Month: August 2023

I am confused

On August 29, 2023

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