Review: The Listeners

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Maggie Stiefvater gives us her adult fiction debut in a book that plays like a World War II version of The Magic Mountain, set in Appalachia. Inspired by true events, Stiefvater tells the story of June, a hotel manager forced to accept Axis diplomats as unwanted guests in her fancy hotel most famous for its healing sweetwater (actually pretty foul tasting, but the local folks swear by it all the same.) While the book does suffer from Stiefvater’s usual issues that have plagued many of her YA books - dreamy prose masking thin plot, most of the characters are less than likable - I can imagine this particular story would work far better as a movie to really immerse viewers in a gothic atmosphere. Especially gothic in the literary sense, since it shows our government coddling diplomats from then enemy nations in a way that almost would make sense today, given that our country has been hijacked by traitors who would give comfort to our enemies just to make a quick buck.

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Review: Ten Incarnations of Rebellion

Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The latest novel from Vaishnavi Patel shifts away from the ancient settings of the original Hindu legends which she typically adapts, in favor of a more modern but still historical (or, more accurately, alternate historical) setting that still takes inspiration from the same Hindu legends. In this new timeline, it's the 1960s going into the 1970s, and India remains a British colony decades past the point where she gained independence in real life, due in large part to the British stamping out Gandhi and other leaders of the independence movement with even greater violence. By this point in the timeline, the city we know as Mumbai has been burned down and rebuilt as British Kingston, with the colonizers pitting all the local ethnic and religious groups against each other...until such time as Kalki, Fausha, and their friends and families can slowly rise up and overthrow their oppressors. It's a slow burn, especially for a short book, but it's quickly become my new favorite of Patel's for numerous reasons.

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Review: These Vengeful Gods

These Vengeful Gods by Gabe Cole Novoa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gabe Cole Novoa brings us his latest dark YA fantasy, this time shifting away from his historical settings of the last few years (two books of piracy and magic, and his retelling of Pride and Prejudice with a transmasculine protagonist.) Now, he takes on the fantasy dystopian style, bringing in a lot of his stylistic hallmarks - queer-centric cast, Latin American inspired setting (not every character is Hispanic, but many of them are at least coded as such), sharp social commentary about class division and genocide (protagonist Crow being one of the last living descendants of Death, whom all the other gods betrayed out of fear), and also disabled rep, with Novoa incorporating elements of his own autoimmune disorder into Crow. I feel like this book will get a lot of comparisons to Aiden Thomas’s The Sunbearer Trials, but my comparison is that, having been disappointed with the second book of Thomas’s duology, this book gets right in one what Thomas couldn’t quite pull off in two. It’s a very worthy addition to Novoa’s bibliography, and while Crow is a new favorite of mine among his protagonists, Chaos takes the cake as my fave overall in this book, easily.

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Review: Badlands

Badlands by Douglas Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The fifth Nora Kelly novel feels like a throwback to some of Preston & Child’s best scary stories, especially way back in their earlier days like in Still Life With Crows. It also verges on X Files territory, particularly with its emphasis on the ruins and artifacts of Indigenous peoples in New Mexico, from the Chaco to the Ancestral Pueblo to the Gallina, and of course the Navajo, with an old woman of that tribe getting a laugh out of Nora and Corrie’s clumsy attempts at speaking her language. Though they aren’t Native Americans, Preston & Child take great care to depict various tribal cultures past and present with sensitivity, which is more than I can say for the ultimate villains of this book. Without spoilers, let’s just say there really is a special hell for cultural appropriators and they deserve it.

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Review: Anji Kills a King

Anji Kills a King by Evan Leikam
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It starts with Exactly What It Says On The Tin, and builds from there. And where it builds is to Anji getting abducted by the Hawk, one of the five assassins tasked with protecting this land, except she's a crabby old lady past her prime physically. Mentally, though...she's gotta stay ahead of her fellow Menagerie members, especially if she's to claim the bounty on Anji all for herself. While this book is, for some reason, hyped as a piece of grimdark fantasy akin to Joe Abercrombie, it does one thing right that Abercrombie's always failed at for me - it's kept me interested in at least one character. Two, technically, but definitely one over the other. For some reason, while Anji is ostensibly the star of the show, Hawk is a far more interesting and dynamic character to me. That said, by the time this book ends, it's pretty clear that Anji is the true lead, and yet she's still part of something bigger for the second book to explore in greater detail...

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Review: A Burning in the Bones

A Burning in the Bones by Scott Reintgen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The trilogy ends with a tale as old as time: a plague comes, and those in power seek to weaponize it for their own ends. The in universe politics get quite complicated on this one, because no one knows who’s gonna get sick, who might be immune, and what the effects on society at large will be…except for the fact that there is going to be a seismic shift in power no matter what. And then there’s the dragons to think about, dragons that are supposed to be officially extinct, but they, like life in Ian Malcolm’s iconic line…uh, finds a way. While this book was a much slower read than its predecessors, it’s no less gripping for it, and Reintgen sticks the landing very well, and very unexpectedly too.

