Pacific Rim meets The Hamfisted Handmaid’s Tale: Xiran Jay Zhao – Iron Widow

I fully expected to adore this book. I mean Pacific Rim, as silly as the premise may be, is just pure fun. Mixing that with feminist themes, a protagonist who dismantles the patriarchy, and has a poly romance as well – it almost sounded too good to be true. And it turns out, it was. There were aspects of this book I enjoyed, but others (important ones!) were terribly flawed or underdeveloped. Which leads me to one of those unpopular opinion ratings. I feel like I’m not allowed to have disliked this book because the internet seems to love it on principle, but I want to be honest here and it just didn’t deliver what it promised.

IRON WIDOW
by Xiran Jay Zhao

Published: Rock the Boat, 2021
Hardcover: 394 pages
Audiobook: 12 hours 14 minutes
Series: Iron Widow #1
My rating: 4/10

Opening line: The Hunduns were coming. A whole herd of them, rumbling across the wilds, stirring up a dark storm of dust through the night.

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

A story such as this, which is meant to show a strong girl protagonist smashing the patriarchy and disrupting existing power structures, needs a solid basis. We need to know how this world works first, in order for us to watch Zetian take it apart in a satisfying manner. That is unfortunately the first problem this book has, although it tries to distract us from this fact with lots of shiny things that grab our attention briefly. What little we know about the world and the ongoing war is this:
Humans are battling the alien mecha Hunduns using Chrysalises (Pacific Rim robots) that are steered by a man/woman team, whereas the man is usually in controll and the woman frequently dies because the mental connection between them is too much to bear. They use qi powers, although I still don’t understand how or what the different sub-types of qi really mean, even after finishing this book. It felt like a Pokémon style addition but without making much sense. There’s wood qi and water qi and one is good against fire and one against air and so on, but I couldn’t really explain it to you if I tried.
The fact that women pilots are used mostly as cannon fodder is accepted by the entire society because family get some money for sending their daughters to become pilots and male pilots need the women’s qi power in order to complement their own – much stronger – powers when driving the Chrysalises. Nobody except for our tenacious heroine (who has grown up in exactly the same society as everyone else in this book) questions this or finds anything with the tradition of sending your daughters and sisters to their sudden death.

But the very fact that Zetian is not like other girls (oh please, I thought we were past that!) kicks off the plot. She is fine with going to her own certain death, as long as she can avenge her sister who was killed by one of the most famous pilots in the land. Her plan is to become his female pilot, kill him and then die in the process or get executed afterward. Of course it then turns out she is MOAR POWERFUL THAN ANYONE because although she does succeed in killing the guy, she herself survives and becomes a Chrysalis pilot herself, an Iron Widow.
She is then paired with the single most powerful pilot currently living, Li Shimin. They measure this stuff in qi points or something – but this guy also happens to be forced to wear a muzzle and have a serious drinking problem. But right from the start you can tell that he is just a tortured superhero who is wrongfully seen as dangerous. I don’t have a problem with this trope, in fact I enjoyed this part of the book, but let’s just say it wasn’t exactly subtle or surprising. And it’s a little cheap that it turns out everything bad about this characters (or indeed, our protagonist) is totally not their fault. They’re perfect really. Any perceived flaws are soneone else’s fault…

Zetian also still has her old love interest Yizhi who follows her into the pilots’ program and sort of helps from the sidelines while swooning over her. One major marketing aspect of this book is the polyamory relationship but, honestly, I didn’t buy it. There wasn’t really anything there. Zetian kisses one guy, then the other, then they talk about it openly – which, granted, is very nice and mature and happens way too rarely in books or on TV – and everyone’s like “guess I’m okay with it then”. But plot convenience takes over immediately because this threeway relationship is never actually tested and can’t be appreciated at all. There are no actual romantic scenes with all three of them, there’s no chance for any of them to even get jealous, there’s simply romantic scenes with Zetian and Yizhi, and there’s romantic scenes with Zetian and Shimin. I’m not the expert on poly relationships, but this depiction felt disingenuous, like the author just didn’t want a love triangel (given how many other tired tropes they used) and so decided to just roll with both M/F relationships and have the guys sort of agree to this arrangement. I don’t want to spoil things but the ending makes it feel even cheaper.

Another thing that made me sad was how this supposedly feminist book handles its female characters. And I don’t mean the obviously terrible sacrifice of young girls that nobody seems to object to. I mean how Zetian thinks and talks about other girls, how they are shown – as conniving, idiotic bitches, as girls too stupid to understand anything, or too blinded and too conformist to use their brain. Only Zetian is smart, only she sees through the VERY OBVIOUS rigging of the entire system. I’m all for romance in my SFF, but I’ll take a good female friendship or at the very least some good female characters over a shallow poly relationships any day. I found this actually the most devestating thing in a book that is sold as “feminist”.
Zetian could have been such a great character. I mean, she’s pretty ruthless, she needs a cane and later a wheelchair because her family broke and bound her feet (beauty standards and all that) and she isn’t swayed easily by nice words. In short: She is damn interesting! I may not have wanted to be her friend, but I appreciated her strong will and her determination. Except she frequently turns on her fellow women – the ones she is supposedly trying to save – thinking of them as sluts or morons. And then toward the end of the book, she does several 180-turns in a row, one to do with her family, one to do with her general view of the world and whether she cares about what others think about her. It felt like a betrayal. By that point, I was already annoyed at the way she is depicted as oh so special and the only girl worth anything in this world, but that was just inconsistent and unnecessary.

So what did I like then, you might ask yourself? Well, as with most stories about gigantic magical mecha monsters fighting mecha aliens, this one had pretty cool battle scenes. It does rely heavily on Pacific Rim, even with the “drift compatibility” being represented as the mind connection between pilots and a sort of balance of Yin and Yang, but that doesn’t make the idea and the battles any less cool.
The writing was compelling, things happen quickly, and the author creates a sense of urgency in any given scene that makes it hard to put the book down. It may turn out the scene you just read is pretty meaningless overall, but books are allowed to be just fun. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
I also really enjoyed how the romantic scenes were written. I can get annoyed pretty quickly when characters throw cheesy lines at each other with no basis, just to sound dramatic and meaningful. So it was refreshing to have such no-nonsense people (although the boys are very one-dimensional) simply go for it without any fuss. And I liked the kissing. 🙂

As for the plot… it’s a bit of a mess. First of all, the big twist from the epilogue can be guessed way ahead of time and isn’t exactly an original or fresh idea. But that isn’t even all that important for this volume, it’s only set up for the second book. This book deals with Zetian discovering some similarly obvious things that are not only hard to believe but also shouldn’t have to be uncovered by an 18-year-old girl. Well, if everyone else is utterly stupid, then that makes sense, I suppose. You see, the battles and the dialogues between characters don’t really advance anything. They are fun to read, as I said above, but ultimately meaningless for the plot. When Zetian does find out some devastating truth, it’s simply presented or rather dumped on the reader. As all of these revelations can be guessed beforehand, this didn’t bother me that much. After all, I was just getting confirmation for what I had suspected all along. And I’m not trying to make myself sound clever here, it really is that on the nose!
But as the world building doesn’t really advance and we don’t learn new things about the Hunduns, qi magic, or how the Chrysalises came to be, that’s all the plot there is.

Sooooo, I read this for a readathon prompt that asks you to read a “five star prediction” and I think I don’t have to say more about that. I doubt I will read the sequel to this, even if the cover is pretty and reviews throw around buzz words. As I’ve learned yet again, just because a book wants to be something (feminist, original, featuring a poly relationship) doesn’t mean it actually succeeds. I didn’t hate reading this. It was quite a bit of light fun that smashes you across the head with ostentatiously feminist messages every other chapter, but as for rating it, especially as a Lodestar Award finalist, this sits firmly at the bottom of my ballot for now.

