Siavahda's Blog, page 93

WWW Wednesday: 20th Jan

I’ve decided that, at least for the foreseeable future, I’m going to be participating in WWW Wednesdays, which is a meme hosted over at Taking On a World of Words. To take part, you just answer the three questions below, and link back to TOaWoW!

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC and love interests, polyamory, M/F/F/M
on 31st January 2021
Genres: Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

A lyrical and dreamy reimagining of Dracula’s brides, A DOWRY OF BLOOD is a story of desire, obsession, and emancipation.

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things. Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets.

With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.

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This is a polyamorous retelling of the story of Dracula, as told by one of his wives. It’s utterly gorgeous, and I know I’m going to struggle to review it just because I love it so much! (Why is it so much easier to review books you hate than books you love??? So unfair!)

WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING?The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose, #1) by M.A. Carrick
Representation: Bisexual PoV character, queernorm world
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy
Goodreads

The Mask of Mirrors is the unmissable start to the Rook & Rose trilogy, a dazzling and darkly magical fantasy adventure by Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms, writing together as M. A. Carrick.

Fortune favors the bold. Magic favors the liars.

Ren is a con artist who has come to the sparkling city of Nadežra with one goal: to trick her way into a noble house, securing her fortune and her sister's future.

But as she's drawn into the elite world of House Traementis, she realizes her masquerade is just one of many surrounding her. And as nightmare magic begins to weave its way through the City of Dreams, the poisonous feuds of its aristocrats and the shadowy dangers of its impoverished underbelly become tangled…with Ren at their heart.

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I just finished (and reviewed over here) Mask of Mirrors, a book I was really excited about but ended up not falling for. Alas! But I’m weirdly happy that everyone else seems to love it, because it’s not a bad book in and of itself.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL READ NEXT?The Philosopher's Flight (The Philosophers Series, #1) by Tom Miller
Genres: Historical Fantasy
Goodreads

A thrilling debut from ER doctor turned novelist Tom Miller, The Philosopher’s Flight is an epic historical fantasy set in a World-War-I-era America where magic and science have blended into a single extraordinary art.

Eighteen-year-old Robert Weekes is a practitioner of empirical philosophy—an arcane, female-dominated branch of science used to summon the wind, shape clouds of smoke, heal the injured, and even fly. Though he dreams of fighting in the Great War as the first male in the elite US Sigilry Corps Rescue and Evacuation Service—a team of flying medics—Robert is resigned to mixing batches of philosophical chemicals and keeping the books for the family business in rural Montana, where his mother, a former soldier and vigilante, aids the locals.

When a deadly accident puts his philosophical abilities to the test, Robert rises to the occasion and wins a scholarship to study at Radcliffe College, an all-women’s school. At Radcliffe, Robert hones his skills and strives to win the respect of his classmates, a host of formidable, unruly women.

Robert falls hard for Danielle Hardin, a disillusioned young war hero turned political radical. However, Danielle’s activism and Robert’s recklessness attract the attention of the same fanatical anti-philosophical group that Robert’s mother fought years before. With their lives in mounting danger, Robert and Danielle band together with a team of unlikely heroes to fight for Robert’s place among the next generation of empirical philosophers—and for philosophy’s very survival against the men who would destroy it.

In the tradition of Lev Grossman and Deborah Harkness, Tom Miller writes with unrivaled imagination, ambition, and humor. The Philosopher’s Flight is both a fantastical reimagining of American history and a beautifully composed coming-of-age tale for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider.

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This has been on my tbr for years, and while browsing through my kindle the prologue hooked me hard. So this has definitely just jumped up the list!

The post WWW Wednesday: 20th Jan appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Coulda, Shoulda, Didn’t: Books I Failed to Read in 2020

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!

I don’t do this on weeks the prompts don’t interest me, but I quite like this one: Books I Meant to Read In 2020 but Didn’t Get To. Does anyone ever get to every book they mean to read???

Looking back, I’m pretty pleased that I read (or tried to read) all of the books on my Most Anticipated Releases of 2020 list! And in fact, there were very few 2020 releases that I was interested in which I didn’t get to. So while this list has a few 2020 releases on it, it’s mostly just…books I meant to read last year and didn’t, regardless of the year they were published! I think the prompt is phrased in a way that allows that.

So, not counting books I DNF-ed or set aside to try again later, here are 10 books I meant to read last year and still really need to get to!

The Sunken Mall by K.D. Edwards
Representation: Gay MC, M/M, queernorm world
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Brand and Rune will generally do anything to avoid equinox shopping, but they're determined to buy their ward, Max, gifts to make him feel like a member of the household.

That's when the principality Ciaran tells them about the Sunken Mall. In the early days of translocating buildings to the city of New Atlantis, there were...mistakes. There's a myth - which Ciaran claims is real - of an entire mall that was lost during Christmastime in the 80s. Ciaran knows the location: it's hidden deep in the island bedrock, undisturbed for decades.

What could go wrong?

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How have I still not read this yet?! The Tarot Sequence is my favourite ongoing series, so what the hell??? But I was weirdly cruel to myself last year and didn’t let myself do a lot of rereading – and I really want to read Sunken Mall in its chronological order, which means rereading Last Sun first.

Which I should sit down and do, because, you know, Last Sun is a joy and what even is wrong with me???

Ember Boys (Flint and Tinder, #1) by Gregory Ashe
Representation: Bisexual MC
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Emmett Bradley thinks his adventures are over. Together with his friends, he stopped an ancient evil and lived to tell about it. But life as a survivor, even as a survivor of a victory, isn’t easy, and when Emmett runs away from Vehpese, Wyoming, he takes a few things with him: a battered ego, a broken heart, and his addictions. He’s lucky that Jim Spencer, his former English teacher, happens to have ended up in the same small, coastal town. He’s even luckier that Jim is doing everything he can to help Emmett hold himself together.

When Emmett’s parents commit him to the psychiatric ward of an infamous hospital, though, Emmett finds himself struggling day to day to remember that the life he’s lived—a life with monsters and psychics—is real. Every day, he finds himself a little less certain that he can trust any of his memories.

A chance encounter with a strange girl, though, forces Emmett to confront the possibility that things around him aren’t quite what they seem. The hospital may not actually be a hospital. His adventures may not be over. And the ancient evil he stopped in Wyoming might have been only one strand in a larger web.

Then Emmett is attacked by a dead man, and he realizes that he’s caught up in a war he doesn’t understand. He must hurry to learn the truth about what’s going on, and he’ll need Jim’s help to do it. He just has to convince his old teacher that things between them aren’t too complicated already—but first, Emmett will have to convince himself.

Note: Emmett has previously appeared in the Hollow Folk series.

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This is the start of a sequel/spin-off series to the Hollow Folk books, aka one of the greatest series to ever exist. And yet, I haven’t opened up Ember Boys! Mostly because I’ve felt too fragile to make it through a Hollow Folk reread, and am willing to bet Ember Boys isn’t going to be soft and fluffy either. I need to work myself up to this level of angst, okay?

The Storm of Life (The Brilliant Death, #2) by A.R. Capetta
Representation: Genderfluid MCs, NB/NB
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

The sumptuous and powerful conclusion to the gender-fluid duet begun by The Brilliant Death, hailed by Kirkus as "a delicious and magical intrigue too tempting not to devour" (starred review).

Teodora diSangro and Cielo, the strega she loves, are on a mission to save their country of Vinalia from its manipulative leader, who wants to exploit streghe and use them as his weapons. But will marshaling a small but powerful band of streghe be enough to wrest power from a cunning dictator? And what if Teo's been setting her sights on the wrong enemy all along?

This epic sequel to The Brilliant Death completes the Italian-inspired fantasy duology with shocking twists, steamy romance, and magic that will dazzle your imagination and make you wish Vinalia were a real place.