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Review: A Whisper in the Walls

A Whisper in the Walls by Scott Reintgen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second novel of Reintgen’s Waxways trilogy shifts away from dark academia in favor of a dark apprenticeship as Ren enters the service of House Brood, with the goal to take them down from within. Pretty classic setup, but there’s more to the story than that, as another family wronged by the Broods in the past, House Tin’Vori, prepares their own long game of revenge. Dahvid Tin’Vori, in particular, is a great anti-hero/anti-villain (really, he’s just morally extra gray here) with the ability to draw magical powers from tattoos, similarly to Adrian in Marissa Meyer’s Renegades series. But it also depends on the skill of the tattooist, and his current artist Cath really has her work cut out for her as she needs to get these tattoos just right for Dahvid. It’s another blazing fast read, but the finale’s gonna need to take its time to savor, due to its length and subject matter…

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Review: A Door in the Dark

A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first book in a YA fantasy trilogy that somehow slid under the radar despite coming from the same publisher that used to present all the Cassandra Clare books, from an author who’s long been skilled at sliding under the radar with good material. I happened to see the complete trilogy on a shelf at B&N, so my mission, and I choose to accept it, is to read them all. This first book is a very unusual combination of subgenres: dark academia and survival thriller. It also taps into the romantasy enemies to lovers trend a bit, but it’s my hope that these leads stay enemies in the end, because like a lot of such lead characters, they’re an anti-ship for me. In this case, purely because Ren has strong personal reasons for wanting to bring down Theo’s ill gotten gains. Luckily, I’ve already got Book 2 ready to start today.

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Review: Never Flinch

Never Flinch by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had high expectations for this one, even after I was a little less impressed than I'd been hoping for with Holly, because Holly Gibney is a fan and creator favorite for a reason. But here we have Holly's latest case - or, more accurately, cases. There's a lot going on in this book, and it's so convoluted that it proves very difficult for the whole story to coalesce cleanly, and even King himself admitted that this one was hard to write for many reasons. What it all boils down to is, there's a mysterious killer stalking Holly's hometown of Buckeye City (finally it more or less confirms my longstanding headcanon that Holly lives in Ohio), and the Robinsons are involved with the upcoming return concert of long-retired soul singer Sista Bessie. While Holly is away bodyguarding for a controversial feminist speaker of a similar vibe to Susan Day in Insomnia, she's also having to contend with a stalker who turns out to be two personalities in one body, one male, one female, both toxically manipulated by Evangelical preachers with dirty money up the wazoo. The Psycho-like quality of this character in particular feels like it's King's way of reminding his Constant Readers that after his heavy moralizing in Holly, he really isn't a perfect leftist at all, never has been. But he's still a liberal at heart, exactly as expected for a man of his always-welcome anti-Trump, anti-Evangelical convictions, the latter being what shows much more in this book.

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Review: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I first noticed this series had blown up to the point of getting almost all the books reissued in humongous hardcovers, I thought ACE had gotten all seven that has been self published up to 2024 or so. Nope. Turns out this is as far as they’ve gotten, but the seventh book will be reissued by ACE this fall, and promises to be even bigger and bloodier than any of its predecessors. And given that this book is an 800 page monster of spinning story wheels and more repetitive plot than you can blame on the in universe majorly malfunctioning AI, that’s saying something. As always, I’m still here for Princess Donut (who now presents a much needed recap of the previous book, emphasizing the most important events and glossing over some others, but those she glossed over tend to be the ones I remember most anyway.) That, plus Carl’s backstory finally getting some revelations (and Dinniman is quick to acknowledge that while Carl was a PNW boy all along, he and Dinniman are definitely NOT the same person) is why this book gets a 2.5 rounded up to 3.

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Review: Faithbreaker

Faithbreaker by Hannah Kaner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Sorry to say that while this series started out strong, in the end, it kinda fizzled out for me. Not that it was an awful and unreadable book, not by a long shot. But the heavy focus on tons of POV characters in a relatively small space, it made the series increasingly slow and unfocused, bogged down with characters and ships I couldn’t get behind (although I do love how the series has always been good at including queer rep, though Elo and Arden are def a ship I’m not on board with because I like the glimmers of chemistry between Elo and Kissen much better.) But hey, we’ll always have that cover love for this series too, especially this book with its odd looking winged jackalope little guy.

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Review: Coldarius: The Betrayal

Coldarius: The Betrayal by D.L. Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first book of Coldarius was a fighter punching above its weight class for sure, but this second half of D.L. Hannah’s Platirius prequel duology really saves its most devastating moments for last. Even after reading all her previous books in quick succession this year, it was still tough to predict exactly how this book would unfold, and as I read it in one sitting, Hannah’s narrative threw every curveball it could. No spoilers, but just a request to any readers who haven’t begun this saga yet - the drama Force is strong with this one. I’ll miss Coldarius and this arc of the saga for sure, but before the summer is over, I’ll be able to start reading the next series chronologically, the new trilogy of JanIus in all its glorious royal purple packaging.

