A Wrap on 2020

As I'm sure most people agree, it has been A Year. Among other things, it was a year in which a lot of the work of making Rebuilding Tomorrow happened. Even if you didn't back our Kickstarter, you can now buy the ebooks of Rebuilding Tomorrow on all the ebook platforms. I won't list everything that slowed down the paperback copy (😱) but it has been delayed and will be available some time in early 2021 (after it has been shipped to all our Kickstarter backers).

Partly because of the time and energy I put into Rebuilding Tomorrow, 2020 has not been a year in which I got an awful lot of (non-submission) reading done. This has also been an ongoing trend for me over the past few years, as long-time readers of this blog may have noticed. At this point in my life, I don't feel I have enough spare energy left over from my day job to keep up with reviewing. Because of this, it has also just stopped sparking joy. So I'm going to stop, for now.

For nine years, I have reviewed every book and short story I read with exceptions only for awards judging and my anthology submissions. That has been A Lot. Blogger tells me I have 1070 published posts, though not all of those are reviews. Including the two reviews I have already scheduled for early 2021, I have written 840 review posts. I have also posted 36 interviews with authors. (You can browse them all in my index.)

I need a break.

I intend to review a few more books that I have already committed to, but I won't be taking on any new review books for the foreseeable future. Time will tell whether this will be a temporary or permanent hiatus. If you want to be kept abreast of my sparse future posts, consider subscribing via email in the box on the left (on desktop view).

Here's to 2021! 🥂 

Defending the Galaxy by Maria V Snyder

Defending the Galaxy by Maria V Snyder in the third and final book in the YA Sentinels of the Galaxy trilogy. I have previously read and reviewed the first two books: Navigating the Stars and Chasing the Shadows. This is absolutely not a book/series to read out of order because each book builds heavily on discoveries made in the previous books. I strongly recommend starting with book one (Navigating the Stars) if you are new to the series.

Year 2522. Oh. My. Stars.

Junior Officer Ara Lawrence here, reporting for duty. Again. It's situation critical for the security team and everyone in the base - including my parents - with a new attack from the looters imminent, a possible galaxy-wide crime conspiracy and an unstoppable alien threat. But this all pales in the face of my mind-blowing discovery about the Q-net. Of course, no one believes me. I'm not sure I believe me. It could just be a stress-induced delusion. That's what my parents seem to believe...

Their concern for me is hampering my ability to do my job. I know they love me, but with the Q-net in my corner, I'm the only one who can help the security team beat the shadowy aliens from the pits we discovered. We're holding them at bay, for now, but the entire Milky Way Galaxy is in danger of being overrun.

With battles on too many fronts, it's looking dire. But one thing I've learned is when people I love are in jeopardy, I'll never give up trying to save them. Not until my dying breath. Which could very well be today...

Defending the Galaxy finally ties up the story of Ara, the Q-net, and the looters wreaking havoc across multiple planets in the galaxy. The second book ended with a big reveal and this one opens with Ara trying to come to terms with the new information. That really sets the stage for the rest of the book, since there are several major discoveries that shift Ara's world view. As the title suggests, the book culminates in Ara and friends (including plenty of responsible adults) defending the actual galaxy. Or, at least, a handful of planets spread throughout the Milky Way.

I enjoyed this book but it was a lot more focussed on action and railing against bad guys (and against parental restrictions) than the earlier books. Even though there were a lot of discoveries and reveals here, I felt that the mystery was less important than the battle that needed to be fought. Which certainly makes sense from a narrative point of view, but it also means that I personally enjoyed the first book in this series best, though I didn't dislike this concluding volume, to be clear.

I recommend this series to fans of YA science fiction, especially those who like the idea of space travel and galaxy-sized high stakes. If you haven't read the earlier books in the series, I recommend starting with Navigating the Stars to best lead you into the story, which escalates with each book.

4 / 5 stars

First published: December 2020, Harlequin Australia YA
Series: Sentinels of the Galaxy book 3 of 3
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo is a standalone sequel novella to The Empress of Salt and Fortune, which I read and reviewed earlier this year. It features the same cleric seeking stories, but everything else about the book is quite different.

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history.

Nghi Vo returns to the empire of Ahn and The Singing Hills Cycle in this mesmerizing, lush standalone follow-up to The Empress of Salt and Fortune

The framing narrative in this novella ends up being unexpectedly tense. Chih and their escort run into some tigers (the shapeshifter kind) during a mountain crossing. To avoid being eaten, Chih tells them a story. But unlike Scheherazade trying to entertain her audience, Chih's tiger audience scoffs and interjects when they perceive the story to be told wrong and/or with too-human values. It made for a delicate interplay between framing and framed narratives, that kept me interested and turning pages.

The framed narrative is a love story about a scholar and a tiger and all sorts of misfortunes that befall them. The story itself would be interesting enough, but having it deconstructed from a tiger perspective while still being told was excellent. I really enjoyed how this poked holes in the biases of the human story tellers.

I highly recommend When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain to fans of fairytales and asian-inspired fantasy stories. I hope Vo continues writing about scholar Chih or other people in the same world, because I'm really enjoying the collecting of stories and learning about the magical (and non-magical) beings of this world.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: December 2020, Tor.com
Series: The Singing Hills Cycle book 2 of 2 so far (but they stand alone)
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Thief on the Winged Horse by Kate Mascarenhas

The Thief on the Winged Horse by Kate Mascarenhas is a standalone contemporary fantasy novel. I previously read The Psychology of Time Travel, by the same author so thought I'd give The Thief on the Winged Horse a try, even though the blurb didn't immediately appeal to me.

The Kendrick family have been making world-famous dolls since the early 1800s. But their dolls aren't coveted for the craftmanship alone. Each one has a specific emotion laid on it by its creator. A magic that can make you feel bucolic bliss or consuming paranoia at a single touch. Though founded by sisters, now only men may know the secrets of the workshop.

Persephone Kendrick longs to break tradition and learn the family craft, and when a handsome stranger arrives claiming doll-making talent and a blood tie to the Kendricks, she sees a chance to grasp all she desires.

But then, one night, the family's most valuable doll is stolen. Only someone with knowledge of magic could have taken her. Only a Kendrick could have committed this crime...

As I said, I enjoyed this book more than I particularly expected to. I think the special ingredient was the author's very readable writing style. The story follows three characters linked to a magic-doll-making family empire in Oxford: two women who are discouraged from making dolls and aren't allowed to place enchantments on them, and an outsider who arrives at the start of the book, claiming to be a long-lost relative. The women are, arguably, trying to make the best of an unfair situation, and not always making the best choices in the process.

In some ways it's a book about people in crappy situations making questionable decisions — which is not generally my cup of tea — but it worked here. The characters are interesting and their interplay makes for compelling reading. The magical dolls are a bit mundane but also very creepy. The author plays off the mundanity as we are taken through discoveries and revelations of family history to disturbing events that are not dwelt upon. The author trusts the readers to make connections and doesn't spell out every little detail. The result is I spent quite some time thinking about and being horrified by a minor event that the characters in the book did not themselves interrogate fully, even as they thought through some of the practical consequences.

This was a strange and strangely enjoyable book. I picked it up on a whim and I think I liked it more than The Psychology of Time Travel, even though the subject matter of time travel inherently interests me more. I recommend it to fans of mundane fantasy and contemporary fantasy, especially those that enjoy character-driven stories.

4 / 5 stars

First published: November 2020, Head of Zeus
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley