I’ve been reading some long books lately. That means that I haven’t finished anything new to review this week, so I’m going to my dwindling backlog for this post.
I read On Fragile Waves by E. Lily Yu last year for one of my book clubs (paid link). It was described as magical realism, which is a sub-genre that I’m not terribly familiar with. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Jeed Saddy.
I listened to the audiobook edition.
Here is the blurb:
Firuzeh and her brother Nour are children of fire, born in an Afghanistan fractured by war. When their parents, their Atay and Abay, decide to leave, they spin fairy tales of their destination, the mythical land and opportunities of Australia.
As the family journeys from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, heading toward a hope of home, they must rely on fragile and temporary shelters, strangers both mercenary and kind, and friends who vanish as quickly as they’re found.
When they arrive in Australia, what seemed like a stable shore gives way to treacherous currents. Neighbors, classmates, and the government seek their own ends, indifferent to the family’s fate. For Firuzeh, her fantasy worlds provide some relief, but as her family and home splinter, she must surface from these imaginings and find a new way.
The concept of this book sounded interesting enough, and I’m always open to reading diverse perspectives. However, the story told in this book never truly captured my interest and contained very little in the way of fantastical elements. The magical realism aspect comes in when Firuzeh’s friend dies on the journey, but continues to visit Firuzeh and speak to her. I was disappointed overall, and while I finished the book, I don’t even remember how it ended now.
The writing in the book was good and I’d consider reading a different book by the same author. The narrator was easy to listen to and I think that I might not have been able to finish a print or e-book version of this novel. Sometimes I do better finishing an audiobook when I’m struggling to stay engaged with the story.
Have you read any books with a similar setting or theme? Which ones would you recommend? Let me know in the comments (above).
I just started reading The Fires of Heaven, the fifth book of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series a few days ago, in my ongoing attempt to finally read all 14 books in the series (paid links). With so many other books on my to-be-read list, I have inevitably taken a break between books. For a series this long and complicated, that can sometimes create a challenge where I struggle to remember details between each book. For this blog post, I thought I’d share some of the interesting sites on the internet where a reader can review these details between books.
First off is this place – Wheel of Timelines. I discovered this site a few days ago when I was looking for a map of the Aiel Waste. The main feature of this page is a map that links to a timeline of all the books. You can click through and get a roughly chapter-by-chapter summary of each book (simplified, does not include every chapter). The map that links to this shows where each event takes place. As a life-long reader of fantasy, I always love to correlate the story with the places on the map.
The original map from The Wheel of Time, by Ellisa Mitchell.
If you would like a deeper dive into the creation of the maps for The Wheel of Time, this page tells about the expansion of the standard map found in the books.
This post also reminded me that I have this wonderful book about maps in writing and fantasy: The Writer’s Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands edited by Huw Lewis-Jones (paid link). While it doesn’t feature anything from The Wheel of Time, it is a great coffee table book or reference volume.
If maps aren’t enough to jog your memory between books, Reactor Magazine did a read-along of the entire series that started in 2018. You can find the entire collection of articles here.
The Wheel of Time also has a wiki that provides a ton of detailed information on the characters, places, and plot. That can be found at this site.
Be warned – all of these pages could contain spoilers!
Have you read all of The Wheel of Time? Do you have a favorite reference site? Let me know in the comments (above).
The Core by Peter V. Brett is the last book of five in The Demon Cycle series (paid links). This is a pretty long review. I enjoyed this series a lot and would consider re-reading it in the future.
I did not formally review The Warded Man (book 1) or The Desert Spear (book 2) on this blog. These are my reviews of the other books (paid links):
For time out of mind, bloodthirsty demons have stalked the night, culling the human race to scattered remnants dependent on half-forgotten magics to protect them. Then two heroes arose—men as close as brothers, yet divided by bitter betrayal. Arlen Bales became known as the Warded Man, tattooed head to toe with powerful magic symbols that enable him to fight demons in hand-to-hand combat—and emerge victorious. Jardir, armed with magically warded weapons, called himself the Deliverer, a figure prophesied to unite humanity and lead them to triumph in Sharak Ka—the final war against demonkind.
But in their efforts to bring the war to the demons, Arlen and Jardir have set something in motion that may prove the end of everything they hold dear—a Swarm. Now the war is at hand and humanity cannot hope to win it unless Arlen and Jardir, with the help of Arlen’s wife, Renna, can bend a captured demon prince to their will and force the devious creature to lead them to the Core, where the Mother of Demons breeds an inexhaustible army.
Trusting their closest confidantes, Leesha, Inevera, Ragen and Elissa, to rally the fractious people of the Free Cities and lead them against the Swarm, Arlen, Renna, and Jardir set out on a desperate quest into the darkest depths of evil—from which none of them expects to return alive.
This book picks up in the immediate aftermath of the devastating events of book 4. Demons are no longer following their usual patterns of behavior as mind demons coordinate the demon forces. The story follows the characters we already know as they try to prepare humanity to stand against the increased threat. Meanwhile, Arlen launches his crazy plan to obtain intelligence on the demon hive so that he can try to take out the source of the demons. The plan is risky and he goes into it with Jardir, Renna, and others, knowing that they will all inevitably be betrayed. This adds tension as the book proceeds and their situation becomes more perilous.
One of the main themes of this series is that of prophecy. The first Deliverer, Kaji, defeated the demons many generations in the past. But humanity’s reprieve was only temporary. With the current rising threat, The Deliverer has been foretold to return to once again destroy the demons. The interesting part of this story is that it isn’t clear who that person will be. In the first book, it seems obvious that it will be Arlen. However, Jardir becomes known as this prophesied hero by the Krasian people in the second book. At one point, I thought that Leesha (herbalist, healer, sorcerer) would end up as the Deliverer. The characters themselves start to wonder about the prophecy and how it relates to their religion and the origin of magic in this world. I enjoy these types of twists on prophecy and the classic hero’s journey type of story, although I don’t think any book can ever top the ending of Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series in To Green Angel Tower in this respect (paid links).
This book was about 800 pages long, but even 100 pages from the end, I had to wonder how the author would manage to wrap everything up. He did accomplish this, as the point-of-view switched between specific characters to briefly show events that were spread across the world. My favorite scene near the ending occurred when Leesha led a small force to sneak into Fort Angiers and retake it from the demons.
I had forgotten about Ragen and Elissa because the last couple of books had not directly featured them. It took me a moment to reorient myself when the events of this book returned to Fort Miln. I think that I was not as invested in their part of the story because of this, but this was only a minor detraction from the excitement of the final events of this book.
This book also had an unusual number of births compared to other fantasy series I’ve read. Some of the children were primarily plot devices to increase political tensions, but their births also set up a new generation for future stories (see below).
I don’t want to put any spoilers in here for the ending. All I will say is that I cried a little. It was satisfying and answers the question of the central prophecy of the series.
Peter V. Brett does have another series set in the same world fifteen years after The Demon Cycle ends, called Nightfall Saga. I plan to read it, but I’m not going to start it yet. The second book was just published in March 2024, so I don’t expect the final book to be available until late 2025 or maybe 2026.
I thought that I was over my reading slump from March, but then I only managed to read 3 more books in April. However, for this month I felt like I made more steady progress. When I looked at some of the details, it turns out that I read 2,409 pages for the month, making this my second highest page count per month so far in 2024!
I also read some of the shorter works nominated for the Nebula Awards, so that took more time. However, I’m glad that I did delve back into reading some short fiction, and I have more of that planned in the upcoming months.
For the upcoming month of May, I’m hoping to finish a couple of books that I started, but that were larger projects than I originally envisioned. These would be The Anatomy of Story and the Utopia Science Fiction Magazine Five Year Anthology. I need to find a day where I have few distractions so that I can focus more on these kinds of books.
What else is ahead in May? I’ve bumped a couple of the books I had planned for April into this next month, but pushed others back further. I’m still planning to read the 5th book in the Dune series, Heretics of Dune. I’m continuing with several series with The Sandman: Book 3 by Neil Gaiman, Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, and Jud by Michael Breen (paid links).
I also picked up a new book by one of my recent favorite authors – The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo. Then I have Deep Freeze by Michael C. Grumley planned for a book club (paid links).
How is your reading going for the year? What book are you most excited to read next? Let me know in the comments (above).
This book was suggested for one of my book clubs and is another one that I read last year. Becoming Crone by Lydia M. Hawke is book 1 in The Crone Wars series (paid links).
I’m not going to have any other posts this week because I’m traveling to Salt Lake City for a fencing tournament and then some outdoor exploration. Look for my April reading update on either 4/29 or 4/30 to find out how many books I finished on both 4-hour flights!
I read this as an e-book.
Here is the blurb:
She wanted purpose. She found dark magick and war.
For Claire Emerson, there is nothing ordinary about turning sixty.
First, there are the crows. Then, a pendant that unlocks a gate to a house in the woods–which comes with a snarky gargoyle, an entirely too-sexy wolf shifter claiming to be Claire’s protector, and a legacy that turns her reality upside down.
Because divorced, menopausal grandmothers with creaky hips and hot flashes? They don’t just randomly discover they’re next in a long line of powerful women protecting the world from the dark magick of Mages.
Claire’s first instinct is to turn tail and run back to the safety of baking cookies and reading bedtime stories. But when it becomes clear the Mages have targeted her, she may have no choice but to accept her calling. There’s just one problem: she never got the lifetime of training she was supposed to have, and her magick is… well, unreliable would be an understatement.
