said in great detail in my review!

No Gods, No Monsters (The Convergence Saga, #1) by Cadwell Turnbull
Representation: Black bi mc, Puerto Rican American sapphic mc, biracial bi ace trans mc, nonbinary side character, Black bi side character, Black side characters
Published on: 7th September 2021
Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother was shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.

As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of bread crumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters.

At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark?

The world will soon find out.

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This is another one that’s just *chef’s kiss* It’s fast and sharp and has many things to say about race and queerness and intersectionality, but it’s also about, you know, MONSTERS COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET, which is a pitch that will always get me. I’m already dying for the sequel! You can read all my thoughts about it over in my review.

The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova
Representation: Brown cast
Published on: 7th September 2021
Genres: Fantasy, Magical Realism
Goodreads

The Montoyas are used to a life without explanations. They know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low or empty, or why their matriarch won’t ever leave their home in Four Rivers—even for graduations, weddings, or baptisms. But when Orquídea Divina invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn the secrets that she has held onto so tightly their whole lives. Instead, Orquídea is transformed, leaving them with more questions than answers.

Seven years later, her gifts have manifested in different ways for Marimar, Rey, and Tatinelly’s daughter, Rhiannon, granting them unexpected blessings. But soon, a hidden figure begins to tear through their family tree, picking them off one by one as it seeks to destroy Orquídea’s line. Determined to save what’s left of their family and uncover the truth behind their inheritance, the four descendants travel to Ecuador—to the place where Orquídea buried her secrets and broken promises and never looked back.

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This sounds intriguing and lovely, and in combination with that gorgeous cover I am definitely going to be giving it a try!

How to Survive a Human Attack: A Guide for Werewolves, Mummies, Cyborgs, Ghosts, Nuclear Mutants, and Other Movie Monsters by K. E. Flann
Published on: 7th September 2021
Genres: Science Fantasy

Did you know human attacks account for a staggering 100 percent of premature deaths for witches, swamp monsters, cyborgs, and other supernatural, mutant, and exceptionally large beings?

The past millennia or so has seen not only an uptick in human attacks, but also increasingly indiscriminate victim selection. It is understandable to feel overwhelmed. From renowned preternaturalist K. E. Flann, How to Survive a Human Attack provides critical information at a critical time with chapters specifically tailored to their target audience, including:

· A Zombie’s Guide to Filling the Emptiness and Moving Forward

· First-Time Haunter’s Guide for Ghosts, Spirits, Poltergeists, Specters, and Wraiths

· Self-Training 101 for Werewolves: Sit, Don’t Speak, Stay Alive!

· What’s Happening to My Body?: Radioactive Mutants and the Safety of the Nuclear Family

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The whole concept of this book delights me – I love silliness that pretends to take itself seriously, and hey, it’s not like monsters don’t need a how-to-survive-humans guide! Poor things are always getting attacked in movies.

It’s also more than a little bit funny that this is coming out in the same week as No Gods, No Monsters. I wonder if that was on purpose?

The Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 7th September 2021
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Goodreads

An African tightrope walker who can’t die gets embroiled in a secret society’s deadly gladiatorial tournament in this thrilling historical fantasy set in an alternate 1880s London, perfect for fans of The Last Magician and The Gilded Wolves.

As an African tightrope dancer in Victorian London, Iris is used to being strange. She is certainly a strange sight for leering British audiences always eager for the spectacle of colonial curiosity. But Iris also has a secret that even “strange” doesn’t capture…​

She cannot die.

Haunted by her unnatural power and with no memories of her past, Iris is obsessed with discovering who she is. But that mission gets more complicated when she meets the dark and alluring Adam Temple, a member of a mysterious order called the Enlightenment Committee. Adam seems to know much more about her than he lets on, and he shares with her a terrifying revelation: the world is ending, and the Committee will decide who lives…and who doesn’t.

To help them choose a leader for the upcoming apocalypse, the Committee is holding the Tournament of Freaks, a macabre competition made up of vicious fighters with fantastical abilities. Adam wants Iris to be his champion, and in return he promises her the one thing she wants most: the truth about who she really is.

If Iris wants to learn about her shadowy past, she has no choice but to fight. But the further she gets in the grisly tournament, the more she begins to remember—and the more she wonders if the truth is something best left forgotten.