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Review: The Survivor Wants to Die at the End

The Survivor Wants to Die at the End by Adam Silvera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Silvera was starting to lose me a bit with his increasingly sprawling Infinity Cycle and its focus on too many obnoxious and unlikable characters in its ensemble, but with this return to the world of Death-Cast, he starts to un-lose me, because this book is where he starts getting right again, much of what he messed up in his other series. While this book is a great big brick of a book, just over 700 pages like Infinity Kings, it's a more streamlined story for sure, focusing a lot more on its two queer, neurodivergent protagonists as is traditional for this series. In this case, we get Paz (aka Pazito, though that nickname gives me the giggles every time because of its rhyme with the name of Silvera's real-life dog Tazzito) and Alano, both of whom were introduced as boys in The First to Die at the End.

Review: The Butcher's Masquerade

The Butcher's Masquerade by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As I’ve worked my way through this series, it’s been a roller coaster for me in terms of quality. It didn’t start out as great as I expected given its massive hype (let’s not forget, Ace bought up all the books and has been reissuing them in very fast fashion in hardcover these last few months), and while it did improve for me after another book or two, we’re at a point where I’m giving it once again a 2.5 generously rounded up to a three. It’d definitely be lower based on how monstrously bloated the story has become - seriously, this did not need to be 700 friggin’ pages, and with the next book being longer, I’m afraid it might be what breaks me as a reader. (Carl would not approve, he of the “They will not break me. Fuck you all” mantra.) Really, it’s Princess Donut who keeps me going with this series, so for her I will also return for Book 6 and its promise of a deadly new challenge that very specifically piques my interest after how repetitive and self-parodying this book got at times…

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Review: South of Nowhere

South of Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Colter Shaw returns for his fifth Jeffery Deaver novel in a storyline that might just be too high budget for the CBS series adaptation Tracker, unless they saved that budget for a season premiere or finale. Oh, and some of the details about Colter’s family wouldn’t be able to be incorporated into the show anyway, since the show is definitely taking its own path in that regard. Here, however, Deaver presents a book that plays out like a disaster movie crossed with an actually good Yellowstone that makes its points about natural rights and Indigenous rights without hiding under a veneer of right wing rhetoric. Though it stretches credulity that Colter’s mother can speak the nearly extinct Ohlone language well enough to leave a voicemail for Mrs. Petaluma, an Indigenous woman who refuses to leave her home even when there’s a flood almost certainly coming, Deaver does do a great job acknowledging the Native peoples of Northern California, particularly the Miwok who are the true custodians of this land. (The exact location of Hinowah doesn’t really match most actual geography, but it’s definitely Miwok land up in the Sierra Nevada somewhere - my headcanon places it between Truckee and Susanville.) Coming from the same series that skewers urban California corporate politics in a previous book, here Deaver takes his lens to rural California to examine water rights, real estate terrorism, and Indigenous land rights long ignored after centuries of broken treaties and genocide.

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Review: His Face Is the Sun

His Face Is the Sun by Michelle Jabès Corpora
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is for sure a serious candidate for my favorite book of the year, and will at least stay in the top 5 if it doesn't outright hit the number one spot. An expansive high fantasy set in a fictional kingdom inspired by ancient Egypt (the author is herself of Egyptian descent and took inspiration from stories passed down by her father and her grandparents), with four protagonists in different social classes, each one with a distinct voice and story arc...it's a long and sprawling book, but it's for this that we read top tier fantasy, and this is some S-tier material up there with the likes of Bardugo in her heyday and Chakraborty in particular. And with Sourcebooks giving it a lovely physical package with elaborate sprayed edges, it looks the part and plays it to perfection. No spoilers - hell, go into this book with as little foreknowledge as possible. If any book deserves a well-packed hype train full of passengers, this is it.

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Review: The Gate of the Feral Gods

The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Stay the fuck away from gods.”

It’s so odd how this series, for all it’s been a hit, fluctuates in quality for me from book to book. I gave the first two books 3 stars (really the first was a 2.5 rounded up), and then the third book started what I thought would be an upward trend. But now here comes the fourth book and fifth dungeon and we’re back down to three stars again. I think a huge part of it is because I was expecting a lot more elemental shenanigans with four themed segments in this dungeon, but Dinniman spent a hell if a long time with the gnomes and only then jumped to the sands, and finally the sub…and when this book is pushing 600 pages already, it really starts getting stuck in the mud and making me question why this series is so popular again to begin with. But that sands segment with its Indiana Jones stylings is what keeps my interest the most, in part because it feels like it’s where this book delivers on its promise best. Not to mention the increasingly bonkers nature of the game’s AI, reflecting how if our world is indeed a simulation, the gods who made it must be crazy. Or feral. And no wonder the rest of the gods would prefer their isolation. But yes, while this book was a swing and a near miss for me, I’ll still be reading the fifth book in short order.