With the Mages threatening everything she loves, can Claire learn what she needs to in time to become Crone? Or will she be the one to lose an ancient war—and her life?
The premise of this book was fun, with our heroine being a grandmother with a wealth of world experience, rather than the younger protagonist more common in genre fiction. This isn’t the first time I’ve come across an older hero though. The most memorable example that I have is the first book I read by one of my favorite authors: The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold (paid link).
In any case, this book was easy to read and follows some standard tropes. I felt bad for Claire because I think she had a very sheltered life prior to the events in this book. In some sense, she is also experiencing a “coming of age” tale like what is often encountered in stories about those younger protagonists.
The story was fun and kept me interested. I don’t know if I’ll read the other books in this series, but I did enjoy this one. I also really liked the cover artwork.
Have you read any stories that feature an older protagonist? Let me know in the comments (above).
Elder Race is a short novel (or novella) and was the first fiction by Adrian Tchaikovsky that I have read (paid link). It was nominated for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novella. Read on below to see what I thought.
I read the e-book edition.
Here is the blurb:
In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Elder Race, a junior anthropologist on a distant planet must help the locals he has sworn to study to save a planet from an unbeatable foe.
Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way.
But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she’s an adult (albeit barely) with responsibilities (she tells herself). Although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as long as her people have lived here (though none in living memory has approached it).
But Elder Nyr isn’t a sorcerer, and he is forbidden to help, and his knowledge of science tells him the threat cannot possibly be a demon…
This story is told through alternating perspectives, switching between Nyr, a depressed anthropologist, and Lynesse, a princess looking to prove herself. It is the tale of a lost colony of Earth, and Nyr’s failed mission to study the people there. At the core of the story is the juxtaposition between Nyr’s science fictional view of the world and Lynesse’s fantastical view of technology that she has no way to understand. The story’s genre depends on which perspective we take.
In the end, it is a work of science fiction, but one that encompasses the difficulty in determining genre in some stories. My favorite example of this is Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, in which McCaffrey always presented the stories as science fiction (paid link). However, in my own reading of those books, they always felt like fantasy, since the specifics of the technology don’t matter until the books at the end of the timeline.
In Elder Race, another aspect that surprised me was how the story depicted Nyr’s mental health challenges. He uses his technology to suppress the effects of depression for a time, but he also knows that this is not a solution for his condition. We see a lot of heroes that either ignore their trauma and do what needs to be done or experience intense emotion without suffering more specifically. In this story, Nyr can only put the effects off for so long, and this adds a unique factor to this tale.
I rated this book as one of my top reads for 2023 and put another series by this author on my to-be-read list. Have you read anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky? Let me know in the comments (above).
I don’t remember where I came across this book, but it ended up being a selection for one of my book clubs last year. How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu is a novel told through interconnected short stories (paid link). Read on below to see what I thought.
I read this as an e-book.
Here is the blurb:
A debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague.
Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.
Once unleashed, the Arctic Plague will reshape life on earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects—a pig—develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.
From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a journey spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resiliency of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.
This book drew fairly polarized responses from the book club. I did enjoy it, but I could see how it is not for everyone. This book starts out at the beginning of a pandemic and ultimately is about how we deal with death.
Being someone who deals with life and death situations and humane euthanasia every day as a veterinarian, I found that the situations in this book took a thoughtful look at death and grief, but in ways that went beyond our current cultural norms. My favorite example of this is an amusement park for terminally ill children. Their parents bring them to the park to enjoy all the thrills and excitement, and then for the last ride of the day, they embark on a rollercoaster that breaks their necks to end their suffering. The parents know the purpose of the park, but the children don’t.
The disease that results from the pandemic was also fascinating to me. It caused the organs of those afflicted with it to slowly change to a different organ. At one point it only affected children, then later on it spreads to everyone. This book isn’t about the science behind the virus or the epidemiology of the pandemic, but rather follows how society changes as a result.
This is also a science fiction tale that takes some odd tangents into a possible afterlife and interstellar travel, although those aren’t exactly the main plot. Overall, I thought that How High We Go in the Dark brought a unique perspective to how we think about preparations for and rituals about the end of life.
Have you read any of Sequoia Nagamatsu’s short stories? Let me know in the comments (above).
I did manage to finish the second book in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon last week, Dragonfly in Amber. Hopefully this means that I’m on the way out of my March reading slump (paid links). This was also the audiobook version, narrated by Davina Porter.
From the author of Outlander… a magnificent epic that once again sweeps us back in time to the drama and passion of 18th-century Scotland…
For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland’s majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones …about a love that transcends the boundaries of time …and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his ….
Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire’s spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart …in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising …and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves….