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I really don’t know what to make of this one, but I have heard only good things, which is always a good start! I’ll almost certainly be giving this one a go, just because I’m so curious about that premise, and immortality isn’t a magical secret I see too often in the books I read. (And good lord and lady, that COVER!)

Among Thieves by M.J. Kuhn
Representation: Queer cast, F/F or wlw
Published on: 7th September 2021
Goodreads

A high-stakes heist novel set in a gritty world of magic and malice
In just over a year’s time, Ryia Cautella has already earned herself a reputation as the quickest, deadliest blade in the dockside city of Carrowwick—not to mention the sharpest tongue. But Ryia Cautella is not her real name.
For the past six years, a deadly secret has kept her in hiding, running from town to town, doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead of the formidable Guildmaster—the sovereign ruler of the five kingdoms of Thamorr. No matter how far or fast she travels, his servants never fail to track her down...but even the most powerful men can be defeated.
Ryia’s path now leads directly into the heart of the Guildmaster’s stronghold, and against every instinct she has, it’s not a path she can walk alone. Forced to team up with a crew of assorted miscreants, smugglers, and thieves, Ryia must plan her next moves very carefully. If she succeeds, her freedom is won once and for all…but unfortunately for Ryia, her new allies are nearly as selfish as she is, and they all have plans of their own.

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This has been hyped so much that I’m a little wary of it, but so many sources I trust have praised it as well, so yes, I’m going to give it a try. I don’t like heist stories particularly, but this one may have to do with taking down a magic-users slave-trade, and apparently the character dynamics are really great. Also, witty banter has been promised, and that’s always fun.

A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix by C.B. Lee
Representation: Chinese cast, F/F or wlw
Published on: 7th September 2021
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Two intrepid girls hunt for a legendary treasure on the deadly high seas in this YA remix of the classic adventure novel Treasure Island.

1826. The sun is setting on the golden age of piracy, and the legendary Dragon Fleet, the scourge of the South China Sea, is no more. Xiang has grown up with stories about the Dragon Fleet and its ruthless leader, a woman known only as the Dragon Queen, all her life. Xiang desperately wants to set sail and explore—mainly to find her father, a presumed dead crew member of the Dragon Fleet. Her only memento of him is a pendant she always wears, a simple but plain piece of gold jewelry.

But the pendant's true nature is revealed when a mysterious girl named Anh steals it, only to return it to Xiang in exchange for her help in decoding the tiny map scroll hidden inside. Rumor has it that the legendary Dragon Queen had one last treasure—the plunder of a thousand ports—hidden away on an island shrouded in mist that only can be seen once in a blue moon.

Xiang is convinced this map could lead to the fabled treasure. Captivated with the thrill of adventure, she joins Anh and her motley crew off in pursuit of the island. But the girls soon find that the sea—and especially those who sail it—are far more dangerous than the legends led them to believe.

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A Clash of Steel is one of the Remix Classics series where someone smart asked authors of colour to retell some of the classics of English Literature. Since I hate the classics without fail, I am super into this. (I’m pretty sure there’s also a Little Women retelling with Black sisters set during the American Civil War, so, you know, the whole series looks very promising.) This one is Treasure Island, but with Chinese pirates and queer girls and a cover I am very heart-eyes for, and I can’t wait to read it!

Major Detours by Zachary Sergi
Representation: MC with anxiety, nonbinary MC, M/M or mlm
Published on: 7th September 2021
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Choose your path forward in this mystical interactive YA about the powers of friendship, self-discovery, and tarot.

It's the summer before college and four best friends—Amelia, Chase, Cleo, and Logan—are on the first leg of their road trip inspired by the unique tarot deck that Amelia inherited from her grandmother. However, their trip full of visiting occult shops, bonding and sightseeing, takes a major detour as the friends discover that their tarot deck is more valuable—and coveted—than they could've ever imagined. As the friends race to finish this mystical scavenger-hunt across the West coast and uncover the mysteries of their tarot deck, it is you who will decide where to go next and how the story will end. With four possible final and romantic endings, you will get to make actual choices to further the friends’ road trip adventure in this unique interactive novel.

