The Enigma Game by Elizabeth Wein

The Enigma Game by Elizabeth Wein is another World War II YA thriller, following some of the same (fictional) characters as Code Name Verity, Rose Under Fire, and the pre-war prequel, The Pearl Thief. I enjoyed and reviewed all of the previous books, as well as the companion Black Dove, White Raven, which followed unrelated characters in Ethiopia. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is my favourite non-SF series of all time.

Windyedge Airfield, Scotland. World War II.

Louisa Adair, newly orphaned and shunned for her mixed-race heritage, has come here to the edge of the world to look after an old lady with a dark past. Jamie Beaufort-Stuart is a flight lieutenant whose squadron is posted to the airfield over winter. Ellen McEwan is a young woman held hostage by the German pilot who lands at Windyedge one wild stormy night carrying a terrible secret.

Three young people desperate to make a difference in a war that has decimated their families, friends and country. When the means to change the course of history falls into their hands, how will they use it? And when the enemy comes looking for them, who will have the courage to strike back?

The Enigma Game is not set at Bletchley Park, which I thought it might be when I first saw the title. It is set near the start of the war, 1940-41, and mostly in the vicinity of an airbase in Scotland. Our in to the story is Louisa, a half-English, half-Jamaican girl, that takes a job looking after an elderly lady near the airbase after both her parents are killed. There she meets female enlistees and the squadron and accidentally gets caught up in wartime secrets concerning an Enigma machine.

My favourite thing about this book was the way in which it addressed identity and perception. Three of the characters do not fit in because of their backgrounds, but only Louisa, the half-Jamaican, is unable to hide it, thanks to her skin colour. The other two — Ellen the Scottish Traveller and Jane the elderly German woman — can pass as British without having to try too hard. And yet, they are both constantly terrified that others will find out their secret (they're not spies, so it's not secret to everyone) and ostracise them for it. Meanwhile, the only reason Louisa got her job near the start of the book was because she was hired over the telephone and her new employer couldn't tell the colour of her skin from her posh English accent. And even better than just having these characters with similar problems in the book is that they all recognised the similarities in each other, which I really appreciated.

The point of view in The Enigma Game is split fairly evenly between Louisa, Ellen and Jamie, the pilot/flight lieutenant. Jamie was a minor character in Code Name Verity and appeared in The Pearl Thief, and Ellen was a minor character in the latter. But all the books stand alone and you don't have to have read any of the others to enjoy The Enigma Game. In fact, since The Enigma Game is set before Code Name Verity, most of the time I was reading, I was dreading/anticipating a crucial event that's mentioned in passing in Code Name Verity. But unlike some prequels which lose tension through predictability, Wein maintained a tense atmosphere throughout basically all the flights we saw the squadron undertake. Especially the climactic part near the end. One bit was so ridiculously tragic that I just knew it had to be based on something that really happened (and the afterword confirmed that it was).  A lot of the book is upbeat and there are even some funny bits, but Wein sure knows how to punch a reader in the feels.

I highly recommend The Enigma Game if you enjoyed any of Wein's other WWII books. If you haven't read them but the description and premise sound appealing, then you can absolutely jump right in with this one. And if you do and enjoy it, there are several more books waiting for you! Sucker for punishment that I am, I hope we get more books set in this "world".

5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2020, Bloomsbury / Little, Brown Books
Series: Code Name Verity series. Set between The Pearl Thief and Code Name Verity.
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from Kobo

Defy or Defend by Gail Carriger

Defy or Defend by Gail Carriger is a novel in her "Delightfully Deadly" novella/novel line, which feature (adult version of) characters from the Finishing School series, which started with Etiquette and Espionage. If you've read the Finishing School books, you'll remember Dimity from her school days. That said, this novel stands alone fairly well, with the few references to the past adding flavour rather than crucial plot elements. I originally thought it was a novella and was confused by the length, but clearly, I misread the cover.

A vampire hive descending into madness. A beautiful spy with a sparkly plan. The bodyguard who must keep them from killing each other.

SPY

Dimity Plumleigh-Teignmott, code name Honey Bee, is the War Office's best and most decorative fixer. She's sweet and chipper, but oddly stealthy, and surprisingly effective given the right incentives.

VERSUS KNIGHT

Sir Crispin Bontwee was knighted for his military service, but instead of retiring, he secretly went to work for the War Office. Mostly he enjoys his job, except when he must safeguard the Honey Bee.

Neither one is a vampire expert, but when the Nottingham Hive goes badly Goth, only Dimity can stop their darkness from turning bloody. And only Crispin can stop an enthusiastic Dimity from death by vampire.

In a battle for survival (and wallpaper), Dimity must learn that not all that sparkles is good, while Cris discovers he likes honey a lot more than he thought.

Defy or Defend features the "have to pretend to be married" romance trope and the "in love with each other but convinced the other doesn't like them" romance trope, neither of which were played for as many laughs as I would have expected from Carriger. Not to say that the book wasn't funny at all, but I've read funnier Carrigers. So that was unexpected and a little disappointing. But even without much laughing out loud, I still enjoyed the book.

The main (non-romance) plot is about Dimity trying to rescue a vampire hive from a particular type of maudlin madness through sheer force of redecorating. Also some social manipulation. And with the object of her affections, Sir Crispin, there as backup. Tight-fitting male dance costumes are involved. The length of the book gives plenty of room to get to know the hive members as well as the protagonists. I was pleased to come fully to grips with each vampire's eccentricity, for example, and that made the final resolution all the more satisfying.

