Review: The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear

I think this is the best of the series, although I may have a softer spot for Machine. This time, our protagonist is an archinformist…a data archaeologist who tries to put together the information historians need.

She comes equipped with two kids, a wife (who isn’t human) and an arch nemesis who actually is the asshole she appears to be.

And her current task is to study the Baomind, which was discovered in the first book, even as the Synarche engages in the difficult task of literally moving a matryoshka brain from one solar system to another.

This is kind of the ultimate BIg Smart Object and they have to move it before the star it’s currently encircling goes nova.

And as if that wasn’t enough?

There are human supremacist pirates on the loose.

Bear really does it again with this one. (It even has some mild consentacles going on). This is a book in which the real enemy is xenophobia…oh, and let’s not forget the bizarre first contact to challenge and echo that.

Well worth the read.

I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.

Review: The Dragon Next Door by Vanessa Ricci-Thode

CW: Dragon abuse

This one is not quite as good as The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts, having a little bit of an issue with slow pacing towards the end.

But not quite as good as The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts is still pretty good. Tollar, an incredibly powerful aquamancer (I should ask the author if the Avatar associations here are intentional) returns home with an unhatched dragon egg, determined to hand it over to the local blaze.

Of course, before they show up, it’s become a hatched dragon egg, and the dragon has imprinted on her and her neighbor and childhood friend Beelana. Oops!

At first I thought this was going to be pretty cozy, but the stakes get a lot higher. (I put dragon abuse into its own category because they aren’t human but definitely aren’t animals, and some poor dragons get treated pretty badly in this book. Don’t worry, they get rescued).

They’re fighting an invasion of white-coded “northerners” who want to cut down the jungle and replace it with farms, not understanding…Ricci-Thode is clearly up with current research on the Amazon, jungle farming, and managed land.

Meanwhile, Tollar and Beelana have to deal with feelings that go beyond “girl next door” while trying to raise a baby dragon (although the local dragons do help).

This is an interesting romance because Beelana is asexual and Tollar on that spectrum…but it hovers between a chaste romance and queerplatonic in a most delightful way. This also means there’s no actual kissing in the book. Which, along with the way the violence is described, means I would be happy giving this book to an older teenager…especially one who is trying to work out their own sexuality, even though its marketed as an adult book and really is.

And, of course, the dragon is cute. Nothing makes a book better than a cute dragon.

Recommended.

I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.