​Will you uncover the mysteries of the tarot deck and the legacy left behind? Will you help Amelia and Chase learn and grow? And will you unravel the secrets these friends keep from each other—and from themselves?

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Do you remember those choose-your-own-adventure books, where you got to choose how the story went? This is one of those, but featuring tarot and queerness. It sounds like the digital ARCs were a mess, so it might be wiser to get this as a paper copy instead of an ebook if you’re interested, although there’s a good chance the retail ebook copies will be much better arranged.

The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh
Representation: Bisexual MC, lesbian love interest
Published on: 7th September 2021
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Dare Chase doesn’t believe in ghosts.

Privately, she’s a supernatural skeptic. But publicly, she’s keeping her doubts to herself—because she’s the voice of Attachments, her brand-new paranormal investigation podcast, and she needs her ghost-loving listeners to tune in.

That’s what brings her to Arrington Estate. Thirty years ago, teenager Atheleen Bell drowned in Arrington’s lake, and legend says her spirit haunts the estate. Dare’s more interested in the suspicious circumstances surrounding her death—circumstances that she believes point to a living culprit, not the supernatural. Still, she’s vowed to keep an open mind as she investigates, even if she’s pretty sure what she’ll find.

But Arrington is full of surprises. Good ones like Quinn, the cute daughter of the house’s new owner. And baffling ones like the threatening messages left scrawled in paint on Quinn’s walls, the ghastly face that appears behind Dare’s own in the mirror, and the unnatural current that nearly drowns their friend Holly in the lake. As Dare is drawn deeper into the mysteries of Arrington, she’ll have to rethink the boundaries of what is possible. Because if something is lurking in the lake…it might not be willing to let her go.

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This is more horror than fantasy, from the sounds of it, so I probably won’t be picking it up, but I felt like it deserved to be included!

That’s it for this week! Did I miss any new releases I should know about? Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #50! appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

The King of King Arthur Retellings: Blackheart Knights by Laure Eve

Highlights

~King Arthur, but motorbikes!!!
~King Arthur, but queer people exist!!!
~knights as rockstars
~you should definitely listen to the fortune-teller, actually
~magic graffiti

Perhaps you love the King Arthur mythos. Perhaps you hate it. Perhaps you’ve actually managed to be an English-speaker whose never heard of it at all.

It really doesn’t matter which, because whatever camp you fall into, I think you’ll love Blackheart Knights. Because it’s a retelling that manages to honour and draw heavily from the ‘canon’ (if the King Arthur story can be said to have a canon, which I’m not sure it really can) while being so original, so itself, that you can forget about it being a retelling at all if you want to. It stands on its own with or without the ‘canon’ to back it up – and it’s standing across from you in the fighting ring, with its sword drawn, telling you to bring it.

Laure Eve has created a brilliant world not quite like anything I’ve ever seen before. The landmass that is Scotland-England-Wales is divided up into multiple kingdoms, of which London is the most powerful and influential. But the setting isn’t medieval; there are knights, but they ride motorbikes, not horses, and though they fight with swords, guns are absolutely a thing. There’s magic, but the people who can use it – godchildren – wear monitoring bands around their wrists and are tattooed at 18 so people can identify them. Fashion trends are set by rockstar knights; legal disputes are decided in an official arena, where the champions of each party fight until the Saints grant the deserving side their victory. Televisions are ‘glow-screens’, and over the course of the book we see them go from being an expensive rarity to something every household owns. And London itself is divided into districts, each ruled over by one of the seven families descended from the Saints who established the modern world.

It’s strange, and delightfully different, and it’s so beautifully cohesive. Eve’s London is so real you can almost touch it, all the disparate parts coming together in a perfectly organic whole. No part of it ever rang false or unrealistic or there Just Because. It all works.

And so does the story. Stories, really, because Blackheart Knights is made up of two storylines, following two different characters. The first is Art, who is very clearly Eve’s take on King Arthur; he’s the illegitimate son of King Uther, his conception was surrounded in scandal and magic, and he was raised outside of London, away from its politics. The book opens with him and his friends being surprised by the news of Uther’s death, and the revelation that Art is now, kind-of-sort-of-but-very-temporarily, King. Temporary, because London’s monarchy isn’t decided by blood; the new King (or Queen) will be determined by the Saints, as each noble family puts forward their champion, and the winner of the subsequent tournament takes the crown. And while Art originally has no intention of putting any champion forward – having no desire to be King – his friends convince him of the good he could potentially do in the role, and so he goes through with it.

