Somewhere Beyond the Sea

TJ Klune
Completed 1/2/2025 Reviewed 1/3/2025
5 Stars

My goodness!  I am so loving Klune’s work.  Everything I read by him just seems amazing.  My hopes for this sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea were not so high.  But as I read, I gently returned to the island where Arthur and Linus raise the magical children in a healthy environment, as opposed to the dastardly wishes and actions of the government.  It is a worthy sequel to its predecessor. I loved this book.  

The book opens with a jump back to when Arthur first returned to the island orphanage where he was abused as a magical child by a horrific headmaster, meets Zoe the island sprite, and begins rebuilding the house as a safe place for magical children.  Then it jumps to the present, where Arthur and Linus are raising the children we met in the first book.  All seems well, until Arthur is summoned to appear at a hearing about the welfare of the children.  He is informed there will be an on-site investigation.  The investigator is not like Linus.  Instead she seems determined to take the children away.  Arthur and his family do everything they can to throw a wrench into her investigation, but she is ruthless.  And it is not enough, leaving Arthur and Linus as well as Zoe and her girlfriend Helen to try to find a way to turn the tide of the government’s abusive practices on magicals.

It's hard to review a book when enamored with everything about it.  I loved the main characters, of course.  But even the baddies from the government agency are multidimensional, showing cracks in their cool, evil exteriors that make you, and them, see their humanity.  And the messages the book conveys are so good, too.  Like the quandry of what to do when confronted with hate.  Lucy, the seven-year-old Antichrist, most specifically has to deal with his desire to just send the bad people straight to Hell versus everything that Linus, Arthur, and the other children have taught him.  Another is the embracing of problematic words.  A new child, David, is a yeti and wants to be known as a monster even though that word is discouraged by the family because it is used as an offensive slur.  It’s similar to the embracing of the word queer in the LGBTQ+ community, taking the power away from it and making it something beautiful.  

I think this book is a little more philosophical than the first, with more discussions between Arthur and Linus with the children.  But it’s hard to notice when the discussions are so playful and healthy.  However, like the multidimensionality of the bad people, Arthur and Linus are not just angelic goodies.  They, especially Arthur, must keep their cool despite the inner desire to lash out.  Arthur must deal with his magical side, as a phoenix, which threatens to give the government the excuse it needs to remove the children from Arthur and Linus.  

I just can’t say enough wonderful things about this book.  I loved the writing, the dialogue, the action, the development of the children, and so many other things.  Klune’s books are simply cozy reads despite the conflicts that move the plot forward.  One of my goals this year is to read some of his earlier catalogue, which has recently been republished.  I realize earlier works may not be up to par with his newer works, but I’m willing to take that chance.  I give this book five out of five stars.  

Iron Flame

Rebecca Yarros
Completed 12/28/2024 Reviewed 12/28/24
4 Stars

This book is much of the same as the first book, Fourth Wing.  It’s well-written, fast-paced, action-packed, and a fast read despite being almost 900 pages long.  It did take me almost two weeks to get through it, but I enjoyed almost every minute of it.  This book is in two parts and could easily have been two books.  It will be interesting to see how long the third book, which comes out next month, will be.  The only thing that knocks it down a little for me in my rating is that it is not as much of a surprise as the first book. I’m not going to make it a habit of reading “Romantasy” very often, well, straight romantasy anyway.  I do have a nice collection of LGBTQ+ romantasy I’ve accumulated which I hope to get through this next year.  In the meantime, I will probably read the rest of this series, which is supposed to be four books, as it comes out over the next two years.

This book begins right on the heels of the last book.  Violet Sorrengail has found out about the new generation trying to rebel against the powers that be at the military school.  The leaders of the school have been lying about many things, to the students, and to the people in the part of the continent they control.  Violet is now a second-year student who has bonded with the most powerful dragon in the Empyrean, and also with a second dragon who is barely an adolescent.  She is also still madly in love with Xaden.  He is stationed outside the school, but since their dragons are mated, they get to travel back and forth so their dragons can mate and they can see each other as well.  However, Violet is under attack again, this time from the leadership of the school, trying to find out what really happened on the ill-fated mission that ended the last book.  

Like the first book, this is a very dark story.  There are deaths in battle and torture by military leaders.  There are some lighter moments but not many.  Even when it seems things have smoothed out for Violet, she meets another big problem, like the woman who was betrothed to Xaden to seal a political deal made by their parents.  This gets Violet and the woman into an extended “fight over a man” which is kind of trite, but I thought it was executed well nonetheless.  The more intriguing plotline was the attempt to find how to create a ward over a part of the continent that is under attack, but not protected by the ward over the school and its environs.  The magic to create it is hidden deep in the history of the school and unification of the kingdoms.  And I always have a thing for libraries and ancient texts.  