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Besides having a jaw-droppingly beautiful cover, Storm of Life is the sequel to The Brilliant Death, a gorgeous Italian-inspired fantasy about shapeshifting, genderfluid witches. I loved the first book and I’m so annoyed I still haven’t managed to get to the sequel!

Finding Faeries: Discovering Sprites, Pixies, Redcaps, and Other Fantastical Creatures in an Urban Environment by Alexandra Rowland
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

Discover where faeries and other mythical creatures are hiding in our modern, urban environment with this beautifully illustrated guide to uncovering magical beings.

From the musty corners of libraries to the darkest depths of urban sewers, faeries, boggarts, redcaps, and other fantastical species can be found all around us—but only if we know where to look. And like every other being in the modern world, these wonderous creatures have been forced to adapt to the climate, industrial, and cultural changes of the modern era. Many formerly common creatures from akeki to cave trolls have been driven out by the urban sprawl, technological advancements, and climate change while others, including ether sprites and brownies, have been able to thrive in abundance, creating homes within electrical hotbeds and massive landfills.

Featuring descriptions of magical creatures from around the globe, this encyclopedic collection details the history and adaptability of more than fifty different species of fae. Describing little-known and fascinating creatures such as the Luck Pigeon of Baltimore, the Ghost Cat of India, and the Brain Sucker of South Africa, this book will expose readers to fantastical species from a variety of cultures and communities.

Combining scholarship with modern lore and environmentalism, and featuring stunning hand-drawn illustrations, Finding Faeries is a captivating look at the fantastical beings that inhabit our world today.

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I’m a worldbuilding fanatic, and I love the Fae, so this ought to be a match made in heaven! But… I haven’t really started this one yet. I really can’t tell you why, since it sounds like it was written just to delight me!

Susurrus on Mars by Hal Duncan
Representation: M/M
Genres: Science Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

This novella-length collection of Erehwynan Idylls offers readers an indulgent and weird agglomeration of randy boys and revelations, as the embodiment of a small breeze--actually the gene-spliced child of the gods Zephyros and Ares--flirts and seduces fleshlings on a terraformed future Mars. Hal Duncan's acclaimed style is both alethic and erudite and offers a fresh telling of philosophical musings and classic Greek mythology for 21st century readers.

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I was all ready to read this…and somehow it slipped down the back of my tbr pile without me noticing. Duncan’s Book of All Hours duet is an underappreciated masterpiece and two of my favourite books ever written. Sussurus sounds strange and beautiful and right up my alley, so…hopefully I get to it this year!

Knife Children (The Sharing Knife #4.5) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy
Goodreads

Lakewalker Barr Foxbrush returns from two years of patrolling the bitter wilds of Luthlia against the enigmatic, destructive entities called malices, only to find that the secret daughter he'd left behind in the hinterland of Oleana has disappeared from her home after a terrible accusation. The search for her will call on more of Barr's mind and heart than just his mage powers, as he tries to balance his mistakes of the past and his most personal duties to the future.

A stand-alone story set in the world of The Sharing Knife.

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The Sharing Knife series is one of my favourite comfort reads, and I was so excited when Bujold came back to the Sharing Knife world with Knife Children! But this is another case of, I need to reread the earlier books, and I just haven’t managed it yet.

Floodtide by Heather Rose Jones
Representation: F/F, multiple sapphic characters
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Historical Fantasy
Goodreads

The streets are a perilous place for a young laundry maid dismissed without a character for indecent acts. Roz knew the end of the path for a country girl alone in the city of Rotenek. A desperate escape in the night brings her to the doorstep of Dominique the dressmaker and the hope of a second chance beyond what she could have imagined. Roz’s apprenticeship with the needle, under the patronage of the Royal Thaumaturgist, wasn’t supposed to include learning magic, but Celeste, the dressmaker’s daughter, draws Roz into the mysterious world of the charm-wives. When floodwaters and fever sweep through the lower city, Celeste’s magical charms could bring hope and healing to the forgotten poor of Rotenek, but only if Roz can claim the help of some unlikely allies.

Set in the magical early 19th century world of Alpennia, Floodtide tells an independent tale that interweaves with the adventures.

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Floodtide is the fourth book in the fantasy regency romance series Alpennia, named for the fictional country it’s set in. Again… I just need to reread the rest of the series first. I’m also a little wary because this is the first installment written in first person, and first person…is not my preference, generally. That said, I’ve loved the series so far (I think it’s gotten better with every book) so I will read it. You know. Eventually?

The Cloudship Trader by Kate Diamond
Representation: Nonbinary MC, queernorm world
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

While visiting a famed mountaintop market, cloudship flier Miris and nir companion, the Wind spirit Seres, find a merchant selling Star spirits imprisoned inside glass lamps.

And then ney learns that the lamps are only one piece of a cruel plot to capture and enslave Stars, a plot that could spell disaster for the peaceful relationships between people and spirits that have shaped their world for generations.

Joined by the merchant’s assistant Belest, a man running from a terrible situation and desperate to mend the harm he unwittingly aided in, Miris and Seres fly north, seeking the source of the lamps so that they can end the practice before it becomes widespread and unstoppable.

On their journey, they visit wondrous places, meet healers and thieves, politicians and priests, make friends both human and not. But if they are to put a stop to the slavers’ work, Miris and Belest must first learn to trust each other.

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This sounds like a beautiful little book that I would very much like to get to know better. It’s another, like Sussurus, that just got shoved out of the way by pushier books on my tbr. But a nonbinary MC bonded to a wind spirit, flying ships and captured stars??? I must make time for it!

Realities (Rhapsody of Blood, #4) by Roz Kaveney
Representation: F/F or w|w, varied queer cast
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

From the deep dark forests of primordial Europe to the deserts of Africa... From the gardens of what was once Hell and is now something new and different to the sinister silent halls of a rebuilt Valhalla... From the gloomy London of the late Victorian London to a very different London of bright lights, coffee shops and cocktail parties...

Mara the Huntress and a newly apotheosized Emma pursue the mysterious enemy who devised and teaches the Rituals of Blood, and the people he has corrupted - the Huntsman god, some annoying hipsters and the man they called the Ripper. With new friends like H.G. Wells and Mary, the mother of Josette, and old acquaintances like Polly Wilde, Elodie and the restored and resurrected Sof, they frustrate some of the enemy's schemes but still have no sense of his end game.

This fourth volume of the much admired Rhapsody of Blood sequence is as grim and occasionally hilarious as its predecessors.

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The fourth (and maybe final? I’m not sure) book in the Rhapsody of Blood series came out in 2018…but only made it to ebook last year. I did embark on a series reread this time, but I’m currently just starting book 3, so I didn’t manage to get to this one last year. But soon!!!

The Deep and Shining Dark (Marek #1) by Juliet Kemp
Representation: Queer MC
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Pages: 270

You know something’s wrong when the cityangel turns up at your door .

Magic within the city-state of Marek works without the need for bloodletting, unlike elsewhere in Teren, thanks to an agreement three hundred years ago between an angel and the founding fathers. It also ensures that political stability is protected from magical influence. Now, though, most sophisticates no longer even believe in magic or the cityangel.   

But magic has suddenly stopped working, discovers Reb, one of the two sorcerers who survived a plague that wiped out virtually all of the rest. Soon she is forced to acknowledge that someone has deposed the cityangel without being able to replace it. Marcia, Heir to House Fereno, and one of the few in high society who is well-aware that magic still exists, stumbles across that same truth. But it is just one part of a much more ambitious plan to seize control of Marek.   

Meanwhile, city Council members connive and conspire, unaware that they are being manipulated in a dangerous political game. A game that threatens the peace and security not just of the city, but all the states around the Oval Sea, including the shipboard traders of Salina upon whom Marek relies.   