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Review: The Tainted Khan

The Tainted Khan by Taran Matharu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Matharu returns to his first series of adult fantasy with Jai striking out on his own and finding his way to the Steppefolk, to whom his true people are connected, in hopes of ultimately bringing down the Sabine Empire that destroyed his family and countless others. In this sense, it’s like if Dune Part Two shed its sci fi elements to become Steppe Part One. The book noticeably dials down its predecessor’s litRPG elements, though not completely, especially not when Jai retains his soulbound connection to the sweet and fierce dragon Winter. That said, the fantasy politicking ramps up to compensate as we delve deeper into the world of the Steppefolk and various associated tribes. And while they’re somewhat predictable, the big twists on which this book turns (particularly the very last one) set the stage for what I expect could be an epic conclusion in the upcoming third book…

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Review: Coldarius: The Origin of Gallium

Coldarius: The Origin of Gallium by D.L. Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The prequel to Platirius follows a character originally from the chilly but ironically more hospitable world of Coldarius, chronicling the rise of the dreaded King Dubian (among other important events) through the eyes of one of the best and brightest on the planet - Gallium, a gifted youth in many ways. Seeing him on the cover (humorously enough, to me, his cover model resembles a coworker of mine) really makes it hit home how much of an ideal MaleForm he is, and I don’t just mean his high attractiveness. I mean how intelligent and thoughtful he is, and how much he cares for those whom his alien people might otherwise overlook (especially humans, whom Dr. Ezra Barrios has seen at their worst while witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust.) And then, of course, there’s some brief glimpses into Dubian’s POV, watching as his insecurity and self loathing slowly drive him mad. It’s a testament to Hannah’s skill that she almost makes you feel sorry for him. Almost. Because that ending, setting up the back half of this duology, reminds us that there’s a reason why he was always the Greater Scope Villain of the original trilogy…

Coldarius: The Origin of Gallium

Review: Midnight in Soap Lake

Midnight in Soap Lake by Matthew J. Sullivan
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Unfortunately this one fell victim to the Goodreads hype machine and fell hard as hell. My hopes were high for this one - a sort of latter day Twin Peaks in a small Washington state town, but desert instead of forest, and imagine my surprise when I learned that Soap Lake was a real place. But for all the hype, this book’s pale, dusty imitation of Lynch (not to mention a watered down Night Vale) wound up being one of my biggest disappointments of the year so far. Abigail was a surprisingly flat and boring protagonist, and while Esme’s flashbacks spiced things up a little, it wasn’t enough to retain my interest. DNF, and seeing the spoilers, that was the right call.

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Review: The Last Hero

The Last Hero by Linden A. Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Lewis concludes their debut trilogy at great length, though I’m pretty sure this book was printed on thinner paper so it’d look a little less 600 pages long. Like its predecessor, it achieves that length by meandering a lot over its course, with its multiple POV’s, though it does make quick work of bringing back one who appeared to have died at the end of Book 2. But of course not, as I suspected almost immediately given this genre and subject matter. The ending reminds me a tad bit of that of The 100, though much less rushed and (despite its heavy rooting in AI crap) still more organic. To this trilogy, I now bid ave atque vale at last.

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Review: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”They will not break me. Fuck them all. They will not break me.”

Okay, I have to admit it…now we’re cooking. The third book in this series goes to the fourth dungeon, an immensely complicated railway network called the Iron Tangle, where it really doesn’t help to have a map because it’d probably have too many dimensions for humans to perceive. As it is, while Dinniman does provide a rudimentary sketch about 300-some odd pages in, it only serves to emphasize just how impossibly wild and out of control the world building is going to get. It’s a beast of a book, but it’s validating my status as a passenger on the hype train now, when I was almost ready to give up after Book 1 disappointed me. And the promise of four elemental themed dungeons in one level for the next book…let’s just say I can see why that one has a longer wait at the library than either of its two predecessors combined.

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Review: Carl's Doomsday Scenario

Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The second book of Dungeon Crawler Carl steps up the game in the third level of the dungeon, here presented as “the Over City,” resembling Vegas in a lot of ways (especially with its faux open air setup like Fremont Street), but built as one of several layers of a giant old volcano. Also like Vegas, there’s a lot of sex workers to go around, with Carl and Princess Donut having to contend with a cavalcade of dead prostitutes, as well as a few live ones with potentially dangerous effects (one such moment being the source of Princess Donut’s infamous complaint about Carl having an erection at the worst possible time.) The writing style is a bit improved since we no longer have to worry about introducing Carl and Princess Donut or most other aspects of this dungeon series, but overall it’s still the same dumb fun and high action as its predecessor, with a few more moments of social commentary to spice things up.

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Review: Dungeon Crawler Carl

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There’s definitely something in the air in Washington state, with indie SFF authors getting the right amount of attention to hit it big. Repping Eastern Washington in this regard is Spokane’s Travis Baldree and his Legends & Lattes world, and now for Western Washington, there’s Matt Dinniman of Gig Harbor hitting it so big with Dungeon Crawler Carl that Ace bought up the seven books already published and have reissued them all in hardcover.