Because I want to end this review on a more positive note: For a good poly romance and female characters who don’t tear each other down in the name of “raising each other up”, check out the underknown but totally worthwile sci-fi novel Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi! Or, in fact, that one part of N. K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season that I can’t explain in more detail for fear of spoilers. But reading that book is a good idea anyway, for whatever reason you choose. 🙂

MY RATING: 4/10 – Pretty bad

Lots of Telling, no Showing: Roshani Chokshi – The Star-Touched Queen

I had high hopes for this YA adventure. I was promised a loose Hades and Persephone retelling, I was promised Indian mythology inspired stuff, fairy tale vibes, and a romance. What I got was a trip to YA trope land with bad writing and lots of plot problems. But also with some potential. Even for a debut novel, this wasn’t very good, but it also wasn’t bad enough for me to write off the author completely.

THE STAR-TOUCHED QUEEN
by Roshani Chokshi

Published: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2016
eBook: 352 pages
Series: The Star-Touched Queen #1
My rating: 3.5/10

Opening line: Staring at the sky in Bharata was like exchanging a secret.

Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen of a kingdom when you’re only seventeen?

Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of death and destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father’s kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran’s queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar’s wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire…

But Akaran has its own secrets—thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most…including herself.

Things start out well enough. Maya is a Princess who is cursed with a really, really bad horoscope in a world and culture where people put stock into such things. When the stars promise that you’ll be married to Death, suitors don’t exactly come knocking by the dozens, the other girls in the Raja’s harem don’t want to be your friends, and even servants may avoid you whenever possible. So Maya’s life is somewhat lonely, except for her young sister Gauri who loves hearing Maya tell stories. Fairy tales and myths and legends – oh how I would have loved to share in that pastime with them. Unfortunately, us real-world readers get almost no legends or myths or fairy tales. We’re just told that they exist and are great.

When the Raja decides to marry Maya off for political reasons, things don’t exactly go as planned. Instead of the sacrifice she is supposed to make for her people and her home, a man named Amar spirits her off to Akaran where she is to be his wife, horoscope be damned. And that’s where the really boring part starts and the tropes go completely overboard.
Because – of course – Amar can’t really tell Maya anything important for magical reasons. Once the moon has turned, she’ll learn everything there is to know. Until then, she should just be meek and shut up and not explore her new castle too much. Which is a rather empty place, by the way. Except for her, Amar, and his assistant Gupta (who disappears whenever it’s convenient for the plot and only reappers at the very end when the author seems to have remembered that he exists), there is nobody there. So Maya explores the castle, which leads to some very, very boring chapters where nothing happens, we learn nothing new, and where even wonders that shouldn’t be possible (because magic) are taken for granted. Like, girl, you lived in the real world, aren’t you at least a little surprised to have mirrors in your new home that work like portals and let you look into other places?

Also, this is the part where the “romance” happens. If by romance you mean that two people exist in the same room together, find each other pretty and then randomly kiss someday. Also, Amar keeps the upper part of his face hidden to be extra mysterious and sexy, but when he finally reveals himself, there’s nothing special about it. Like, he’s handsome and all but there’s no reason for him to have kept his eyes hidden before. I still don’t get what that was about. But then I also didn’t get the attraction between them because we are only ever told things and never, ever, shown them. Their supposed undying love is ridiculous so I also didn’t care when it was threatened.

After a series of maybe not so smart, but to my happy surprise understandable, decisions, a plot of sorts finally kicks off. We’re talking the half-way mark of the book here, so don’t get too excited. Maya has done something stupid which has dire consequences and so now she has to try and fix things. This led me to hope once more that the book would tell a story that’s more than two people saying incredibly sappy things to each other for no reason whatsoever. I mean, this is the sort of writing you can expect:

His stare slipped beneath my skin. And when he saw my eyes widen, he smiled. And in that moment, his smile banished my loneliness and limned the hollows of my anima with starlight, pure and bright.

There are myriad instances of descriptions or dialogue where I simply asked myself what that’s even supposed to mean. The prose is so purple, even I though it was too much, and I’m a fan of Cat Valente and China Miéville, two writers who know a bazillion words and aren’t afraid to show them off.

As for the Indian-inspired mythology and setting, I would really have liked to get a bit more of that. Because what the author did was throw in lots of words without explanation or description, expecting that to do all the legwork for he world building. But when you don’t know there’s a glossary at the end of the book, you can get frustrated really quickly by the amount of names for mythological creatures that are just thrown in there without ever explaining what they are, what they look like, etc.
I generally like when an author expects something from their readers, like looking up things for themselves or understanding stuff by context. But if you give me literally nothing but a word, and then throw in three other words in the same paragraph, do you really think I’m going to stop reading to look each of them up on the internet so Google can do your author work for you and let me know who and what these creatures are? That can’t be in the author’s interest either, as it would totally disrupt the reading flow. But oh well, I still don’t know what a bhut is or a raksha or a timingala. One of them has fins I guess…

One of the few redeeming qualities of this book is (wait for it) the horse character! Not only is it the only positive female friendship in this book that has any meaning (Gauri’s name may be dropped but as we didn’t get any shared memories or development of that relationship, it’s totally meaningless), but Kamala the horse may also be the single most fleshed-out character in this entire book. She has her own way of speaking which may be a little creepy at times – she threatens to eat people a lot – but my god was it refreshing to read about her! Other than that, every single character might as well have been a shadow wearing a name tag. Amar’s name tag must also read “smoldering and full of cheesy one-liners” but that’s it.

There is no proper plot to follow, the world and characters change as needed for the author to reach her super cheesy conclusion. She wanted so badly to write impactful scenes but apparently forgot that, in order to make readers feel stuff, she has do to the build-up for that. Make us know and like the characters, show us why they belong together, put them in danger, make us fear for them, make us feel literally anything! Only then can big words have actual meaning, only then can the touch of a hand send electric sparks up our readerly spines, only then is it meaningful when lips touch, when friends are reunited.
This was just boring with occasional hints of promising ideas, but in order to be a good book, it would have needed to do a whole lot of growing up. Much like its protagonist Maya who is the same person at the end of this book despite all the supposedly life-shattering things she learns.

As bad as that sounds, I’m not willing to give up on Roshani Chokshi! I have Gilded Wolves on my TBR and I’m hoping that with a heist novel, there is no way she can make the same mistakes again. I mean, a heist novel needs a plot that makes sense and it also more than two recurring characters. My hope is that Chokshi developed and grew as an author in between these books. My expectations are definitely lower than they were, though.

MY RATING: 3.5/10 – Bad

Underwhelming, Loveless, and Without a Point: V.E. Schwab – Gallant

I put a lot of pressure on this (very) little book. Because while I adored Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, I thought that, since then, everything she has written was lacking in many ways. Either she clearly didn’t have a clue where to go with her plot, how to develop her characters, or what to do with those (granted) cool ideas she has. I wanted to give her one more chance, this time with a Middle Grade adventure that sounded intriguing. Look, it wasn’t irredeemably shit, but it was one of the most useless, plotless, unlovingly told stories I’ve read recently and that’s just sad.

GALLANT
by V.E. Schwab
illustrated by Manuel Šumberac

Published: Titan Books, 2022
Hardcover: 310 pages
Standalone
My rating: 4/10

Opening line: The master of thehouse stands at the garden wall.

Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.

Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home—to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.

Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from.

Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?

