Sceptical Reading – Daughters of Doubt and Eyerolling

Sorcerer to the Crown

On September 14, 2023

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, published 01 September 2015. The first book in the Sorcerer Royal series.

Set at the times of the Napoleonic Wars/Regency Period in England, magic is slowly disappearing and the Unnatural Philosophers (magicians/old white men) blame their new Sorcerer Royal. Zacharias, the Sorcerer to the Crown, is the son of Caribbean slaves who was adopted by the Wythes and followed in his adopted father’s footsteps when he became the first black Sorcerer Royal. Since anyone who is not a white male is inferior and can’t do magic properly it is because of Zacharias that Fairyland has cut Britain off the magic.

When we get to meet the female main character, Prunella, an orphan living in a school for witches, we see more sexism and racism. Women are inferior and hence high born magical girls have to attend schools for witches to get rid of their magic; servants, by the way, may do magic, since it’s handy around the house. Though Prunella, as the daughter of an Indian woman and an English gentleman, should never even attempt to use magic, she’s inferior not only by her sex, but also her race. You can guess where this is going.

Due to her heritage Prunella has magical abilities in abundance, she only needs to unlock her abilities and learn to control them. With the help of Zacharias and his adoptive mother, Prunella wants to learn magic properly and find a husband in London’s society. Not easy since everyone and their grandmother judge her by her sex and the colour of her skin.

The racism/sexism morale of the story was dealt ham-fistedly, it could have been woven into the story in a subtler way. The world-building had holes, in my opinion. I was looking for explanations as to why women shouldn’t do magic, other than they are the weaker sex; which is why I liked that Prunella stayed strong and insisted on learning. Lastly, the story dragged. This might be due to the writing style which emulates the style of the Regency era, but can’t quite pull it off.

2.5/5 Harpy Eagles

I am confused

By TheRightHonourableHarpyEagle

On August 29, 2023

In 42, Reviews

The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon, published 27 June 2023, the first book in The Downworld Sequence.

I find this book exceptionally hard to review. I wanted to like it, but I might not have grasped its points and my review might be just as confusing as the book I read.

I like it when an author drops me in at the deep end, as frustrating as that may be, and I learn to navigate within the world that the author has built (like Harrow the Ninth – I was about to give up when the penny dropped). Unfortunately, I couldn’t really make heads nor tails of the world Candon built here. What’s more, the further I dove into the story, the less clear it all became. I wish Candon had invented new words for the unique elements of her world-building, this way she might have had to explain what she is actually talking about; by using ‘regular’ English words like the “Harbor” my mind somehow refused to give the concept of the story’s maybe-villain any other connotation than a place where ships can dock.

Then there is the shift in POVs, which would have been fine had it been indicated in any way. But since neither narrator had a distinct voice I felt even more confused than Sunai, the often confused MC of the story. I had to go back and re-read passages several times just because I had mixed up the narrator of a passage.

The writing was, at times very descriptive, but really good. And I liked the characters and the close relationship that Sunai is developing. Which is what kept me going to the end, because all’s well that ends well. Alas, the ending did not clear up my confusion.

3/5 Harpy Eagles

My Jam and Not My Jam

By TheRightHonourableHarpyEagle

On August 29, 2023

In 42, Audio Feedback, Reviews

A Pale Light in the Black by K.B. Wagers, published 03 March 2020.

I thought this book was about a diverse Found Family crew of space cops cruising the solar system, chasing smugglers, getting into scrapes and working as a team to solve a crime against humanity. That would have been “My Jam”.

It’s the year 2435. After being on the brink of extinction, humankind has managed to conquer the solar system. There’s space travel through wormholes and a serum that expands the human lifespan. Without this serum space exploration would not have been possible, nor the re-population of Earth. What was that extinction event that was prevented?

The patent to the serum is held by a corporation. In order to be eligible for the serum, you have to either work for the corporation or enter the military services for 40 years. Indentured servitude?

Earth, by the way, has one governmental body and seems to have reached world peace. Why is there a need for military services? There is the Navy, which is highly skilled in combat but does space exploration. Then there is the NEOG, Near Earth Orbital Guard. Another group of highly trained people who are the space coast guard, rescuing stranded ships, apprehending smugglers (I nearly wrote pirates, but alas no space pirates). No idea what the Army and the Air Force do in 2435, maybe that’s part of the other two books. Also, I do understand that there is a need for the NEOG, but why are there military services if there is world peace/solar system peace/humankind peace and no aliens that might attack?

