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Hi there--it's been a bit! The first day of school (which was also a snowstorm) involved me waking just before 7 to the sound of water pouring through my bathroom ceiling, followed shortly by electrical explosions and a fire that will have me out of my apartment for, apparently, at least a year. No one was hurt! That is very good. The rest, not so much. I've now moved all my clothes, shoes & jewelry to my office (which I might actually keep in place forever if I can manage the jewelry organization--turns out bookcases are also really good shoe racks, and they make pretty good clothes racks for cheap now). Anyway I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off; the apartment is now empty except for the stuff that was destroyed, which sadly includes two century-old curved glass windows. And I've acquired a place to nap in my office. I'm both grateful for the resources I have to get through this and still pretty overwhelmed given all the rest of the terrible stuff in the world.
Greer Stothers, Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die: A much weirder book than I was expecting. Sir Cameron, a handsome but cowardly knight, freaks out when a prophecy says that his death is necessary to defeat the evil sorcerer threatening the kingdoms (and trying to kill God). He hooks up with the sorcerer—and hooks up with the sorcerer—to see whether he can’t survive somehow. Cameron is … a lot, but he takes being turned into a vulture, and then into a human woman, in stride without dysphoria. Also, the sorcerer’s grievance against God is really quite interesting in a spoilery way.
Aisling Rawle, The Compound: In an unnamed English-speaking country, a reality show strands twenty people in the desert—ten men, ten women. In order to stay on the show, each person must share a bed with a person of the opposite sex (though not necessarily have sex with them). They get luxury rewards, which is particularly attractive because the ongoing war has apparently led to various shortages and hardships. (They aren’t supposed to talk about their pasts or anything outside the compound.) The last person to be there gets unlimited rewards until they walk away. Lord of the Flies ensues, prompted by the various challenges they’re given. It was engaging but ultimately felt as empty as the narrator.
Matt Dinniman, Operation Bounce House: On a colony planet that recently reconnected with Earth, farmers are designated as terrorists for a game company to auction off the right to fight “terrorists” with remote-controlled mechs. It’s not Dungeon Crawler Carl, and I didn’t think that Dinniman managed to recreate the fun of that.
Kimberly Belflower, John Proctor is the Villain:I saw a great production of the play at a local college, and the script on its own is also very good. It’s interesting to see how stage directions have changed over time—this has some very specific things to say about timing, as well as casting (certain characters should be white, or not Black, and other characters shouldn’t be the only Black characters). The story is set mostly in a classroom where a beloved English teacher is teaching The Crucible in 2018. The incredible energy, newness, and vulnerability of teenage girls is the focus (even as others try to pull that focus). Warnings for off-stage sexual exploitation—including that in The Crucible.
Aliya Whiteley, The Misheard World: A soldier guarding a fort full of prisoners is brought in to witness the questioning of a captive from the other side. Revenge for the loss of her home city, which supposedly was the result of an enormously powerful weapon, got her to sign up, but years of fighting haven’t helped her or anyone as far as she can see, and things might not be what they seem. It’s a good premise but I found the denouement too abstract and open-ended—which was clearly what Whitely was going for.
Charles Stross, The Regicide Report: Bob and Mo, now under the direction of the New Management, deal with an attempt to assassinate the Queen, which will free up all the mana of royalty-worship accumulated over millions of people and her sixty-year reign. (The story is set in 2015.) AO3 exists in the Laundry universe, also. It’s a fine outing, as good as you can get when the stars have come right and humans aren’t really in charge any more.
Alix E. Harrow, The Everlasting: A quasi-Arthurian time travel story about the knight who helped found a kingdom/empire and the WWI-analog-era scholar who loves her through multiple lifetimes. I’m not sure I agreed with the idea that having a national myth is the key to the kind of violence the state will inflict, but the Terminator-like villain sure did keep going in a way that made the story propulsive.
Constance Fay, Calamity: Romantsf (that doesn’t really work as well as romantasy, sorry) about a ragtag crew of misfits whose captain finds herself infatuated with the scion of a ruling Family despite his arrogance. It’s well done though the voice is very 2020s to me (most sf has characters who think like their authors, but I’m now old enough to notice that this is both not-1970s/80s and not-my reference period).
Constance Fay, Fiasco: Next in the series: a bounty hunter with a bad reputation for spacing a whole crew of pirates takes on the bounty of a lifetime: finding the kidnapper who killed her cousin a decade ago, in the company of a ragtag crew of misfits, including the sexy medic. I liked that the story changed the meaning of some of what happened in the previous book, confirming that every person in the first book did have their own story and motivations.