To stop the impending disaster, Reb and Marcia, despite their difference in status, must work together alongside the deposed cityangel and Jonas, a messenger from Salina. But first they must discover who is behind the plot, and each of them must try to decide who they can really trust.
Book 1 of Juliet Kemp’s gripping new series

The “absolutely gorgeous” cover artwork is by renowned artist Tony Allcock.

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I remember being utterly seduced by the excerpt I read of this, but as a 2018 release it got pushed aside by all the books I felt I had to get read last year. But it remains one of the titles on my tbr that I’m most excited about, even if I don’t remember the specifics of why!

What did you not manage to read last year?

The post Coulda, Shoulda, Didn’t: Books I Failed to Read in 2020 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

It’s Not You, It’s Me (Probably); The Mask of Mirrors by M. A. Carrick

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.

The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose, #1) by M.A. Carrick, Marie Brennan
Representation: Bisexual PoV character, queernorm world, multiple minor F/F and M/M
on 21st January 2021
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy
Goodreads

The Mask of Mirrors is the unmissable start to the Rook & Rose trilogy, a dazzling and darkly magical fantasy adventure by Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms, writing together as M. A. Carrick.

Fortune favors the bold. Magic favors the liars.

Ren is a con artist who has come to the sparkling city of Nadežra with one goal: to trick her way into a noble house, securing her fortune and her sister's future.

But as she's drawn into the elite world of House Traementis, she realizes her masquerade is just one of many surrounding her. And as nightmare magic begins to weave its way through the City of Dreams, the poisonous feuds of its aristocrats and the shadowy dangers of its impoverished underbelly become tangled…with Ren at their heart.

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~Beautiful masks
~The make-up is magic
~Don’t let the monsters eat your dreams
~A fabulous pet spider

Reader: I did not love this book.

A lot of that is on me; I knew going into this that M. A. Carrick is the pseudonym of Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms, and although I adore the premises of all Brennan’s books, something about her style has always put me to sleep. Secondly, I also knew this was a story centered around a con, and I don’t care about cons and heists and all that sort of thing. So really, I probably should have given this one a pass.

But it sounded so perfect, and all the press for it is glowing, and how often do we get 700+ pages-long fantasies anymore? From two authors who are both anthropologists? It was going to be silks and jewels in a queernorm setting, with guaranteed detailed worldbuilding, so… I risked it.

And now I’ve finished it, it all seems so forgettable. I have no strong feelings about it at all. I certainly don’t hate it, but I can’t think of anyone I’d recommend it to, either. I have no urge to gush; I’m not struggling to turn my flaily delight into something legible. I’m equally not torturing my keyboard in hammering out frustration or upset. I’m just…

Meh.

I want to say that there’s nothing actually wrong with this book; these are not bad writers by any stretch. But turning the final page this morning, I realised that I didn’t care about a single one of the characters. The enormous reveal that takes place on the second-last page, which should have been jaw-dropping… I felt nothing. I’m confused as to how this isn’t a standalone, because Mask of Mirrors wraps up just about every question it asks and every plotline it starts, which makes the dramatic final line – which is literally something like “This is your game? Then let’s play. ” – a wet fizzle when it was clearly meant as a mic-drop, a drawn sword, a let’s play.

To which my only response is: play what? No, don’t answer, I don’t actually care.

And I can’t tell you why. The characters all have their backstories, their unique motivations, people and things they care about. Some are sweet and some are not; some are out for family and some are out for blood; some are criminals-with-hearts-of-gold and some of them are criminals-but-you-love-it; there’s a whole mixed bag here, is what I’m saying, and almost all of them – appropriately, given the book’s title – wear multiple masks, appearing very different from different angles, in different contexts. Sometimes that’s literal, as in the case of the Rook, a mysterious vigilante who defends the poor from the nobility from within an enchanted cowl; sometimes it’s a bit more metaphorical, like Ren, who uses make-up and mannerisms to pass for a noble or a fortune-teller as the situation requires.

But the cast is so varied that it must be nearly impossible, statistically, to not care about any of them. And I don’t. I found a few mildly more interesting than the rest…but not nearly interesting enough that I would have finished reading the book if it hadn’t been an arc (which I do feel obliged to finish, unless one is actually abysmally bad). And given that Mask of Mirrors is over 700 pages long (nearly 800 on my kindle)…I mean, you had twice as much space as most books to make me care. And yet, you failed. That’s not great.

That said, it’s clear from other early reviews that I’m the exception. I don’t think this is an objectively bad book; I think it’s a case of book + reader not meshing well, for whatever reason. But I do have one legitimate critique.

I think there’s an almost mathematical rule that the faster the pace of the story, the ‘blunter’ your prose can be. You don’t need a lot of three-syllable adjectives for an action story (although of course, you’re free to use them if you want). But the flipside of that is that when your story moves slowly, your prose needs to become…dreamier, lovelier, more poetic. A slower story needs beautiful prose to both justify the languid pace, and also to give your reader something to enjoy which is not the story itself (because the story itself is not moving forward very quickly). And I think Mask of Mirrors fails to justify its pacing that way. The prose is not beautiful enough to make me want to linger over every page, to make me appreciate and even enjoy that slower pace. I wouldn’t call it bad, but the best I can describe it as is ‘pleasant’. A meal that didn’t give you food poisoning, but that you won’t have again.

Moving onto the worldbuilding, which I expected to be spectacular… Maybe I went in with my expectations too high, because I wasn’t impressed. The setting didn’t feel different enough from things I’ve seen before to stand out as impressive. A lot of attention has been paid to detail; the various parts of this world fit together perfectly, I won’t deny that. If the worldbuilding rule is that authors must know every detail down to how the plumbing works, well, Brennan and Helms know how the plumbing works. And yet, the setting still feels generically European; not Medieval, but vaguely Regency, maybe, only queerer and with magic, drawing on Venice instead of England or France. Renaming the months of a year doesn’t impress me, nor does creating your own stand-in for tarot. I was looking for a setting that felt truly different, and I didn’t get it.

Ultimately, I just never felt invested, and I won’t be picking up the sequel. But since I seem to be very much the exception, I do still think you should give it a try if the blurb appeals to you.

The post It’s Not You, It’s Me (Probably); The Mask of Mirrors by M. A. Carrick appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

A Glorious Chimera of a Book: The Councillor by E. J. Beaton

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.

The Councillor by E.J. Beaton
Representation: Bisexual MC, queernorm world, past F/F, secondary M/M, kink
on 2nd March 2021
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

This Machiavellian fantasy follows a scholar's quest to choose the next ruler of her kingdom amidst lies, conspiracy, and assassination.

When the death of Iron Queen Sarelin Brey fractures the realm of Elira, Lysande Prior, the palace scholar and the queen’s closest friend, is appointed Councillor. Publically, Lysande must choose the next monarch from amongst the city-rulers vying for the throne. Privately, she seeks to discover which ruler murdered the queen, suspecting the use of magic.

Resourceful, analytical, and quiet, Lysande appears to embody the motto she was raised with: everything in its place. Yet while she hides her drug addiction from her new associates, she cannot hide her growing interest in power. She becomes locked in a game of strategy with the city-rulers – especially the erudite prince Luca Fontaine, who seems to shift between ally and rival.

Further from home, an old enemy is stirring: the magic-wielding White Queen is on the move again, and her alliance with a traitor among the royal milieu poses a danger not just to the peace of the realm, but to the survival of everything that Lysande cares about.

In a world where the low-born keep their heads down, Lysande must learn to fight an enemy who wears many guises… even as she wages her own battle between ambition and restraint.

