Happy Eclipse Day
Wear your eclipse glasses, people! And have some reviews.
Side note: It just occured to me that if we ever join the Galactic Federation, eclipses are going to become even more of a nightmare when all the aliens with worlds NOT equipped with moons that are bizarrely perfectly sized to blot out their star show up…
Review: The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko by Derek Tyler Attico
A fun tie-in, one of a series of “autobiographies” of StarFleet Captains. It’s really, entirely, for Star Trek fans…there’s a lot in here you won’t understand easily if you never got around to watching Deep Space 9.
Like a lot of tie-ins, it’s written in a lighter style and makes for a quick read. Attico clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the character and working through what is known about him from the show. Not great literature (tie-ins seldom are), but I have a feeling Attico had a lot of fun writing this and if it’s your kind of thing you’ll have a lot of fun reading it.
Recommended for Deep Space Nine fans.
Copy received for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: A Thousand Recipes for Revenge by Beth Cato
One thing bothered me about this book from the first page, although I got over it. Cato creates a world in which magic is done entirely through cooking…and implies no mere mundane cook can make food as good as a magically gifted Chef.
I doubt that!
But other than that, Cato weaves an interesting world. Ada, one of a line of particularly powerful chefs, lost her husband and daughter to politics and exile, and has been a fugitive along with her grandmother (who has dementia) for years. In her kingdom, Chefs are the property of the crown, and with her gifts she was deployed in the military, making meals that empower soldiers.
Solenn is a princess who is to be married to the Dauphin (yes, there’s a lot here that’s inspired by France of a certain era). Except that Solenn has a secret…
…and the use of epicurea, of chef magic, has a dark side too…extremely dark.
CW: Animal abuse, cannibalism, self mutilation
Recommended for people who enjoy truly strange magical systems and anyone who cares about the evils of industrial farming. I also loved that Solenn’s bodyguard are musketeers. You don’t often see secondary world fantasy that includes firearms, but there’s quite a bit of shooting in this one. So, let’s add Dumas fans ;).
Copy received for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: Emergence by Tyler Gorman
I found myself better equipped to enjoy this book if I applied superhero logic to it.
Specifically: Radiation in this book either turns people into magically powered entities or monsters rather than, you know, killing them or giving them cancer.
It works if you apply superhero logic.
This is a YA book, although I’d place it towards the older end of the range because there is so much violence…not to mention animal death (although not of named animals).
The Earth has been ravaged by an apocalypse of which we learn nothing except Radiation. But this story, clearly the first of a series, is more about how this apocalypse also creates…elves and dwarves.
It really doesn’t bring anything new, but it’s fun. If you like Fallout: New Vegas, you’ll probably like it. It also has something to offer fans of very traditional fantasy.
Reasonably entertaining, it does suffer from some incredibly predictable “plot twists” and a little bit of head hopping…all of which I suspect will vanish in future works as the author develops his craft.
I enjoyed it despite the rough edges. Recommended to people who enjoy apocalyptic fantasy.
Copy received for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: Frost Bite by Angela Sylvaine (Dark Matter Ink)
If this book was a movie it would be on MST3K, and I mean that as a compliment. Sylvaine has fun with every single monster movie trope in this YA horror book (older YA…the protagonist is 18 and this might be nightmare fuel for younger kids…or susceptible adults).
Realene is trapped by her mother’s early onset dementia in a dead end Dakota town in the middle of winter when a meteor hits…and starts an alien invasion that begins by possessing…the prairie dogs.
I did say this was ridiculous and tropey, right? It has all of the elements. Realene is a wonderful Final Girl, smart, tough, but not so over-competent that her survival feels assured. There are Things That Are Not Deer in addition to the evil prairie dogs. There’s a scene in a closed theater.
There’s an apocalyptic “Christian” cult. There’s four horses of the appropriate colors…plus a miniature pony. We know which one of those is actually evil, just saying.
It’s set in some indeterminate 80s or 90s, primarily, I suspect, because the plot would not work with cell phones, and thus invokes Stranger Things and the RPG Tales From the Loop.
In other words, this book was right up my personal alley and I recommend it to bad movie fans everywhere. Thanks for a fun ride!
Copy received for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: The Magician’s Secret by Charles Townsend
I don’t often morally judge a book. But I don’t often read a book that leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes me have to get an extra cookie to get it to go away.
This should be great. It’s a fantasy about a stage magician written by a stage magician. There’s an adorable rabbit…which lives (but surprisingly doesn’t emerge from any hats). It’s an interesting plot involving a variety of people pretending to be noblemen, magical duels and a well-put-together world, if a little generic.
The problem (other than the evil magician being described throughout as “the black magician” and never given a name, which is unimaginative and looks bad) is that there’s only one kind of magic in this world:
Mind control.
The protagonist gets his hands on a magician’s stone that allows him to mind control people and animals.
And he uses it. Not only does he use it against his enemies, but he uses it completely frivolously. He uses it to affect the outcome of a dice game he’s not even in. He uses it, more than once, on his allies. There is no cost to this magic other than requiring an artifact.
There are no consequences. Nobody places even moral judgment on him. It’s just completely normalized.
I find this…honestly…disturbing. I don’t judge books for “giving a poor moral message” typically. This time, I am. This is a YA book that says that coercing people is not just okay, it’s the way to win and be a hero. It says it’s okay to use whatever means as long as the ends are good. I’m not even sure he didn’t use it to get in somebody’s pants although that was, thankfully, left unclear.
Other people might not be so bothered. After all, it’s fantasy, and nobody has mind control in the real world (well, there’s hypnosis, but it’s very limited). But I don’t think I’ll be reading any sequels.
Copy received for review and award consideration messages.