Joanna Russ, The Female Man: If I read this before, it was 40 years ago, so this was bracing. It’s metafiction—the author encountering other versions of herself or women like herself in different timelines. It’s more like scream of consciousness than stream of consciousness, as Russ explores all the conflicting demands of white womanhood. The way it uses the language of race would not be repeated today (I like the idea of “period-typical anti-racism”), but very little it said about gender was hard to comprehend today, and—as the book’s last sentences indicate—that means we are still not free.
James S.A. Corey, The Faith of Beasts:Second in the new series about humanity being enslaved by a brutal race. The protagonists are now trying to built a way to survive, both on the Carryx world and across other systems where they’re sent to see if they can be useful. The contours of the broader conflict become a teeny bit clearer or at least more evident in their complexity. It moves at a brisk pace; I liked this volume better than the first.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Pretenders to the Throne of God: Another in the Palleseen Sway books, this time in a besieged city that used the Pals to throw off its previous oppressors, then didn’t enjoy Pal control either. Some characters from previous books return. It’s grimly funny but also there is only war, so it was kind of rough in my present frame of mind.
Kai Butler,Betrothed to the Emperor: Trained as an assassin, Airón expects to escort his sister to marry the Emperor in order to maintain the precarious peace between their respective governments—and then to kill him to keep the Empire in chaos and prevent renewed assaults on their homeland. But the Emperor when they arrive is a different person than the Emperor when they left home, and the new one chooses Airón as his intended consort instead and sends his sister home. Now Airón has to seduce the Emperor and then kill him, but he’s a lot hotter and more ambiguous than Airón expected. Also there is magic.
Kai Butler, Emperor’s Wrath: The assassin is now married to the Emperor, who turns out to be literally haunted. There’s lots of court politics (Airón’s claims of political naivete are basically ridiculous), magic, and more court politics. Interesting developments, including potentially around disability (though I want to wait for later books for a final opinion).
Kai Butler, The Inconvenient Count: This is third in a m/m space Regency series (no homophobia or racism, yes class prejudice); I didn’t like the “fake engagement” trope enough to finish the middle one, but this one involves a recently widowed dowager count and the ex-lover-now-government-spy sent to make sure he gets convicted of the former count’s murder. The mystery isn’t super complex, but it was fun.
Joe Hill, King Sorrow: Hill leans into the Stephen King comparisons with this story, explicitly set in the same world as The Dead Zone and probably Firestarter. In the late 80s, a group of college students (plus one townie) summons a draconic entity to deal with the drug dealers terrorizing one of their number. They later realize that it demands a sacrifice every year. With some great set pieces—an airplane under threat, a secure facility where a private military company seeks to control King Sorrow—it also does a good job of illustrating exactly why the power to kill corrupts. One of the characters becomes a right-wing conspiracy theorist, and spends most of the novel drifting further into racism and transphobia, and receives little pushback from the group of characters we know, while the one Black main character is off in the UK; [spoilers] weren’t super convincing about redemption, but at least the character didn’t textually expect forgiveness.
Greer Stothers, Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die: A much weirder book than I was expecting. Sir Cameron, a handsome but cowardly knight, freaks out when a prophecy says that his death is necessary to defeat the evil sorcerer threatening the kingdoms (and trying to kill God). He hooks up with the sorcerer—and hooks up with the sorcerer—to see whether he can’t survive somehow. Cameron is … a lot, but he takes being turned into a vulture, and then into a human woman, in stride without dysphoria. Also, the sorcerer’s grievance against God is really quite interesting in a spoilery way.
Aisling Rawle, The Compound: In an unnamed English-speaking country, a reality show strands twenty people in the desert—ten men, ten women. In order to stay on the show, each person must share a bed with a person of the opposite sex (though not necessarily have sex with them). They get luxury rewards, which is particularly attractive because the ongoing war has apparently led to various shortages and hardships. (They aren’t supposed to talk about their pasts or anything outside the compound.) The last person to be there gets unlimited rewards until they walk away. Lord of the Flies ensues, prompted by the various challenges they’re given. It was engaging but ultimately felt as empty as the narrator.
Matt Dinniman, Operation Bounce House: On a colony planet that recently reconnected with Earth, farmers are designated as terrorists for a game company to auction off the right to fight “terrorists” with remote-controlled mechs. It’s not Dungeon Crawler Carl, and I didn’t think that Dinniman managed to recreate the fun of that.
Kimberly Belflower, John Proctor is the Villain:I saw a great production of the play at a local college, and the script on its own is also very good. It’s interesting to see how stage directions have changed over time—this has some very specific things to say about timing, as well as casting (certain characters should be white, or not Black, and other characters shouldn’t be the only Black characters). The story is set mostly in a classroom where a beloved English teacher is teaching The Crucible in 2018. The incredible energy, newness, and vulnerability of teenage girls is the focus (even as others try to pull that focus). Warnings for off-stage sexual exploitation—including that in The Crucible.
