5 Stars

All posts tagged 5 Stars

LOST IN THE MOMENT AND FOUND – Seanan McGuire

Posted by Daniel on March 21, 2023
Posted in: Dark Fantasy/Horror, SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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Of all of author Seanan McGuire’s different series, I think I am enjoying this one the most. The underlying tone that traverses the books is really intoxicating.

This book, like most in this series, can be read as an individual book (there’s a beginning, middle, and an end … no cliffhangers to goad you into buying more books [no, the writing will do that]). Those familiar with the series will have some additional background that will prove helpful.

This book is particularly dark and a lot of reviewers are using the word ‘triggering’. McGuire does give us an author’s note at the start, warning readers about what’s ahead and that to bear with the story as it will work out.  In other words, fully aware of the potential triggering effect. When you have a story about children which includes grooming, abuse, and exploitation, even though it’s not a book for children, some readers are bound to have strong, visceral reactions.

Antoinette (“Antsy”) witnesses her father’s death and then becomes prey for adults looking to take advantage of her.  She manages to run away before anything too terrible actually happens, but the threats and plans for what was to happen to her seem explicit and troubling.

Antsy escapes through a Door (readers of the series will understand the difference between a door and a Door) and finds herself in a shop for Lost Things.  Appropriate, of course, being a lost thing herself.

Lost and confused, she stays there, interacting with customers in the shop and learning more about the Doors before making a decision for herself – taking control in a way that child normally wouldn’t have the strength or determination to do.

Along the way, we also learn a little more about the Doors and Antsy will make her decision to leave the shop – not an easy decision to make – knowing that this will be for good.

Looking for a good book? If you like fantasy or dark fantasy, you really should read Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire. If you haven’t read the series, do yourself a favor and go go back and start at the beginning.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Lost in the Moment and Found

author: Seanan McGuire

series: Wayward Children #8

publisher: Tordotcom

ISBN: 9781250213631

hardcover, 146 pages

PAPERBACK JACK – Loren D. Estleman

Posted by Daniel on February 27, 2023
Posted in: MYSTERY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Jacob Heppleman is back on U.S. soil after fighting for Uncle Sam in Europe in the Second World War. Heppleman finds a different world, one that he needs to get a grip on, fast, if he’s going to survive. Before the war, Heppleman eked out a living as a hack writer, supplying stories to the pulp magazines, but now the pulps have been going out of business, with direct-to-paperback books taking their place.

Heppleman can’t scrape together enough dough to buy a pawnshop typewriter, so he steals one instead, but without the pulps, his paycheck before the war, who will he write for? The head of a new publishing company, Blue Devil Books, assures Jacob that there’s a hot market in the drugstore racks for tawdry crime novels – sold as much (or more) for their covers as for the stories – and that Jacob should be one of the primary in-house writers.

Jacob becomes the unlikely best-selling author who takes great pride in his authenticity – which comes from his befriending several underworld figures who, in turn, like being the source for the larger-than-life characters.

But when Hollywood takes an interest in the books, so does Congress and the moral guardians.  Soon Heppleman is a target for politicians and the Mob and he’s going to have to do some fancy writing to create a neat ending for himself.

I loved everything about this book.

Author Loren D. Estleman really captures the mood and sense of the 1950’s detective fiction, making our protagonist both a writer of such potboilers and the subject of the same.

Heppleman is a reluctant central figure (I’m hesitant to say ‘reluctant hero’ because there’s no real heroics that go on here). He’s a writer who prefers to let his characters take the lead while he stays in the background, but he relishes doing his own investigative work so that he can use what he learns in his books – giving them an air of legitimacy.

Even reluctant, though, Heppelman is steadfast. He makes no excuses for what he writes and he holds his own in the morality hearings, which does make him a bit more heroic, but only a bit.

I found this to really feel like a hard-boiled detective mystery of the 50’s, but also a bit like an historical fiction novel. There’s a good bit of history and while the events here may be fictional, they have their roots in reality. I loved learning a few things about this era and Estleman makes a point, in his “Recommended Reading” at the end of the book, of recognizing some of the writers who navigated these kinds of events.

Late in the book, when Heppleman is older and attending conventions – now an icon as a writer of the ‘golden age’ – when asked why his books (and those of his contemporaries) are only just getting the respect that was denied them in the day, he delivers a speech that I consider the message of the entire novel.  “The world caught up.” He tells the questioner.