All in all, I quite enjoyed Defy or Defend, my only complaint is that it wasn't as funny as I hoped. I recommend the book to fans of Gail Carriger's other supernatural Victoriana books. I also suggest it's a pretty good place for a new reader to dip their toes in, since the book stands alone well and introduces the particular flavour of Carriger vampires (and werewolves, but less so). It is being sold as a romance book and it's not that there's no romance in it, but it's actually pretty light and more secondary to the other plot than I expected.

4 / 5 stars

First published: May 2020, self-published
Series: Yes! Delightfully Deadly series (order agnostic) and set after the end of the Finishing School series
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from Kobo

T.I.M.E Stories by Christophe Lambert

A bit of a change of pace for this review. Some time ago, I reviewed a story-based board game called T.I.M.E Stories, or, more accurately, the first scenario in the T.I.M.E Stories series. Since then, my husband and I have played through all the T.I.M.E Stories scenarios as they were released. We liked some more than others and are moderately invested in the overarching story — we would be even more invested if it were better written and plotted. That's theoretically where today's book review comes in. To go with a reboot/upgrade of the game story (the gaming system changed), there is a new novelisation of the story. I was a bit sceptical of it when I first heard about it, since the writing in the games itself has been patchily translated (from French, as has this book). But my husband was very enthused and wanted to read it, so I have let him write the review, which is what you'll find in the rest of this post.

It is the year 2468. Spotted by a recruiter, Tess Haiden passed the many tests required to join a highly secretive organisation with flying colours. But she is in for a shock: T.I.M.E Agency has been sending agents through time for several years. Thanks to considerable resources, they prevent anomalies and paradoxes by dispatching their agents to different eras and places around the world. But over the course of her many missions, Tess learns that they are not the only ones using these time corridors, and she begins to wonder about the true nature of the T.I.M.E agency… 

This book is based on the Time stories series of board games. Some background is necessary here, the games are classic adventure games in a box, where the players travel back in time to a scenario where they have to solve problems with the timeline. A number of adventures have been released and the developers recently changed the system, separating the old games into what they call the white cycle and starting the new white cycle.

The main draw of this book is that it helps bridge the gap between the white cycle and the blue cycle of the board game time stories. It mostly serves to introduce the main characters in the new cycle, while explaining some of the unexplained mysteries. If you want to know who all the new characters are in the new games, read this book. If you haven’t played time stories or don’t care enough about the storyline, probably give this book a pass.

The prose is a little strange, with excessive detail used when setting the scene. This is useful in a game where these details are clues, but just slow down the book. There were often asides that didn’t add anything to either the story or the characters.

When the characters were time travelling, a lot of the pressure came from the arbitrary time limit enforced on time travel missions. This is an important part of the game, but doesn’t work so well in a book. A lot of the first mission in particular had the characters constantly updating each other on how much time was left rather than what they were doing.

I’m happy I read this book to get a better understanding of the time stories setting, but that’s the only reason I have to recommend this book.

2.5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2020, Angry Robot
Series: Not yet
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Network Effect by Martha Wells

Network Effect by Martha Wells is the first novel about the adventures of Murderbot, who previously appeared in four novellas that I read, enjoyed and reviewed: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy. Network Effect follows on from these novellas in a similar vein but in a longer format, meaning there’s even more Muderbot to enjoy in one convenient package. It also has a rather unusual format for its blurb:

You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you're a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you're Murderbot.

Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.

―

I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.

When Murderbot's human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

If you've read any of the Murderbot novellas, you'll have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this book. The biggest difference I found between novel and novellas is the length of the novel. It felt different — in a good way — to have the story just keep going longer than the novellas had trained me to expect. It also made for a meatier story, with a more complex plot and more substantial room for character development. We also got more of a chance to better get to know characters other than Murderbot. In particular, we see a lot more of a subset of the humans from Preservation, where Murderbot went to live at the end of Exit Strategy, and a few others I don't want to spoil. Hearing the humans have all sorts of benign opinions regarding Murderbot was excellent.

I remember reading, around the time that this novel was announced, that it would be continuing the story of Murderbot but would also tie everything up in a conclusive way. It certainly follows on from the novellas — I don't recommend starting with Network Effect, rather go start with All Systems Red — but aside from containing a complete story arc, I didn't really feel like this was a conclusive end to the tales of Murderbot. If anything, it seemed that the end was left nicely open for a sequel featuring Murderbot and some of its new friends. So I hope that happens.

It wouldn't be a Tsana-review if I didn't mention my one physics objection in the book. A lot of the technology and computer/AI stuff is bordering on the fantastical in an expected far-future way, and that stuff doesn't bother me. But there was one "WTF, no, that's not how space elevators work" moment which annoyed me for about five minutes before I was able to move on and pay attention to the story again. At least it was comparatively minor in the scheme of the book.

Network Effect was an excellent book in which Murderbot kicked a lot of arse and got to form/build on meaningful relationships with multiple people. If this sounds like your sort of thing, and if you've read the Murderbot novellas, then I highly recommend picking up this book. If this sounds like your sort of thing and you haven't read the novellas, I suggest starting with All Systems Red. I really hope there will be more Murderbot in the future. I am also planning to reread all the novellas at some point, because reading them as they came out resulted in a lot of memory gaps, though nothing I couldn't work out easily enough in the context of the novel. I'd still like to experience the whole early story in a more continuous way.

5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2020, Tor.com
Series: Yes. Fifth instalment of the Murderbot Diaries, and let's hope there are many more to come.
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley