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An Epic, Grimdark Conclusion: The Voyage of the Forgotten by Nick Martell

Mon Nov 28, 2022 2:00pm 2 Favorites [+]

Nick Martell’s The Voyage of the Forgotten brings to a close the story of Michael Kingman, a man of many epithets and a few burning and straightforward ambitions…

Michael Kingman has been through a lot, and ever since he has gone through the tribulations of trying to regain lost memories and sharp relations with Serena, the Queen of Hollow, his path has slowly become clear. It’s been a tangled story over the first two volumes, Kingdom of Liars and The Two-Faced Queen. He has regained some of his memory, or at least learned what was lost. But protecting all that he holds dear is going to require his greatest trick yet.

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Found Family Saves the Universe: Fault Tolerance by Valerie Valdes

Thu Aug 4, 2022 2:00pm 1 comment Favorite This

Valerie Valdes’ Fault Tolerance, third in her stories of Captain Eva Innocente and her friends and family, brings the scrappy trader Captain her greatest challenge yet, with stakes are truly interstellar in scope.

Captain Eva Innocente and her crew’s  prior adventures,  Chilling Effect and Prime Deceptions, have always somewhat belied their covers: you’d think these novels were completely frothy and light space opera novels, fun but not particularly deep. The cute and cuddly cats on the cover just emphasize that. Cats in space, that has to be all sweetness and light. Right?

[Not quite.]

Humanity in Exile: Gareth Powell’s Stars and Bones

Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:00pm 2 Favorites [+]

A Deus Ex Machina is a person or thing (as in fiction or drama) that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty. In Gareth Powell’s Stars and Bones, the Deus Ex Machina is in the prologue and sets up the rest of the novel.

After an god like alien intervention stops what would be a civilization-ending nuclear war, the price of that intervention is humanity’s exile from Earth and any other such world. Humanity now lives on a series of great arks, comfortable and well-supplied, but on an eternal wandering among the stars. Man is still a curious species, sending scout ships to planets on the condition that they don’t try to land and settle. But on one planet, a Borg-like threat emerges that could wipe out or consume humanity entirely, and it may take yet another Deus Ex Machina from the “Angels” to solve the problem. As it so happens, the  person best able to possibly contact the aliens who saved humanity the last time is in an undisclosed location. And the new threat is looking for him, too…

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The Center Cannot Hold: Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shards of Earth

Thu Sep 30, 2021 2:00pm 3 comments 3 Favorites [+]

“Go back where you came from” is a common phrase used by far too many towards immigrants and refugees. It is the fear, hatred and distrust of The Other. This hatred seems to be particularly sharp toward certain groups of refugees, those who have traveled hundreds of miles to escape war or privation, turning up at a distant border, seeking to rebuild their lives elsewhere.

But what if you can’t go where you came from? What if your entire home planet—Earth—and others have been turned from habitable worlds to extremely strange and warped works of “art”? And, after a miracle ends the threat of worlds destroyed, there are precious decades of peace during which people no longer have a “go bag” packed in case the enemy should show up? Peace to the point that you have not forgotten, but you have relaxed somewhat from the existential day to day terrors? A small peace, fragile, but peace nonetheless.

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The Battle of Four Armies: Carrie Vaughn’s Questland

Thu Jun 24, 2021 2:30pm 1 comment 1 Favorite [+]

Carrie Vaughn’s Questland is a day-after-tomorrow tale of a fantasy theme park gone very wrong.

Insula Mirabilis (literally, Wonderful Island) off the coast of Washington State is the pet project of billionaire Harris Lang. It’s going to be the ultimately geeky fantasy theme park once it is complete—immersing visitors in an experience that would put Westworld to shame. But when the island puts up a force field from the inside and a coast guard cutter hits it and loses all hands, things get real. Lang needs to get a team in and shut down the field and regain control of the island. 

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Forgetfulness of Things Past: Sarina Dahlan’s Reset

Thu May 27, 2021 1:30pm 3 comments 2 Favorites [+]

A theme in dystopian/utopian fiction is: How do we manage a society after things have gone so very wrong, so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated? What would you do to make a society that will not come to extinguish humanity for good, this time? And what is the dystopian price to pay? Do you engineer society so that everyone takes drugs daily to subdue their passions, as in Equilibrium? Have everyone die at the age of 21, as in Logan’s Run? Stratify society in a distorted and restrictive way, as in Brave New World? Place a sin-eater of a tortured soul at the dark heart of the city, taking the sins of the city and the people, as in Those Who Walk Away From Omelas? There is a common assumption in all of these works that for humanity to have a utopia of any sort, bounds must be put on humanity, severe ones at that.

And so we come to Sarina Dahlan’s novel, Reset.

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Humanizing a Magnificent Bastard: Nick Martell’s The Two Faced Queen

Thu Mar 25, 2021 3:00pm 1 comment 3 Favorites [+]

In Kingdom of Liars, we were introduced to Michael Kingsman, he and his family fallen far from power and favor, and the story of a family, a person, on the outs of power and society whilst being an integral fixture in the power structures. Kingdom of Liars told a relatively self contained mobius strip of a story that explained how Michael became accused and marked as the killer of a King.

Following up on such a bottled narrative is difficult even if there are plenty of questions left—what now, with the King dead, both nobles of the family out for his blood, and the revelations of his own life lifted and laid bare? What can Michael do, having been shoved into the position that he has been by the end of Kingdom of Liars? Nick Martell’s The Two-Faced Queen ponders these questions, and continues to explore the story of Michael Kingsman.

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Priestess of a Lesser Goddess: H.M. Long’s Hall of Smoke

Mon Mar 1, 2021 1:00pm 1 comment 3 Favorites [+]

The basic four archetypes for a D&D-like party are the Fighter, the Rogue, the Wizard and the Cleric. In secondary world fantasy novels, the first three are very well represented, to the point of many variations and subclasses and versions of same. But the Cleric is far rarer. It’s not that there are none, mind you, but they are far, far less common as protagonists. Why is that? That is perhaps beyond the scope of this piece, but I think I know why

Evil priests of dread Gods as antagonists and cannon fodder to kill? That’s common. But a pious holy woman dedicated to her Goddess as a protagonist? Much fewer in number, especially when you are looking at female protagonists. And that is why H.M. Long’s Hall of Smoke is welcome, as we get front and center Hessa, a priestess of a Goddess of War.

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Crossing Castes: Juliette Wade’s Transgressions of Power

Thu Feb 25, 2021 2:00pm 2 Favorites [+]

In Juliette Wade’s Mazes of Power we were introduced to the Varin, an alternate world of humans on a planet whose surface is less than pleasant to be on for long periods of time, so high society, a decaying civilization, exists in underground cities. In Transgressions of Power, Wade continues the story of a society struggling with conflict and the potential to change.

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A Battle Beyond the Stars: Stina Leicht’s Persephone Station

Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:00am 5 comments 5 Favorites [+]

In a real way, the western and science fiction are made for each other, and have been for decades. Long before things like Firefly or Outland or Star Wars, the very term “Space Opera” is a derivation from the term for romances of the Wild West, “Horse Opera”. The DNA of westerns is in many SF stories where there are frontiers, conflicts between “civilized” and “rough” areas, the psychology and anthropology of communities very much on their own for good and for ill against the wilderness.

In this day and age though, we can work this connection further. The position of women in westerns, and frankly, a lot of space opera, is not so great. Where are the stories of women doing things on the frontier, riding the star winds, trying to do what’s right? Where are the Wild West Heroines, or even grizzled veterans just trying to make a living and get caught into a greater cause, despite themselves?

And so we come to Stina Leicht’s Persephone Station.

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Bending the Arc of History: Erin K. Wagner’s An Unnatural Life

Thu Sep 17, 2020 2:00pm 2 Favorites [+]

How do we ensure that the rights of all beings are respected and they are given justice and a fair hearing under the law? Who will stand up when a majority treats someone as a thing, rather than a person? Who can stand against the tyranny of a settlement, a society, a species?

These are the questions at the heart of Erin K. Wagner’s novella, An Unnatural Life.

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Who watches the King? Nick Martell’s The Kingdom of Liars

Fri Sep 11, 2020 11:00am 9 comments 1 Favorite [+]

No system of government or society exists without some checks on power. Even the most autocratic autarchy has some checks and influencers on authority, even if informal ones, because the person at the top cannot personally do every single small act of governance. Such checks on power and supports of power can take many forms, including the personal. The relationships between ruler and ruled can get especially interesting when that relationship is frayed and discredited, forcing a society already under tension further into stress. To say nothing of what that relationship does to the actual individuals themselves. 

So it is in Nick Martell’s debut novel, The Kingdom of Liars.

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Fantastic North American Geographies: Emily B Martin’s Sunshield

Mon Jul 13, 2020 1:45pm 1 comment 2 Favorites [+]

In discussing Emily B Martin’s Sunshield, I think the best way for me to draw you into what the book is and what is doing is not to discuss the plot or characters, but instead to talk about worldbuilding in the novel, and the worldbuilding of a lot of fantasy worlds in general.

I’ve written about secondary world fantasy that is beyond the “Great Wall of Europe” before, specifically about “Silk Road Fantasy”, mainly focused on Africa and Asia. Instead of being just places for “The Other”, on the margins of a Europhilic fantasy, we’re getting more novels and stories where African and Asian cultures, peoples, and geographies are front and center.

[Sunshield takes us instead to a fantasy version of North America]

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