Many of us were just back from the war. You can’t see cities being bombed, corpses piled in concentration camps, and dish out happy endings. We wrote about a world that had changed, and we pointed out where it took a wrong turn. For that we were called smut peddlers. Then along came political scandals, pointless wars, and men’s peckers on movie screens where Shirley Temple used to sing and dance. It took all that for everyone else to see what we saw. So now we’re serious artists who weren’t afraid to tell it like it was.

Maybe I’ll use some of this speech myself the next time someone asks why I’m suddenly interested in 1950’s noir fiction.  I finally caught up to it.

Looking for a good book? Paperback Jack by Loren D. Estleman is a noir-like, hard-boiled novel of a writer of noir-like, hard-boiled novels in the post-WWII era.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Paperback Jack

author: Loren D. Estleman

publisher: Forge Books

ISBN: 9781250827319

hardcover, 240 pages

STORMBRINGER – Michael Moorcock

Posted by Daniel on January 5, 2023
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, SHORT FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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In this collection of Elric novellas we have “Dead God’s Homecoming,” “Black Sword’s Brothers,” “Sad Giant’s Shield,” and “Doomed Lord’s Passing.”

 

In the first story, Elric’s wife, Zarozinia, is kidnapped by some beings out of chaos, on the behest of a resurrected god named Darnizhaan. Darnizhaan was killed by a soul-drinking Black Sword. Not Elric’s Stormbringer, but its twin, Mournblade. Darnizhaan wants both swords so that he doesn’t have to fear being killed again, and so that he can begin taking over the world. Elric, his companion Moonglum, and Mournblade’s owner, Dyvim Slorm, deliver the swords to Darnizhaan … but they have a little trick up their sleeves.

In “Black Sword’s Brothers” Elric learns that Stormbringer has the power to call upon its brothers (like Mournblade) to fight for it. Elric learns the secrets to make this happen, sending some of his opponents to an eternal death, but Elric loses his sword in the process and he’ll need to get it back as the sword feeds Elric, providing him with the sustenance he needs to survive. He succeeds in getting Stormbringer once again, and he heads off to rescue Moonglum.

Elric and Moonglum head off to fight Jagreen Lern, who is amassing an army to take control of large swaths of land. They learn of a giant who own s a Chaos Shield, which would come in real handy in the battle against Jagreen Lern so they go to get it. Along the way, while aboard a ship, a storm nearly has them drown when tossed from the ship, but they are saved by Straasha, Lord of the Sea. They get the shield, go off to battle and Elric is ready to confront his foes when he discovers Zarozinia who has been transformed into a giant worm. Distraught, she kills herself on Elric’s sword.

And finally, a strange end with “Doomed Lord’s Passing.” Elric and his band of friends and fighters head back to Melnibone. To put a stop to Chaos, Elric will need to blow the Horn of Fate. Blowing it once will awaken dragons. Blowing it twice will bring the White Lords. And blowing three times will end the world. But as Fate would have it, Elric is completely exhausted and drained and is unable to muster the strength to blow the horn three times and there no one near enough for him to kill in order for Stormbringer to give him energy … except for Moonglum. What will Elric do?

This was a really strong collection, and everything we’ve liked about Elric and Stormbringer and Moonglum are present along with some moments we’ve seen before that are quite moving (the inability to save a loved one and having Elric’s precious sword being the cause of their death).

I’m quite certain I read this back in the 70’s (buying it just as much for Michael Whelan’s beautiful cover as for the story within) but I didn’t remember most of the specifics.

Stormbringer has more and more a curiosity throughout the books, and it makes sense to have these four stories together which feature Stormbringer most prominently.

This book definitely feels like the end of the series, and in that sense I’m missing one element … the Eternal Champion. We’ve touched on this theme in earlier books and I would have liked to have had that a little bit more here, but I do recognize that this likely comes from the fact that I’ve now read eight of the books almost one right after another, so this is a little more prominent to me.  

This is probably one of my more favorite books in the series, but I’d highly recommend reading some of the other books first, to get a feel for Elric and his compatriots, before jumping into this.

Looking for a good book? Stormbringer, by Michael Moorcock, sees the albino king of Melnibone in a Ragnarok-like battle to save the world from Chaos.

