B&N SFF: Hiding one type of story inside of another, this intense, well-written novel balances loads of action and well-earned plot twists with a thoughtful examination of the effects of war and trauma on people.
Sep 092019
September 9, 2019
Sep 062019
Booklist: There are three things to remember about the spirit realm: follow the rules, get consent, and do not eat or drink. Another unspoken guideline is to trust no one beyond the border between the mortal and spirit worlds. Controlling each domain is a god or demon who will kill for sport, especially anyone who breaks their rules. The border keeper has had many names and inhabited untold vessels over innumerable years, but she lives alone and does not suffer fools lightly. She once loved a god king but lost him to treachery and murder centuries ago. A wandering scholar arrives at her home, seeking passage, though he will not specify what he is looking for in the world of spirits. He has a sad story that brought him to her door, and for reasons she does not understand, will compel the guardian to accept him and act as his guide. With parallels to a range of mythologies, Hall’s elegant descriptive language evokes a vivid world of lost souls and revenge in this fast-paced fantasy debut.
September 6, 2019
Sep 052019
Publishers Weekly: Grim but brilliant sequel…. The many cultures are richly detailed, adding depth. This installment will more than satisfy fantasy readers who like deadly battles balanced with intricate worldbuilding and skilled characterization.
September 5, 2019
Aug 292019
Kirkus: An Afrofuturist love story, set inside a giant space-creature, about two women of different castes.
In a far distant future, humans left Earth behind generations ago in a mass exodus. The survivors now travel inside enormous beasts that trek across the vacuum of space; human societies carve out spaces inside the living leviathans that carry them. Seske, the daughter of the clan matriarch, is being groomed for her eventual position of power, but she’d much rather spend her time with Adalla, her best friend since childhood; however, Adalla’s a beastworker who toils in the space beast’s organs and arteries. The chapters alternate between the first-person perspectives of the two young women, and it quickly becomes clear that Seske and Adalla are very much in love—but a beastworker isn’t considered a suitable mate for the heir apparent. When Seske suddenly becomes the clan matriarch, her title is threatened by another claimant—her own sister. Meanwhile, Adalla, heartbroken over losing Seske, is demoted until she’s a lowly boneworker. Soon the two women each uncover shocking truths about their society and how it operates—and, more importantly, about the beast that keeps them all alive. The plot twists that follow are surprising but mostly plausible, and it culminates in a gratifying finish. Everything about the Afrofuturistic worldbuilding is exquisitely imaginative, and the characters are three-dimensional, occasionally offering flashes of dark humor. The spacefaring beast is a marvel, containing a whole ecosystem with microclimates and other organisms living within it alongside humans. Although the relationship between the two young women is perpetually hampered by circumstance, as most good love stories are, it’s palpable and vibrant. One hopes to read more about Seske and Adalla’s further adventures.
August 29, 2019
Aug 272019
Publishers Weekly: This grim but brilliant sequel to The Grey Bastards follows the Bastards’ new leader, half-orc/half-elf Fetching, as she takes charge of her cohort (or “hoof”) of half-orcs and the humans who rely on them. Fetch and her fellow “mongrels” face off against famine and starvation, cavaleros from neighboring Hispartha, another band of half-orcs who feel that Fetch is unworthy to lead, and a mysterious, enormous orc (large enough to pick up a horse and throw it like a baseball) and the oversized hyenas that he commands. The woes that face the Bastards are unrelenting, and Fetch isn’t sure she can count on their supposed allies: the other hoofs, the cultish human Unyars, the elven mountain-dwellers, and the newly arrived foreigners called Zahracenes. But by the novel’s end, Fetch has secured real connections and support for the surviving Bastards. French’s half-orcs are an uncouth lot but fiercely loyal to one another and those they protect, and Fetch herself is prepared to endure unimaginable pain to secure safety for her people. The many cultures are richly detailed, adding depth. This installment will more than satisfy fantasy readers who like deadly battles balanced with intricate worldbuilding and skilled characterization.