Aliya Whiteley, The Misheard World: A soldier guarding a fort full of prisoners is brought in to witness the questioning of a captive from the other side. Revenge for the loss of her home city, which supposedly was the result of an enormously powerful weapon, got her to sign up, but years of fighting haven’t helped her or anyone as far as she can see, and things might not be what they seem. It’s a good premise but I found the denouement too abstract and open-ended—which was clearly what Whitely was going for.
Charles Stross, The Regicide Report: Bob and Mo, now under the direction of the New Management, deal with an attempt to assassinate the Queen, which will free up all the mana of royalty-worship accumulated over millions of people and her sixty-year reign. (The story is set in 2015.) AO3 exists in the Laundry universe, also. It’s a fine outing, as good as you can get when the stars have come right and humans aren’t really in charge any more.
Alix E. Harrow, The Everlasting: A quasi-Arthurian time travel story about the knight who helped found a kingdom/empire and the WWI-analog-era scholar who loves her through multiple lifetimes. I’m not sure I agreed with the idea that having a national myth is the key to the kind of violence the state will inflict, but the Terminator-like villain sure did keep going in a way that made the story propulsive.
Constance Fay, Calamity: Romantsf (that doesn’t really work as well as romantasy, sorry) about a ragtag crew of misfits whose captain finds herself infatuated with the scion of a ruling Family despite his arrogance. It’s well done though the voice is very 2020s to me (most sf has characters who think like their authors, but I’m now old enough to notice that this is both not-1970s/80s and not-my reference period).
Constance Fay, Fiasco: Next in the series: a bounty hunter with a bad reputation for spacing a whole crew of pirates takes on the bounty of a lifetime: finding the kidnapper who killed her cousin a decade ago, in the company of a ragtag crew of misfits, including the sexy medic. I liked that the story changed the meaning of some of what happened in the previous book, confirming that every person in the first book did have their own story and motivations.
Joanna Russ, The Female Man: If I read this before, it was 40 years ago, so this was bracing. It’s metafiction—the author encountering other versions of herself or women like herself in different timelines. It’s more like scream of consciousness than stream of consciousness, as Russ explores all the conflicting demands of white womanhood. The way it uses the language of race would not be repeated today (I like the idea of “period-typical anti-racism”), but very little it said about gender was hard to comprehend today, and—as the book’s last sentences indicate—that means we are still not free.
James S.A. Corey, The Faith of Beasts:Second in the new series about humanity being enslaved by a brutal race. The protagonists are now trying to built a way to survive, both on the Carryx world and across other systems where they’re sent to see if they can be useful. The contours of the broader conflict become a teeny bit clearer or at least more evident in their complexity. It moves at a brisk pace; I liked this volume better than the first.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Pretenders to the Throne of God: Another in the Palleseen Sway books, this time in a besieged city that used the Pals to throw off its previous oppressors, then didn’t enjoy Pal control either. Some characters from previous books return. It’s grimly funny but also there is only war, so it was kind of rough in my present frame of mind.
Kai Butler,Betrothed to the Emperor: Trained as an assassin, Airón expects to escort his sister to marry the Emperor in order to maintain the precarious peace between their respective governments—and then to kill him to keep the Empire in chaos and prevent renewed assaults on their homeland. But the Emperor when they arrive is a different person than the Emperor when they left home, and the new one chooses Airón as his intended consort instead and sends his sister home. Now Airón has to seduce the Emperor and then kill him, but he’s a lot hotter and more ambiguous than Airón expected. Also there is magic.
Kai Butler, Emperor’s Wrath: The assassin is now married to the Emperor, who turns out to be literally haunted. There’s lots of court politics (Airón’s claims of political naivete are basically ridiculous), magic, and more court politics. Interesting developments, including potentially around disability (though I want to wait for later books for a final opinion).
Kai Butler, The Inconvenient Count: This is third in a m/m space Regency series (no homophobia or racism, yes class prejudice); I didn’t like the “fake engagement” trope enough to finish the middle one, but this one involves a recently widowed dowager count and the ex-lover-now-government-spy sent to make sure he gets convicted of the former count’s murder. The mystery isn’t super complex, but it was fun.
Joe Hill, King Sorrow: Hill leans into the Stephen King comparisons with this story, explicitly set in the same world as The Dead Zone and probably Firestarter. In the late 80s, a group of college students (plus one townie) summons a draconic entity to deal with the drug dealers terrorizing one of their number. They later realize that it demands a sacrifice every year. With some great set pieces—an airplane under threat, a secure facility where a private military company seeks to control King Sorrow—it also does a good job of illustrating exactly why the power to kill corrupts. One of the characters becomes a right-wing conspiracy theorist, and spends most of the novel drifting further into racism and transphobia, and receives little pushback from the group of characters we know, while the one Black main character is off in the UK; [spoilers] weren’t super convincing about redemption, but at least the character didn’t textually expect forgiveness.