I received a digital copy of this book, as part of a collection of Elric books, from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Stormbringer

author: Michael Moorcock

series: The Elric Saga (#6), Tale of the Eternal Champion (#12), Elric Chronological Order (#9), The Eternal Champion Sequence (#11.6)

publisher: DAW

ISBN: 9780879973353

paperback, 220 pages

THE FERRYMAN – Justin Cronin

Posted by Daniel on December 27, 2022
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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If you were to combine a sci-fi read like Logan’s Run with a concept like Russian nesting dolls, and you might get a book like Justin Cronin’s The Ferryman.

Prospera is a remote paradise, created by a mystery person known only as The Designer. In Prospera, citizens live long, fulfilling lives, away from the horrors of a crumbling world. Citizens have an embedded chip that measures the quality of their lives – physical and mental – and when that chip registers that the quality of life falls below 10%, it is time for that person to ‘retire’ – meaning to take the  ferry ride to the island known as the Nursery, where their failing bodies are renewed, their memories are wiped clean, and they are prepared to start all over.

Proctor Bennett has had a good career as a Ferryman – someone who helps guide a retiring citizen through the retiring process (occasionally enforcing it) – until the day he has to shepherd his own father, who does not go quietly and who leaves Proctor with a cryptic message. At this same time, Proctor is noting that he’s having strange dreams and, more alarming, his own life monitoring percentage is dropping fast. Much too quickly, Proctor is forced into retirement and the ferry ride to the Nursery. But there he encounters rumors of a resistance group known as “Arrivalists” who are stirring up a revolution … one in which Proctor Bennett is key, even though he doesn’t know it.

I’m not sure I would have been drawn to this book if it weren’t for the success of Cronin’s popular The Passage series. I am glad that I did read this, however, because this sort of intricate plotting and revealing of story is right up my alley.

Earlier I reckoned this with Russian nesting dolls, but I might also compare it to, as Shrek might say, an onion, with layer upon layer upon layer of story which Cronin deftly peels away to reveal the story underneath the story.

This story went to places that I did not anticipate (note that I do not read generally synopses before reading a book – or if I do, a significant enough time has passed that I forget why I was drawn to a particular book) but looking back on it, I think there were sufficient clues so that the reader savvier than I might not be quite as surprised. However, the sometimes disorienting experience while reading this is a large part of the appeal.

And of course, there’s character.  I do love character-driven stories and I think this is very much a character-driven novel. Proctor Bennett is every bit as confused as the reader through the twists and turns and we really do get inside his head through this.

If there is a downside, which prevents me from giving this a full five stars, it’s that all the other characters are less well defined. I recognize that some of this has to do with the unknown realities of the world(s) Proctor goes through, but in at least one case, there’s a character who seemingly becomes vital to the story revelations, and I don’t think that even here, that character ever really comes into sharp focus.

It is October when I write this, but the review won’t appear online until December.  Even so, the book isn’t released until May.  I suspect there will be a good media blitz but don’t take that chance … mark your calendars right now so that you don’t miss this book.

Looking for a good book? The Ferryman is the newest book by Justin Cronin and it will engage and deceive you in all the right ways.  Go read it.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Ferryman

author: Justin Cronin

publisher: Ballantine Books

ISBN: 9780525619475

hardcover, 560 pages

THE HORN – John Clellon Holmes

Posted by Daniel on December 8, 2022
Posted in: OTHER, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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There have been changes in the jazz music scene and Edgar Pool (nicknamed “The Horn” by the young cats) has straddled a couple of the big changes, all the while staying true to his own sound. But jazz is more than just a sound – it’s a way of life. The music, the booze, the drugs, and of course the women … Edgar pushed the limits on all of these. For a man out of time (or perhaps ahead of his time), life is lonely.

This book is an exceptional example of capturing a mood. There’s a story here and it’s a depressing story, and the tone of the book hovers throughout. It starts with the opening sentence and never lets up.

Consider that it was four o’clock of a Monday afternoon, and under the dishwater-gray window shade—just the sort of shade one sees pulled down over the windows of cheap hotels fronting the sooty elevateds of American cities where the baffled and the derelict loiter and shift their feet—under this one shade, in the window of a building off Fifty-third Street on Eighth Avenue in New York, the wizened October sun stretched its old finger to touch the dark, flutterless lids of Walden Blue, causing him to stir among sheets a week of dawntime lying down and twilight getting up had rumpled.

Opening this book is like traveling back in time and walking through the 1940’s. Author John Clellon Holmes captures the gritty back-alleys, the sounds, the language, I swear … the smells, of the day.

