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Entry tags:
Fiction
Ryan North & Chris Fenoglio, Star Trek Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way: Choose Your Own Adventure style graphic novel in which Mariner wakes up, and then, depending on what beverage she chooses and who she chooses to bother first, things go very differently (sort of). The voices, especially Mariner’s, are pitch-perfect, and it’s a nice use of the form to explore questions of heroism.
Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption: Second book in Bennett’s new series (?) about a Sherlock Holmes-like investigator sent to the fringes of an empire to investigate the most difficult crimes. This one threatens the safety of the Shroud, which processes the leviathans that both threaten human survival and provide the empire with the reagents used to transform people and environments. There’s lots of politics and complex plots, and corrupt regimes as well as people sincerely committed to them. Plenty of fun.
Susanna Clarke, The Wood at Midwinter: Illustrated short story about a very strange young woman—perhaps a saint—who wants a child of her own to love, and perhaps gets one in the form of a bear cub.
Sharon Shinn, Alibi: In a world with cheap, convenient transportation, an English professor gets a chance to make some extra money tutoring a creepy billionaire’s fatally ill son. When he’s murdered (not much of a spoiler; it’s the intro), her habit of giving her access code to everyone she’s ever met turns into a bit of a problem for her. There’s also a romance with the security chief who tries to protect her. There was a bunch of worldbuilding stuff thrown in apparently to make things work (like age of majority being raised to 21 as part of resurgent nationalism, I guess), but it wasn’t explored enough to make me care.
Sacha Lamb, The Forbidden Book: Sorel doesn’t want to marry the rebbe’s son, so she jumps out a window—and finds herself possessed by/partners with a dybbuk, Isserl, who was killed with unfinished business. Adventure and angels follow. It’s a fun Yiddish fantasy.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Days of Shattered Faith: This is the third book (I think) about the Palleseen Sway, an expansionist fascist empire, with some recurring characters. Palleseen is having some troubles back home, but still interested in taking over new lands and sucking their magic dry. The Palleseen resident in one city-state is allied with, and maybe in love with, a ruler’s younger son who has suddenly come into favor, but his warlike older brother has other plans. That’s only one fragment of the story, which is rich with politics and other maneuvers. Basically everyone in the story was unlikeable—primarily out for themselves if they had any self-control at all; making bad decisions if they didn’t. It was not the right book for me to read at this point; there were at most a few flashes of grace.
Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption: Second book in Bennett’s new series (?) about a Sherlock Holmes-like investigator sent to the fringes of an empire to investigate the most difficult crimes. This one threatens the safety of the Shroud, which processes the leviathans that both threaten human survival and provide the empire with the reagents used to transform people and environments. There’s lots of politics and complex plots, and corrupt regimes as well as people sincerely committed to them. Plenty of fun.
Susanna Clarke, The Wood at Midwinter: Illustrated short story about a very strange young woman—perhaps a saint—who wants a child of her own to love, and perhaps gets one in the form of a bear cub.
Sharon Shinn, Alibi: In a world with cheap, convenient transportation, an English professor gets a chance to make some extra money tutoring a creepy billionaire’s fatally ill son. When he’s murdered (not much of a spoiler; it’s the intro), her habit of giving her access code to everyone she’s ever met turns into a bit of a problem for her. There’s also a romance with the security chief who tries to protect her. There was a bunch of worldbuilding stuff thrown in apparently to make things work (like age of majority being raised to 21 as part of resurgent nationalism, I guess), but it wasn’t explored enough to make me care.
Sacha Lamb, The Forbidden Book: Sorel doesn’t want to marry the rebbe’s son, so she jumps out a window—and finds herself possessed by/partners with a dybbuk, Isserl, who was killed with unfinished business. Adventure and angels follow. It’s a fun Yiddish fantasy.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Days of Shattered Faith: This is the third book (I think) about the Palleseen Sway, an expansionist fascist empire, with some recurring characters. Palleseen is having some troubles back home, but still interested in taking over new lands and sucking their magic dry. The Palleseen resident in one city-state is allied with, and maybe in love with, a ruler’s younger son who has suddenly come into favor, but his warlike older brother has other plans. That’s only one fragment of the story, which is rich with politics and other maneuvers. Basically everyone in the story was unlikeable—primarily out for themselves if they had any self-control at all; making bad decisions if they didn’t. It was not the right book for me to read at this point; there were at most a few flashes of grace.