A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark is a full-length novel set in the same world as The Haunting of Tramcar 015, a novella that I previously read and reviewed. The new novel stands alone and, while there is some overlap in characters, there's certainly no required knowledge from the novella.

Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer.

So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world 50 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage.

Alongside her Ministry colleagues and her clever girlfriend Siti, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city - or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems....

I really like this magical steampunk Cairo. I already liked it from when I read The Haunting of Tramcar 015 and this novel really lets the worldbuilding shine. The longer format of A Master of Djinn means that we get a much more fleshed-out view of Cairo and get to hear even more about its relevance and position on a global stage. The cameos from certain historical figures also didn't hurt.

The other great thing about this book was the characters. I really loved all three central women for different reasons. Fatma was overall competent and cool, Siti was a bit enigmatic to begin with and made for an excellent love interest. Hadia was the rookie that Fatma initially dismissed but who eventually got a chance to shine and show her unexpected (by Fatma, anyway) talents. Overall, an excellent cast of characters.

I highly recommend this book to all fantasy fans, especially people who are keen on less common settings such as steampunk Cairo. I enjoyed this book a lot and I definitely intend to read any sequels or other books and stories set in this world.

5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2021, Tor.com
Series: Yes. First novel in an ongoing series plus there is novella (The Haunting of Tramcar 015) set in the same world and some short fiction.
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal is the third novel in the Lady Astronaut universe. I have previously read, reviewed and enjoyed the first two books: The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky. The Relentless Moon takes place chronologically after the first two books, but follows a different character, so it almost stands alone, aside from spoiling a lot of what went before it.

The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the Meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC's goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened.

Elma York is on her way to Mars, but the Moon colony is still being established. Her friend and fellow Lady Astronaut Nicole Wargin is thrilled to be one of those pioneer settlers, using her considerable flight and political skills to keep the program on track. But she is less happy that her husband, the Governor of Kansas, is considering a run for President. 

I really enjoyed this book. The protagonist is Nicole, who I only vague remember from the earlier books, but that vagueness was not at all a problem in picking up and following this new story. There were also several recurring characters who I had stronger memories of, like Nathaniel (Elma's husband), Eugene and Myrtle, and Helen. We actually got to learn a lot more about the latter three as they became increasingly central to the plot. My absolutely favourite part of the whole book was actually the epilogue, for what it sets up for future books, but of course it is a massive spoiler so I won't say any more about it.

The story follows Nicole, one of the original lady astronauts and now governor's wife as she prepares for and then goes on another mission to the moon. But recently the astronaut programme has been experiencing more failures than usual, even though their various failsafes are keeping people safe. Given reason to believe that sabotage is afoot, Nicole spends a lot of the book investigating, while hampered by a lot of things.

It was a bit sad to see that, still, even 20 years after the first book in the series, a lot of sexist jerks remain, as well as some racist jerks, which are highlighted thanks to the diverse cast in the story. That said, it was also probably fairly realistic, as were the science deniers who don't believe in the future consequences of the meteor from book one. To counteract that, some random little things that I enjoyed about the book: Nicole living anorexia was depicted very sensitively; spies and harking back to the war; a couple of minor background characters called Armstrong and Aldrin; the general scientific/engineering rigour Kowal applies to her worldbuilding.

Overall this was an excellent read and I highly recommend it to fans of the Lady Astronaut books. Especially anyone that was hesitant to pick up a book with a new protagonist, I found Nicole to be just as compelling as Elma. To new readers, I suggest starting with The Calculating Stars to better enjoy the worldbuilding and the deviations from our real-world historical timeline. I am excitedly looking forward to the next book in the series.

5 / 5 stars

First published: July 2020, Tor
Series: Lady Astronaut, book 3 of 3 so far
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P Djèlí Clark

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P Djèlí Clark is a Hugo finalist novella this year. That is the main reason I read it. I didn't especially love the author's earlier novella, The Black God's Drums, and probably would have otherwise overlooked this one.

