After Long Silence: Favorite SFF authors write again

Foolish Love

Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fool's Assassin

This new entry in the Fitz and Fool saga brings the reader right back into the wonder and intrigue of the Six Duchies. I wish I'd had time to go back and re-read the other two trilogies (the Farseer Trilogy and the Tawny Man Trilogy), since they were my favorites of hers in this world. I don't remember such foreshadowing in the other books, nor the impatience of reading whilst thinking that the main character is such an oblivious fool. And I am all uncertain whether I should reveal why I thought so from the beginning page, but I will treat it as a spoiler. Nevertheless, I am sure you will realize far before Tom does the target of the mysterious intruders, and the identity of the unexpected son.

Is the Fool still alive? Why has he never contacted Fitz, now known as Tom, living in happiness and peace at long last, enjoying Molly's love? Unlike some readers, I do not chafe at the long descriptions of bucolic country life and dear daughter Bee's childhood. Let them enjoy their happiness, and me with them, until the wide world intrudes. Here we revisit again the differences between Skill and Wit, the native magics--Skill being a bit more abstract, controlling, and intellectual, and Wit being what some call beast magic. For some of us who might have waited to read the Rainwilds Chronicles until complete (finished recently, not yet read by me), this was a needed, leisurely reintroduction to this world and culture.

So cons: a little slow-moving, sometimes a confusing transition between Fitz/Tom's first-person narration and daughter Bee's first-person narration. And of course people die that you don't want to. Pros: I do love the mind and imagination of Robin Hobbs. Bee is amazing.Father Wolf. Unnamed cat. Stable boy Per.

Recommended--but begin at the beginning. I'll be starting there again, in the year we wait for the next installment! Bravo!
I received an e-galley for review from Del Rey and Netgalley.


View all my reviews

Half a King Is a Whole Lot of Story

Half a King by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read it straight through. Immediately wanted more. Abercrombie has a distinctive storytelling voice here, cultural mores woven seamlessly into narrative, like listening to a saga that reveals reality instead of romance. The blood, guts, and gore are here, but they are not gratuitous. One is at the same time living the story but grateful to be in a modern world with running water and machines.

The culture of Half a King is analogous to the old Norse, or older. The story is like all old stories, with men clashing, thrones lost and won, heirs lost and found.  In this story, the prince is a reluctant king, being an introvert and trained from youth for the Ministry--meaning Administration. He'd rather be beside the throne than in it. But he is a man of his culture, and attempts to step up to the job--but others do want the kingship, and thusly the story starts.

Kudos for the strong, well-written women characters--there are a few. There is adventure, deception, merchantry, and personal growth. Stories are how we learn to live in the world, and there are some fine lessons here, lessons for heart and mind. This would make a great compare and contrast with Goblin Emperor; two young men with thrones unsought, two different but similar worlds, two different takes on duty and right behavior. Two different books marketed as YA and yet achieving far more range and power than typical coming-of-age stories. Highly recommended for mature teens and adults.


View all my reviews

Stranded

The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I just got this review copy from Crown, and I read it straight through. People are comparing it to Castaway and Apollo 13, and it's because it reads like a movie. At 55 pages in, I wasn't sure I would be able to finish, the suspense was so enervating. Luckily, the book and I achieved equilibrium. It is good. It is good at depicting the character and culture of scientists and astronauts, and the people who complain about the humor and swearing must not know any Air Force personnel or nerds.

I can't comment on the science, but it reads like a string of thought experiments--a giant, well-written, story problem, but you're not the one who has to figure it out, you're along for the wild and crazy ride. Whether you think Crusoe or MacGyver, it's an homage to human ingenuity and engineering and the will to survive, and all the people seem true, if not deep. Recommended!


View all my reviews

Shaman Rises by C.E. Murphy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow. A fitting end to the series. Dear reader, I did cry. Joanne Walker, reluctant shaman, rises to the occasion once again. C. E. Murphy provides a convenient timeline/synopsis of all the previous books, but as always, I recommend starting from the beginning, if you've missed the series.