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~Machiavelli, if Machiavelli wasn’t a dick
~The presents are code and the code is snark
~Who gets the crown? Everybody!
~Snakes
~Forget knives, the assassins have fireballs
~Do you want some kink with your romance, madam?
~Silver > gold
~A very pretty quill
~Bookworms kick ass, actually

Everyone is touting this book as a Machiavellian fantasy, so the first thing you need to know about The Councillor is that yes, it absolutely is Machiavellian.

The second thing you need to know about The Councillor is that it is absolutely not Machiavellian at all.

The comparisons are easy to see: Lysande, our main character, is the advisor and companion to the queen of Elira, just as Machiavelli was involved in Florentine governance – he was in charge of government documents; Lysande is commonly called the queen’s scholar and knows the library inside-out and backwards. Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a treatise on how monarchs should control their kingdoms; when The Councillor begins, Lysande is writing An Ideal Queen, much the same except written for a world where ‘women and men’ are equals. Machiavelli believed rulers could use violence if the ends were good; Lysande idolises Sarelin, the Iron Queen who plucked her from obscurity with bloody hands.

But the thing is – describing something as ‘Machiavellian’ isn’t just to say there’s politics involved. It has the connotation of being unethical; the Oxford Dictionary defines it as ‘cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics’.

Is Lysande cunning? Yes. Does she scheme? Yep. But unscrupulous? No. And, which I find far more important – and which you should, too, given that she is tasked with choosing the Iron Queen’s successor! – does she believe, as Machiavelli did, that cruelty is more valuable than mercy in a leader? That it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved, if they can’t be both?

“Control people with a sword, and they resent you. Control them with a song, and they plead for more.”

No. She doesn’t. And that is really important.

So I wouldn’t call The Councillor Machiavellian. Because Lysande, drug addiction and all, has a better, more hopeful vision of what a kingdom can be than Machiavelli ever did. And although she never wanted the responsibility of deciding the fate of Elira, once she has it, she realises that she can do something with it.

Don’t get me wrong: she’s not an idealist, and she doesn’t start this journey believing the system needs changing. She’s grown up with the mantra restrain, constrain, subdue from her childhood in the orphanage, and the maxim of Elira’s central province – everything in its place – isn’t a whole lot better since it’s applied to people rather than cutlery, but it is something she more-or-less believes in. She believes in both. She lives her life by both. It takes her world being turned upside-down before she – slowly, gradually – starts to realise that maybe the world ought to stay upside-down.

the particular effects of living in a place where you feel like a jeweler’s rag, always in contact with diamonds and emeralds, but only to show up their quality.

Lysande has grown up a common scholar amongst the noble silverbloods (whose blood is not literally silver, it’s just a name), and you can bet that the ladies and lords have made their feelings about her felt. And yet it’s only when she suddenly holds the power of the crown – even if it’s only to give that crown to someone else – that she seems to realise that the way they’ve treated her isn’t all that great. Or rather, not all that great, and also undue. ‘Everything in its place’? Her place is now as Councillor, above all of them; above even the city-princes of Elira’s other provinces. And yet she’s still the same person she always was, so how can it be correct to treat her differently? Why was it okay to snub and slur her before and not now, though she hasn’t changed?

Everything in its place.

Do you call that a philosophy, she had once asked Sarelin, or do you call that a threat? Sarelin had become very busy cleaning her hunting-knife and had said nothing.

Maybe it wasn’t okay. Maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe restrain, constrain, subdue is a terrible way to live. Maybe she should spread her wings and see exactly what she’s capable of.

Aside from classism, Lysande also has to confront Elira’s prejudices towards Elementals, persecuted magic-users who can control earth, air, fire, water, or what’s known simply as ‘mind’. Though she’s not one herself, her best friend Charice secretly is, and Lysande’s loyalty to Serelin, who had Elementals executed throughout her reign, is an uneasy bone of contention between the two friends. Although the issue is personal for Lysande in the form of Charice, it becomes bigger than that when she gains the power to potentially do something about the way Elementals are treated.

She traced the metaphor with a finger–Elira, the tapestry of many colors, climates and cities, sewn together by one leader.

At the expense of a certain type of people, her conscience added.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t impressed, at first, with the concept of the Elementals – their magic seemed predictable and simple. And maybe it is, a little – theirs isn’t a very original magical ability – but more than what they can do, it’s their place in Eliran society – or the place they might be able to make, with Lysande’s help – that matters to the story, and that was a very interesting aspect to the book that I didn’t see coming. More, it becomes clear that the Elementals have their own culture, their own beliefs and traditions and rituals, which are going to be far more important than Lysande can believe. Maybe their magic isn’t super interesting (to me), but the Elementals as a people very much are.

And that attention to detail shines through in every part of Beaton’s worldbuilding, from social norms to fashion to food to flora to dance, and plenty more. The five provinces of Elira are almost five separate countries, culturally, and introducing the reader to them via the city-rulers who come to Lysande vying for the crown is an excellent move, showcasing the cultures each ruler has come from – and that has shaped them – rather than info-dumping the reader. But to be honest, I’d happily read all the info-dumps Beaton feels like writing, because her prose is stunning. She has a way of putting things into words that is simply breathtaking.

There were times when you wished for a shared language of breath, a grammar of the eyes, a vocabulary of touches, so that nothing needed to be risked through sound.

The Councillor is an intricate dance of culture and politics, and there are layers upon layers of secrets here – not least that of who, and what, killed the Iron Queen, and what, if anything, the White Queen – Sarelin’s long-time enemy, a fearsome Elemental – had to do with it. There are multiple factions all working towards incompatible goals, some of whom will compromise and become allies, some of whom will fight to the bitter end. There are no monoliths here, and even the characters and groups positioned against Lysande…most of them have pretty good reasons to be doing what they do. Black-and-white morality doesn’t have a place here; the situation just isn’t that simple. Acts may be unforgivable, but the motivations of Lysande’s enemies are sympathetic and complicated – just as they should be.

Every character we meet is three-dimensional and multi-layered, driven by their own desires, shaped by the cultures they come from; it’s impossible not to adore them all, and not to marvel at how real Beaton manages to make entirely fictional people. I challenge you not to fall in love with Litany, the young woman who becomes Lysande’s lady’s maid (and rather more), or Cassia, the city-ruler of Pyrrha, who shares Lysande’s interest in the extinct, magical creatures called chimeras. And it’s very difficult indeed not to be seduced by the wickedly intelligent, mysterious Luca, city-ruler of Rhime, who makes no friends and keeps all his secrets close.

I really have to take a moment to talk about the handling of sex and sexuality in this book, because it’s just wonderful. Beaton uses beautiful prose and a frank approach to normalise, not just a world in which men marry men and women marry women and no one bats an eye, but one in which a woman doesn’t have to be ashamed of her sexuality. I’m not talking about her bisexuality specifically – although I loved that Beaton made it clear that Lysande’s attraction towards women doesn’t cancel out her attraction to men, and vice versa, any more than her relationships with men make her heterosexual – but simply the fact that she feels desire, and knows herself desired, and enjoys sex, and none of these things are in any way shameful. Lysande experiences desire, and she acts on it when it’s reciprocated, without shame or guilt; she’s a sexual being, and the lack of commentary on that is its own commentary. Sex and romance are separate things here, and adults can have sex and enjoy each other’s companionship and that is enough; not every sexual relationship is a romantic one, or comes with strings attached, or is entered into in the hope that this person might be The One. And this is without mentioning that Lysande is something of a dominatrix, sexually: something which is also presented without comment, which the narrative does not shame or punish her for. It’s clear that Lysande never even considers that her ease with her sexuality, and sexual preferences, are anything to be ashamed or hesitant about. As she shouldn’t, because they aren’t! But it’s refreshing to see how well Beaton has stripped our world’s sexual hang-ups from the world of The Councillor. More casually sex-positive fantasy, please!

This is a chimera of a book; not just one thing or the other, subverting your expectations throughout, and yet harmonious and beautiful, all its pieces coming together into a marvelous whole. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough, and I honestly can’t believe this is Beaton’s debut! It reads like the polished work of a master storyteller – it’s honestly perfect. There’s not one thing I’d change, or even critique. I love it even more than I expected to: there’s no question this is going to be one of the best books of the year, and one of the strongest debuts I’ve ever seen ever.

Long live the Councillor!

The post A Glorious Chimera of a Book: The Councillor by E. J. Beaton appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Some Gems, Some Duds: Upon a Once Time by Todd Sanders (ed.)

Upon a Once Time by N.A. Sulway, Mike Morgan, Rebecca E. Treasure, Melissa Mead, Alex Langer, Joshua Gage, M. Regan, Suri Parmar, Cat Rambo, Evan Dicken, Anna Fagundes Martino, Taryn Haas, Anna Madden, Lin Darrow, Dennis Mombauer, Kit Falbo, Maya Chhabra, C.J. Dotson, Jude Reid, Jamie Lackey, Brent Baldwin, Nike Sulway
Goodreads

Fairy tales and folk tales, originally passed down orally through generations, are a fundamental part of our shared world culture. They are a way to interpret - through magic and monsters, princesses and paupers, queens and quests - lessons on morality and society. They show a once upon a time world of simple archetypes in fantastical situations.

This book gathers twenty-one authors who have brought new focus to fairy tales by combining two well known stories with a literary genre of their choice.

Upon a Once Time contains the following tales re-imagined: The Arthurian Cycle, The Bad Wife, Beauty and the Beast, The Boy Who Drew Cats, The Brown Bear of Norway, Caliph Stork, Cinderella, Diamonds and Toads, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, The Goblin Spider, The Golem of Prague, Iron John, The Little Mermaid, Little Red Riding Hood, Math Fab Mathonwy, Momotaro, The Nightingale, Petrosinella, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed, The Red Shoes, Rumpelstiltskin, Rusalka Tales, Schneewittchen, The Selkie Bride, Sleeping Beauty, The Swineherd, Taketori Monogatari, Thousandfurs, Tom Thumb, The Twelve Months, The Valiant Little Tailor, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Vasilisa the Wise, The Waters of Life, The Well of the World’s End, The Wild Swans, and The Woodcutter’s Daughter.

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Anthologies are always risky propositions, in my experience, but I rolled the dice on this one almost solely on the basis of that stunning cover. It didn’t hurt that I loved – still love – the concept of crossbreeding fairytales! So I was pretty hopeful when I opened it up.

And I’m not sorry I did, because there are some real gems here. But overall, I would rate this book as…meh.

The Greats

Six Rusalki by Na Sulway – this was a mash-up of the Pied Piper of Hamlin and the myth of the rusalka, which is a usually-female water-spirit from Slavic folklore. This was probably my favourite story in the entire collection, with really stunning prose and a brilliant premise. It even exceeded the brief by working in a bunch of other stories as well; Excalibur shows up, as do wishing wells and what’s clearly meant as an inspiration for the Frog Prince story. It’s about women’s rage and the worldbuilding for rusalka culture is just exquisite. I’m definitely going to be looking up more of Sulway’s work!

The Waters at the End of the Worlds by Mike Morgan – a mash-up of the Well of the World’s End and the Waters of Life, but sci-fi. The youngest of seven alien princes has to try to find the water that will make his emperor-father immortal, and it was really clever and sneaky. I loved the twist ending, which felt very in line with how dark and gory the older versions of fairytales tend to be.

Strings That Ought to be Pondered, Even in Urgent Times by M. Regan – Goblin Spider + Petrosinella (aka, Rapunzel) and possibly the only story that picked Horror as its genre. I loved this one, its nice to see monster princesses, even if I felt very sorry for the poor prince!

Taketori Momogatari by Evan Dicken – okay, actually, THIS might be the best story in the whole collection; all the characters are apps and other digital creations, they live in a server-kingdom, and the monsters are worms and viruses and things. And in this setting, a woman sends three suitors off to complete quests, and ends up completing them herself. Really clever, really fun, and I would love a novel set in this universe!

Sunshine Noir for Synthetic Lovers by Lin Darrow – this was a solarpunk story with really brilliant worldbuilding, where gender is determined by whether you’re more Synthetic or more Organic (people being made up of both at this point). I do think it failed the brief, really, in that it barely touched on the Donkeyskin story it was supposed to use as part of the mash-up, but I loved it so much I don’t really care.

Mutability by Maya Chhabra – really wonderful premise of mixing the Welsh legend of Blodeuwedd with the Caliph Stork, and I think Chhabra pulled it off really well. There were one or two weaker spots, but overall I’d love to see this premise given a full novel to play in. I do think it would probably be less delightful to a reader who didn’t know about Blodeuwedd previously, but I loved it.

Where the Earth Meets the Sea and the Sea Meets the Sky by Brent Baldwin – this was the perfect story to end the book on, and it’s basically a perfect story, featuring a selkie woman who falls in love with the man who bakes her scones. It’s sweet, and clever, and wonderfully subverts the usual selkie wife stories, as well as giving a very lovely ending to another old story you’re likely to already know very well.

The Okays

Little Tom’s Reality by Rebecca E. Treasure – I didn’t find this one super interesting; Tom Thumb is a boy who’s never been outside because his family live on a planet that’s still undergoing terra-forming. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t amazing.

Diamonds, Toads, and…Pumpkins? by Melissa Mead – this one really disappointed me, because I love the Diamonds and Toads story and intensely disliked how lame this short story was, but it’s not actually bad. It’s just…the tone is weirdly casual, and even with the little bit of meta it wasn’t very interesting. It was meant to be Humor + Fantasy, but it really didn’t pull off being any kind of funny.

The Rabbi’s Daughter and the Golem by Alex Langer – amazing premise (beauty and the beast, but golems) that the story itself just didn’t live up to. I think this would have done better as a novella; it felt rushed and squashed, like Langer didn’t have enough space to do it justice.

Abigail Washington and the Angelic Organ of Far Khitan by Joshua Gage – this was one of the few stories where I wasn’t familiar with the works that were being mashed up (I know The Nightingale, but I’ve never heard of Iron John), and maybe it would have made sense if I did? But as it was…it really didn’t make sense. The actual writing was quite pretty, but it felt like a moralising fable and the ending was just strange.

Lady of the Slake by Suri Parmar – this could have been amazing, but it couldn’t quite live up to its premise of the Lady of the Lake falling in love with a spoiled princess. But it did have a marvelous first line: “I knew at first sight that she would stop at nothing for her happy ending.”

Two of Our Kind by Ann Martino – this one had an interesting format, being told in the form of a biography including letters between the characters; the king of one country, and Cinderella post-ball. My biggest issue was that, not knowing the story of the Valiant Little Tailor, I didn’t get how the king and Cinderella had all these shared experiences, so the story didn’t stand on its own too well.

The Pilot by CJ Dotson – the only reason this isn’t among the Greats is because the beginning was so clunky and forced. Once the story shifted to being told via journal entries and ‘vox box’ recordings, it really shone – a brilliant inventor helps her brother woo a woman, but ends up falling for her herself.

A Dark Path Through the Forest of Stars by Jude Reid – a pretty clever mash-up of Little Red Riding Hood with Sleeping Beauty, it was just shy of getting listed with the Greats. Here, Red is working on a ship that takes the rich and fabulous to newly terraformed worlds, but has to deal with an unexpected wolf. The ending delighted me.

The Awfuls

Red Boots Blues by Cat Rambo – the writing was pretty, but I had no clue whatsoever wtf was going on. I don’t know the story of The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, which is half of the mash-up for this one, but still, I don’t think I should need to for your story to make sense. The ending came out of nowhere. Honestly, this one actively annoyed me.