Review: Watch Me

Watch Me by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tahereh Mafi is back to her signature dystopian saga five years after Imagine Me in the real world, and ten years in universe, and the superpowered shenanigans are giving me flashbacks to the glory days of Maximum Ride. Here, we have two new POV’s: Rosabelle, a young assassin raised at Ark Island, the last bastion of the Reestablishment, as well as James, Warner’s little brother, now all grown up and just as much a dangerous prettyboy as his famous relation. But he’s definitely got a lot more influence from the great Kenji Kishimoto in his personality, being quite foul of mouth and dirty of mind. But especially the foulmouthed part. Rosabelle, meanwhile, has more than a touch of Juliette in her personality - though she’s far less fractured in her mind, she still gets a bit of Juliette’s little freeze up moments under stress, reflecting in the sudden skipping of lines in her prose. And yes, all our OG series faves show up - Adam doing his thing, Warner and Juliette married and expecting a child (which is far easier said than done since Juliette’s reproductive system almost doesn’t work at all thanks to her family’s experiments), and Kenji reinforcing his status as my permanent fave with how chaotic and cool he is. It’s a fast paced thriller with the promise of more in yet another cliffhanger as only Mafi can deliver them…hopefully we get the next book this time next year.

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Review: The Second Rebel

The Second Rebel by Linden A. Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The sequel to The First Sister is a 3.5 rounded down to a 3 largely because, unlike its predecessor, it tends to drag at times. Not only does that owe to the book being about a hundred pages longer this time, but also because instead of having three POV's (more a sort of 2.5 since Hiro's story was told in audio transcript interludes and therefore felt somewhat disconnected), this one expands with a fourth POV from Lito's sister Luce, who is pretty interesting but doesn't quite stand out compared to Lito, Hiro, or especially Astrid (her true name being what toplines her POV chapters now.) 

Review: The First Sister

The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first in a trilogy that I saw recommended on r/RedRising plays out more like The Expanse and The Handmaid's Tale collaborated and presented a multilayered, action-packed thriller with a hyper-diverse cast of characters. The title character is one of three major POV's, stripped of her name and voice and forced to live as a "comfort woman" to various interplanetary military commanders. Interestingly, it's not as patriarchal as you might think - it's heavily rooted in a matriarchal religion, and First Sister is assigned, early on, to a new commander who presents much more female. My guess is that Lewis, being nonbinary, wrote this in an effort to understand a new perspective on feminity in a world that places the wrong kind of value on it.

Review: A Drop of Corruption

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a 3.5 rounded up to a 4 for me on this second mystery of Ana and Din, those foulmouthed investigators stepping into ever fouler territory. This time, the foulness comes less from creeper plants that like to infect and kill people, and more from the generally humid jungle atmosphere of the outlying city of Yarrowdale. Despite its English-like name and the pallor and green-ness of its people, Yarrowdale reads more like a fictionalized version of Thailand or Vietnam or some other southeast Asian country, trying to stay independent despite the Empire’s wish to bring them into the fold. Especially because they happen to have the secret of all secret labs in their waters, a fallen Leviathan corpse converted into a creepy island lab known only as the Shroud. Though the moldy environs and the mystery of the Shroud play into the story pretty well, it’s much less biopunk at its core this time around, focused instead on a long and drawn out multilayer of mistaken identity - mistaken by anyone and everyone who could verify it until it’s too late. While this book is largely standalone, there’s still the promise of at least one more adventure in this series, and I’m hoping Bennett’s got all the stops to pull out on that one.

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Review: Platirius: Kikhani vs Platirius

Platirius: Kikhani vs Platirius by D.L. Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As promised, Hannah brings the first arc of her saga of sci-fi novellas to its conclusion with a third book that's almost double the length of either of its predecessors. Which is justified, because there's a lot of family drama to wrap up in this one while also setting the stage for at least two upcoming arcs, the Coldarius duology and a new Janius series, which I expect will be another trilogy, but it's still got yet to be formally announced like Coldarius. Where this book shines the most is the tense relationships (such as it were) between the royal sisters and their conflicting views of how life in the galaxy ought to be, as well as the absolutely unhinged villainy of Queen Aiki of Kikhani, who thinks she's flaming hot shit when she really ain't shit as a person, and in terms of beauty, she's about as far from flaming hot as you can get. But also, Gallium's character development here, ahead of the increased focus on him and his homeworld in the upcoming duology...I have to say, he's one of the most interesting characters Hannah has come up with yet, and I can't wait to keep the story going with Coldarius very soon...

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Review: The Summer Guests

The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The second book of The Martini Club is more local and personal for its cast of characters. Largely shifting away from the international intrigue of The Spy Coast, as well as its contrast between present day winter and past flashbacks to sunny Malta, this one takes place almost entirely in the present day, except for a brief 1972 flashback. Instead of the international intrigue, it's a smaller scope story, centered on a missing teenage girl from a wealthy family, with parallels to a past case and past infamous CIA stories. Though the latter part of the book shifts oddly and incongruously into conspiracy theory territory, Gerritsen still handles the story and characters with her usual aplomb. And, if you're good enough to read all the way to the end (at least in the physical version I picked up at the library; can't speak for other formats in this regard), you'll be rewarded with a bonus short story officially crossing over with the world of Jack Reacher.