I was pleasantly taken by surprise with this book (I wanted to read it because of the subject of jazz music, a passion of mine) and did a little research (ie: Google) on the author.  I’d never heard of John Clellon Holmes before, and now I’m ashamed to even admit it. For those maybe in the same place as I was, Holmes was considered the first ‘beat’ novelist with his popular book, Go.

His contemporaries … and friends … were Jack Kerouc, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg.  Names in which I’m much more familiar and think of when I think of the Beat generation. Not surprisingly (to me) he was referred to as the “quiet Beat.”

I’ve long been in search of a book that not only incorporate music as a theme in the story, but in which the writing itself is almost like a score.  This book is the first time I feel that the writing is score-like.  This book about jazz, reads like a jazz performance, full of riffs and solos and easy to get into and enjoy.

This was really powerful and I’m while I’m really glad to have read it, I want to know why this wasn’t required reading in my college days!

Looking for a good book? The Horn by John Clellon Holmes is a classic from the Beat Generation and anyone interested in the Beat period of literature or jazz music should read this.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4-1/2 stars

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The Hornauthor: John Clellon Holmes

publisher: Open Road Media

ASIN: B014QI1NOI

Kindle Edition, 256 pages

SEASONAL FEARS – Seanan McGuire

Posted by Daniel on October 24, 2022
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

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What if young love lasted forever?

Harry March is a 17 year old high school athlete madly in love with his sweetheart, Melanie Cosgrove. Melanie is a frail girl, always suffering and constantly on the verge of dying from a heart disease.  One day they both collapse at the football field, but when Melanie wakes up, she feels stronger than ever, and she rushes to Harry’s side.  Their connection to one another is stronger than either of them ever thought. What neither of them know quite yet is that Melanie’s heart has stopped and the two of them are now pulled into a centuries-old battle wherein they are the living embodiments of Winter and Summer. This is slowly explained to them by Jack Frost – currently represented by a 13 year old.

Confused yet?  Don’t worry, it only gets more confusing before becoming clearer. And that’s one of the real charms about a Seanan McGuire novel.  Those of us who have journeyed with McGuire before know to have faith in that journey.  If you’re new to her work, just keep going – you’ll survive (but it may hurt a bit).

The book really took me by surprise, in a really good way.

First, this feels like a stand-alone fantasy/mythology story.  I only now see that it’s considered to be the second book in the “Alchemical Journeys” series but I honestly don’t think there’s anything that would require your having read Middlemarch before enjoying this. A stand-alone book is a real treat in this age of publishers trying to make a series out of everything (in order to ‘guarantee’ sales no doubt).

Second, we have some truly incredible world-building.  That’s not surprising, given that this is from Seanan McGuire.

I very recently read and reviewed two books, Star Mother and Star Father by Charlie N. Holmberg wherein I waxed on about how truly amazed I was at the mythology created by Holmberg for those two books. I am equally amazed and impressed here with McGuire’s taking that existing nugget of mythology – Jack Frost – and weaving it like an intricate tapestry into this story.

McGuire is so good at world-building, but she’s equally good with creating characters who are unique, strong, and identifiable.  Not just the main characters, but everyone who makes an appearance in the story (but she also know how to minimize the number of characters necessary so that we don’t have a revolving door of minor characters). We feel like we know these teens, Harry and Melanie, and we like them, so when they become something more, we’re already attached to them and aching to follow their story.

McGuire is also just a darn good wordsmith as well. (“The woman in the doorway has a laugh like smoky bourbon, smooth and peaty and rich and a bit intoxicating.”) At one point, after finishing a certain chapter, I realized that we had just been given a massive info dump.  Normally my skin would crawl reading a book wherein we get such a massive download of background information, but McGuire somehow manages to pull it off.  I might not have even realized it if I hadn’t stopped to reflect on what I’d just read.  I have to laugh now as I realize that not only is McGuire so adept at handling this, she even has the temerity to tell us she’s going to do it.  The title of that chapter…? “Explanation”

I really liked this book, and as much as I enjoy McGuire’s October Daye, Wayward Children, and InCryptid series’ I don’t need ten more books with all the trials and conflicts of Melanie and Harry or Jack Frost or the Winter King and Summer Queen.  Let me relish this and then move on to another gem.