The beginning of this book was not what I expected and introduced more time travel complications to the overarching storyline. It also framed the theme of this book – can the past be changed if one has foreknowledge of their outcome? Or is one helpless, pinned in place like the titular dragonfly? I won’t answer that question because you’ll have to read the book to find out.
This volume takes Claire and Jaime to France for most of the book. There, they use family connections and a little spycraft to try to stop the eventual uprising of the Scots against England that Claire knows is doomed to failure.
Claire and Jaime’s relationship evolves as they are faced with new challenges. I have to wonder how many different ways the author can pull them apart, have them question their love, and then have them reunite and reconcile. So far I don’t think she’s had a similar situation between them come up twice, but there are a lot of books to go.
The same narrator gave voice to this book, and I really like her portrayal of the characters. I wish that the books included a glossary or dramatis personae because sometimes I get the more minor Scots confused.
I don’t want to give any specific spoilers here, but I think that the ending of this volume was stronger than book 1. It provides enough resolution, but also sets up more mystery and tension about what happens next. I have already started the next book, Voyagers, which is almost 44 hours long, so look for my review of that one in about 6 weeks (paid link).
Have you read any of the Outlander books? How do the first two books compare to you? Let me know in the comments (above).
I read Upgrade by Blake Crouch sometime last year. This is the second book by the author that I’ve read, with the first being another stand-alone novel, Dark Matter (paid links). You can find my review of that book here.
I read this book in e-book format.
Here is the blurb:
At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.
But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.
The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.
Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.
Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.
And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?
Intimate in scale yet epic in scope, Upgrade is an intricately plotted, lightning-fast tale that charts one man’s thrilling transformation, even as it asks us to ponder the limits of our humanity—and our boundless potential.
This book looked at the consequences of rapid advancement in genetic modification and created a fast-paced story with plenty of action. At the same time, Logan had to examine his own humanity and come to terms with his family’s dark past. It took me some time to get invested in the story, but once I pushed through the first few chapters, I couldn’t put it down.
The plot almost moved too fast at times, leaving me less time to think about the implications of the technology depicted in this story. But it was still a rush to read and I’m going to look out for more books by this author. This one was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award in 2022.
Have you read any science fiction that looked at the consequences of genetic engineering? Let me know in the comments (above).
The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett is the fourth book of five in The Demon Cycle series. I have been meaning to finish this series and I’m not sure why I kept putting it off, since I’ve enjoyed the earlier books.
Built from the skulls of fallen generals and demon princes, it is a seat of honor and ancient, powerful magic, keeping the demon corelings at bay. From atop the throne, Ahmann Jardir was meant to conquer the known world, forging its isolated peoples into a unified army to rise up and end the demon war once and for all.
But Arlen Bales, the Warded Man, stood against this course, challenging Jardir to a duel he could not in honor refuse. Rather than risk defeat, Arlen cast them both from a precipice, leaving the world without a savior, and opening a struggle for succession that threatens to tear the Free Cities of Thesa apart.
In the south, Inevera, Jardir’s first wife, must find a way to keep their sons from killing each other and plunging their people into civil war as they strive for glory enough to make a claim on the throne.
In the north, Leesha Paper and Rojer Inn struggle to forge an alliance between the duchies of Angiers and Miln against the Krasians before it is too late.
Caught in the crossfire is the duchy of Lakton–rich and unprotected, ripe for conquest.
All the while, the corelings have been growing stronger, and without Arlen and Jardir there may be none strong enough to stop them. Only Renna Bales may know more about the fate of the missing men, but she, too, has disappeared…
This is not a series that you can jump into at any point. The action in this book picks up immediately after the events of the previous volume, with no time spent rehashing the storyline. The questions brought up by the cliffhanger ending of book 3 are quickly answered, although there isn’t an immediate resolution to the situation.
The plot in this story follows our ongoing collection of main characters, with much of the action centered in the Hollow and the nearby lands of Everam’s Bounty, Lakton, and Angiers. The author jumps through multiple point-of-view characters to tell the story, but focuses in the right parts of the story so that the pacing never slows too much. He manages to have me simultaneously cheering for characters on opposing sides, even when the situation is dire.
I stayed up most of the night reading the last 200 pages of this book. The tension and the impending sense of doom built so much that I couldn’t stop myself. Although be warned, this was the most heartbreaking part of the series so far and approached a “red wedding” level of devastation.
I’ve already started the final book, The Core, so that I can discover if there will finally be a Deliverer who can end the demon threat (paid link).
The new editions of this series have rather boring covers. I prefer the ones that I’ve used here, where each book features one of the main characters on the front. The mass market paperback edition of The Skull Throne also featured a glossary and a family tree for some of the Krasians at the back, both of which were very helpful.
Have you read any of The Demon Cycle? Who do you think will be the Deliverer? Let me know in the comments (above).
Selection Error – a flash fiction story podcast by Utopia Science Fiction Magazine in December 2022