It’s not really a spoiler to tell you that his champion wins, is it?

The second storyline starts years later and follows Red, a young woman whose dramatic arrival into London’s knight-scene wins her a spot in a real knight’s stable, where she’ll either get through her training and become a true knight – not some wannabe playing dress-up – or wash out. But Red isn’t going to wash out: she’s on a mission, and nothing on earth is going to stop her from completing it.

Blackheart Knights alternates between the two plotlines chapter by chapter, and although the chapters aren’t named, they are headed by timestamps: 18 years ago, 4 years ago, six months ago, etc. It works incredibly well both because it doesn’t drag the story out – we don’t see every minute of Art growing into a King, but the time-skips are effectively placed, showing us exactly what we need to see – the most important bits, and the most interesting. The same goes for Red; we get to follow her training without having to slog through every minute of it ourselves, but we still get to see the pivotal moments, still get to experience the parts that really matter.

Adrenalin leaves shaves of metal in her blood, cutting her up on the inside.

The timestamps also work as a countdown, building up the tension like the timer on a bomb. The pacing is flawless, but bit by bit the timelines come closer and closer – not just to Now, but closer to each other. There’s the sense that the storylines are powering towards each other like screeching trains, the certainty that there’s going to be one hell of a collision, but right up until the final pages I couldn’t see what it was going to be, couldn’t see how the two were connected. I notoriously don’t see twists coming, so smarter readers than me might put it together long before I did – but I was on the edge of my seat right up to the last page, and kudos to Eve for it.

I loved absolutely everything about this book. There isn’t one thing I’d change, nothing I want to critique. Eve’s prose is tight and polished, elegant as the swordsmanship of a top-tier knight, action and description in perfect balance with each other. Her cast is brilliant, and not only are they brilliant, but we get to see them grow and change and I loved that too; the soft edges of Art’s idealism being honed into something sharper as the reality of ruling sets in; Red’s brittle ferocity struggling to hold onto its shape, her drive tempered somewhat by the emotional connections she makes as she builds a life for herself in London. Every single one of the side-characters were just as three-dimensional, wholly themselves rather than just agents for the plot; nonbinary and stubbornly honourable Garad, sharp and cynical Lillath, yielding Orcade, tricksy Dario, Belisade with all her unexpected depths. I might not have adored every character as a person, but from a writing perspective? All the way down to the most minor, they’re flawless.

‘We made up honour and justice to beat back the dark in our own hearts, but the universe doesn’t care about our desperate little stories. The universe has never heard of honour.’

And I was surprised, but really happy, when I realised that Eve had no intention of using the ‘original’ names for her characters – you won’t find a Merlin or Guinevere or Morgana among the lot. Some of the characters, I could guess at who they’d been inspired by – Art, aka Artorias Dracones, is clearly Arthur, and I’m tentatively sure of a few others. Most of the time, I had no clue. And even where I guessed, it’s a case of Eve drawing inspiration from the ‘canon’, not giving an old character a new name – the character filling Morgana Le Fay’s role isn’t Morgana, not any iteration of Morgana you can think of: she’s herself, even if a few bits of her character or plotline echo the idea of Morgana. (And Eve’s reinterpretation of the whole Lady of the Lake thing is unmitigated GENIUS.) This really, really worked for me, because it reinforced the idea that this is a new story, something I haven’t seen before. I don’t know, using new names is a tiny detail, a tiny change, but it makes a huge difference and I’m glad.

What else can I say? I love Blackheart Knights. The first thing I did once I’d finished was fling myself at Google to find out if there was going to be a sequel (there is, it’s a duology, and the sequel is officially at the top of my Must-Haves list). It’s gorgeous, neon and magic together, the knight’s Code alongside motorbikes and televised sports and fashion icons. It took me places I didn’t expect to go, showed me things I hadn’t imagined before. I never knew what was going to happen next, and I absolutely didn’t want it to end. I loved it. I loved every moment of it. It’s unquestionably one of the best books of the year.

Go read it!!!

The post The King of King Arthur Retellings: Blackheart Knights by Laure Eve appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Heartbreaking in the Wrong Way: Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Representation: Multiracial trans MC, sapphic Japanese MC, F/F or wlw
Published on: 28th September 2021
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
ISBN: 1250789060
Goodreads

Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in this defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.
Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate.
But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.

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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~AIs = BFFs
~gaming music is just as valid as classical music, you snobs
~make sure you have the right violin bow
~the donut shop is run by aliens

I feel like I should have enjoyed Light From Uncommon Stars much more than I did. I’m more than a little heartbroken, and feel guilty, that I’m not waxing poetic now, gushing with praise. On paper, if you listed out all the tropes and themes, all the delightful details like the the donuts, it reads like a checklist of everything I love.

But I just didn’t love the way it was all put together.

I didn’t hate it. I just didn’t love it, either – even though I thought I would, and wanted to so badly. I feel so jealous of everyone who did, does, and will love it – I wish I did too.

Sigh.

For a start, it’s super unfair to pitch this as Good Omens meets the Wayfarer series. That sets expectations way, way too high. But even if you say, well, Light has some common elements with both – demons and space-travel respectively – Good Omens is more coherently whimsical, and the Wayfarer books are deep, quiet, thoughtful feel-good sci fi. I think Light From Uncommon Stars wanted to be whimsical, and tried to do the deep-but-feel-good thing. But I don’t think it succeeded at either. The most whimsical part of the book is probably the donuts, in the donut shop that is secretly a sci fi stargate – but the writing is so bare and blunt that most of the time, the donuts are as appealing as rocks. And as for being a feel-good book, the story kind of lectures the reader about how uplifting music is and how we can always rewrite our song…but right up to the final pages Katrina, the trans character, is still enduring dead-naming and fetishization and sexual assault, almost to the point of misery-porn.

And I think the idea is supposed to be a) it is hard and often extremely sucks to be trans, and b) an attempt at empowerment – Katrina has done sex work and in that was holds power over those who see her as a fetish.

Which…sure? A lot of the time and in a lot of places, it can be terrible or at least difficult to be trans. And sex work absolutely can be empowering. But it’s a pretty bleak picture Aoki is painting here. These are real and important topics that shouldn’t be swept under the rug, but I never felt any real optimism or hope from the story. There’s no ‘it gets better,’ and if this were another book I’d say that was the point, that it was deliberate, but here it feels like the story was trying to be hopepunk, or at least leave the reader warm and glowing, and just…failed.

The climax of the book, the moment that is supposed to be Katrina’s triumph, is packed full of descriptions and explorations of transphobia. And Katrina is acting in defiance of all of that, I get it. But it deflates any sense of triumph. It doesn’t feel like a win. So…what exactly am I supposed to be feeling here, except depressed?

And all of this is written in what feels like a very simplistic way. The entire alien plotline, for example, felt picture-book simple. The way they talk to each other is…robotic, which I guess might have been deliberate? But there’s also the apparently random scene-breaks that appear every few paragraphs, sometimes mid-conversation, throughout the book – and often without actually jumping to another point of view or another scene. It makes the book feel extremely jerky, constantly stopping-and-starting, like a stalled car.

There’s so much lecturing. So much telling-not-showing. And some of those lecture-bits have beautiful lines in them, or poignant messages, but…they’re not fun to read.

I found the prose blunt and dry, the constant scene-breaks jarring, and thought the awfulness and attempted-whimsy undercut each other instead of somehow balancing or combining. And I’m sorry, because I wanted to adore this book so much. But I just don’t.

I do hope it’s wildly successful, because we need more books going in the direction Aoki was going for. I hope I’m just an outlier, and that you give it a try despite this review. I hope you love it the way I wanted to.

The post Heartbreaking in the Wrong Way: Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Fucked-Up and Beautiful: Lips Like Ice by Peggy Barnett

This is a review I originally wrote for Goodreads in 2015, which I’m cross-posting here because the new edition of the book was published this week. I’ve made only minor edits.

Lips Like Ice by Peggy Barnett
Representation: Black bisexual MC, alien gender system, physically agender major character who transitions to male against social convention
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Goodreads

He calls himself the Prince. He is humanoid but not human—fascinating, sensual, at the cusp of maturity, and accustomed to getting what he wants. And Lydia has awoken in his world with no memory of her life before to find that she has been given to him: as a pet, a plaything, and, if he so desires, a lover.