Looking for a good book? Seasonal Fears by Seanan McGuire is an outstanding fantasy/dark fantasy of young love and centuries’ old conflict with familiar mythological figures.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Seasonal Fears

author: Seanan McGuire

series: Alchemical Journeys #2

publisher: Tordotcom

ISBN: 9781250768261

hardcover, 482 pages

BURNING QUESTIONS – Margaret Atwood

Posted by Daniel on October 21, 2022
Posted in: MEMOIR, NON-FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

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Burning Questions is a collection of essays, speeches, book reviews, book forewords, and other non-fiction miscellany from the pen and wit of the incredible Margaret Atwood. Collected works starting from 2004 and on up through 2021, the range of material here is so vast it practically defies description.

It is most fascinating to see the different ways in which Atwood talks to people.  In all cases, she appears to reaching out directly and speaking to a specific audience. But the way in which she speaks to them varies – not so much by year (the way the book is organized) but by audience.  To the audience reading an intro or a review, she speaks very differently than the way she does to an audience which she is addressing live.  This makes sense, of course. But even in her live addresses, she approaches differently depending to whom she is speaking.  Again, this makes sense but it’s something that is really only noticeable because of the volume of work collected here.

Nearly all the pieces were good, bordering on great. It shouldn’t be a surprise to me that someone whose fiction I have been reading for some 40, years (yes, I was reading Atwood before The Handmaid’s Tale was first published and when it was published, I bought and read it within the first week [the title of one of my short plays, produced in Upstate New York, came from a line in The Handmaid’s Tale])- and reading because I like them so much – that I would also like what the author has to say through her non-fiction. And I do.  We’re very much on the same page, ideologically and politically.

When so many pieces are so good, it’s often difficult to choose a favorite, but I identified only one of the works here with a note in my Kindle, remarking simply:   “Fantastic”  That piece is “Polonia” (from 2005) and is a response to the question “What advice would you give the young?” Here Atwood’s talents are in full force.  Her wit, her wisdom, her way with words. She’ll make you chuckle while you think, “Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right.”

This is not really the kind of book you want to sit down and read straight through, cover to cover (though you could).  This is the kind of book you keep next to you, on a coffee table, or end table, or night stand, or in the bathroom magazine rack, and you read a piece here or there when you have a couple of spare minutes. You will feel better, enriched. And keep a highlighter next to you because you’re going to want to take note of all the nuggets of wisdom that come from these pages.

And whether you’ve only just discovered Atwood or you’ve been reading her works for years, this is a great collection to have.

Looking for a good book? Burning Questions is a collection of short, non-fiction pieces (essays, speeches, reviews, etc) by Margaret Atwood. It is full of wit, wisdom, and insight and worthy of being in your home.

I received a digital copy of this book, from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021

author: Margaret Atwood

publisher: Doubleday Books

ISBN: 9780385547482

hardcover, 496 pages

THE URBAN SKETCHING HANDBOOK: SPOTLIGHT ON NATURE – Virginia Hein & Gail L. Wong

Posted by Daniel on October 19, 2022
Posted in: NON-FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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I really love this art book series!

As I’ve noted before, in the review of one of the other books in the series, there is no shortage of ‘how to’ art books.  I’ve bought more than a handful myself, and rarely do I come away actually feeling enlightened in regards to a new technique or a new way of looking at something.  But I do come away from this Urban Sketching Handbook series feeling as though I’ve picked up something new.

Spotlight on Nature, by Virginia Hein and Gail L. Wong, provides a number of tips and tricks for artists including the natural environment in their work. This isn’t just about landscapes or drawings/sketches of flora, but the inclusion of natural elements in a sketch.

The book isn’t really for the beginning artist (though I think a true beginner will still pick up some valuable tips here) but for the artist with some general art skills looking to build those skills. Rather than spending entire chapters with detail explanations and step by step sketches, the authors point to an included ketch and explain what the artist did well, sometimes highlighting the topic of discussion (“Paul conveys the feeling of rock surfaces bathed in light while building texture in the shadow areas.”)

In the discussion on sketching/painting water, I really appreciated the look at three different artists and three very different styles of depicting moving water in a sketch.

One of the real appeals to this series (and this book) is that many different artists are represented in all the explanations. Forty-two different names are acknowledged as contributors, and I think this really helps the reader/artist see the different approaches to a subject.

Something that I see in this book that I don’t remember in any of the others is a checklist of ‘challenges’. I like this idea of asking the reader/artist to now try the different things that had just been pointed out. I haven’t done any of these yet, but I definitely intend to do so.