To show off the military’s prowess at war there are Boarding Games where the NEOG and the Navy send teams that fight against each other in different single combat and team combat disciplines. It’s televised all over the solar system and the event of the year. Panem et circes – just without the panem – the gladiator teams of the future. It’s interesting, but we never get to see why the individual protagonists want to win. We never find out why it is so important for the team to win. What motivates them, other than boasting rights until the next games?

All the training for the games and the actual games take up so many pages in the book that the real plot seems like the commercial break between the rather lacklustre fight scenes. The much more interesting plot line is that smugglers are bringing knock-off serum into the system. Knock-off lifespan enhancing serum that might actually drastically shorten the lifespan of its users.

I am sure lots of people will like this book/trilogy. I enjoyed listening to the audiobook, but I also noted that this book is flawed. It praises combat and the military services (in a world with universal peace), it has a strange religious sub-plot, and I am not at all comfortable with the corporation’s way of dealing out the serum. All in all it was more “Not My Jam” and I am not going to continue reading the series.

2/5 Harpy Eagles

Master of FanFic?

By TheRightHonourableHarpyEagle

On August 14, 2023

In Dungeons & Bookdragons, Reviews

The Masters of Death by Olivie Blake, first published 30 January 2018.

Do not trust the blurb. This book is about a game the gods play when they are bored – not an ineffable game, but an inexplicable game that is so hyped up that when you actually get to the game, you might just be staring at the page and go “huh?!” It’s also about a vampire cat estate agent who is trying to sell a haunted house. There is the ghost of Tom Parker IV, who doesn’t know how and why he was killed. And there is the godson of Death, Fox D’Mora (yes, a very un-German name for a young man having grown up just outside Frankfurt in Germany about two hundred years ago – doesn’t matter which of the two Frankfurts either) and his “the one” a Norse demi-god. There are also a bunch of other immortal beings and their botched up love affairs, including but not restricted to a demon, a reaper, an angel, archangels, and a werewolf.

If you want to read a fanfic that reads like Good Omens, Discworld’s Death series, The Sandman, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, How to Stop Time, and The Library of the Unwritten (and probably a few more) had an ugly baby, go ahead. Maybe you like the angsty characters. Maybe you like endless dialogue where you aren’t certain who is talking. Maybe you like the relationship between Fox and Brandt that is rehashed and examined every time it comes up. Maybe you like being pulled out of a storyline again and again to be confronted with a different POV and another character’s backstory.

2/5 Harpy Eagles – there were a few funny moments

Mesoamerican Zorro retelling

By TheRightHonourableHarpyEagle

On August 1, 2023

In Dungeons & Bookdragons, Reviews

Sun of Blood and Ruin by Mariely Lares, expected publication 28 September 2023.

The cover is stunning, was one of the first thoughts I had about this book. The blurb was promising. The final product wasn’t at all what I had hoped it would be.

The first half of the book was hard to get through and made me put it off several times. The story starts right away, no initial explanations and hence hard to follow for someone who has only had limited contact with indigenous cultures of Mexico (quite frankly, all of the Americas). Yet, some explanations were inserted later on, and here I want to point out the word inserted; the info-dumps felt like they were copied from an encyclopaedia and didn’t gel with the general style of writing.

Throughout the book the more two dimensional characters were difficult to distinguish from each other, which was especially vexing when reading pages of stilted dialogue. It got a little better in the second half of the book, though.

Sun of Blood and Ruin is a gender reversal Zorro retelling with a lot of fantasy elements that will certainly gain fans. Unfortunately, I had the impression the core story was actually the latter part of the second half of the book and the first half was later added to create a novel out of a novella.

2/5 Harpy Eagles

Murderbot is back

By TheRightHonourableHarpyEagle

On July 28, 2023

In 42, Reviews

System Collapse by Martha Wells, expected publication 14 November 2023.

The seventh book in the Murderbot Diaries. This is a spoiler free review.

Murderbot doesn’t like planets. It especially doesn’t like planets when some of its squishy humans are on a planet. Especially especially when there’s an alien contagion infecting people and bots. And, especially especially especially because of [redacted] Murderbot is not 100% itself, but it has to protect it’s squishy humans and the local colonists. And Barish-Estranza just sent in an armed shuttle.