Violet is still an interesting character.  She’s torn by loyalties, family, and love.  And she’s still young, only twenty-one, I believe.  But she develops over the course of the book by these conflicts.  Reflecting on the book, I do believe it passes the Bechdel Test.  Two female characters have conversations and it’s not about a man.  The women all get good roles that aren’t about relationships, except for the previously mentioned “girl-fight.”  And it seems kind of ironic considering this is a romantic novel with three major sex scenes.  But that’s not bad, averaging about one every three hundred pages LOL.  

I give this book four stars out of five.  I’m continually surprised by the fact that I’m enjoying it so much.  Everything about it is pretty good, but the overall effect is tremendous.  And the end is a terrific cliffhanger.  I’m going to wait a while before reading the next book.  It’s the beginning of a new year with new challenges on Worlds Without End.  I probably won’t participate in as many, as I want to read a lot of books not in WWE’s database.  But to end this year, I definitely was glad to finish on a high note.  

Brasyl

Ian McDonald
Completed 12/14/2024, Reviewed 12/14/2024
2 stars

I have a mixed history with Ian McDonald.  I really liked his Luna: New Moon novella, but did not like another novella, Time Was.  This time, I did not like the book.  I felt it was overly complex and boring with way too many characters across three different timelines.  I felt it was a mess.  However, there are a lot of people who really like this book.  It won the 2007 British SF Award and was nominated for the Hugo, the Nebula, and a host of other awards. I will say that the book has good prose and seems well researched, but the convoluted plots never grabbed me.

There are three story-/timelines.  The first is the book’s present, 2006 Brazil.  Marcelina is a reality show creator on a channel that produces the bottom of the barrel exploitive trash TV.  She’s trying to come up with the next big thing.  Her current idea is to find the soccer player who lost the 1950 world cup for Brazil and confront him about it.  He’s of course been out of the limelight for over 50 years.  In the meantime, she sees a doppelganger who uses her identity.  

In 2032, Edson is a cross-dressing bisexual opportunist who does his best to hide from the surveillance drones all over the cities.  He finds his former girlfriend is alive again and she appears to be a quantum computer hacker now.

Lastly in the mid-18th century, an Irish Jesuit is sent to the Brazilian rain forest to find a renegade priest, a la Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now.  He himself goes renegade and creates his own City of God.  There appear to be angels in the forest who can shoot out fire.

In each of these storylines, there is something out of kilter in the world and the main characters are affected by it.  There being a quantum computer hacker, angels, and doppelgangers, it’s pretty evident there is something crossing universes.  The trouble is, will the characters, and the reader ever figure out what’s going on. I felt like this book was so convoluted and confusing that I didn’t care when it was all finally revealed. I was bored silly by the situations the characters were in.  Even when there was action, I didn’t care.  And there were so many other characters in each timeline, I couldn’t keep track of who was who.  As the plots became more complex, I became more lost.  

I give this book two stars out of five.  I found next to nothing about it compelling.  There were moments when the rain forest timeline reminded me of Apocalypse Now and The Mission.  That kept me going through parts of that story.  But each chapter was about 25 pages long.  So just when I felt like I was getting into it, it jumped to the next timeline.  By the time I got back to it fifty or so pages later, I didn’t remember enough of it to keep the story alive in my head.  Not my cup of tea.

Moon Called

Patricia Briggs
Completed 11/30/2024 Reviewed 11/30/24
3 Stars

This is the first book in the Mercy Thompson series.  Mercy is an auto mechanic in the Tri-Cities area of Washington.  She’s a rough and tumble woman.  She’s also a shapeshifter.  She can change her shape into a coyote.  She was raised by a werewolf clan, and not just any, but the clan whose alpha is the alpha of all North American clans.  She also knows a vampire and a gremlin.  This book is kind of standard fare supernatural mystery.  But it’s pretty fun.  There were times when the book dragged, but overall, it was a nice break from the some of the heavy works I’ve been reading.