My only complaint is that my ARC is a digital copy and I think that art books like this (really appropriately sized for carrying ease) need to be hard copies for looking at again and again.

Looking for a good book? The Urban Sketching Handbook: Spotlight on Nature by Virginia Hein and Gail L. Wong is another excellent how-to art book in The Urban Sketching Handbook series.  Any artist looking to build on their skills, specifically in regards to our natural world, really owes it to themselves to get this book.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Urban Sketching Handbook: Spotlight on Nature

authors: Virginia Hein and Gail L. Wong

publisher: Quarry Books

ISBN: 9780760374559

paperback, 112 pages

STAR MOTHER and STAR FATHER – Charlie N. Holmberg

Posted by Daniel on October 7, 2022
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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When a star dies it must be replaced and a star is replaced when a god mates with a human and the human gives birth to a star. A new star is needed and the Sun God is looking for a human to provide the mortal womb.

The Sun God has selected the village of Endwever to provide Him with a Star Mother.  A sacrificial human to give birth to a star.  It is truly an honor to be a Star Mother – but it is also generally a one-time event as a human woman generally doesn’t survive the monumental event.

Girls are paraded before the Sun God and He has His eye on the young girl from a simple family, and it’s clear that while the family is honored to be selected the young girl is nervous. Her sister, Ceris Wenden, offers herself, keeping the honor of selection in the family. Ceris has always felt like an outsider with no clear direction for her life, so to volunteer to be a Star Mother makes sense to her.

Ceris is remarkable in more ways than simply volunteering to give birth to a new star … she becomes the first human to survive the birth which grants her a demi-god status. Although she’s been with the Sun God and His attendants for nearly a year, she’s never gotten to know anyone – of course … they’ve all known that Ceris would not live long and to become attached would only bring heartache – but now she infuses her kindness and curiosity among the gods and recognizes romantic feelings for He who created the star inside her.  Feelings which are not reciprocated because, again, she wasn’t expected to survive.

Ceris returns to her home, Endwever not realizing that time passes differently in the godly realm than it does in the mortal world. It has been barely a year for her, but 700 years have passed for the family she left behind.  Now she must rely on another demigod, a trickster named Ristriel to be her companion and guide her through her new life.

Every time I read a Charlie N. Holmberg book I can’t help but compare it to her Paper Magician series, which I think is really outstanding. This book, Star Mother, holds up better than any of the other Holmberg books.

I want to say that the character of Ceris is the key, but it’s not just Ceris, it’s also the attitude – the confident but insecure dichotomy of Ceris’s character that really holds up well.

There is no question in my mind that this is first and foremost a romance, followed closely as a fantasy. This is a bit odd for me since I generally don’t go in for these kinds of ‘sappy’ YA romance type books (or at least I thought I didn’t until now), but somehow Holmberg manages to make the romance a key element of Ceris’ character without making it a driving force of the story.

What is absolutely the most remarkable aspect of this book, however, is that Holmberg has created an entirely new mythology. This is world-building at its finest.  We have gods and their servants interacting with humans, much like our ancient Greek gods.  But unlike the Greek gods (to my knowledge) these gods must interact to produce the stars in the sky.  It’s a complicated relationship that Holmberg fleshes out perfectly – it’s hard to believe we get so much information about this world, as well as a strong character study, in less than 300 pages.

I can’t image where the next book in the series will go, but I definitely look forward to it.

Looking for a good book? Star Mother, by Charlie N. Holmberg, is a very strong fantasy/romance. Fans of fantasy fiction, even if they don’t think they like reading romance stories, absolutely need to read this book.

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Star Mother

author: Charlie N. Holmberg

series: Star Mother #1

publisher: 47North

ISBN: 9781542030465

paperback, 272 pages

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WARNING — POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD

Without warning the sun is suddenly absent from the sky and the world is thrown into darkness.  For four days the world turned in darkness. On that fourth day, young woman, Aija, discovered the body of a man, unconscious, by the side of a river.  She drags him to her home where she, her mother, and her grandmother care for him, hoping he will recover and tell them who he is and how he got there.  While he rests, Aija, an artist at heart and with great skills, is captivated by his appearance and makes many sketches of him.

When he wakes, he identifies himself as Saiyon, but he is rather elusive as to where he comes from or how he got to the river. And when Saiyon is injured helping the women fight off some some rural chicken thieves, Aija discovers that Saiyon bleeds a blinding light.  She doesn’t let on to her mother or grandmother but does push the point with Saiyon he ultimately admits that he is a god of the sky – the Sun God, in fact – which explains why the world was plunged into darkness.

The attraction between Aija and Saiyon is strong and she protects him from his celestial enemies just as he protects her from mortal ones, and it seems clear than Saiyon, who we remember from Star Mother as having made some mistakes in how he treated (or ignored) Ceris, has learned a lesson or two in his seeming immortality. But as before, despite his strong attraction for Aija, he doesn’t see any future for the two of them. But Aija is persistent and is even willing to make a bargain with the devil (figuratively speaking) and she will give up her biggest gift, her art talent, in order to become immortal so that she can have the opportunity to be with Saiyon.  But her bargain may cost her everything and gain her nothing.

Like the first book in this duology, the world-building is incredible.  This is so much more than simple world-building – this is myth creating and it is spectacular.

There is clearly romance here, as with the first book, but it doesn’t seem as prominent here for Aija as it was with Ceris, even though Aija and Saiyon are clearly attracted to one another and Aija’s driving force is to be with Saiyon forever. Perhaps it doesn’t feel as prevalent because we spend a a fair amount of time with Aija in the mortal world, dealing with mortal issues (like chicken thieves).

This story also seems more grounded (pun not intended) – Saiyon and Aija both have their attention focused on earthly needs or (in Saiyon’s case) reactive to earthly deeds. This manner of living is new and unusual to him.

But just as we begin to think Saiyon is incapable of loving or even being romantic, Holmberg gives us this little nugget:

 

Saiyon noticed and touched the pad of his thumb to my mouth, banishing the expression. “When you have seen the world, the universe, as I have, you learn how trivial beauty can be. How … subjective.”

My discontent held strong. “So you care nothing for beauty?”

That curve deepened. “I did not say that.” Turning, he looked out toward the stars. “What I mean is that two very different beings can both be enticing. If not for beauty, I might never have noticed you in the first place.”

 

This beauty … and I have to be honest, I don’t recall much conversation around whether or not Aija was considered beautiful … comes in to play again near the end when Aija’s determination pays off and, in the course of this mythology, what she ultimately becomes.  I hadn’t seen it coming  but it worked really well.

This book is maybe not quite as strong as Star Mother, but it’s still a really incredible read and I’d really like to get more background on this entirely new mythology that Holmberg has created.  The door is wide open. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was already fan fiction being written in this universe.

Looking for a good book? Star Father (along with Star Mother) by Charlie N. Holmberg is a romantic fantasy that excels with its world-building and myth-creating and should be on the reading list for every fan of fantasy fiction.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Star Father

author: Charlie N. Holmberg

series: Star Mother #2

publisher: 47North

ISBN: 9781542034289

paperback, 320 pages

ALL THE SECRETS OF THE WORLD – Steve Almond

Posted by Daniel on September 23, 2022
Posted in: MYSTERY, YA. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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Steve Almond has written a novel?  That’s really good news.  It’s better news that this is a really powerful, epic novel.

The book begins almost as a YA angst story when two 13 year-olds from very different social and economic backgrounds are assigned to work together on a school project.  The teacher believes it is good for the girls to get to know one another and see what life is like for the other.  They do form a friendship which binds together not only them but their families.

But this isn’t a YA novel and it twists, turns, and convulses into an anxiety filled police thriller with families torn apart, a criminal justice system that run amok, and cops that straddle the line between ‘good cop’ and corrupt. There are no easy answers here, and that’s part of what Almond smacks the reader over the head with … we don’t always get the right answer, or the good answer, of the easy answer. And sometimes life has to go on for the survivors. And yeah, that really sucks.

The book identifies and crosses boundaries – territorial, social, gender, moral – making this a terrific social exploration that is both physically and figuratively expansive in its coverage.

I first got turned on to Steve Almond’s works when I randomly picked up his collection of short stories, My Life in Heavy Metal, and I’ve been a fan of his work ever since (I even showed up for an in-person author discussion with Steve Almond – something I generally don’t do).

Although Almond has typically written short fiction and nonfiction (Candyfreak is a must read for anyone who’s ever had a favorite candy treat) this novel, sort of a debut novel if you don’t count the co-authored Which Brings Me to You (and I don’t), is a spectacular achievement. Its scope is broad and topical. It is no wonder that this has already been picked up to become a television series. Read it now so that you can tell your friends you read it before it was a popular show!

Looking for a good book?  All the Secrets of the World by Steve Almond is a thematically heavy book but the author brings the reader into the story gently and with great curiosity before showing us the underside of the world.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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All the Secrets of the World

author: Steve Almond

publisher: Zando

ISBN: 1638930023

hardcover, 416 pages

DAMNIFICADOS – JJ Amaworo Wilson

Posted by Daniel on August 29, 2022
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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In the heart of a large city in a Latin American country is a once-abandoned high-rise tower. It is now filled with squatters – families with nowhere else to as well as loners just looking for a safe place to dwell.  These are the ‘damnificados’ – the unwanted; those damned to dwell where no one else dares to live. They become a city unto themselves, watching out for one another, creating schools, and stores to meet their needs.

But while the building was abandoned before the damnificados took over, it still has an owner and he wants it back. He asks nicely, trying to point out that they don’t really have a right to be in the building, but the damnificado community isn’t willing to move.

The building owner will return with an army and face off against the ragtag bunch of squatters but fate, more than skill, may save them on more than one occasion.

Wow.  This book came completely out of the blue for me, but author JJ Amaworo Wilson quickly grabs the reader’s attention with some really great characters in a really great situation.  We are brought into the damnificado community and we feel like we belong there.

There’s a lot of humor here, despite a couple of private armies ready to kill every man, woman, and child in the tower, but the humor isn’t a moment of respite from the threats and violence – it’s the humor of everyday humans and the absurdities of fate.

What really makes this book such a wonderful read, though, is the humanity. There is much to be admired about the damnificados – the people in the community appear to have a respect for one another (sometimes that respect is shown by leaving someone alone) and they will stand up for their community against overwhelming odds.

This is one of those rare books that I’m putting in my ‘read again’ pile and I think it might be one of the best new books I’ve read so far this year.

Looking for a good book? Damnificados by JJ Amaworo Wilson is an excellent morality tale with great characters, some humor and absurdity,  set in the modern era in the center of any major city. This is well worth reading.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Damnificados

author: JJ Amaworo Wilson

publisher: PM Press

ISBN: 1629631175

paperback, 272 pages

CITY OF MAGIC – Avi

Posted by Daniel on August 5, 2022
Posted in: CHILDREN'S, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment

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It is 1492 and King Claudio has heard that someone in Venice has written a manuscript that explains a magical method for making money. King Claudio then orders Magnus the Magnificent (and Fabrizio, Magnus’s assistant) to go to Venice and steal the manuscript. To fail will mean death, but Venice doesn’t look kindly on magic or magicians and to get caught will also mean death.

Fabrizio (who is the focus of the book) talks a bit too freely and Magnus is thrown in a Venice jail, but the mission to steal the manuscript is still important.

Fabrizio befriends a girl by the name of Bianca.  She lives mostly on her own – her father has been away on a voyage and her uncle who operates a canal boat keeps an eye on her. Bianca is resourceful and manages to get Fabrizio into the jail where Magnus is being held (and where his health is failing) who instructs Fabrizio to continue on with the mission.

It takes some doing, but Fabrizio and Bianca do find the man with the manuscript explaining the magical money-making method.  But of course they aren’t the only ones looking for it.  When Fabrizio was talking a bit too freely …?  Others are now also looking for this special book.  But the author, a monk, tries to explain that there’s nothing magical about it … it’s an accounting method to keep better track of money, which only makes it look like it is creating money.  Still, it’s valuable to Fabrizio and Magnus (who is rescued from prison) as they return to manuscript to King Claudio (who clearly doesn’t understand it, but is happy to get it).

This is an Avi book, and if you aren’t already familiar with his work then you need to get over to the library and read as many of his books as you can.

I really like that this (along with one of the last books I read by the author) is set in this 15th Century time period. There is definitely a sense of wonder and magic that comes with this time period (and the location of Venice!) and it provides some great opportunities for the author to toss in some teaching moments – something that is often found in these kinds of children’s and middle grade reader books.

The story moves along swiftly but we never feel that we sacrifice any story for the pace. The characters are just a little bit ‘simple’ – not too deeply defined – but it is all quite appropriate for the target audience and I actually really liked all the characters in the book.

Looking for a good book?  It’s really fantastic that Avi is still writing these really great books for young (and older) readers, and City of Magic is an excellent read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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City of Magic

author: Avi

series: Midnight Magic #3

publisher: Scholastic Press

ISBN: 0545321972

hardcover, 304 pages