Over the course of eleven books (two collections), Joanne Walker has gone from being a brassy, bossy mechanic to a powerhouse shaman comfortable with gods. She's had her world turned upside down and inside out and back again, fought everything from embarrassment to zombies, loved and lost and found. She's had to blend the Celtic and Cherokee blood and magic within her. Now the Devourer, the Soul-Eater, will confront Joanne on her home turf of Seattle, in the body.

Just read the series, if you haven't. Look up Murphy's Negotiator trilogy, if you haven't read that. Wait for whatever Murphy writes next, because she writes with humor, heart, and soul--and with the magic she writes about.


View all my reviews

Woman Power

A Creature of Moonlight by Rebecca   Hahn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. I will read whatever Rebecca Hahn chooses next to write. Lyrical. Dark, dreamy, moody, moon-driven. Creature of Moonlight is an original fairy tale, with kingdoms and dragons and living woods with tricky trees, and a princess as practical as a goose girl.

I may have mentioned how much I mostly dislike reading first-person narratives, but I had no problem with this one. I was pulled into Marni’s head and her world immediately.  Not for everyone, but anyone who loves language, fairy tales, and fantasy, should gobble it up. If you enjoyed Girl of Fire and Thorns, Graceling, and Seraphina, you will like this. The book I kept flashing on was We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson—for the eerie atmosphere and the authority of the voice—and its themes of grief, anger, power, loss, family.

Read the blurbs; consider that every word of praise is well-deserved. Be pulled into another world, where a powerful girl decides what kind of powerful woman she will grow into. Creature of Moonlight is an amazing book not just about coming of age, but of maturing, of choices made and unmade, of love and revenge and life beyond romance, of all the different kinds of youthful burning we do—mixed up with murder, magic, moonlight, and dragons.


View all my reviews

Better than a cruise vacation

Miss Em is so excited about this book, she needs the objectivity of the third person to contain her excitement lest she put you off like an over-eager host. I loved it, dear reader.  And I must ask you not to start the book before an important project, like a cruise, because, dear reader, Miss Em snarled every moment she was forced to put the book down for some foolishness like sail-away parties, balcony dining, stunning ocean views, or any of that rot. Thank God I finished it before the Dom Perignon came along! But Miss Em believes this book is destined to be a classic, too. The publisher’s copy cannot do what Ms. Addison does, drawing you heart and soul into both her world and her characters. Here’s an excerpt, much more revealing than the plot blurb from the publisher:

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

News Comes to Edonomee

  

Maia woke with his cousin’s cold fingers digging into his shoulder.

“Cousin? What…” He sat up, rubbing at his eyes with one hand. “What time is it?”

“Get up!” Setheris snarled. “Hurry!”

Obediently, Maia crawled out of bed, clumsy and sleep-sodden. “What’s toward? Is there a fire?”

“Get thy clothes on.” Setheris shoved yesterday’s clothes at him. Maia dropped them, fumbling with the strings of his nightshirt, and Setheris hissed with exasperation as he bent to pick them up. “A messenger from the court. That’s what’s toward.”

“A message from my father?”

“Is’t not what I said? Merciful goddesses, boy, canst do nothing for thyself? Here!” He jerked the nightshirt off, caring neither for the knotted strings nor for Maia’s ears, and shoved his clothes at him again. Maia struggled into drawers, trousers, shirt, and jacket, aware that they were wrinkled and sweat-stained, but unwilling to try Setheris’s ill temper by saying so. Setheris watched grimly by the single candle’s light, his ears flat against his head. Maia could not find his stockings, nor would Setheris give him time to search. “Come along!” he said as soon as Maia had his jacket fastened, and Maia followed him barefoot out of the room, noticing in the stronger light that while Setheris was still properly and fully attired, his face was flushed. So he had not been wakened from sleep by the emperor’s messenger, but only because he had not yet been to bed. Maia hoped uneasily that Setheris had not drunk enough metheglin to mar the glossy perfection of his formal court manners.

Maia ran his hands through his hair, fingers catching on knots in his heavy curls. It would not be the first time one of his father’s messengers had witnessed him as unkempt as a half-witted ragpicker’s child, but that did not help with the miserable midnight imaginings: So, tell us, how looked our son? He reminded himself it was unlikely his father ever asked after him in the first place and tried to keep his chin and ears up as he followed Setheris into the lodge’s small and shabby receiving room.

The messenger was maybe a year or so older than Maia himself, but elegant even in his road-stained leathers. He was clearly full-blooded elvish, as Maia was not; his hair was milkweed-pale, and his eyes the color of rain. He looked from Setheris to Maia and said, “Are you the Archduke Maia Drazhar, only child of Varenechibel the Fourth and Chenelo Drazharan?”

“Yes,” Maia said, bewildered.

And then bewilderment compounded bewilderment, as the messenger deliberately and with perfect dignity prostrated himself on the threadbare rug. “Your Imperial Serenity,” he said.

“Oh, get up, man, and stop babbling!” Setheris said. “We understood that you had messages from the Archduke’s father.”

“Then you understand what we do not,” the messenger said, rising again to his feet, as graceful as a cat. “We bear messages from the Untheileneise Court.”

Maia said hastily, merely to prevent the altercation from escalating, “Please, explain.”

“Your Serenity,” the messenger said. “The airship Wisdom of Choharo crashed yesterday, sometime between sunrise and noon. The Emperor Varenechibel the Fourth, the Prince Nemolis, the Archduke Nazhira, and the Archduke Ciris were all on board. They were returning from the wedding of the Prince of Thu-Athamar.”

“And the Wisdom of Choharo crashed,” Maia said slowly, carefully.

“Yes, Serenity,” said the messenger. “There were no survivors.”

Obviously, there’s going to be plenty of plot here, and it is deftly handled. No horribly dangling loose ends, but plenty of room for a sequel (please, please!). Lovely world-building; I would call it somewhat Tolkienesque with an Asian touch, just to help you orient yourself—this is a fully original world. (The pronunciation guide is at the back of the book, btw, but the archaic forms do not grate, I promise.) It’s the story of a poor orphan boy elevated to a king, trying to live his values. Now that Maia is king, will he heap upon his former guardian the abuse he deserves? What or who caused the airship to crash? Can he find love, or at least friendship, in an arranged marriage? Can he ever trust anyone, or will he always be as alone as he has been since his mother died? Can and should the artificers build a bridge across the great river? Will anyone at court ever appreciate him like we, the readers, do?

Why does Miss Em think this book deserves “classic” status? The book satisfies on all levels. Beautifully written descriptions and dialogue engage the heart and the mind and the soul in the real lives and dilemmas of the characters. The book’s themes are power, poverty, and compassion—and it doesn’t preach. Miss Em loves it because it is like The Secret Garden in its tenderness and philosophy, and like Siddhartha and The Glass Bead Game in its complexity and spirituality.

Miss Em received an e-galley through the publisher and Netgalley, but has ordered the hardcopy to start her collection of Ms. Addison’s books, next to Michelle Sagara West, Modesitt, Diana Wynne Jones, Tamora Pierce, Miller & Lee, and the other authors in her permanent library. She has assumed the copyright permission. She hopes you will buy it, love it, and gift it, too.

Coming of Age in Shannara

The High Druid's Blade by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Though this entry feels slightly YA, I think this will be an interesting series to go on with, and certainly important for the annals of Shannara. It might be a good entry point into the series entire, especially for a young person not familiar with it.

Mainly a coming of age story, High Druid’s Blade follows Paxon Leah, a young man living 150 years after the Forbidding, a descendant of both the Leah and Ohmsford clans. The Federation seemingly rules ever more territory and has banned magic. Paxon runs the family air transport business for his family and pushes away any sense of wonder. A blackened sword, seemingly bereft of magic, hangs on his wall. He watches over his adolescent sister, who drinks and gambles and fights and who knows what all—until one day she gets in the ultimate trouble and is abducted by a dark stranger. Paxon, of course, goes after her, and thus begins his journey to become the High Druid’s Blade—I believe this will be the story of the making of a paladin, perhaps? That’s what will make me pick up the next book. That and what will happen to sister Chrysallin, who was abducted twice, tortured with magic, exhibited power (you can guess which one), and has seemingly forgotten everything?