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Review: The Scorpion and the Night Blossom

The Scorpion and the Night Blossom by Amélie Wen Zhao
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It will never cease to amaze me that despite YA Twitter’s attempts to shoot Amélie Wen Zhao’s career dead in the crib, she continues to publish beautiful new fantasy novels while most of those who targeted her have failed to catch on like they expected. And, even better, Zhao gives us increasingly Chinese stories to reflect her culture, and this time, she’s 100% correct: this is for the C drama girlies. I may not be one myself - not a girlie, and unfortunately I’ve experienced very little of C dramas, though I’ve watched a K drama or two with similar historical and fantastical stylings - but that might have to change after reading this book. The start of another duology, this one has some of Zhao’s highest action and romance stakes yet. The action stakes were nothing unexpected to those of us who have followed her career from the start, but the romance…whoo, that’s Zhao’s finest work yet in that field. Here’s hoping we see Book 2 this time next year…

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Review: The Martian Contingency

The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve been waiting for almost five years to finally read the fourth novel in the Lady Astronaut universe, the third to feature Elma York as the primary POV. Unfortunately, this one is definitely a mixed bag for me, especially if it’s to be the last book in the series as Kowal has indicated. On the one hand, it’s still very technical in its approach, giving tons of reasons as to how the Martian habitat (do NOT call it a colony; Elma will hate your guts) has to deal with nearly impossible odds stacked against the survival of everyone living within.

Review: Emberclaw

Emberclaw by L.R. Lam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

L.R. Lam returns to the world of Dragonfall for the concluding entry of their duology. I think they were planning to make a trilogy at first, but for many personal reasons, they decided to conclude the series in this book instead. I don’t blame them - they took it very hard when the first book struggled at first in the face of poor online ratings, especially from people who couldn’t accept that book in its unorthodox, multi-POV, queer-normative glory. Luckily B&N picked the book last year as a monthly fantasy selection, and I’m hoping that helped not only Dragonfall find its audience more than ever, but Emberclaw here as well.

Review: Dear Manny

Dear Manny by Nic Stone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s been quite a while since I read any Nic Stone books, and you can imagine my surprise when I learned that not only was she following up on Dear Martin and Dear Justyce with the promised final novel in the trilogy, but that it would be centered on, of all characters, Jared. Yes, the same entitled white boy who, in the first two books, seemingly could never understand how privileged he was, and how ignorant he was.

Review: The Ragpicker King

The Ragpicker King by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lately, I've seen a number of Jewish readers criticizing this book's publisher, Del Rey, for having also published another fantasy novel whose storyline is heavily reliant on antisemitic tropes and stereotypes: Homegrown Magic by Jamie Pacton and Becca Podos. It's heavily ironic because Podos is herself Jewish, but also staunchly anti-Zionist, and has accused her critics of only coming after her personally because of her stance on Israel and Palestine - which isn't really off base, as I've seen several Jewish readers criticize her for precisely this reason, but also because they perceive her as being ashamed of her Jewish identity and trafficking in "Jews control the money and the world" canards in an effort to appeal to fellow leftists who play up their own brand of antisemitism.

Not being Jewish, I can only be an observer of this debate. But having read Cassandra Clare's latest novel, I feel that she has captured the nature of this kind of internecine conflict best. Of course it's far from a perfect match to the debate over Homegrown Magic, but that sort of debate might very well exist among the Ashkari people in these Chronicles of Castellane.

Review: Platirius: The Rise of Reve

Platirius: The Rise of Reve by D.L. Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

D.L. Hannah’s second novella of Platirius (though far from the last book in this universe; she’s planning at least three distinct story arcs that I know of) sheds a lot of light on Revari’s past to further flesh out her complex character. In her time on Earth, using psychic powers eerily reminiscent of Marissa Meyer’s Lunars, she’s got a pedophile businessman to tear down in a way we all wish could happen to a few other sick, twisted corporate demons in real life - and Hannah, today, brought this up as an example of why she wouldn’t abide any defense of the Australian romance novelist who’s now under arrest for distributing CSA material in a now canceled novel. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as this book dives more deeply into the fraught (to put it mildly) sexual divide between MaleForms who resent no longer having power on this planet, and WomenForms who have long tired of the ways of the patriarchy. Hannah says this book was her favorite to write in the original trilogy, and I can see why. But still my expectations stay high for the third book, which is looking ready to ship sometime next month…

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Review: Sunrise on the Reaping

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Haymitch novel the fans have been clamoring for for years? Or does Collins have a few curveballs up her sleeve?

As it happens, ¿porqué no los dos?

OLD PINECONE GENERAL'S WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE BOOK FIRST. GO INTO THE BOOK WITH AS LITTLE KNOWLEDGE AS POSSIBLE.