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 returns to the alternate Cairo of Clark's short fiction, where humans live and work alongside otherworldly beings; the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities handles the issues that can arise between the magical and the mundane. Senior Agent Hamed al-Nasr shows his new partner Agent Onsi the ropes of investigation when they are called to subdue a dangerous, possessed tram car. What starts off as a simple matter of exorcism, however, becomes more complicated as the origins of the demon inside are revealed.

In this story, a couple of public servants are tasked with fixing the problem of a haunted tram car in an alternate-world Cairo. Hijinks ensue. In this world, djinn exist and have helped cement Cairo and Egypt's significance on the world stage, including from a technological standpoint. (The steampunky cover is a pretty good representation of the setting, in my opinion.) Our put-upon agents have to contend with identifying the possibly dangerous being possessing the tram and then have to safely remove it. And all this is set against the backdrop of a Cairo-centred campaign to give women the vote.

I really enjoyed this novella. It was entertaining and fairly amusing the whole way through. Even though I read it in lots of small chunks, I didn't have any difficulty getting back into the story when I picked it up again. I don't think I've read any other stories set in the same world, but now that I know they exist I will keep an eye out. (I have already added "A Dead Djinn in Cairo" to my Pocket reading list, which is actually the only other story I found. If you know of others, please let me know in the comments.)

I highly recommend this novella to fans of gas lamp fantasy and alternate (fantastical) history. Especially if non-European/US settings are a draw. This novella was a great read and, for me, caps off a difficult-to-judge Hugo category.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: Tor.com, 2019
Series: Yes, other stories set in the same world exist.
Format read: ePub
Source: Hugo voter packet

The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal is the sequel to The Calculating Stars, which I read and reviewed immediately prior. The Fated Sky takes place a few years after the end of The Calculating Stars and continues to follow Elma in first person. This review will contain some spoilers for the first book, but not more than if you’ve already read "The Lady Astronaut of Mars" novelette.

Of course the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, but there’s a lot riding on whoever the International Aerospace Coalition decides to send on this historic—but potentially very dangerous—mission? Could Elma really leave behind her husband and the chance to start a family to spend several years traveling to Mars? And with the Civil Rights movement taking hold all over Earth, will the astronaut pool ever be allowed to catch up, and will these brave men and women of all races be treated equitably when they get there? This gripping look at the real conflicts behind a fantastical space race will put a new spin on our visions of what might have been.

This was an interesting sequel. It follows a very similar overall structure to the first book but rather than striving to get into space, the goal posts have shifted to Mars. Various social problems from the first book still exist to create barriers for Elma and some of her friends. While the extreme sexism has been loosened up by the passage of time and the obvious need for (female) computers to calculate orbits and trajectories, the racism has been ramped up a notch. This was, of course, a problem that existed in the first book and that was highlighted through Elma’s friendship with Myrtle and others. But now, with the introduction of a pro-apartheid South African character, everything feels worse. This book highlights a lot of the racial problems from the 60s and, in doing so, is not a comfortable read. Elma tried to do her best but, as we are often reminded, she is still a white woman. (And the laundry in space thing made me angry.)

I didn’t comment on the science when I reviewed the first book because there wasn’t anything that jumped out at me as being wrong or suspicious. In this second book there’s a little bit more to comment on, though nothing especially dire. I am a little sceptical about the use of human computers, although it’s probably more or less possible for what they’re doing, in a terrifying sort of way. The one aspect of that which particularly made me raise an eyebrow was using a sextant to sight on starts to get their position. Not because there’s anything wrong with the method but because I couldn’t help thinking that if they missed their launch window and had to delay the mission, they would have to retain to sight along a different set of stars. (They would also have time to do that, so it’s not exactly a huge problem, I just found it a little alarming.) the biggest issue, for me, was the washing machines, dryers and ovens they had aboard each of the ships going to Mars. The amount of energy those use! Especially back in the 60s when energy efficiency wasn’t a star rating on your white goods (I think). Wiki tells me they probably had solar power, even back then, but still! Think of the excess heat those machines produce! I suppose this is more an expression of horror than a complaint.