Sigh! All Murderbot wants to do is watch media with ART.

5/5 Harpy Eagles

Bible Camp Horror

By TheRightHonourableHarpyEagle

On July 25, 2023

In Reviews

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, published 18 July 2023.

Rose lives in a small town in Montana. The town is famous for its Christian gay conversion camp, called Camp Damascus, where teenagers undergo certain procedures to learn to “love right.” Rose realises that strange things are happening in her town, then they are happening to her. Since the ‘adults’ pretend that everything is in order, Rose takes it on herself to find out what’s going on at Camp Damascus.

The neurodiverse gay main character might explain why some of the descriptions seem unemotional and why there is a lot of repetition in the writing. Unfortunately, the whole novel reads like a rather mild YA horror. The tension of a horror novel is missing. There are images of body horror, but they are just that images and never really convey a sense of dread or disgust. Furthermore the plot twists are signposted and hence very predictable.

2/5 Harpy Eagles

Thought Provoking Commentary

By TheRightHonourableHarpyEagle

On July 14, 2023

In Reviews

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, published 16 May 2023.

An Asian American author writes a story about an American author stealing the first draft of an Asian American author, edits said draft and publishes it as her own historical fiction work about Chinese labourers during WW I.

Once I had wrapped my brain around this I could at least enjoy the parts where Kuang’s heavy handed commentary about the publishing world and its social media circus takes a backseat and the relationship between June and Athena drives the narrative.

I had hoped for more character depth and less ham-fisted commentary, since the latter was also something I disliked about Kuang’s Babel. Alas, it didn’t happen.

I initially gave the book 4/5 Harpy Eagles, but after a lot of thought – yes, the book is thought provoking – I am going to give it

3/5 Harpy Eagles

Fantasy Library and Alternate Worlds

By TheRightHonourableHarpyEagle

On July 7, 2023

In Dungeons & Bookdragons, Reviews

The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman, published from 2015 on.

Having read Scarlet by Genevieve Cogman, I remembered that years ago I started The Invisible Library series and decided to pick it up again.

Irene is a spy for a library that retrieves literary works from different/alternate worlds. Having been tasked with the retrieval of a dangerous book, Irene and her assistant Kai are posted in an alternate London. A London that looks Victorian, but has different features from “our” Victorian London. As if book retrieval alone wasn’t tricky enough, the alternate London is chaos-infested and poses a threat to all reality. Irene and Kai have to work with and against some of the supernatural forces and strange magic systems in this alternate London to find the book and save the worlds from falling into chaos.

So far I have re-read The Invisible Library (2015) and read The Masked City (2015) which leads Irene and Kai to a city that is similar to Venice during Carnival, where Irene needs to rescue Kai.

Yes, some of you, who have read this series, might say Irene behaves like a YA Strong Heroine (the books are not YA). I agree, Irene runs into danger without thinking about what and how she’s going to rescue Kai. There is also a slow burn love triangle brewing in the background. Yet, I still like the story. Probably because it’s rather fast-paced compared to most YA fantasy stories. So despite some shortcomings, I like the characters and the plot so far. And the ending of book two made me want to grab the next book in the series right away. I am trying to pace myself though.

4/5 Harpy Eagles for each of the books

How To Avoid the Guillotine

By TheRightHonourableHarpyEagle

On July 1, 2023

In Dungeons & Bookdragons, Reviews

From the cover it might be clear that this book is set at the time of the French Revolution. Cogman retells the story of Orcyz’s “The Scarlet Pimpernel” by adding vampires and magic. The French nobles are vampires which is why they need to be killed with the guillotine. The Scarlet Pimpernel, a British nobleman who uses disguises and, together with a group of equally daring people, rescues people from the Reign of Terror in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

The main character of the story is Eleanor a young English maid who works for one of the acknowledged noble vampires. This lady notices the resemblance between Eleanor and Queen Marie Antoinette and basically volunteers Eleanor to the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Eleanor must now learn how to behave like a noble and a spy in order to help free the Queen and her children from the Bastille. A daring undertaking in and off itself, especially once Eleanor has to go undercover in enemy territory.

A fast paced fantasy story that has a new twist on vampires and offers an interesting reason for why the French Revolution happened.

Truly enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next book in the trilogy.

4/5 Harpy Eagles