Review: A Dragon of Black Glass

A Dragon of Black Glass by James Rollins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“‘Such are our roles,’ Rami stated with a tired sigh. ‘To be a shining promise during bleak times.’”

Rollins returns to the world of MoonFall after a two year hiatus, during which time the real world has started riding the express elevator to hell in a handbasket once again, and we absolutely need heroes like Nyx and Kanthe and Rami to steer our course right again.

As with the previous book, Nyx continues her explorations of the farthest reaches of the Urth, searching with a loyal crew for artifacts that could resume the world's lost rotation - and along the way, meeting even more creatures worthy of the Sanderson-esque bestiary, as well as moving cities that feel like a cross between Sanderson's own Sunlit Man and The Mortal Engines. Meanwhile, Kanthe continues to play the Game of Thrones in the Southern Klashe, where Rami is really the only friend he's got, that princely bromance for the ages. (If my buddy Koda ever reads this series, he'll love how much Kanthe and Rami could be friends with some of his own characters.)

Review: Autopsy of an Ex-Teen Heartthrob

Autopsy of an Ex-Teen Heartthrob by Avan Jogia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a teenager, I always wished I could be half as cool as Beck Oliver. His rockstar aesthetic, down to his majority black wardrobe (especially the boots) and dear God did he have perfect hair. I tried to grow my hair long then too, but unfortunately it ended up resembling the wrong Canadian, being more Bieber-style. All that would’ve needed to complete the image of perfection was Beck to finally wise up to how shitty a girlfriend Jade was, and that Tori was a better match. (But then again, I shipped them more on the basis of how attractive they both were, than anything else.)

As an adult, though?

I can empathize more with Jogia’s account of his years of trauma and associated coping mechanisms.

Review: The Sacred Datura

The Sacred Datura by J. Evan Ramos
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

J. Evan Ramos’s indie dark fantasy feels like if Stephen Graham Jones wrote an episode of The Twilight Zone, with a dash of Welcome to Night Vale in the DNA as well - seriously, I can only see that Ramos named a character Cecil as a Night Vale reference. Centered on a teenage girl named Sam who drinks her sorrows away, it soon becomes clear that a certain poison prized by Indigenous peoples might be the only conduit to saving her long lost little brother. The blurb describes it as being set at the turn of the millennium, which this book does very subtly, similar to Firekeeper’s Daughter, while the location is ambiguously Southwestern. My first guess would’ve been Arizona, but since Ramos is from San Diego, and my own first association with the name “Datura” is from an early Odd Thomas novel in the Mojave Desert, I can see it being a far Southern Californian location too. This indie thriller is absolutely not to be missed.

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Review: The Dark Mirror

The Dark Mirror by Samantha Shannon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Four years ago, The Mask Falling was the last book I was reading before I left California, which seemed fitting to tie in to Paige having finally left Britain in that book after so many years. But with this book, we're taken even further afield to see how the last great bastion of resistance to Scion in Europe is doing. But first, a little trip into Eastern Europe to meet some pan-Slavic Domino agents before we finally get down to the promised main setting of this book: Italy.

Review: The Medici Return

The Medici Return by Steve Berry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This week, a doctor I work with told me the story of how allegedly the Catholic Church began its tradition of fish on Friday as part of a past Pope’s involvement in controlling the Italian fishing industry. While it’s an urban legend that proliferated very well without my knowledge, it nevertheless pairs very well with this latest Cotton Malone novel from Steve Berry, in which Malone investigates reports of an unpaid debt from the Vatican to the old Medici family. Naturally, there’s a Cardinal with a bit too much personal involvement, as well as an enterprising modern day Italian who claims descent from the Medici family, and if provable, he could inherit the collection of that debt with centuries’ worth of interest. All in all, a serviceable if slightly dry outing from Berry, but that probably owes more to me reading this one at the sane time as one I’ve truly been waiting for years to read, Samantha Shannon’s The Dark Mirror.

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Review: Mister Magic

Mister Magic by Kiersten White
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I’ll be generous with an extra star on this one, but I’m honestly not sure why. Kiersten White has historically been one of those authors whose books, every time I’ve tried one, I’ve come up disappointed, and this was no exception. I get that she’s using this one to work through breaking away from the Mormon world where she was born and raised (and to think I was one of those who found her attempts at queer rep in past books, particularly And I Darken, to suffer from heavy stereotyping, only to now realize the seeds for her leaving the LDS Church have been growing for years.) I get that she’s hopping onto the analog horror train, in the same “cursed 90s kids show” car where Jane Schoenbrun and Ransom Riggs have been riding lately too, not to mention Edgar Cantero some years ago with his god-awful (if somewhat ahead of its time) grimdark Scooby-Doo riff, Meddling Kids. Unfortunately, what sinks this book is its muddled and increasingly nonsensical plot, and characters who fall flatter than pancakes. I think I’ve finally learned my lesson at this point - no more Kiersten White books for me.