August 27, 2019
Aug 202019
Booklist Readers: While for Good Omens protagonists, Aziraphale and Crowley, the apocalypse is set to start after teatime, for Elena Mendoza, it begins at Starbucks. She just wanted to talk to her crush, Freddie. But then the siren from the Starbucks logo starts speaking to Elena, and Elena saves Freddie from a gunshot wound, and before you know it, Elena is a certified miracle worker. In fact, the voices she hears want her to work more miracles, and they want her to ignore the fact that when she does, people disappear in a beam of golden light. It would be really nice if the troll dolls—and the bossy voices that appear in a variety of other objects—would just stop talking to her. But what if the disappearances tied to Elena’s miracles have the power to save people from a terrible future?
August 20, 2019
Aug 152019
SFX Magazine: Shadows Of The Short Days offers something old and something new. Set in an alternative Iceland, it follows Smundur and Garün, former lovers turned dissidents against a repressive regime. Smundur’s experiments with magic have outraged the respectable magic institutions, but he’s determined to push ever further. Garün, meanwhile, is taking the law into her own hands. Part human, part-huldufólk (a race of extradimensional beings), she’s using magic to sow sedition in the city.
The urban setting, focus on politics and gritty tone are more than a little redolent of China Miéville’s breakout, Perdido Street Station. Like that book, Vilhjálmsson’s prose is full of a vibrant, punk energy But there’s also a sense of history, the book rooted in the myth and folklore of Iceland. His fantasy creatures feel convincingly ancient and strange—we particularly liked the Náskári, a race of jabbering ravenfolk.
Some will be put off by the reliance on Icelandic words. There is a glossary at the back, but they come so thick and fast that you’re probably best off just diving in and letting them wash over you. That could be said for the book as a whole. It’s complex, occasionally opaque, but vividly imagined and compelling.
August 15, 2019
Aug 092019
Kirkus: This debut novel, the first of a projected trilogy, blends science fiction, fantasy, gothic chiller, and classic house-party mystery. Gideon Nav, a foundling of mysterious antecedents, was not so much adopted as indentured by the Ninth House, a nearly extinct noble necromantic house. Trained to fight, she wants nothing more than to leave the place where everyone despises her and join the Cohort, the imperial military. But after her most recent escape attempt fails, she finally gets the opportunity to depart the planet. The heir and secret ruler of the Ninth House, the ruthless and prodigiously talented bone adept Harrowhark Nonagesimus, chooses Gideon to serve her as cavalier primary, a sworn bodyguard and aide de camp, when the undying Emperor summons Harrow to compete for a position as a Lyctor, an elite, near-immortal adviser. The decaying Canaan House on the planet of the absent Emperor holds dark secrets and deadly puzzles as well as a cheerfully enigmatic priest who provides only scant details about the nature of the competition…and at least one person dedicated to brutally slaughtering the competitors. Unsure of how to mix with the necromancers and cavaliers from the other Houses, Gideon must decide whom among them she can trust—and her doubts include her own necromancer, Harrow, whom she’s loathed since childhood.
This intriguing genre stew works surprisingly well. The limited locations and narrow focus mean that the author doesn’t really have to explain how people not directly attached to a necromantic House or the military actually conduct daily life in the Empire; hopefully future installments will open up the author’s creative universe a bit more. The most interesting aspect of the novel turns out to be the prickly but intimate relationship between Gideon and Harrow, bound together by what appears at first to be simple hatred. But the challenges of Canaan House expose other layers, beginning with a peculiar but compelling mutual loyalty and continuing on to other, more complex feelings, ties, and shared fraught experiences. Suspenseful and snarky, with surprising emotional depths.
August 9, 2019
Aug 082019
Publishers Weekly: [An] excellent debut… Hackwith builds her world and characters with loving detail, creating a delightful addition to the corpus of library-based and heaven vs. hell fantasies.
August 8, 2019
Aug 072019
Kirkus Review: The story is filled with relentless action and powered by a cast of adeptly developed and emotionally appealing characters….
Fans will be overjoyed not only with the return of some beloved characters, but also with the novel’s conclusion, which sets up the storyline for a much larger adventure to come. Imagine an outlaw biker gang of half-orcs riding giant war pigs and you’ve captured this saga’s gloriously dirty soul.
August 7, 2019