This book is 50% filler. Yes, I’m starting my review with this information because I think it’s only fair that everyone who’s thinking about buying it, knows what it is they’re buying. That doesn’t mean this is a bad book, just that you’re only getting about 150 pages worth of original writing, the other 150 pages are repetitions of that same writing, over and over again. Oh yes, and very pretty illustrations that also repeat after almost every chapter. And in the middle because I guess Schwab wanted desperately to publish a novel even when she only had a novella at hand…

So what’s this all about? It starts so well that I honestly thought this would be the book that made me want to follow Schwab’s career after all. Olivia Prior lives in an orphanage/school where she is being bullied (but only until she fights back!) and where she can see ghouls (and only she can see them). She is also mute which makes her life even lonelier than any orphan’s life already is. The one matron who taught her sign language doesn’t work there anymore and the others never bothered. The only consolation Olivia has is her mother’s journal which she reads over and over again, to the point of knowing it by heart.

Can you guess which parts of the real-world book Gallant are the repetitive ones? Because yes, it is Olivia’s mother’s journal. Every chapter has at least a few lines from that journal in it, repeated ad nauseum and mostly for no apparent reason. Then we get to read entire pages of that journal. Then later on in the book Gallant we get to read the entirety of that journal, even though we’ve already read ALL OF IT before, just split into snippets. The journal is also filled with illustrations that repeat equally as often as the written text does. As beautiful as I find these ink splotchy, ethereal looking images, I don’t quite see the point in printing each one of them four times within the same novel…

Anyway, the plot kicks off when Olivia receives a letter from a formerly unknown uncle who calls her to the family estate, Gallant, the one place her mother’s journal warned her to stay away from. So far, so intriguing. It is when she arrives at Gallant that it becomes apparent Schwab actually has no story to tell, no plot to follow, and her heart somewhere else when it comes to the themes she apparently tried to incorporate. What Olivia finds at Gallant is a very unfriendly cousin and two elderly housekeepers. Edgar and Hannah are very nice to Olivia, she explores the house a bit, it’s all kind of eerie and strange and there’s a sculpture of the cover image (two houses on a contraption, exact mirror images of one another), and of course ghouls. Then nothing happens for about 50 pages (which by this book’s standard is a lot!).

Eventually, Olivia explores that other Gallant – I mean look at the cover, nothing that happens in this book is in any way a spoiler or a surprise – and I guess this was meant to be creepy and atmospheric but it is written with so little love, constantly using the same descriptions over and over, that I felt absolutely nothing. When you meet a character who is called Death (although how Olivia got that idea, nobody knows, the book is not terribly logical either), maybe don’t describe him the exact same way three times in a row. And maybe add some real stakes to a supposedly dangerous adventure. And, just an idea, make that adventure last longer than three lines, so at least some tension can be built up and we readers can feel something – anything – for the characters. Sorry, not in this book.

The characters are just as bland and one-dimensional as the sad excuse for a plot. Olivia at least is interesting in that she doesn’t take the other orphan’s shit but fights back in quite original ways. But that is, unfortunately, all that sets her apart. Otherwise, she is a blank piece of paper. Hannah, Edgar, and Matthew have no personalities that go beyond one characteristic per person, yet by the end of this book I was supposed to care for them? To see them as a sort of found family?! Forgive me, but it takes a little longer than 25 pages to build up that kind of relationship. Or a much more skilled writer.

The plot is barely there, then some last minute plan emerges, which is followed by a ludicrous and utterly stupid ending which left me super unsatisfied. I mean, for fucks’ sake, if we’re reading a story about some family curse or a battle between good and evil, and if you’re unwilling to resolve that battle or lift the curse, at least tell us more about how it came to be, why it’s there, what’s going on, or anything really. This book just ends with some forced (and emotionally lacking) drama, a few lines that are meant to sound deep and meaningful but are completely empty because this entire book is empty, and then it’s just over. No resolution to anything, no background story, not even a particularly interesting view of the future.

Disregarding all else and just looking at the fantasy elements, the exact same lack of care was taken when it comes to that. Olivia can see ghouls, which is special because nobody else can. Except at some point at the end when, suddenly, people can. Without explanation or even taking much notice. It’s never really explained which parts of magic work in which version of Gallant, why ghouls even exist or if everyone who dies becomes one, what exactly they can do, and generally which rules apply in which version of Gallant. I personally don’t mind if magic doesn’t make sense – it’s magic, after all – but it should be internally consistent within one book at least.

The reason this didn’t get a lower rating is twofold. First, the writing – what little of it there is – is actually nice. I enjoyed the descriptions of the orphanage and Olivia’s life there, I generally liked how Gallant is written about. I just wish I didn’t have to read the exact same lines and descriptions twenty times and instead got more original Schwab words on the same amount of pages. The second reason is that I loved reading about a protagonist with a disability, especially a girl who couldn’t speak. I’ve never read about someone like Olivia and the only times I managed to feel anything much for the characters was when someone turned away from her and ignored her “speaking” with her hands. That frustration must be brutal and I, at least, thought Schwab did a good job describing it.

Does this mean this is the end of reading Schwab for me? Well, I have her Vicious books still on my TBR, so I’ll give those a go sometime. But I’m definitely staying far away from anything new she publishes. There is always a hype, simply because it’s her, and then it all just ends in disappointment for me. I’m not saying I’ll never read her books again, but if I do, it will be after reading lots of critical reviews and careful consideration. You can count me OFF the hype train, that’s for sure.

MY RATING: 4/10 – Bad

Had Potential But Turned Out Lifeless: Rebecca Ross – A River Enchanted

This started out so well but it never found out what it wanted to be. A paperthin plot, really lazy and illogical worldbuilding, and repetitive writing made this more and more unbearable the longer I read. It’s a shame because the characters had real potential. I have no idea why this would need a sequel but whenever that comes out, I will pass. It’s not a hate-pass, just a I-so-don’t-care-what-happens-pass.

A RIVER ENCHATNED
by Rebecca Ross

Published by: Harper Voyager, 2022
Hardback: 480 pages
Series: Elements of Cadence #1
My rating: 4.5/10

Opening line: It is safest to cross the ocean at night, when the moon and stars shone on the water.

Jack Tamerlaine hasn’t stepped foot on Cadence in ten long years, content to study music at the mainland university. But when young girls start disappearing from the isle, Jack is summoned home to help find them. Enchantments run deep on Cadence: gossip is carried by the wind, plaid shawls can be as strong as armor, and the smallest cut of a knife can instill fathomless fear. The capricious spirits that rule the isle by fire, water, earth, and wind find mirth in the lives of the humans who call the land home. Adaira, heiress of the east and Jack’s childhood enemy, knows the spirits only answer to a bard’s music, and she hopes Jack can draw them forth by song, enticing them to return the missing girls.

As Jack and Adaira reluctantly work together, they find they make better allies than rivals as their partnership turns into something more. But with each passing song, it becomes apparent the trouble with the spirits is far more sinister than they first expected, and an older, darker secret about Cadence lurks beneath the surface, threatening to undo them all.

With unforgettable characters, a fast-paced plot, and compelling world building, A River Enchanted is a stirring story of duty, love, and the power of true partnership, and marks Rebecca Ross’s brilliant entry on the adult fantasy stage.

Aaaaaah, the missed potential here really hurts! I’ll try and sum things up with a brief overview and then go into each individual aspect that could have been great but totally missed the mark. Otherwise, this review will just end up as a jumble of complaints.

This is the story of an island where magical spirits roam – the Folk of the Air, Earth, Wind, and Fire – where people have magical gifts, and where a feud between clans has been going on for centuries. The West belongs to the Breccans who tend to raid the East because they’re the Bad Guys (TM). The East is for the Tamerlaines, who just defend their border and keep their people safe. So far, so unoriginal.

Jack Tamerlaine has spent the last ten years on the mainland at university, learning music and becoming a teacher himself. He returns to the island of Cadence because his clan leader has asked him in a rather convincing letter. But Jack really doesn’t want to stay, he has a life on the mainland that he is desperate to get back to.
However, when he arrives, it turns out he is quite welcome. Everyone is glad to see him, even his childhood nemesis Adaira who is the Tamerlaine heiress, one day to become laird. When Jack finds out that more than Breccan raids are troubling the East, he agrees to stay for a little while and help solve the problem of the young girls that are going missing…

The plot:

Oh boy, there is so little of it and it is all so predictable that I don’t quite know how to talk about it without spoiling. I mean, the book kind of spoils itself. Adaira is the one who called Jack to the island for the sole reason that she needs a bard – meaning Jack and his harp – because the former bard (Adaira’s mother) has died years ago. She needs a bard because only a bard can call the spirits forth and Adaira really needs to talk to them. So… that’s what they do. Jack composes a piece of music, not described any further, to call forth the spirits of the Water, the Earth, and the Wind, and Adaira proceeds to question them about their missing lasses. They end up telling them the truth and that’s that. It’s like the most boring police procedural ever!
Alongside this, of course, there’s supposed to be some kind of romance between Jack and Adaira but I honestly can’t say that we get any yearning or slow burn or anything. They are just two regular boring people who talk to each other normally – no subtext, no shyness, pretty much no emotions at all – and then at the end we’re expected to believe they are in love somehow. But that feeds into the character aspect and I first want to talk about the most glaring problem I had with this book.

The world building:

What is even the point here? So the fairies, or spirits, or Folk, or whatever are real on the island of Cadence. They want to be played music at regular intervals (like equinoxes or something, I honestly don’t remember) and you can call them and talk to them like regular people. Otherwise they don’t do much, they just exist invisibly in the background.
Far more interesting is the fact that people on Cadence are apparently born with magical gifts. But these make no sense whatsoever and are really, really not thought through. Some are more understandable and useful than others, like Sidra’s gift for creating healing tonics and knowing which herbs to grow for what purpose. But Jack’s mother Mirin, for example, has the gift of weaving magical plaids. Except nobody ever explains what those magical plaids do. Do they grant the wearer extra protection? Make them invisible? Keep them warm even when it’s freezing outside? This point is just glanced over. People are handed a plaid with Mirin’s magic woven into it and they all look reverent and thankful but I have no idea what the point of these plaids even is…
Then there’s Torin, the head of the guard, whose convenient gift is sensing when Breccans cross the clan line. Like he has some sort of spidey sense when a bad guy comes across the border and he even knows how many of them there are. Granted, that is super useful when you’re guarding the place but also what?!
Oh, I almost forgot, Sidra can also see and talk to to ghosts. This only happens twice in the book, is never mentioned again, and none of the implications of this gift are ever explored. Like what the hell? That could be its own novel right there!

I don’t think any other gifts are mentioned in any detail and if I’m really honest, what little story this book tells would have worked fine without that magic. Seriously, none of it was necessary.
Instead of asking the fairies what they knew, Adaira could have just talked to humans. The special gifts of the Tamerlaines didn’t have any impact on the plot, or indeed the characters. Sure, they get exhausted and suffer pain when using their gifts too much, but there are no real consequences for anyone using theirs in this book. So why even make this a fantasy novel when the fantasy parts are so haphazardly thrown in there, with no care or love for detail?

The characters:

Now finally I can say something nice. Not about the two protagonists, mind you, but about the side characters who totally stole the show and were the reason I finished this book at all. Let me get the bad parts out of the way first and then I can gush about Sidra and Torin.

So Jack and Adaira are both lifeless husks whose actions and words constantly contradict themselves and who seem to have no personality at all. Jack first pretends to want to get back to the mainland ASAP but then he has no problem staying and giving up his old life because he didn’t like it anyway. What? That’s not what you’ve been saying for the entire first third of the book! The relationship between the two also made no sense. It is implied that they have this great history, that when they were children a lot happened, but it turns out to be just a couple of silly pranks and that’s it. Seriously, there was not a lot of history to unpack there and what little there is (one prank involving thistles) is told in the most unemotional way ever. I did not care about them, I did not care whether they got together, and apparently, neither did they. The whole undying love part comes out of nowhere, is not believable, and I couldn’t have cared less about them.
BUT. What this book does have is great side characters with depth and moral dilemmas and a history that weighs on them. Torin and Sidra, for example, have been married for a while (although the book is unclear as to how long. At first it appears that it’s been forever, then suddenly it is mentioned that it’s a fairly new relationship. Bad writing, is all I can say to that.). They are raising Torin’s daughter Maisie from his first marriage – the wife died, we can’t have complicated things like divorce in fantasy books after all – and they have a pretty lovely life together. It’s badly told but it becomes clear that Sidra has doubts about whether Torin is with her because he loves her or simply because he needed help with his daughter. Watching how these two, both filled with doubt and fear, open up to each other and find out whether it’s love that keeps them together or necessity, that was truly beautiful! Especially because we get to read both their perspectives.
I also quite liked Jack’s mother Mirin as a character and Jack’s surprise little sister Frae even though Mirin’s reasons for keeping quiet about some things are less than logical. But at least they had personality.

The writing and internal logic:

I swear if I had to read “old menace” one more time, this would have ended as a DNF. This book suffers from several writing issues, first and foremost a lack of foreshadowing that makes everything feel like it comes out of left field and contradicts what we’ve been told before.

From the very start we know Jack is returning to his home island after ten years on the mainland. So far so okay. But nowhere does it say that Jack was in any way ostracized from his clan. That only comes out later, mentioned somewhere as if it were nothing. It turns out his father is some unknown man (his mother simply won’t admit who it is but if you’re older than five you can pretty much guess this oh so surprising plot twist), and thus Jack somehow doesn’t belong anywhere? That is not consistent with what we are shown because he is received with open arms from literally everyone and nobody does or says anthing to make him feel like he’s not a real Tamerlaine. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But it’s not just aspects of Jack’s life. All the characters and plot points get at least one moment where I wondered if I had missed a chapter somewhere that hinted at a certain tradition or a rule about the magic system or something. I hadn’t. This book just doesn’t have any foreshadowing. But it has bad world building to make up for that. Whenever the author thought of something, she put it in the book, not bothering to go back and make it believable or check whether it fit in with what she had already told us. This gets so very frustrating because you also never know what the rules are. If some great obstacle comes up, it might just turn out there’s an easy solution that the characters pretend to have known all along but that has never occurred to the reader because it was never even in the realm of possibilities.
It’s like if you read a contemporary novel and suddenly someone whips out a wand and heals a broken bone, pretending that this is normal and you shouldn’t be surprised. This is just how the world works, don’t ya know?

The writing itself, on a sentence level, is a little better but also far from good. The constant ridiculous way Adaira calls Jack “her old menace” (again, as if they shared some deep bond when they really haven’t seen each other in ten years and then just pranked each other as 10-year-olds a couple of times) is neither funny nor poignant. It’s just annoying.
And most of the dialogue, although not particularly bad as such, was just so… mundane. Dialogue in books and movies isn’t the same as in real life. It just sounds wrong. So reading about two people planning to meet each other tomorrow at this and this time by that rock or whatever, is just plain boring. Do I really want the businesslike transaction of setting a time for a meeting spelled out for me? Not in a fantasy novel, I don’t. This is one of my smaller gripes but it may explain better why this plot-less book is almost 500 pages long.
“Have you set the table, honey” “Not yet, I’ll go do that right away, Mom” – that kind of transaction is partly to blame.

Lastly, there were a few scenes that I think were supposed to be suspenseful. Whenever Jack played for the Folk so Adaira could ask them questions, there were brief moments of… okay, fine, I’ll call it danger. But these were described in such a way that I was never in any doubt how things would end. Like not only would everyone survive, but there wouldn’t even be a scratch on them.
The same goes for those Breccan raids that everyone is so afraid of. Unfortunately (you know how I mean it) we never get to see such a raid or the effects they have, so there was never an atmosphere of danger. In fact, the whole feud, the power of the spirits, anything that could make Cadence interesting, is only things we are told. And then we are shown the complete opposite. A super lovely island, people who care about and respect each other, living in peace, everyone is safe and even when bad stuff happens, it’s only super brief and when it’s over, nobody is hurt.

Overall impressions:

It will come as no surprise that I didn’t particularly like this book. Then again, it also wasn’t terrible. Except for the world building, none of its flaws were bad enough for me to truly hate this book. I was simply in a constant state of being underwhelmed and surprised by the random things that popped up and were supposed to have always been there. The ending has one tiny plot twist in store that could actually have made things interesting but, just like any scene involving “danger”, it was over before it began and left no emotional impact whatsoever.
By the life of me, I cannot imagine what would warrant a sequel. Rebecca Ross had nothing to say in this book so what could she possibly have to add in a second one? Oh well, if you want to find out, you’ll have to look elsewhere. I will definitely skip it.

MY RATING: 4.5/10 – Bad to meh

P.S.: It just came to me that even the opening line is an example of the bad world building. “It is safest to cross the ocean at night, when the moon and stars shone on the water.” Nowhere is that ever explained! It just sounds cool but there’s not a single bit of information or world building that would support such a statement.

Not For Me: Alaya Dawn Johnson – Trouble the Saints

It pains me to say that I just didn’t like this book very much. Alaya Dawn Johnson has written one of my favorite YA novels that is criminally underrated – The Summer Prince – but what she was trying to do in this World Fantasy Award winning new novel just didn’t work for me.

TROUBLE THE SAINTS
by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Published: Tor, 2020
eBook: 320 pages
Audiobook: 13 hours 4 minutes
Standalone
My rating: 5/10

Opening line: Seven. That’s what we’re starting with.

The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in this timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City at the dawn of WWII.

Amidst the whir of city life, a girl from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear amongst its most dangerous denizens.

But the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she loves most.

Can one woman ever sacrifice enough to save an entire community?

Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel—a magical love story, a compelling chronicle of interracial tension, and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga.

This is going to be a rather short review because I have very little to say about this book. First off, though, it’s not bad. This is most definitely one of those cases where a novel is just not for me and I knew that the entire time I listened to the audiobook. It’s split into three parts, each focusing on a different protagonist.

First off, we meet Phyllis, who works for a crime boss and has killed quite a few people in her time. We learn a little bit about her roots in Harlem, how her “new” life in Manhattan creates tension in her family (don’t forget where you came from) and why she is so gifted with the knives she uses to kill. Because she, like some other non-white people, has Saints’ hands. They are considered a gift and bestow a type of superpower on whoever has them, Phyllis also passes for white which creates interesting situations but, unfortunately, wasn’t focused on enough for me. The same goes for the Hands. The author kept everything super vague and I’m sure that was on purpose but to me, it all felt too intangible, too handwavey to truly immerse myself in this world and its magic.

The second protagonist is Dev, an undercover cop working for the same crime syndicate as Phyllis. He’s also her ex-lover and apparently they are still in love but both pretend not to be because reasons… Again, the way this idea was handled just wasn’t for me. Because the “secret” of Dev being an undercover cop isn’t used to create tension at all. The former relationship between Dev and Phyillis, as so many other things in this book, are simply stated as a fact, without much emotion. I suppose this gives the book a more noir-ish feel but it fell flat for me and kept me from ever connecting with the characters. Which is a shame when they are in danger or get hurt because all I did in those cases was shrug and move on.

Lastly, we follow Tamara, who is gifted with seeing the future or laying Tarot cards or something of the sort. This, too, is kept vague. I couldn’t tell you why but I did like Tamara.

As for plot, I honestly couldn’t tell you what exactly happens in this book. I remember some plot beats but not quite how they are connected, how we got from point A to B to C, or what the point of it all is. And I only read this book a few weeks ago! I debated whether I should even write something about it because there’s so little that stuck in my mind. But I also think that just because this wasn’t for me doesn’t mean it’s not the perfect book for someone else. It did win a World Fantasy Award and I don’t believe that was undeserved.

The writing was good and Johnson did create atmosphere – although the audiobook narration might have helped with that. The fact that said atmosphere didn’t reach me is not the author’s fault. So maybe this book wasn’t for me but if you’re okay with a slow-moving plot and a story that leaves things unexplained oftentimes, then go for it. Johnson has a lot to say about race and guilt and whether some people are more deserving of magic than others. It didn’t reach me but it may just be someone else’s new favorite book.

MY RATING: 5/10 – Meh

A Trilogy That Lost Its Way: Benjanun Sriduangkaew – Shattersteel

My hopes were high for this final part in the Her Pitiless Command trilogy, Sriduangkaew’s take on the Snow Queen fairy tale, set in South East Asia, with queer characters started out really, really well. Sadly, the second book already lost momentum and direction. This conclusion to the series fared no better and felt to me like the author just wanted to get it over with.

SHATTERSTEEL
by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Published: Apex Publications, 2021
eBook: 160 pages
Series: Her Pitiless Command #3
My rating: 6/10

Opening line: The prosthetic arm never seats quite right, despite countless adjustments.

For her entire life, Nuawa has made herself a weapon to assassinate the Winter Queen.

She failed. Her secrets are laid bare and she has lost everything.

The queen keeps Nuawa as a tool, and soon a sacrifice as she brings her ultimate goal to fruition: to harness the divine power of her makers that’ll make her lover General Lussadh immortal.

But Nuawa isn’t done fighting yet.

I could technically copy and paste my review of the second book in this trilogy, Mirrorstrike, because everything about that one still holds true with this final instalment. Except, this time, my patience was more tried, this one is the ending of the story so I had higher expectations, and it’s also just a little bit more chaotic and less coherent than its predecessor. But okay, I guess, let’s get into it.

Nuawa and Lussadh are getting married – hooray for the happy couple – so the first half of this 160 page novella is about them being lovey dovey and having lots of sex. Which, you know, is fine if that’s what you’re in the mood for and I actually found the sex scenes to be very well written. But the reason this book even exists – to tell the story of Nuawa fighting the Winter Queen – is completely ignored for almost half the book.
The romantic dialogue also makes me cringe every time because Sriduangkaew likes using big words and so her characters tend to make grand statements with polysyllabic vocabulary. It sounds over the top and overly dramatic to me but that’s a matter of taste and your mileage may vary.

One more thing that made reading this hard was the use of various different pronouns. It’s great to read about a world that includes all sorts of genders and relationship constellations, but using she/her, he/him, they/them, xe/xer, and ey/eir/em in a book this slim felt like overkill. Especially because sometimes, when we were in Nuawa’s point of view and she just met a character for the first time and couldn’t know what pronouns ey used, she was thinking about that person as ey/em, and that just felt strange. Like how do you see if someone goes by they/them, ey/em, or something else entirely?? So again, I love the inclusion but it didn’t feel organic.

Something that is a fact, though, rather than personal preference, is the lack of plot. Now that the trilogy is finished, I have come to the conclusion that the author had a great idea, wrote the first book, and then didn’t quite know where to go from there. Everything feels so up in the air, every scene on its own reads okay but there is very little connecting these scenes to each other. The whole Snow Queen theme got lost along the way and it reads like the author pantsed her way through it all and then just left the book as it was. I get it, writing a book is difficult and writing a trilogy even more so, but that’s what editing and drafting is for. Also, maybe spend at least half a page reminding your readers of what happened before? Yes, the book then might be 200 pages long but those would be pages well used.

The characters also never quite recovered after the first book. In Mirrorstrike they already felt like shadows of themselves, occupied mostly with swooning over each other rather than what they’ve been spending their entire lives doing up until then. Nuawa from Shattersteel is barely recognizable as Nuawa from Winterglass anymore. The same goes for Lussadh. I did enjoy some minor characters in this book but they don’t get enough time to shine because this is still a very short book.

The resolution to what was set up in the first book is relatively simple and had a deus ex machina feel to it. Nuawa originally set out to destroy the Winter Queen, avenge her people, and free her land and she went a good part of the way on her own strenght and intellicenge. Sadly, she lost her agency along the way as well, so it’s not really even her to battles the Winter Queen at the end but someone else. Any satisfaction I might have felt in finally achiving the big goal was dampened by the fact that Nuawa was, at best, a messenger rather than the saviour of the people.

All things considered, I’m mostly disappointed. I will forever love and adore Winterglass but I don’t see much of a reason to recommend books two or three. They add very little to the world building and characters. What little plot they offer is merely a convoluted vehicle to get to the ending (defeat the Queen and have a relationship with Lussadh, that’s all there is to it, really). I’ll give Sriduangkaew another chance and try her Machine Mandate series but as much as I enjoy beautiful language and deep characters, the books I read still need some kind of plot. And this one couldn’t decide what it wanted to be when it grew up so now it’s a jumbled mess of pretty words.

MY RATING: 6/10 – Good

Still Mostly Meh: Isaac Asimov – Foundation and Empire

Ages ago, I read the first Foundation book because it’s a sci-fi classic and on all the “Best SF” lists and all that other jazz. I found it okay then but now that the book series is being turned into a TV show, I wanted to both refresh my memory and finally continue the series. Turns out, my second reading of Foundation was exactly as middling as the first one. I did continue and read the second book, though, and that experience – although a teensy bit better – was similarly meh.

FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE
by Isaac Asimov

Published: Harper Voyager, 1951
eBook: 240 pages
Series: Foundation #2
My rating: 5/10

Opening line: The Galactic Empire Was Falling.

WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST ALL-TIME SERIES

The Foundation series is Isaac Asimov’s iconic masterpiece. Unfolding against the backdrop of a crumbling Galactic Empire, the story of Hari Seldon’s two Foundations is a lasting testament to an extraordinary imagination, one whose unprecedented scale shaped science fiction as we know it today.

The First Foundation survived two centuries of barbarism as the once-mighty Galactic Empire descended into chaos. Now it mist prepare for war against the remnants of the Empire as the Imperial fleet advances on their planet, Terminus.

Hari Seldon predicted this war; he even prepared his Foundation for it. But he couldn’t foresee the birth of the mutant Mule. In possession of a power which reduces fearsome opposition to devoted slaves, the Mule poses a terrible threat to Seldon’s Foundation.

This book is comprised of two stories. The first one is simply a continuation of what was done in the first book – namely a Seldon Crisis which is resolved by one dude being slightly cleverer than another dude, and also “fate”. Because Hari Seldon predicted the various crises the Foundation would encounter, and he also predicted that by the laws of psychohistory the Foundation has a super high chance of surpassing all those obstacles, there’s not really all that much excitement left. We know ahead of time the Foundation will continue to strive, no matter what kind of problem comes up next. So by creating Hari Seldon, Asimov made it harder for himself to build up tension.

The second, much longer, part of this book is called “The Mule” and it can almost be called a proper story. There’s multiple character POVs, we travel different parts of the galaxy, there’s a big threat to the Foundation, and there’s some new political stuff coming up. Again, a big problem for me was the utter lack of tension throughout the whole story. I knew the Foundation would come out on top because that’s the entire point of this series. So why should I worry that a mysterious conquerer who calls himself The Mule is apparently defeating Foundation forces left and right?

Asimov’s characters are still as bland and interchangeable as in the first book. It literally doesn’t matter who is talking to whom. You could literally exchange the people with talking cats and it wouldn’t change a thing about the story (well, it would make it more awesome). Nobody has a personality because this is not the kind of book that’s actually trying to tell a riveting story or make its readers feel empathy for its characters. It’s a vessel for ideas and, in my opinion, those ideas were transported well enough in the first book. I don’t need a second book to tell me the exact same ideas, slightly differently.
But – color me surprised – one of those bland characters is a woman! Who gets to speak!! And who even has a vital role in the tale!!! Never mind all the microaggressions, the sexist remarks, the obvious disregard for women in general, at least we have proof that there are women in Asimov’s galaxy. Despite this revolutionary development, I found that the whole Mule story dragged along unnecessarily and the twist ending was super obvious and lacked any impact whatsoever. Again, Asimov is his own worst enemy because of course the “good guys” win and the Foundation is safe.

Speaking of “good guys” – I find the entire premise of this series quite disturbing. When it was all about preserving humanity’s knowledge, it was one thing. But what it has always really been about is power and colonization and gaining control over everything through a massive galactic empire. Why the hell should I root for that?

I don’t think it’s all that surprising that many of the so-called science fiction classics didn’t age well. Asimov’s idea of psychohistory is still pretty cool, and the Foundation series doesn’t have much more to offer in terms of sfnal ideas (so far), but everything that surrounds it, every tiny little bit of worldbuilding or character work I could find in this rather mediocre story is really rather startling in its misogyny, blind love for the military and colonization, hunger for power for power’s sake, and totally casual hate towards neurodiverse people.

This book also makes me wonder at this so-called golden age of science-fiction. Sure, many of the ideas that came up at the time must have felt new and exciting, but didn’t people also care about storytelling? Because, as interesting as certain ideas may be, they are rather worthless if the story about them sucks. Having just re-read the first Foundation book and then going straight into this one, I did notice that Asimov’s writing style has evolved, although he continues to do the same thing over and over again, just slightly better told. At least now we get some descriptions of surroundings, of how a given planet works, instead of just two men standing in a room trying to outsmart each other.

I’m still going to read the third Foundation book just so I have finished what was then The Foundation Trilogy but I very much doubt I’ll check out the rest of the series. This trip to a distant past that many people seem to glorify is just not for me.

MY RATING: 5/10 – Utterly meh!

Magic, Egypt, and Bowler Hats: P. Djèlí Clark – A Master of Djinn

P. Djèlí Clark is one of the most exciting authors in SFF right now who stole our hearts with his stories set in an alternate historical version of Cairo where djinn live among humans and the supernatural needs its own police. My personal favorite of his works is the amazing Ring Shout (which is going to win all the awards this year, I’m sure of it!), but I was nonetheless excited to read Clark’s first full-length novel. Someone who builds entire worlds in a novella can only do great stuff with a novel.

A MASTER OF DJINN
by P. Djèlí Clark

Published: Tordotcom/Orbit, 2021
eBook: 401 pages
Audiobook: 15 hours 37 minutes
Series: Dead Djinn Universe #3
My rating: 6.75/10

Opening line: Archibald James Portendorf disliked stairs.

Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns to his popular alternate Cairo universe for his fantasy novel debut, A Master of Djinn

Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer.

So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world 50 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage.

Alongside her Ministry colleagues and her clever girlfriend Siti, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city – or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…

It isn’t often that I discover an author through a work of short fiction, but with P. Djèlí Clark, I couldn’t help but be impressed by his novellas and then continue to read some short stories as well. The world he has set up for the Fatma el-Sha’arawi series is this really cool blend of alternate history, steampunk Egypt with djinn and magic and a supernatural police. I mean, what’s not to love? A full-length novel set in this world was exactly what us SFF readers were hoping for.