As Lydia comes to realize that the Prince is as much a prisoner to his culture's ways as she is, her resentment slowly unfurls into pity, curiosity, and a deeply unpredictable and confusing lust. She wants him too, on her own terms. But in a world fraught with hidden dangers, her terms are not open for discussion, not when their thirst for one another could doom them both.

In a court where monarchs are obeyed and sexual hierarchies are strict, one wrong move could end the Prince for ever... and what would happen to Lydia then?

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Trigger warnings for the book are listed at the end of the review.

Let’s get this out of the way: I do not read romances. Not only do I not read romances, but until last year I was one of those horrendous snobs who looked down upon Romances, capital R, as being somehow lesser than my precious spec-fic.

Obviously this is an incredibly stupid thing to think, and I’m very glad I learned out of it.

But although I no longer deliberately avoid romance novels, I still manage to…well, never read any. I’m the one who likes dragons and epic quests and in those kinds of stories, my darlings, the romances tend to be very poorly written. Women in popular fantasy don’t tend to have a lot of agency, and the romantic (or simply sexual) relationships they tend to end up in are usually…less than ideal, shall we say.

I tell you this, because it adds weight to the declaration that Lips Like Ice knocked my fool socks off.

Look: it’s kind of an alien abduction story. And it’s kind of a faeries-kidnapping-humans-to-Elfland story. But mostly? Mostly it is a very, very self-aware look at agency and consent and personhood and gender, wrapped up in some of the most fascinating world-building I have ever seen. It’s tense and exciting and awful and emotional. It broke my heart and made me rage and had me in tears.

It’s perfect.

Lydia is a woman of colour who wakes up on another planet. Or maybe in another dimension; it’s not perfectly clear. She’s surrounded by very tall, very inhuman creatures she takes to calling ice elves; creatures who view her as humans view goldfish or dogs. A pet, in other words. She’s been snatched from her life, spelled into amnesiac compliance, and bestowed upon a prince in much the same way human parents might give their child a kitten.

Weirdly enough, it doesn’t really go well.

I don’t want to talk too much about the plot. It’s fascinating, though, because even as it slowly transforms into a romance, you know it shouldn’t – and Lydia knows it shouldn’t. Both the main character and the reader knows, every step of the way, that this is messed up and unhealthy and quite possibly not based on real emotion at all. It’s bitter even at its sweetest, because how can you trust yourself to love when you know you’re being brainwashed? And at the same time, there’s a fantastic amount of character growth, for Lydia but particularly for her owner/master, who’s simply known as ‘the prince’ until the final pages. Barnett is a sorceress with her words, slowly and skillfully making it clear that the prince is just as much of a victim as Lydia – if in a whole different way. She does this without once ever letting him off for his treatment of Lydia, which is something I’ve never seen another author accomplish. Abusers can start out as victims, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are abusers. They may deserve understanding, but not forgiveness – not until they apologise and do better, at the very least. And maybe not even then.

Barnett’s characters leap off the page – every page. The interactions of Lydia and the prince are multi-faceted and unflinching, even at their most horrific. Barnett does not try to sugar-coat the horror of Lydia’s situation, and I think that’s what saves the story from what could be a mess of dubious cliches; it’s so self-aware, and Lydia herself is so self-aware, that Lips never dissolves into an unrealistic fairytale. It’s not a fairytale. It’s brutal. It’s also incredibly human for both Lydia and the prince to build the relationship they do – even if the process of getting there will tear your heart out over and over. It’s impossible not to feel every drop of Lydia’s horror and frustration, her conflict as she starts to sympathise with her captor – and her fear of what that sympathy will do to her, what it means for her.

As for the ice elves themselves – not many authors can pull off really inhuman characters. The ice elves are not completely alien (although I absolutely adored their physiology and the thought Barnett has put into their culture and biology!), but neither do they feel human. It’s a fine balancing act, but one that really works; completely alien aliens might be more terrifying in theory, but because the ‘elves’ are familiar enough to understand, it’s all too easy to see similarities between the elves’ view of Lydia and humanity’s views of other animals. It’s an unnerving, alarming comparison (especially given that Lydia is a WoC) one that really drives home the fear and screaming frustration Lydia is forced to go through. We can understand how and why the elves think the way they do… And we, no more than Lydia, cannot convince them that they’re wrong.