Currants to the Sea by Taryn Haas – this started out really beautifully, but dissolved into absolute nonsense, and not even a F/F ending could save it for me. Housewife leaves her terrible husband and gets adopted by the Sea King??? Or maybe is his long-lost daughter??? It’s not at all clear, and it’s even less clear how she can help the adventurer with her impossible tasks. Really disappointing, because it started so well.

Cloak of Bearskin by Anna Madden – nothing made sense, nothing was explained, things happened at total random, I have no idea how this was accepted for publication.

The Candlewood Trail by Dennis Mombauer – this one was even worse. Again, I had absolutely no idea wtf was going on, except that maybe they were in space? And the ending was…I have no idea what that was. Somehow the mc got the better of the Corporation that owned her even though…they screwed her over??? I have no idea. This was incredibly frustrating to read, and the stupid priest’s Gnomic utterances didn’t help.

Gell Who Makes by Kit Falbo – I don’t like being actively mean, but my 14yo sister writes much, much better than this. And granted, she’s gifted, but my point of how the hell did this get published still stands. Swapping between tenses, not knowing when to break a paragraph, clunky writing, basic punctuation rules completely broken (and not for deliberate effect) – urgh. This was probably the worst story in the whole book.

The Forest Magic Protests Its Own by Jamie Lackey – okay, probably no one else would call this Awful, because on its own, this is a really beautiful little story about a carpenter’s daughter and a faun who fall in love and end up together despite everything. BUT. If you have read The Faun and the Woodcutter’s Daughter, which is one of many stories written by Barbara Leonie Picard and published in the 1960s rather than, say, something like Snow White which is centuries old and we’ll never know who made it up – if you’ve read the original, then you’ll know that Lackey sticks to it practically word for word, with just a little extra detail about the young woman’s human suitor. So this enraged me because it’s not a mash-up, it’s almost a perfect copy of Picard’s story.

*

And after all of that? I would like to mention that Upon a Once Time is a stupid title that makes no sense at all. Twice Upon a Time was right there. Right there!

In conclusion, there were some gems, plenty of okay stories, and some really bad duds (but I guess, on the whole, not many). I wouldn’t say it lives up to its cover, and the ebook formatting was so bad I hope the paperback is better, but it’s not a total trainwreck. I think quite a few people would enjoy it, if you’re a fan of retold fairytales.

Just don’t give Jamie Lackey any credit for The Forest Magic Protests Its Own by Jamie Lackey, because the story wasn’t nearly different enough from the original to be considered Lackey’s own creation.

The post Some Gems, Some Duds: Upon a Once Time by Todd Sanders (ed.) appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Book Tag: My Life in Books!

imyril over at There’s Always Room for One More challenged anyone who felt like it to a book tag where you describe your life in books! That sounds like way too much fun not to pounce on it!

There’s just two rules: try not to repeat a title, and only use books read this year. Well, I haven’t read many yet in 2021, but Imyril used their 2020 reads, so I will too. Clicking on the titles takes you to their Goodreads pages!

I gather that the titles are supposed to fit the sentence, rather than the feel of the book being a ‘true’ answer, so… Here we go!

In high school I was: In an Absent Dream

People might be surprised by: A Conjuring of Assassins

I will never be: Docile

My fantasy job is: Queen of the Darkness

At the end of a long day I need: Paladin’s Grace

I hate: False Value

I wish I had: Crown of Feathers

My family reunions are: What Fresh Hell

At a party you’d find me with: The Wise and the Wicked

I’ve never been to: The City in the Middle of the Night

A happy day includes: Queerly Loving

Motto I live by: Aphrodite Made Me Do It

On my bucket list is: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe

In my next life, I want to have: Wonders of the Invisible World

That was harder than I was expecting! I won’t tag anyone, but if you want to give it a try, post a link to your version in the comments so I can check it out!

The post Book Tag: My Life in Books! appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

WWW Wednesday: 13th Jan

I’ve decided that, at least for the foreseeable future, I’m going to be participating in WWW Wednesdays, which is a meme hosted over at Taking On a World of Words. To take part, you just answer the three questions below, and link back to TOaWoW!

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner
Representation: Bisexual MC, F/F or wlw, classism, poverty
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

A charming historical fantasy with a tender love story at its core, from the author of Unnatural Magic.

Hard-drinking petty thief Dellaria Wells is down on her luck in the city of Leiscourt—again. Then she sees a want ad for a female bodyguard, and she fast-talks her way into the high-paying job. Along with a team of other women, she’s meant to protect a rich young lady from mysterious assassins.

At first Delly thinks the danger is exaggerated, but a series of attacks shows there’s much to fear. Then she begins to fall for Winn, one of the other bodyguards, and the women team up against a mysterious, magical foe who seems to have allies everywhere.

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I didn’t manage to finish my arc by release day, and now I’ve swapped over to the published, finished version of the book. (Yes, I bought it even though I had an arc. Arcs aren’t finished copies, and I like supporting authors with more than just reviews!) I’m loving it just as much as I knew I would! Delly, the mc, is absolutely hilarious and I adore the dialect Waggoner has created, up to and including Delly’s made-up words, which we should all start using immediately. I’m in love!

WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING?The Councillor by E.J. Beaton
Representation: Bisexual MC, past F/F or wlw, queernorm world, secondary M/M
on 2nd March 2021
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

This Machiavellian fantasy follows a scholar's quest to choose the next ruler of her kingdom amidst lies, conspiracy, and assassination.

When the death of Iron Queen Sarelin Brey fractures the realm of Elira, Lysande Prior, the palace scholar and the queen’s closest friend, is appointed Councillor. Publically, Lysande must choose the next monarch from amongst the city-rulers vying for the throne. Privately, she seeks to discover which ruler murdered the queen, suspecting the use of magic.

Resourceful, analytical, and quiet, Lysande appears to embody the motto she was raised with: everything in its place. Yet while she hides her drug addiction from her new associates, she cannot hide her growing interest in power. She becomes locked in a game of strategy with the city-rulers – especially the erudite prince Luca Fontaine, who seems to shift between ally and rival.

Further from home, an old enemy is stirring: the magic-wielding White Queen is on the move again, and her alliance with a traitor among the royal milieu poses a danger not just to the peace of the realm, but to the survival of everything that Lysande cares about.

In a world where the low-born keep their heads down, Lysande must learn to fight an enemy who wears many guises… even as she wages her own battle between ambition and restraint.

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I finished reading EJ Beaton’s The Councillor, which I absolutely adored! I was hoping for really rich, gorgeous prose to go with all the politics, and that’s exactly what I got. I finished writing my review yesterday and have it scheduled for Saturday, so remember to come back and check it out! But I think this book is going to be a major hit, and really deserves to be!

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL READ NEXT?Upon a Once Time by N.A. Sulway, Mike Morgan, Rebecca E. Treasure, Melissa Mead, Alex Langer, Joshua Gage, M. Regan, Suri Parmar, Cat Rambo, Evan Dicken, Anna Fagundes Martino, Taryn Haas, Anna Madden, Lin Darrow, Dennis Mombauer, Kit Falbo, Maya Chhabra, C.J. Dotson, Jude Reid, Jamie Lackey, Brent Baldwin, Nike Sulway
Goodreads

Fairy tales and folk tales, originally passed down orally through generations, are a fundamental part of our shared world culture. They are a way to interpret - through magic and monsters, princesses and paupers, queens and quests - lessons on morality and society. They show a once upon a time world of simple archetypes in fantastical situations.

This book gathers twenty-one authors who have brought new focus to fairy tales by combining two well known stories with a literary genre of their choice.

Upon a Once Time contains the following tales re-imagined: The Arthurian Cycle, The Bad Wife, Beauty and the Beast, The Boy Who Drew Cats, The Brown Bear of Norway, Caliph Stork, Cinderella, Diamonds and Toads, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, The Goblin Spider, The Golem of Prague, Iron John, The Little Mermaid, Little Red Riding Hood, Math Fab Mathonwy, Momotaro, The Nightingale, Petrosinella, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed, The Red Shoes, Rumpelstiltskin, Rusalka Tales, Schneewittchen, The Selkie Bride, Sleeping Beauty, The Swineherd, Taketori Monogatari, Thousandfurs, Tom Thumb, The Twelve Months, The Valiant Little Tailor, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Vasilisa the Wise, The Waters of Life, The Well of the World’s End, The Wild Swans, and The Woodcutter’s Daughter.

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What do you call it when it’s not an Advanced Reading Copy, but a copy of a book that’s already been published? I got a copy of Upon a Once Time from Netgalley, but it was published last year after being funded through Kickstarter. I’m not sure why it’s on Netgalley, because even if I give it a glowing review I’m not sure where folx can buy a copy, but that cover? And that premise, of merging folk tales together with different genres??? No way I could resist giving it a try!

Here endeth the weekly check-in!

The post WWW Wednesday: 13th Jan appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

There’s No Right Way to Be a Person: Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

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.

Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children, #6) by Seanan McGuire
Representation: Intersex MC
on 12th January 2021
Genres: Portal Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

A young girl discovers a portal to a land filled with centaurs and unicorns in Seanan McGuire's Across the Green Grass Fields, a standalone tale in the Hugo and Nebula Award-wining Wayward Children series.

“Welcome to the Hooflands. We’re happy to have you, even if you being here means something’s coming.”

Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late.

When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to "Be Sure" before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines―a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes.

But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem…

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Highlights

~A friend who won’t let you pet snakes is no friend at all
~Unicorns are Very Beautiful, Very Dumb, and Very Tasty
~Centaurs are a girl’s best friend
~Thumbs are a superpower
~Santa cannot leave candy in horseshoes
~We could have avoided all of this if you’d just given your kid a day off from school

That’s it, pack it up, everyone else can go home. Seanan just won 2021, and we haven’t even gotten past January. Talk about setting the bar high for the rest of the year!

(…There’s a dressage joke in their somewhere, but I don’t know enough about horses to put it together. Ah, well. Pretend I did!)

Across the Green Grass Fields is equally welcoming to long-time readers of the series, and those who have never picked up a Waryward Children book before; it stands alone perfectly. And as ever, it’s incredible how much awesomeness McGuire managed to pack into so few pages.

‘Children are people, actually’ and ‘there’s no one way to be a girl’ are both big themes in McGuire’s books, and Across the Green Grass Fields incorporates both. At the beginning of the book, poor Regan has spent most of her ten years of life squeezed into the tiny box of her ‘best friend’s’ ideas about what a girl should and should not be – and do, and like. (Insert some wryly hilarious commentary on how Regan’s love of horses is considered perfectly acceptable for a girl…despite how big, smelly, and potentially dangerous they can be. It’s the kind of thing McGuire does so well; neatly highlighting the paradoxes in our societal programming and holding them under a microscope for us to take a good long look at.) When Regan discovers that she’s intersex, the box finally shatters, and she runs away – and ends up in the Hooflands, a world populated not just by centaurs and unicorns, but hippogryphs and perytons and kelpies too; every magical creature you can think of and plenty you can’t, so long as it has hooves! Here, humans are harbingers of disaster, but despite that, Regan is welcomed, loved, and functionally adopted by the centaur herd who find her.

All the Wayward Children books are about finding your true home; that’s what the Doors do (but possibly not what they’re for. We may never know what they’re for, and I’m okay with that). But it’s not just Regan’s love of horses that makes the Hooflands home for her; in being the only human in that world, no one thinks she’s strange for getting taller but not curvier – it seems like she won’t go through puberty without hormone treatments, but that’s okay, and it’s okay in a way it might not have been if she’d stayed in our world. In the Hooflands, there’s no one to compare herself to and be found lacking; there are no societal beauty standards, no peer pressure, no labels. No confusing Wikipedia articles! She’s just…human.

And there’s no wrong way to be that.

We don’t know a lot of specific details about the journeys of most of the series’ characters through their own Doors; how old they were when they went, how long they stayed. Regan finds the Hooflands when she’s ten, which is alarmingly young considering that she’s supposed to save it from something terrible. But she doesn’t have to save the world at ten. It’s okay. She gets to just be.

For a while.

The Hooflands is pretty idyllic for Regan, but it’s never that simple with McGuire. There are all kinds of prejudices among the different species, and even the creatures Regan is told are mindless monsters…maybe aren’t, actually. And that’s a hard thing to wrap your head around as an adult, but it’s hard for kids, too; learning that even the people you love, who love you, aren’t perfect. It’s hard not to compare Regan’s human parents with her centaur family: both love her dearly just as she is, and support her the best way they know how, but they’re still flawed. They make mistakes. They don’t always understand. The truths they tell her are perhaps not the only truths, or not true at all.

It doesn’t make them less loving. It’s just that they’re mortal, and therefore imperfect. That’s a hard moment, when you realise that as a kid, but McGuire has never pretended that being a child is easy, and never flinched away from portraying those hard moments, reminding us of them. Children are people too, and those of us who aren’t children anymore really need to remember that. Too many of us forget.

Another thing we should remember: It’s the ones Regan’s been taught are monsters who turn out to be people. And it’s the ones who are supposed to be people who are, in the end, the very worst of the monsters.

The worldbuilding is a delight; I will never stop being impressed with the sheer diversity of the magical creatures in McGuire’s books. Most people know what a centaur is, I think; far fewer will recognise the Hoofland’s perytons. We even get a creature I’d never heard of before! I’m a hardcore folklore fan, okay; I do not encounter magical creatures I don’t know very often – unless an author has created their own, obviously. So it delights me when I get to discover a new one! I use this to illustrate just how well McGuire knows her myths, that she can draw on so many, but she passes all of it through her own filter of awesome and creates so much that is wholly and uniquely her own. The Hooflands is purely her own creation, and it’s a marvelous one; I especially loved the details of centaur courtship, and finally getting an answer on how baby centaurs work! All the delights, though, are woven through with McGuire’s signature wry, half-dark humour; unicorns aren’t very magical in the Hooflands…but they sure are delicious when barbecued! And that’s just so hilariously-horrifyingly typical of McGuire’s spin on the fantastical.

Equally typical is what Across the Green Grass Fields has to say about chosen ones, and how they’re made – but that’s something you really need to read about for yourselves.

Tl;dr: another beautiful, brutal, and powerful instalment in a series that really ought to be mandatory reading by now. It’s out tomorrow, and you really mustn’t miss it!

The post There’s No Right Way to Be a Person: Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

WWW Wednesday: 6th Jan

I’ve decided that, at least for the foreseeable future, I’m going to be participating in WWW Wednesdays, which is a meme hosted over at Taking On a World of Words. To take part, you just answer the three questions below, and link back to TOaWoW!

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?







Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen
Representation: Unspecified queer characters
Genres: Sci Fi
Goodreads

When a young man's planet is destroyed, he sets out on a single-minded quest for revenge across the galaxy in Nophek Gloss, the first book in this epic space opera trilogy by debut author Essa Hansen, for fans of Revenger and Children of Time.

Caiden's planet is destroyed. His family gone. And, his only hope for survival is a crew of misfit aliens and a mysterious ship that seems to have a soul and a universe of its own. Together they will show him that the universe is much bigger, much more advanced, and much more mysterious than Caiden had ever imagined. But the universe hides dangers as well, and soon Caiden has his own plans.

He vows to do anything it takes to get revenge on the slavers who murdered his people and took away his home. To destroy their regime, he must infiltrate and dismantle them from the inside, or die trying.

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I just started reading Neophek Gloss, after its sequel made it onto KA Doore’s Queer Adult SFF of 2021 list (which you should absolutely check out). I’m not 100% sure I’ll finish it, but the writing is great and I’m fast falling in love with the spaceship, so! We’ll see? I definitely need to read more sci fi and this seems like an excellent place to start!

WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING?







The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Representation: Bisexual MC, MC of colour (white-passing), lesbian love interest, gay secondary character,
Goodreads

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life.

When she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late 80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds—revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love—Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

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I am very late to the Evelyn Hugo hype train, but in fairness, if sci fi is on the outer edges of my comfort zone, contemporary fiction is waaaaaaaay outside of it! But after seeing so many bloggers and reviewers and authors I trust rave about it, I finally gave it a go, and I am not sorry at all! This may not be even a little bit fantasy, but Reid still works magic via the voice of her first-person MCs, and I couldn’t put it down. It’s an incredible work exploring queerness and race and sexism and celebrity culture, all combined with characters you can’t help but adore even when they’re kind of terrible. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time, and I suspect it’s one I’m going to come back to again and again. Even if it doesn’t sound like your sort of thing, I encourage you to give it a try.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL READ NEXT?







Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children, #6) by Seanan McGuire
Representation: Intersex MC
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

A young girl discovers a portal to a land filled with centaurs and unicorns in Seanan McGuire's Across the Green Grass Fields, a standalone tale in the Hugo and Nebula Award-wining Wayward Children series.

“Welcome to the Hooflands. We’re happy to have you, even if you being here means something’s coming.”

Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late.

When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to "Be Sure" before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines―a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes.

But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem…

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This is out next week, so it’s time to sit down with my arc! I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it – I named this blog after the first book in this series, so that should say all that needs saying about how much I love these books!

What are you reading this week?

The post WWW Wednesday: 6th Jan appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

The Past Stays the Same, But History Changes: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (The Singing Hills Cycle, #2) by Nghi Vo
Representation: Nonbinary MC, sapphic main, F/F or wlw
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

"Dangerous, subtle, unexpected and familiar, angry and ferocious and hopeful. . . . The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a remarkable accomplishment of storytelling."—NPR

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history.

Nghi Vo returns to the empire of Ahn and The Singing Hills Cycle in this mesmerizing, lush standalone follow-up to The Empress of Salt and Fortune

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Highlights



Story-collecting nonbinary monk is back!Mammoths are sweetheartsTigers are notBut they make the best wivesForget 1001 nights just get us through this nightEvery version of a story is true; every version is wrong

Nghi Vo blew everyone away with the first novella in this series, Empress of Salt and Fortune, which was published early last year. When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain is a standalone story set in the same verse with some of the same characters – and is every bit as wonderful as its prequel.

As with Empress, the premise of Tiger is superficially simple: Chih, the they/them cleric we met in Empress, is telling a story. But it’s not simple at all, because the tigers who are listening keep interjecting, and correcting, the terribly inaccurate version Chih knows.

It’s a story about a tiger, you see. A tiger and her human wife.

But that’s not really what the novella is about. When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain is much more about the nature of stories than it is about any one particular story – even if the one Chih and the tigers are swapping is a delightful tale indeed, with snark and an accidental marriage and treasure and careless rescues.

Because what it comes down to is this: Chih knows one version of this story, and the tigers know another. The events being told really happened – there really was a proud, fabulous tiger who married a human woman some time before the novella starts – but humans and tigers have two different versions of how it all went down.

Which one is right? Are either of them right? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle? Another, more wishy-washy writer would have gone with that – the truth is in the middle – but Vo doesn’t give the reader a nice pat little answer like that. We’re not told who’s right, or where the truth is. It’s up to us to decide.

And honestly, which of the two versions are correct matters far less than the fact that there are two versions. That seems to be the central message or lesson or point of Tiger – stories change depending on who is telling them. On who they’re being told to. And that would just be an interesting quirk if we were talking about, say, a fairytale – but the story Chih and the tigers are comparing is history. You’re supposed to be able to trust history. History isn’t supposed to be a story, it’s supposed to be fact. Which means there shouldn’t be different versions of it. You can’t change the past; it’s already happened. It’s not up for debate!

Well, that part’s true: the past is impossible to change without some kind of time machine. But history – well. History is just a record of the past, isn’t it? Haven’t we all heard the saying that ‘history is written by the winners’?

The past is an objective fact. What we remember – what we’re told, taught – about the past? Is not.

Vo doesn’t beat us around the head with this, because she’s far too good a writer for that. Instead she delights us with a story of a fierce, proud tiger-woman and a poor scholar, and alternates between the version humans remember, and the one told by tigers. She doesn’t have to tell us that stories change with the agenda of the teller; instead we see how, in the human version of the story, Ho Thi Thao – the tiger – has the skin of her mother, whom she murdered, hanging above her bed. But in the tigers’ version, it is the skin of He Who Leaps, killed long ago by Ho Thi Thao’s grandfather.

So the human version casts Ho Thi Thao as a matricide, vindicating the belief of humans everywhere that tigers are dangerous and terrible. Whereas the tigers’ version…well, it does say she’s dangerous and terrible, but for the tigers it’s a compliment, and regardless the difference in the bed-hangings is fascinating to me.

And it’s a whole ‘nother level of fascinating because Ho Thi Thao did kill her mother, according to the tigers – she just didn’t keep her mother’s skin over her bed. So the human version tries to cast her in a bad light…by making up something that she actually did. There are levels and levels of knots to analyse there.

One more point I want to make about this is one I’ve never considered before. I took history for my GCSEs and A Levels in the UK; it was drummed into us that no source could be trusted uncritically; everything had to be dissected for its motivations and conscious or unconscious biases. But Vo makes a point my (white, British) teachers never did;

“It is the only version of the story I know,” Chih said. “Tell me another, and I’ll tell that instead.”

“Or you will keep them both in your vault and think one is as good as the other,” said Sinh Hoa, speaking up unexpectedly, her voice gravelly with sleep. “That’s almost worse.”

Reading When the Tiger Came Down From the Mountain, this exchange was a galaxy-brain moment. Because which has more value – an outsider’s record of what happened? Or the record of the people themselves? Is a British army captain’s account of what India was like under British rule of equal worth to records written by the people of India? If a Swedish historian writes about Sami rituals, is that of equal value to what the Sami themselves write about it? Or to bounce back to Britain, should we present what the English wrote about the Great Famine of Ireland alongside the records of the Irish themselves?

It’s not that outsider accounts don’t have any value. But surely they’re not as valuable as, for lack of a better term, insider accounts?

Erasing or ignoring insider accounts is worse, as Sinh Hoa says in Tiger. But when you stop and think about it…there is something really awful in saying that insider and outsider accounts are worth just as much as each other.

Isn’t there?

And maybe Sinh Hoa is being a little unfair here, because after all, Ho Thi Thao’s wife was human. Humans are a part of this particular story, and they have a right to record it too. They have a right to their version.

…Don’t they?

I’m not sure. Especially because, in this context, tigers feel like a proud but oppressed/minority group to me – humans do hunt them, after all, and there are a lot more humans than there are tigers.

So maybe the human version is the outsider version. Maybe it’s not as trustworthy or valuable as the tigers’ version. Maybe they shouldn’t be kept side-by-side in the vault, and considered equally important.

I’m not sure.

But I know that, as well as making me swoon with what’s rapidly becoming her trademark gorgeous prose and entrancing me with the story she’s told, Vo has also left me with a lot to think about.

The post The Past Stays the Same, But History Changes: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.