Anyway, The Fated Sky was another excellent read and I remain invested in this series. I am delighted that more books are on the way and I look forward to reading them when I can. (In the mean time I’m going to go back and reread the novelette that sparked this world.) It’s possible to read The Fated Sky without having read The Calculating Stars, but I think reading them in order will give a more enjoyable experience. I recommend this series to fans of science fiction, the development of space travel and the social history surrounding space flight development.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: August 2018, Tor
Series: Yes. Lady Astronaut book 2 of 2 so far (with at least 2 more coming)
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from Apple Books

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal is a book that I had heard a lot of good things about before I picked it up. I probably should have given in to my friends’ urging and read it sooner but I was a little bogged down in review books and other things. And it’s not as though I put it off for that long.

On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process.

Elma York’s experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon, as a calculator. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too.

Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.

The Calculating Stars is set in an alternate history universe in which the space programme is accelerated and follows a woman who is married to the lead engineer of the space agency, has a PhD herself and is a pilot who wants to go into space one day. The story starts when a meteorite hits the earth and sets in motion a series on problems, starting with killing everyone in Washington DC and along most of the Northern American eastern seaboard and ending with crucial changes to the earths climate. Elma and Nathaniel are positioned closely to the people in power and play a pivotal role in the post-meteorite world, making them very interesting characters to follow.

The post-meteorite world, however, is still the 1950s with all the cultural baggage that entails. There are high barriers for women participating in the work force (even when they are already trusted to work as computers) and even higher barriers for people of colour. A lot of the story involves Elma bumping up against the glass ceiling and her friends coming up against similar or worse obstacles. The depictions of misogyny were very frustrating to read at times and when they weren’t it was only because some of the characters were darkly joking about them. The plight of the black characters was less prominent (since the story was told in first person) but more present than it could have been, which was good to see.

I enjoyed this book a lot, even after making the mistake of starting it the night before an early morning (oops). Despite a busy week without much free time I read it quickly and now I am very keen to start the sequel. The Calculating Stars doesn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger but it certainly ends before the whole story is told. Luckily these two books were released in close succession and I don’t have to wait for the sequel to become available. I highly recommend The Calculating Stars to all fans of science fiction and particularly of the early space programme and the role of women therein (not all of which is fictionalised in the book). I expect fans of Hidden Figures will find much to like here, although there is much less focus on the black characters.

5 / 5 stars

First published: July 2018, Tor
Series: yes. Book 1 of 2 so far (with two more planned)
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from Apple Books

The Black God's Drums by P Djèlí Clark

The Black God's Drums by P Djèlí Clark is a novella set in a steampunk alternate history New Orleans in 1884. The alternate history aspect involves a quicker end to the American Civil War after Britain and France sent reinforcements by airship, starkly altering the sociological landscape of the world.

Creeper, a scrappy young teen, is done living on the streets of New Orleans. Instead, she wants to soar, and her sights are set on securing passage aboard the smuggler airship Midnight Robber. Her ticket: earning Captain Ann-Marie’s trust using a secret about a kidnapped Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.

But Creeper keeps another secret close to heart--Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, who speaks inside her head and grants her divine powers. And Oya has her own priorities concerning Creeper and Ann-Marie…

The most interesting thing about this novella was the setting and the worldbuilding. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into it and I would be interested in seeing the setting explored further. Since this is a novella and hence relatively short, I felt like it only scratched the surface of some aspects and that there are more stories that could be told in this setting.

I liked Creeper, the thirteen year old street girl who was quite capable of looking after herself and who also lived with the presence of a god. The other main character was also fun to read about, though we didn't see quite as much of her and mostly saw her from the perspective of Creeper. The story is written as first person narration by Creeper, which strongly overlays her interpretation of the world over the story. The dialogue is written in the accent or dialect matching the character speaking, which sometimes took me an extra second to parse, but did a lot to distinguish different characters and, to some degree, their origins.

My main disappointment with this story was that, even though it's a novella it felt very short. More like a long short story than a novella. It's not that nothing happened, but the plot was fairly limited and contained and when I neared the end it felt like it was over too quickly. I think I would have preferred a slightly meatier story that was a bit less linear. Not that the plot was bad, I have just gotten used to longer novellas, I suppose.

Overall, I recommend The Black God's Drums to readers who are intrigued by the premise of a steam punk New Orleans. It's a short read and an enjoyable one, especially if you go in with accurate expectations.

