Great danger is always associated with great power. The difference between the great and the mediocre is that the great are willing to take the risk.
The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang is an epic fantasy that “draws its plot and politics from mid-20th-century China, and its aesthetic from Song Dynasty China”, a mashup of Postclassical China and World War II. I think I liked it, but I don’t think I’ll continue with the series.
“What is this, beef? I can’t eat this! Have you got a salad or something?”
“No, I haven’t got a fucking salad,” said Roderick.
The minotaur stared flatly between the bars of his cage. “Be a lot cooler if you did.”
Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames is the highly anticipated sequel to Kings of the Wyld, the breakout fantasy novel of 2017.
Kings of the Wyld was one of the most-fun books I’ve ever read, custom-designed as it was to tickle my nostalgia-bone and my deep abiding love for callback humor and wit. I described it in my review as “a mix of This is Spinal Tap!, Blues Brothers, The First Law Trilogy, The Lies of Locke Lamora, and playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons with your best friends from high school that you haven’t seen in a long time.”
Bloody Rose doesn’t quiiiiiiiite match up to its predecessor, but it’s a strong book that’s sure to please fans of the first one.
Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there’s nothing else.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman is about a guy that gets accepted into a university for the training in the usage of real magic. It has been referred to by some people as a “grown up Harry Potter.”
I am not one of those people. This book ain’t like Harry Potter. Nevertheless, it’s still a solid-enough read, with plenty of interesting ideas for fantasy fans to mull over.
One Dark Throne is the sequel to the 2016 YA fantasy Three Dark Crowns. Since this review is of a sequel, it may will contain spoilers for any previous books in the series.
“’Once, I was a mouse,’ she says and strips off her glove. She reaches into the cage to stroke the rodent’s tiny bald haunches.
‘But I am not anymore.’”
There was a time in my life where I was only reading series, finishing one book and opening the next as though there was a chapter break instead of an ending and a beginning. I don’t do it often anymore, but Blake’s Three Dark Crowns series offered the perfect opportunity for a return to that extra level of indulgent immersion.
I was pretty open about my concerns with Three Dark Crowns in my review, and went into its sequel with mixed expectations. Right away, my primary frustration focused on how little the characters question the things, people, and events around them. This continues throughout the book, as do many of my concerns regarding Blake’s worldbuilding and the general “unreliable narrator” issue Blake’s shaky presentation of the rules creates. (Read more about that in my previous review.)
“Three dark queens
Are born in a glen,
Sweet little triplets
Will never be friends
Three dark sisters
All fair to be seen,
Two to devour
And one to be Queen”
If there’s one thing I don’t often review it’s solidly 3-star reads, but that’s exactly what Three Dark Crowns is. It’s a fine read, and I enjoyed it and its sequel, but the best thing that can really be said about it is just that admission – that yes, I enjoyed it well enough.
Three Dark Crowns tells the story of three teenaged sisters, triplets, each a magical queen of the (also magical) island of Fennbirn. Upon their sixteenth birthday(s), the balance of rule on the island shifts and their lives become a wild west “this island isn’t big enough for the three of us” battle royale. The girls are obligated by the rules to kill or be killed, until one sister remains standing – the sole queen of Fennbirn.
My issues with the rules of this fictional universe are too long to list, and I must admit that as a reader I had the option of accepting the rules of this universe as-is and taking it on faith that they’re reasonable. Ultimately, I did do this with the sequel and had a much more enjoyable experience thereby. Where this caused me trouble with this first book is a little complicated. As I was reading, it felt almost like a frustrating unreliable narrator issue – as though I was reading some Jeff Vandermeer surrealist piece instead of a YA fantasy by award-winning YA author Kendare Blake.
“Some believe what separates men from animals is our ability to reason. Others say it’s language or romantic love, or opposable thumbs. Living here in this lost world, I’ve come to believe it is more than our biology. What truly makes us human is our unending search, our abiding desire for immortality.”
The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, for those that haven’t heard of this famous classic, is about an expedition to South America to verify claims of a discovery of an area in which dinosaurs and other ancient creatures continue to live. I gave the book a try because (1) I was looking for inspiration for some travel/nature writing that I’m attempting, (2) Arthur Conan Doyle and this book are famous, and (3) the digital download of the book was free.
It was written over a hundred years ago, and I’m still trying to work out how I feel about it.
The thing is, I don’t think my husband expected me to be able to talk.
Pygmalion is one of the most-famous least-violent Greek myths. It’s the one in which a sculptor creates a statue and falls in love with it, the goddess of love takes pity on him, gives the statue life, and the sculptor and the now-living statue (sometimes named Galatea) get married. Maybe they have a kid or two, depending on which version of the story you read. The end.
Galatea, by Madeline Miller, takes place a little while after those events. Told from the point-of-view of Galatea, it’s a short, gut-punch of a story and a LOT darker than the original myth.
We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.
I really liked Circe, so I bought another, older book by its author (Madeline Miller): The Song of Achilles. I’m glad I did because it’s terrific.
The simplest way to describe it is that it’s The Iliad from Patroclus’ point of view. I haven’t read The Iliad, so I cannot really personally vouch for The Song of Achilles‘ faithfulness to the source material. However, based upon some wiki research and google-fu, I THINK all the important high points from The Illiad are preserved.
Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.
Along with a few Sunday school stories and fairy tales, Greek myths were some of the first stories that I was exposed to. Before I knew anything at all about hobbits or Jesus lions, I could recite the names of all the Olympians and a few of the Titans. Jason and Theseus and Hercules and Perseus were way more familiar to little-Me than Robin Hood or Wyatt Earp or Frodo. As I got older and read more of the myths, plays, and poems of ancient Greece, unedited, I became a bit uncomfortable with the casual sexism and idiotic violence of it all. Other, later works, like the Aeneid, proved deeper, prettier, and more intellectually stimulating than the Bronze Age Greek stuff. Nevertheless, I have always had a special place in my heart for the old tales.
Circe, by Madeline Miller, therefore, proved to be the perfect book to get me out of my fiction-funk. It tells the “life” story of Circe, the premier witch of ancient Greek myth, from Circe’s point of view.
The Nebula awards 2018 will be announced tonight, at the SFWA Nebula Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Over the past few months, I’ve been working to read and review all of the nominees in the Best Novel category. As theVerge.com describes:
The Nebula Awards are issued annually by SFWA to the best works in genre novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories published in the last year, alongside the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy and the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation. The Nebulas are a sort of industry award, determined by professional authors.
Below, I’ll talk a little bit about each book as a nominee, as well as give you both my vote (which book I think should win) and my prediction (which book I think will win). Also, for each book I will include a link to my full review so you can get all caught up and (if I’ve done my job right) form your own opinions just in time for the award announcement.