All of this makes it sound like a terrible book. It’s not. It’s one of the best written novels I’ve seen in a long time; one of the very best I’ve read so far this year. And it’s not all horror and depression. There’s a lot of beauty in it, and there is a happy ending. I think you need to know that, going in, or sensitive readers might not make it the whole way through…

I loved Lips Like Ice so much I had to track down Barnett’s other pen-name. I won’t say it here – although you can find it if you look – but I wasn’t surprised to find that I already know and love her other books. I definitely recommend tracking them down. Google is your friend! In the meantime – you definitely have to read this one. If you like unique romances, if gender issues are dear to your heart, if you want an emotional roller-coaster that you can’t put down – this is definitely the book for you.

Just make sure you have chocolate and tissues nearby.

Trigger Warnings for the book: abduction, magically-forced emotions and amnesia, magically-inflicted pain, slavery/dehumanisation, cultivated Stockholm Syndrome, dubious consent, sexual assault, female-on-male rape, refusal to recognise/accept a character’s gender identity

The post Fucked-Up and Beautiful: Lips Like Ice by Peggy Barnett appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

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 is The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez!

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
Published on: 1st March 2022
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

A reluctant warrior goes on the run with an ancient goddess through a lush world full of wild magic, wondrous creatures, and hidden enemies in this beautiful epic fantasy from the author of

The Vanished Birds

.

In the land of the Strangled Throat, the people suffer under the rule of a despotic Emperor. His sons, the Three Terrors, despoil the countryside and oppress its citizens. When Keema Daware--a fierce warrior who lost his left arm in battle--finds the mythic Empress, who has escaped from her royal imprisonment, at his sentry outpost, he must make a choice: turn her in and evade the wrath of the Three Terrors, or help her overthrow the government and free a nation.

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Funny story: this popped up on my radar a while back – maybe it was the cover reveal? – and I was intrigued. So I went to see if the author had written anything else that I could check out (…let’s agree this was before the cover reveal, so I didn’t miss the whole author of The Vanished Birds right there under the author name!) and he had! In fact, The Vanished Birds was already on my tbr, but since it was sci fi and the blurb was pretty vague it hadn’t made it to the top of my tbr yet.

Reader, I fucking adored The Vanished Birds, and I hope I can write a worthy review for it soon. But my point is, The Spear Cuts Through Water is now right at the top of my Must-Have list. I’m hopeful that Jimenez will create a fantasy world that normalises queerness, as in his sci fi – maybe even feature queer characters, like The Vanished Birds did – but to be honest, even if he doesn’t, I’d still be making grabby-hands at this book!

And aside from all of that, I am HERE for mythic empresses of all kinds. GIMME!

The post I Can’t Wait For…The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

In Short: August

This month has been pretty great – I’ve made some new reader/blogger friends, discovered the most AMAZING burritos, and various new meds for various health things seem to be working really well. AND I READ SO MANY WONDERFUL BOOKS!

Read

I finished…THIRTY-TWO books this month?! I mean, there’s a few novellas in there and a short story, but still! What? How? BY WHAT DARK WIZARDRY??? I have no idea, but that’s the new record of books-per-month since I started tracking it back in January!

I will be seriously surprised if I ever manage top that, unless I spend one full month just reading novellas or something, I guess.

I got to reread a bunch of dear-to-my-heart favourites this month – like the Tarot Sequence, which was part of my buddy-read with the hubby; the Astreiant series; and the Touchstone trilogy by Andrea K Host. (I mega forgot how immersive they are!) And new favourites, which very much includes the Tarot Sequence novellas (which I had not read before), The All-Consuming World, Blackheart Knights, and Susurrus of Mars, all of which were weird and wonderful in very different ways.

Now for the stats!

Out of 22 authors, I read

18 women, 2 men, and 1 nonbinary peep (to the best of my knowledge. I’m also counting trans men as men and trans women as women)5 BIPOC + 17 white people

Same number as BIPOC authors as last month – grr, I would have liked to do better – but it’s 22.7% of my month’s reading! Which is the best I’ve managed so far!!! (Not that you should give me too much credit – it’s literally 1 per cent more than last month. BUT I’LL TAKE THE IMPROVEMENT, THANK YOU.)

