Review: Imber by Deborah Mistina

CW: Animal abuse, torture

Do psionics make a book slip from science fiction to fantasy? My answer to this question is typically no, but in the case of Imber I’m less sure simply because the animal empathy in the book is never, in any way, explained. Maybe a sequel will answer the question; this book is ripe dor one.

My biggest problem is that Mistina triggered my Horse Girl <tm>. First of all, the horse is older than one of the protagonists, a mature woman in at least her twenties. So, this horse should be ancient (horses typically live 25 to 30 years, small ponies live longer, but this isn’t a small pony), but is written as being in the prime of his life. Second of all, he vocalizes so much I fear she may have learned horse behavior from Hollywood movies.

My second problem is that the descriptions are remarkably male gaze for a book written by a straight or bisexual woman. The way the women are described and act…yeah.

None of this makes this a bad book, just a flawed one, and it is a debut novel. It also leans vegan in its sensibilities, although nothing in Mistina’s bio that I can find indicates that she is, in fact, vegan. It might just be ecological sensibilities, although the connection with animals (that is never explained).

The rest of the plot has echoes of Howey’s Silo, but without the politics per se. It’s dystopian and pretty harsh with it.

And short of a sequel, it ends on a downer note. There isn’t much hope here, and even the found family doesn’t give much sense of it.

I liked this book, but it’s not fun. It’s just…dark dystopian climate fiction.

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

Review: The Motley Crew by Dusk Peterson

CW: Homophobia, child abuse

Peterson’s world is one worth returning to, although I tend to recommend reading the books in the order he recommends.

Like the others, this one focuses around a romantic friendship between two men, although he also addresses some of my prior criticism by including a gay couple…a gay couple who will be executed if they are found out, but who might be laying the seeds of change.

The child abuse is in the background of one of the characters.

This book follows reluctant Prince Dolan as he returns from exile and starts the process of establishing his rule…protesting the entire time. It’s unclear whether he will manage to escape the throne…he’d rather be a diplomat…but the situation is rather dire and he would be a pretty decent king.

Except there’s the beginnings here of a criticism of nobility and monarchy itself.

And Dolan would be a perfect constitutional monarch, just saying.

Whether that’s what Peterson has in mind…either way, as a book, this is a fairly standard quest/journey narrative, but one peppered with interesting characters and their relationships.

Recommended.