As much as I was looking forward to this book, as difficult do I now find it to talk about it. On the one hand, it was a lot of fun to read. On the other hand, it has many problems, some of which bothered me more than others but the overall feeling is a mix of disappointment (because there was so much potential) and indifference. This was fun to read and I enjoyed myself but it’s nothing like Ring Shout, a story that still sticks in my head and gives me goosebumps when I think about it.

This starts as a really cool murder mystery. When an entire cult gets burned alive (only their bodies though, their clothes stay intact), it’s clear that this is a case for Fatma el-Sha’arawi. She’s right on the case when a partner is thrust upon her. Fatma prefers to work alone so the fact that this new partner is a woman doesn’t help to say her. Who neeeds a rookie trailing along when there’s supernatural murderers to catch and an impostor al-Jahiz to uncover? But as anyone would notice, it’s the perfect recipe for a buddy cop story. I was actually looking forward to the Hadia and Fatma dynamics and watching them grow closer over the course of the police procedural. But that just goes to show that expectations are a dangerous thing and most of them weren’t fulfilled in this case.

First of all, Fatma and Hadia don’t actually do all that much policing and that made them both appear more passive than they should be. The whole police procedural is them showing up somewhere, either being told straight up where to go next or being given a clue by somebody else and then moving on to the next place or person where, in turn, somebody will give them vital information and send them on their merry way. This repeats until things become so obvious even I figured them out. Okay, maybe this book’s focus isn’t supposed to be the actual mystery or the police work. That’s fine. The world has much more to offer of course. Cool and diverse characters, for example.
Except Clark departs from his usual way of writing characters and turns certain things up to eleven. Fatma’s bowler hats and English suits are a nice gimmick but, let’s face it, they aren’t really important to the plot, especially at the time this story takes place. She has already gained a lot of respect from fellow police (a fact I didn’t quite understand judging from the previous story but okay) and her choice of wardrobe is there mainly just for fun. We get a lot of wardrobe changes in A Master of Djinn and most of them have no impact on the plot or characters at all.

What I found the most interesting – a plot string that got sidelined very quickly in favor of blowing up the murder mystery into a let’s-save-the-world kind of problem – was the relationship between Fatma and her new partner Hadia as well as Fatma and her sort of girlfriend Siti. Fatma is… let’s say reluctant to accept a partner at all, so when she is told she has to work with the super eager hijab-wearing Hadia, she is less than thrilled. The clash between the two was to be expected and I was looking forward to reading about how they learn to work together nonetheless, how they bond over time, how they solve this mystery together. There is some of that, but for large chunks of the book, this part of the plot seems to be completely forgotten. The fresh partners spend a lot of time apart.

I did adore Fatma and Siti’s relationship (even if the audiobook narrator gave Siti an overly seductive voice all the time) and how they deal with the challenges dand dangers they encounter along the way. And I’m not even talking about the fact that they are two women who love each other but life-threateneing danger and life-shatttering revelations. It felt like they have a history that happened prior to this book, they felt comfortable enough in their ways, but they were still a fresh enough couple that they can learn new things about each other. This was probably my favorite part of the entire book.

I was a little flustered by the direction the plot took in general. Like I said, it starts out one way – as a simple enough, albeit supernatural and quite disturbing – murder mystery. But the more stations Fatma checks out on her way to the solution, the more people, organizations, religions, and historical artifacts get intertwined into it all. Normally, that’s something I love about books. Tales that seem small at first but then grow larger and larger and only show the whole picture at the very end. For some reason that I can’t quite define, I didn’t enjoy it here. I felt let down, betrayed even because my expectations weren’t fulfilled at all. There was just too much of everything crammed into too few pages – and yes, I’m aware I’m talking about a 400 page book. But I didn’t get the buddy cop tale, I didn’t get two clever policewomen actually working their way toward the truth, and I didn’t get the cool “and here’s how the murderer did it” at the end, at least not in the way I had hoped because the murderer had all sorts of other plans.

But as negative as that sounds, I can’t say that there was a moment while reading (or rather listening to) this book that I didn’t enjoy at least to some degree. Suheyla El-Attar does a great job with voices and accents, her reading is engaging and with the exception of Siti’s constant sexy voice, I adored the audiobook version. I’ve been writing/deleting/rewriting this review for a few weeks now because I just don’t know how to feel about this book. I liked it but I also wanted more. But don’t think for a second that this will keep me from pouncing on whatever P. Djèlí Clark publisheds next.

MY RATING: 6.75/10 – Good to very good… I guess.

King Arthur But Confusing: Catherynne M. Valente – Under in the Mere #WyrdAndWonder Review

The day has finally come when I pick up a Cat Valente book and end up… not really liking it. To be fair, I believe this book simply wasn’t meant to be just picked up and read. It’s meant for people who know a lot more about Arthurian legend than I do, and those who want to really dive into those knight’s inner turmoil. Alas, at this point in my life, that is not me, so the very short version of this review is: I didn’t really get it.

UNDER IN THE MERE
by Catherynne M. Valente

Published: Rabit Transit Press, 2009
Paperback: 141 pages
Standalone
My rating: 5.5/10

Opening line: What damosel is this? What damosel is this?

Perhaps I am nothing but a white arm. Perhaps the body which is me diffuses at the water’s surface into nothing but light, light and wetness and blue. Maybe I am nothing but samite, pregnant with silver, and out of those sleeves come endless swords, dropping like lakelight from my hems. Will you come down to me and discover if my body continues below the rippling?

I thought not.
So begins the second release from the Electrum Novella Series, Under in the Mere, which takes Arthurian legend to the furthest limits of the imagination. Incantatory, labrynthine, and both playful and heartbreaking, Under in the Mere is a major new work from one of America’s premier writers of fantasy.

With full interior illustrations from renowned fantasy artist James Owen and Jeremy Owen.

This little book was very, very hard to get! I have been on the lookout for copies for years and years before I finally found someone selling their used (but actually unread and super shiny) copy for more money than one should spend on a slim paperpack. But Valente is my favorite author and this was the last book of hers I didn’t have in my collection. Its subject matter – King Arthur’s knights – and the way it was made up – illustrated by James and Jeremy Owe also intrigued me. And did I mention it’s signed?
I knew that it was one of Valente’s older works and that those tend to be more labyrinthine, more word-focused, and oftentimes don’t have anything that qualifies as a plot. Well, that is pretty much exactly what this is. I do not recommend it for people who want to try out Valente’s writing to start here. Go with something more accessible like the Fairyland series, Deathless, The Orphan’s Tales, or the hilarious Space Opera.

So, what is this book about? I couldn’t tell you, but I’ll try. It is divided into chapters, each of which gets a beautiful Tarot card illustration and deals with one person from Arthurian legend. There are chapters for the more famous ones, like Lancelot or Mordred, but also Dagonet, Pellinore, and the Lady of the Lake get their say. While all of the chapters have in common the purplest of prose – seriously, they’re almost poetry – some are easier to read than others. I admit that in certain chapters I caught myself finishing entire paragraphs, not knowing what I had just read. There are plenty of descriptions, enumerations, similes and metaphors galore, and apparently all the knights are made up of nothing but angst on the inside. If I read it right, that is, and I cannot guarantee that.

A handful of chapters stuck postiviely in my mind, though. Unsurprisingly, they are the ones that I understood best, either because I felt more familiar with the particular character’s story or because they were written in a less flowery way. Sir Kay was the first to truly grip me and the reason I kept reading the book at all. Although his story, like most of the others, doesn’t follow any kind of plot, he muses about what it means to be him, to be brother to one so revered and so famous as King Arthur. Although I couldn’t tell you any details about his chapter, I remember that it made me feel for the character and that’s more than I can say for most of the others.