Mercy has a good sense of smell.  One day, a young man named Mac approaches her for a job at her auto repair shop.  She can smell he’s a werewolf.  She’s also pretty sure he’s homeless and possibly in trouble.  She brings him the alpha of her area, Adam, who happens to be her neighbor.  It’s customary for new werewolves in an area to meet the alpha to become a member of the clan, or at least be acknowledged.  A day or two later, Mac’s body appears on her front stairs.  She runs to Adam’s place where she finds Adam near death, three or four dead werewolves, and Adam’s daughter Jesse missing.  Suddenly she’s on a desperate mission to save Adam and rescue Jesse.  Her journey has her cross paths with multiple werewolf clans, including the ones who raised her, the vampire mistress of the pacific northwest, and mysterious humans who use tranquilizer darts laced with silver.

I have to say, I liked all the characters.  Mercy is a good protagonist.  Briggs avoids the Mary Sue issues by making Mercy vulnerable and fallible.  Briggs does a good job of creating the rules for each supernatural being and sticking with them, including the rules for Mercy.  She has heightened sense of smell and can outrun a werewolf, but not outfight one.  I also liked her relationship with vampires.  She generally stays away from them, except for one with whom she trades the mob-like protection fee for free auto repair.  And I liked Zee, the gremlin from whom she bought the car shop.  As you would guess, gremlin’s like to see how mechanical things work by taking them apart, but not necessarily putting them back together.

The world building was good, as is evident by some of the supernatural rules and descriptions above.  There was a touch of romance in the story, but nothing obnoxious.  There was more about the claiming of mates and the submissive roles of females in the clan.  There was even one gay werewolf, which was done very well.  And all of this was explained quite well in the context of wolf-like behavior.  Fortunately, Mercy not being wolf-kind, gets to be more of a kick-ass and exert some influence over the werewolves.

I give this book three stars out of five.  I’ve heard that the later stories in the series are better.  This book spent a lot of time with character background and setting that kind of dragged.  And the politics within and without the clans was a little tedious.  Lastly, the ending was okay.  This was a book club read.  I probably won’t actively seek out more of her books, but I’d wouldn’t be against reading another one.

Skin Folk

Nalo Hopkinson

Completed 11/27/2024 Reviewed 11/27/24

4 Stars

I’ve read quite a bit by Hopkinson.  Sister Mine, The Salt Roads, and the amazing Brown Girl in the Ring are just a few of the books by her I’ve read.  Skin Folk is a collection of short fiction, all of which are based in Caribbean mythos, which is her specialty.  Specifically, these stories all have the similar theme of being able to change or remove one’s skin, literally or figuratively.  They vary greatly from story to story, some more magical realism, some fantasy, some fairy tale, some science fiction.  But they all deal with the concept of acceptance.  

Several of the stories were way over my head.  I felt like I completely missed their message or the point of the story.  However, the prose was always wonderful to read, even if I didn’t get the story.  I could also have been the fact that these are short stories based in unfamiliar mythology.  Even though I’ve read many of her novels, I still don’t know a lot about Caribbean mythology.  It could also be that I’m more used to getting the mythos with a longer narrative.  Whatever the case, reading Hopkinson is always an adventure, and usually an exciting one.  Here are several I found noteworthy:

Snake – A very disturbing story of a serial child molester and murderer who receives justice at the hands of old people and birds.

The Glass Bottle Trick – Sort of a Mr Fox/Bluebeard type tale.  A woman marries a man and finds out he murdered his previous wives for getting pregnant.

Slow Cold Chick – A woman cracks an egg that holds an odd baby bird.  She accidently gets hot sauce on it and it grows into a violent cockatrice.  With the help of magical neighbors, she tames the creature.

Fisherman – A woman dresses as a man and works as a fisherman, trying to gain acceptance from her coworkers.  So she goes to the local cathouse like them and has her first sexual encounter with a prostitute with a heart of gold.  

Greedy Choke Puppy – A tale about Caribbean werewolves and vampires.  Specifically, the soucouyant is a woman who can shed her skin and as a ball of energy, can suck the life force from babies.

Ganger (Ball Lightning) – A very strange tale about a couple who use special body suits to enhance their sense of touch during sex.  After an intense session, they leave the suits charged and at the foot of their bed, jumbled together.  The suits’ contact generates a Ganger, a being of energy that attacks the couple.

As you can see, the stories are quite strange and intense.  After about the first five, I started to really get the point of them and found them profound.  I give this book four stars out of five, missing five stars only because I didn’t get the first few, which could be me, a function of not really knowing Caribbean mythology, or simply the story not being long enough to get the point across to me.  Still it’s a great collection and I look forward to reading other short works of hers.

Service Model

Adrien Tchaikovsky
Completed 11/24/2024 Reviewed 11/24/24
5 Stars

I was completely blown away by this novel.  It’s only my second Tchaikovsky read.  The first was novella, Made Things, which I really liked, but this book was amazing.  It’s quite apropos of the current debates over AI.  Here, robots take over the world and humankind falls.  It has great world building, prose and character development.  Most of all, I felt fully immersed in the world and empathized with not only the main character, but also a secondary character.  And the ending blew me away.  This book was published this year, so it’s up for awards next year.  I hope it gets nominated for at least a few.

The book begins with Charles, a valet robot for his human master.  He finds himself performing his normal routine despite nothing around him changing.  Eventually, he figures out that the master is dead.  However, he has trouble getting out of his routine because of how he’s programmed.  He calls the police and paramedics, but they are also bound by their logic.  Or more accurately, stuck.  It is revealed that Charles murdered his master, but he has no memory of it.  So he takes himself to get repaired.  The repair station is also stuck within its logic and no robots are getting repaired.  However, he meets up with another robot, the Wonk, and begins a journey of finding another master to serve.  

The book is written in third person, but from the point of view of Charles (who becomes known as unCharles).  In addition to hearing his thoughts, the narration reads like it has a robotic perspective as well.  It completely immerses you in the world of robots.  It is some of the most amazing writing I’ve ever read in science fiction.  I knew Tchaikovsky wrote beautifully, but I was not prepared for how well this was written.  

I also like the premise of the book.  The Wonk believes that unCharles has a virus that makes him sentient.  However, unCharles does not believe it.  The Wonk tries to get unCharles to think for himself outside his logistic programming, but he refuses.  Instead, he believes all will be well if he can just find a human master to serve.  So they travel the countryside looking for a human in need of a valet.  Unfortunately, he mostly finds degraded humans and robots in various levels of chaotic logic, from other valets to warrior soldiers who can’t stop fighting.

UnCharles is a terrific character.  Just when you think that he’s on the verge of acting with free will, he sticks to his programming.  It’s fun and frustrating, as it is for the Wonk.  The Wonk is pretty awesome as well, being a cheerleader for unCharles figuring himself out.  But she pops in and out for various reasons.  

I give this book five stars out of five.  It’s the first five star I’ve given in a while.  I still have yet to read Children of Time series, the first of which is supposed to be amazing.  As I mentioned in my previous review of Made Things, I don’t know why I’m not reading more of this amazing writer.  

Redemptor

Jordan Ifueko
Completed 11/15/2024, Reviewed 11/15/2024
4 stars

The second book in the Raybearer duology was just as good as the first book, if not a little better.  The real standout was the world building, specifically, the really interesting and creative Underworld.  It made the ending very powerful.  I was further impressed when I read the Afterword from the author.  Raybearer took fifteen years to create.  Then having published the first book, she had to crank out the second book in less than a year.  And it was all done during the time of the pandemic and the biggest black movement in the US since the ‘60s.  Somehow, Ifueko produced a nearly flawless conclusion.  This book was nominated for several awards, including the Andre Norton Award for YA genre literature. 

The book picks up where the first left off.  Tari has claimed the title of Empress, which has been suppressed since the founding of the empire.  She has offered herself in lieu of children as a sacrifice to the Underworld to rescind the treaty with the demons of the Underworld.  She has two years to win over and anoint her chosen eleven as Daro did.  However, she is haunted by the souls of the hundreds of thousands of children who have been sacrificed over the centuries, demanding she pay for the sins of the empire.  And she must do all this without dying in the Underworld herself.

The journey for Tari is to learn to be an empress and balance it with doing the best possible things for her people.  Her goal is to provide peace, justice, and unity.  However, she is hampered by her quest to anoint her chosen eleven.  The stipulation put on it by the demons of the underworld is that the eleven must be the eleven rulers of the nations making up the empire.  So Tari has a long lesson in politics and how to use honesty in the best possible way to win over the rulers.  As you would guess, one of the eleven plays games with her, preventing her from completing the quest.  And this one is somewhere between debonair and smarmy.

The good thing about the Tari, though is that while she is occasionally distracted by men, she does not give herself over to them, holding her own moral ground, and working for what’s best for the empire.  That’s not to say she isn’t tempted.  She is, but continues to grow through each experience.  I think she makes for a terrific role model as a strong, black teen girl.  

I give this book four stars out of five.  It’s a little stronger than the first book, getting to the point much more directly.  The climax is terrific.  The prose is good, the character development of Tari is excellent, and the world building, as I said above, is awesome. I still feel that this duology is more for older teens than young teens, but that’s just me.  I’ll probably read more of Ifueko in the future.