Books Reviewed

Five reviews in one month isn’t bad – it’s a tiny bit over one a week. I’m especially happy that this month wasn’t all ARC reviews – I love getting to sing the praises of books that are already out, not just ones that haven’t been released yet! Five is less than last month, but last month I was also on holiday, so I think five is fine.

Books DNF-ed

Everyone told me that the last book of the Lightbringer series was a disaster, but I was still hoping I’d enjoy it. I often end up disagreeing with the majority opinion, when it comes to books! But alas, no. The Burning White is a trainwreck, and I’m heartbroken about it, because this was one of my very favourite series. But shoving in huge new (and completely unnecessary) plots at the very last second, and then making all of it meaningless because God steps in to fix everything and makes one of your main characters into Jesus…? No. Sorry-not-sorry, but no.

I am very bitter.

Wake of the Phoenix isn’t bad so much as bland; I had to force myself to read as much as I did, and when reading feels like a chore, it’s usually time to DNF the book. The seeds of interesting ideas were there, and maybe they sprout and bloom later in the book, but it just wasn’t worth the effort of slogging through the rest of it to find out. Bland setting, very stupid politics, over-powered character who can’t do things Because Reasons…no thanks.

Light Chaser was one I was excited about, but the first few pages were torture to read – clunky dialogue and hugely pretentious writing. The blurb was also fairly misleading – this is not, in fact, a book about someone whose calling is to gather the stories of others; it’s her job, and there are specific worlds on her route she has to check in on, and the ‘trinkets’ she trades aren’t little music boxes or figurines or anything small and beautiful, they’re swords and armour and medicine, which are only trinkets because she’s handing them out from a culture so advanced these things are almost worthless to them. Not what I was expecting (or wanted) at all.

ARCs Received

I’m still checking Netgalley roughly 21 times a day to see if Erewhon Press has uploaded Scratch Daughters or The Nightland Express yet, but I still snagged some seriously cool-looking ARCs this month! I admit I winced when I opened up The Blood Trials and discovered it’s first-person present-tense – I really wish more publishers included excerpts so you could know that sort of thing before going in!

But I’ve already devoured Activation Degradation, I’m loving The Beholden so far, and I’m excited to pounce on Payback’s a Witch – Lana Harper is a penname of one of my favourite authors. So an excellent haul!

ARCs Outstanding

I’ve finished Light From Uncommon Stars, so the next task is to review it. which I’m struggling will because it ended up disappointing me, which I feel guilty and sad about. I’m stalled on reading The Starless Crown and The Goddess of Nothing At All – I really don’t want to pick either of them up again, which is not a great sign…

Rec Lists & Misc

I wrote up my Faves From the Last Decade – which was supposed to be one book from each year, but as you’ve probably guessed, I couldn’t quite stick to that…

Yesterday was #TransBooks365 on twitter, and I spent four hours putting together a thread of SFF books with trans and nonbinary leads – with sub-sections for not-yet-released books and books by trans and nonbinary authors without trans or nonbinary main characters. It was definitely worth the effort! I’m so happy it’s made so many other people happy, and that I got to spotlight some books and authors who don’t get enough love.

I also just discovered that Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a thing!!! Which I will now be taking part in every week. HEE!

Looking Forward

I’m more than a little bit heartbroken that Scratch Daughters got pushed back to December, but September is still full of incredible releases! Granted, I’ve read some of them as ARCs, but I fully intend to re-read The All-Consuming World (mostly because my ARC was full of typos and I really need to see the no-typos version, please and thank you). I have no idea what to expect of The Robber Girl, but it’s Billingsley’s first new book in ages and yes, I am hyped. AND THE BONE SHIP’S WAKE. BECAUSE REASONS.

Also can’t wait to see how the world in general reacts to Summer Sons and The Last Graduate, both of which I adored.

Last but certainly not least is When Sorrows Come, which!!! It’s the WEDDING! Toby and Tybalt are finally getting marriiiiiiiiiiiiied! Although I’m SURE there will be shenanigans…

That’s it for this month. May September be excellent for us all!

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