Cons: slow going, especially the first half. Torture scenes, way too many pages.  Predictable.
Pros: Mr. Brooks is a master, even when not writing a masterpiece (read Running with the Demon, Knight of the Word, Genesis of Shannara stories for that).

Thanks to lovely Random House and Netgalley for the EARC to read for review!

Recommended for fans, certainly library purchase. Possibly for new YA readers as well.


View all my reviews

Spin me lots more stories, please!

Carousel Sun by Sharon Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks, Baen and Netgalley, for the e-arc for review!

A worthy sequel to Carousel Tides, though a "middle" kind of book. You must read Carousel Tides first. I would call it contemporary fantasy, not urban fantasy, since it takes place in a small town on the Maine coast. It certainly has an urban fantasy feel, with a kick-ass, curmudgeonly heroine and a touch of romance. Kate and Archer's Beach (the town) get filled out a little more, magical system becomes a little clearer (Kate is discovering all this stuff herself, too).

I enjoyed every minute reading it. Sharon Lee is a master of the craft by now and one may not like everything she writes (I like all 20-50 somethings I've read, save one, and am a Liaden fanatic, quietly)--but she keeps a story going and her descriptive qualities and dialogue are excellent. Also, I was happy to see a sympathetic gay character come along in this novel.

I am looking very much forward to learning more about the 6 Worlds, loved the glimpses we got in this book. Highly recommend that there be a series!



View all my reviews

Defy by Sara B. Larson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We women often love those stories where a girl passes for a guy. In this case, when Alexa's parent's are killed by a black sorcerer, she poses as her brother's brother and they join the king's army, rising to the Prince's Guards. As Alexa grows older, she hates the king's policies more and more, but there's nothing she can do--or is there? Confronted with the possibility of change and freedom, what will Alex choose? And which of the young men who love her does she love back? Strong female lead! Empowerment! Guys who are good to women! Magic! And lots of romantic tension. Even though there are a few flaws (too many themes, lack of depth and detail in places), a solid first effort. Though a 3 for me, I think it's a 4 for its intended audience and look forward to the sequels.


View all my reviews

The Thousand Names deserves several thousand pages

The Thousand Names by Django Wexler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A curst good book! After 513 pages, I was both blessing and cursing Django Wexler. Like David Drake, Eric Flint, and David Eddings, he can write likeable characters--a must for a series you're going to follow however long it takes. A firm grounding in history gives a realistic portrayal of the realities of  military life and colonialism.

Khandar is a land steeped in all-but-forgotten magic (think Egypt, maybe). The Vordanai Empire has diplomatic relations (and a military outpost) with Khandar's ruler, a dissolute monarch. When there is an uprising of religious fundamentalists, the Vordanais must send more military aid. Marcus, the Senior Captain, will be so relieved to give over command! He is the consummate career officer, brave, honorable, and true--too loyal to his friends, sometimes. Winter is a lowly private, promoted out of spite--her Sergeant thinking she'll be sent on a suicide mission. Winter's been masquerading as a young man ever since she escaped from the orphanage. Janus is the new Commander, a man with a military gift as great as Napoleon's. He'll get the job done, but he's on the track of a magical mystery--despite the Vordanai disdain for magic as superstition.

Wexler has just the right balance of action and exposition. His society does feel like it's right in the 1700s-1800s, and Napoleonic studies certainly influenced Wexler, but I am also put in mind of Romans and Greeks, and Belisarius and Alexander in addition to Napoleon. I bought the book. I preordered book II, The Shadow Throne, coming July 2014. I posted on Facebook. I wrote a fan letter--only a few other times have I done that!

So happy, and so sad, to discover another series--to look forward, but have to wait!



View all my reviews