Balin and Balan’s chapter was also great because although I’m sure I missed lots of references and easter eggs, I got the gist of their story. There wasn’t much of a plot here, either, but instead, their chapter leads you thruogh an emotional plot, with a nice back and forth between the two. Sir Bedivere, teller of the book’s penultimate chapter, is the only one where I could detect something resembling a plot. There are things that happen in this chapter and these things have an impact on Bedivere’s feelings and actions. His and Morgana’s chapter finished up the novel and made me close the book on a satisfied note, at least.

I found it really weird, however, that the characters were talking like you’d expect from Arthur’s knights but then they’d mention California. As I found most of this book convoluted and hard to grasp, I can’t tell you if I just missed some crucial piece of information or if this was just an artistic choice. Valente “set” this book in California, mentions parts of the landscape and the Pacific ocean, but I didn’t really understand why. Maybe this is a super cool idea that perfectly fits with the King Arthur legends but I was definitely not smart or learned enough to get it.

So here’s the thing. I am certain that if I knew more about Arthuriana, if I had more than The MIits of Avalon and Disney’s The Sword in the Stone to guide me, I might have enjoyed this book a lot more. Because I did catch little references here or there, either to classic works, mythology, or literature. I just don’t have enough background information about most of these characters for the references to mean anything to me. This just isn’t a book that you randomly pick up and enjoy. It requires study and knowlege and then I’m sure it has a lot to offer.

As much as it pains me to give a Valente book anything but a glowing rating, I rate books by my own enjoyment and I can’t say I had much fun reading this. Her language is gorgeous and she paints pictures with every sentence but all those pictures fell flat for me because I’m not (at this point in time, at least) the right reader for this book. Maybe in a few years I’ll have turned into a King Arthur scholar and I’ll give this a re-read. I doubt it, though.

MY RATING: 5.5/10 – Meh

Apparently, This is a Classic: Susan Cooper – The Dark Is Rising

Last year, I decided to catch up on some classic SFF that I hadn’t read yet because it’s so easy to get swept away by new publications. I started Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Sequence and I found the first book quite nice. Not groundbreaking, but fun enough. The second book is a Newberry Medal winner and appears on all the lists of best fantasy ever so I had high expectations. Having read it, I honestly don’t know if me and all those other people have read the same book.

THE DARK IS RISING
by Susan Cooper

Published: Puffin, 1973
eBook: 272 pages
Series: The Dark is Rising #2
My rating: 3.5/10

Opening line: ‘Too many!’ James shouted, and slammed the door behind him. 

This night will be bad and tomorrow will be beyond imagining.

It’s Midwinter’s Eve, the day before Will’s eleventh birthday. But there is an atmosphere of fear in the familiar countryside around him. This will be a birthday like no other. Will discovers that he has the power of the Old Ones, and that he must embark on a quest to vanquish the terrifyingly evil magic of the Dark.

The second novel in Susan Cooper’s highly acclaimed Dark is Rising sequence.

Will Stanton is turning eleven just a few days before Christmas and strange things are happening. Birds behave weirdly, his wish for snow seems to be coming true, even though snow doesn’t usually stick around in his home town, and a homeless man appears to be following him around.
It doesn’t take long for Will (and us readers) to find out that Will is an Old One, a person involved in the epic battle between the Light and the Dark. No further details are given because I guess labeling things “good” and “evil” is enough. Will meets Merriman – whom we know from the first book – and is taught a little bit of the awesome powers he now possesses, such as making a fire out of nothing or talking with other Old Ones telepathically. Merrimen does not, however, tell Will not to use those powers because it draws the attention of the Dark… Which just seems like a cruel joke, considering any 11-year-old with the sudden power to make a fire would immediately try that power on his way home through the snow.
So Will does, gets into danger, and gets saved by Merriman who then gives  this vital bit of information to Will. And sadly, that whole introductory part of the book tells you exactly how the rest of it will go.

Will is the Sign-Seeker and he is entrusted with a quest by Merriman and the Lady and some other Old Ones, who happen to be Will’s neighbours. Six signs, shaped like a circle with a cross in the middle have to be found and put together. Again, that’s all they tell the boy. No clue as to where to start, what to do, who to talk to, how to use his powers to help him on this quest… not even any information on why the signs are important or what this battle between Light and Dark is all about. Nothing in this book is ever properly explained and therefore, nothing really makes sense. There are these signs and they get cold when evil is around and Will has to protect them somehow? He also gets this ancient book to read which conveniently pours all the knowledge he nees magically into his brain (forgetting that some of it might be interesting to the readers as well) but which doesn’t change anything about Will’s behaviour, powers, or the way he continues on his quest.

About that quest: it may say that Will has to “seek” these magical signs but Will  doesn’t actually do anything in this entire book. Will comes across people who either straight up give him one of the signs or at least tell him exactly what to do to get to it. Will gets in danger occasionaly but those scenes also fell flat because he is immediately rescued by a convenient other Old One (they pop out of the ground whenever the plot requires it). So any tension there might have been is taken out by the author. Will is the most passive protagonist I’ve read in a long time and I don’t see why I should like him. There’s nothing about him to like (or dislike, for that matter). He is just a blank human-shaped something that does what he’s told by complete strangers who say they are the Light and he’s one of them and then he collects signs on his belt and hopes someone will save his ass when the Dark gets too close to him. Let me tell you, this was the opposite of engaging and exciting.

The part I enjoyed the most was actually the non-fantasy aspects. Will’s family is huge and while I have no idea which of the 12 siblings is which I really loved reading about their Christmas excitement, their childish banter, their joy at opening presents and so on. They go carol singing at one point and although there’s really nothing all that special about that part, I found myself enjoying the book way more than during any of the epic blahblah that was happening in between. Again, twelve siblings is a lot and most of them didn’t even get to speak, but the ones that do even felt like real characters with a distinct personality. Chatterbox Mary or calm and reliable Paul come to mind. They felt way more alive than Will ever did.

So to sum it all up, this book has three gigantic problems: a passive protagonist, no world building whatsoever, a thin plot without any real stakes.
What worked was the writing itself. I found the prose quite nice and it built up a great atmosphere of this wintery landscape and of Will jumping around in time – oh yeah, the Old Ones can just go through time somehow but don’t ask me how because with one exception where they go through an actual door, nobody explains how this works or if Will could do it by himself or whatever.
The whole quest never feels like a quest because Will just goes about his everyday life, doing whatever he would be doing anyway and then suddenly magic happens to him and one of the Old Ones is there and hands him a sign or tells him how to get it. He goes and gets it and we’re back to regular life until the whole thing starts over again until finally, all six signs are collected and can be united. Because reasons.

When I had finally reached the end of this tedious repetitive bore of a book, I felt quite cheated because there wasn’t even a big epic fight at the end. Sure, Will faces the Rider (kind of the boss of the Dark, at least in this book) and for the first time has to make a decision on his own, but then – conveniently as everything in this story – things just fall into place and Will can go back to doing whatever he was doing before. Merrimen and the Lady – whoever the hell she really is – conclude that now another one of the four big objects has been restored. The first one was the Grail from the first book which means two more are coming. So I guess that means two more books with “quests” and then, finally, the showdown between the Light and the Dark?

Look, I enjoyed the first book well enough but I would have just let it stand on its own if this series wasn’t hyped as such a classic of children’s literature, mentioned in the same breath with Narnia. If this second volume is any indication of how the series will continue, I’ll just call it quits here and go back to those new releases where plot and character and world building actually matter.

MY RATING: 3.5/10 – Quite bad