Time Machines, Shadow Fae, and...
…a book I almost didn’t review because I almost couldn’t review it.
Three reviews for this week, two YA books, one adult.
Review: Tiny Time Machine: The Complete Trilogy by John E. Stith
Also not a novel. This should have been handed to me as a YA work too…it’s marketed as YA and appropriately so.
It’s actually three novellas, which could have been turned into a fix up with pretty limited editing, but I understand why the author didn’t bother. It works just as well as it is.
We have a fun heroine, a love triangle that dies aborning, and lots of time travel shenanigans. Ultimately, this is a book about family.
(The time travel shenanigans involve…well…spoilers, but…yeah)
“What if they’re just taking us for a shower?” Ow. Yeah. Just ow.
I was skeptical about his solution to America’s problems simply because I don’t think that one solution would actually work. And I’m not sure it did in the way the kids wanted it to…
This book is fun, particularly if you like yarns in the Heinlein juvenile tradition (but without the weird sex stuff…there is, in fact, sex, which is fine in older YA, but it’s not weird.
I enjoyed it, but I most recommend it to people with a hankering for older style YA.
Review: The Neverborn Thief by Andrew Najberg
CW: Suicide, sort of
Have some patience with this book. It starts a little slow and uncertain, but actually becomes pretty good when it hits its stride.
This is the classic trope of the “kid who falls through a portal into another world” and also reminds me a bit of Garth Nix.
It’s middle grade, but still pretty dark, in part because it deals with a tough issue that kids face all the time: Depression. A classic “Otherworld” is used as a vehicle to explore mental health issues…while still being a good story. Connor has his shadow stolen, or rather part of it, and he has to go to the Shadowlands to get it back before he loses his entire shadow…which will turn him into a completely anhedonic, depressed person who cares about nothing.
The very fantastical twist at the end doesn’t take away from the fact that that is what this story is about. The Shadowlands has a lot of classical faerie about it, including the Unbreakable Bargain and there are even hints of the Goblin Market.
It’s very well written of its type and while it doesn’t bring a lot new to the trope, what it does bring is quite excellent. Not as good as Nix, of course, but few are…and I’d still recommend it to Nix fans because the feel really is quite similar. Give Najberg a bit of time…
Review: Eversion by Alastair Reynolds
This is a very hard book to review because there’s so little you can see without spoilers, and this is a book that would be completely ruined by even the tiniest spoiler.
You’ve been warned.
The protagonist is actually quite a bit nicer than the normal Reynolds protagonist, which is to say one could actually imagine sharing a beer with this guy. Silas is…an interesting person.
The downside is that Reynolds tries to do Master and Commander. He’s not as good at it at Novik. He does manage to channel E.E. Smith better, though. There’s a lot of homage stuff in here to various subgenres from steampunk to classic pulp…and I do mean classic pulp.
But I can’t say much more. I really can’t. You have to experience this book and I can’t even work out who to recommend it to without ruining it.
Sorry not sorry.