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Review: The Adventures of Tim & Fluff

The Adventures of Tim & Fluff by Firdaus Ahmed
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This one is for the kids, and for the animal lovers of all ages. Another reviewer compared it to Studio Ghibli, but I’d say if another animation studio could adapt this book, it’d be Aardman. (I may or may not have just gotten around to watching the new Wallace and Gromit movie last weekend in honor of its Oscar nomination…) But this book of animals learning to work together in the face of adversity in common would also pair well with the recent hit Flow, as well as The Wild Robot due to its high number of characters who read as neurodivergent in some way. Particularly Tim, the bouncy dog with the uniquely bunny-like locomotion, and Fluff, who embodies all the hauteur for which cats are known, but it’s all a façade even if he’s not ready to admit it. And both adorable pets have such a strong sense of justice, and know when to do the right thing even at risk of their friendships and their health. I hope to see more of their adventures someday, and to recommend this book to as many kids as I can, especially the kids who come to my workplace for doctor’s appointments.

P.S. Love how this book shouts out the best Chris of them all. Evans and Pine and Pratt and Hemsworth are all cool, but none beat the man whose name went to Luna's dad: Christopher Charles Wood.

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Review: The Sicilian Inheritance

The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s a tale of two Sicilian ladies, one a modern day American visiting her ancestral homeland, while the other is one of her ancestors, who found herself in a serious series of unfortunate events. Teen pregnancy, a patriarchy that flat out disrespected her, and a mafia murder whose truths are only now about to come to light…truth is stranger than fiction, and to hear Piazza say it, this book was inspired a lot by her own family history. It’s a surprisingly lighter read than I expected, in part because of the first person POV’s (though one is much more snarky than the other, as befits her status as a modern Sicilian American.) At some point maybe I should pick up more of Piazza’s books, especially if they’ve got more connections to such a fascinating place as Sicily.

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Review: Play On: Now, Then, And Fleetwood Mac

Play On: Now, Then, And Fleetwood Mac by Mick Fleetwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To hear Mick Fleetwood tell it in his memoir, the first of the many Fleetwood Mac biographies that I've found to be in the first person, if there was one unifying theme about the band and its many members, it's that none of them were classically trained...but especially not the blockbuster Buckingham Nicks incarnation of the band. Even Fleetwood himself, being dyslexic, came to learn the drums almost entirely by ear, and by his own admission, he would never play the song the exact same way twice. Any song. Which of course, caused no small irritation to a productionary perfectionist like Lindsey Buckingham. But what surprises me the most is learning that Fleetwood, far from the wild-eyed English giant we all know him to be, began as a shrinking violet of a boy before he matured into the rockstar we all know him as today.

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Review: All Better Now

All Better Now by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Neal Shusterman returns with his latest thought-provoking YA SFF thriller, this one a standalone piece set in a near future with a new pandemic, a bit deadlier than Covid at a 4% mortality rate, one in twenty-five...but those who recover from the Crown Royale virus lose all negative emotion and live in a state of blissful contentment. Happiness might be the perfect antidote to the endless negativity and division in the world today, but this is a Shusterman novel we're talking about, so there's going to be a catch to all the happiness.

Review: Death of the Author

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It somehow escaped my notice all these years that Nnedi Okorafor is disabled, in a similar way to Zelu, the protagonist of her latest novel. With that in mind, however, it makes this book feel like not only a reflection of Okorafor herself, but also an exercise in how to make a protagonist who is in so many ways not her creator.

Review: Platirius: Infiltration

Platirius: Infiltration by D.L. Hannah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first of a planned trilogy of indie sci fi novellas, with the second and third books coming out in April and July of this year (and I preordered them already at the same time as when I ordered the first book in paperback.) I’ve been attempting to get back into Apple TV’s Foundation lately, helped by the fact that I wasn’t nearly as impressed as I was hoping for with Dune: Prophecy. I have to say, this bite sized book, chock full as it is of tense imperial and family drama alike, is the Prophecy that Dune deserved. The ending takes a sharp left turn I wasn’t expecting at all, reminiscent of the ending of the last season of Silo, but I’m very curious to see how Hannah weaves these disparate story threads together in the sequels. Yes, my preorders will stay on, and hopefully there won’t be any weather related delays on the shipping when those warmer months come along.

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Review: Breath of the Dragon

Breath of the Dragon by Shannon Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Shannon Lee and Fonda Lee (no relation) team up to make an action packed new YA fantasy series, meant to honor the ways of Shannon Lee’s father, the late Bruce Lee. And Fonda Lee, while it’s been quite some time since she wrote a fighting boy in YA (her debut Zeroboxer being a sci fi take on MMA), it’s like riding a bike. She never forgot. And on this book, set in a fantasy world modeled on China with sharp political and class divisions, not to mention some interesting takes on tropes about almost everyone in the world having superpowers while our protagonist doesn’t, he knows very well how to make a name for himself in a world that otherwise wouldn’t accept him. Jun wears the clear influences of Tavi, Mirabel, and especially Deku on his heart - not really his sleeve, since it’s a martial arts kind of story and even on the cover he’s got bare arms. It’s only the first half of his story, though, so by next year we’ll be ready to witness how it all ends.

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