4 / 5 stars

First published: August 2018, Tor.com
Series: Not as far as I know
Format read: ePub
Source: ARC from publisher via NetGalley

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas is the author's debut novel. I grabbed it because the blurb and cover grabbed me but I went in with a bit of trepidation, not knowing what to expect. As it turned out, I needed have worried. This was an excellent read and I highly recommend it to just about everyone.

1967: Four young female scientists invent a time travel machine in their remote lab in Cumbria. They become known as the pioneers: the women who led the world to a future where no knowledge is unattainable.

2016: Ruby Rebello knows that her beloved grandmother was one of the pioneers, but she refuses to talk about her past. Ruby's curiosity soon turns to fear however, when a newspaper clipping from four months in the future arrives in the post. The clipping reports the brutal murder of an unnamed elderly lady.

Could the woman be her Granny Bee?

This book is set in a world where time travel was invented in 1967 and is now, in the early twenty-first century, a normal part of life. It's a more common and established part of society than, say, space travel is, with a large British organisation overseeing the system and policing time travellers across the timeline. The story follows the inventors of time travel and some of the younger generation that come into contact with it one way or another.

A central plot element is a locked-room murder, which is discovered by one of the characters and for which both victim and perpetrator and initially mysterious. Mental illness and psychology are also central to the plot. The book examines the psychological effects of time travel and what underlying conditions they may exacerbate, as well as sensitively dealing with a traumatised character. There's also the psychology of time traveller culture, which is very interesting and disturbing and also central to the plot.

As might be expected from a book about time travel, The Psychology of Time Travel is told out of chronological order, with relatively short chapters that are only a scene or two long. While the purpose of each chapter wasn't necessarily obvious while reading it, they quickly slotted together to form a larger picture. The book is also well-written enough so as to be interesting even when I wasn't sure how a particular scene was linked to the whole. This intricate mosaic of story is what impressed me most about this book and made for an unexpectedly excellent read.

One last thing I want to mention is what the author has done with the gender distribution of characters. Basically, she's written a gender swapped reality so that all the key characters — all four time travel pioneers and all the other point of view characters — are female. I can only think of one male character that wasn't there as someone's father or husband, including most of the background characters (though there were a couple of male secretaries). I didn't realise this immediately, but it was a fun change of pace to play "spot the male character" rather than the reverse.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Psychology of Time Travel and found it to be an excellent read. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't hate time travel or women and enjoys some psychological exploration in their reads. It's particularly impressive for a debut novel and I am very interested to see what Mascarenhas brings us in the future.

5 / 5 stars

First published: August 2018, Head of Zeus
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander

The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander is a novella released by Tor.com and is the first longer thing of the author's that I've read. (She also wrote the Hugo shortlisted story "Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies", which I reviewed here.) Based on this excellent novella, I certainly intend to read more of the author's work in the future.

In the early years of the 20th century, a group of female factory workers in Newark, New Jersey slowly died of radiation poisoning. Around the same time, an Indian elephant was deliberately put to death by electricity in Coney Island.

These are the facts.

Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternate history of rage, radioactivity, and injustice crying out to be righted. Prepare yourself for a wrenching journey that crosses eras, chronicling histories of cruelty both grand and petty in search of meaning and justice.

From the cover and the kind of vague blurb, I didn't know what to expect from this book. What I got was an intricately woven set of stories about radium girls, radioactive elephants and elephant folk tales. This novella is set in an alternate timeline where, even a century ago, elephants have been found to be sentient and humans are able to communicate with them via sign language. But they are still exploited and oppressed — by circuses and by the radium watch factories.

The main story here is of the elephant Topsy and the dying radium girl Regan, who has stayed on at the factory to teach the elephants how to paint the dials. Both of them are already doomed. Their story is framed by elephant folk tales and informs a future (present) debate about using glow in the dark elephants as markers for nuclear waste sites. I admit it was that last element that first really grabbed me but in the end all the elements of the book came together nicely. If anything, the conclusion of the future storyline was the least satisfyingly conclusive, while the others had clearer endings.

Anyway, if you don't hate elephants or women, I highly recommend this book. You don't have to come into it knowing anything about the radium girls or the history of elephants in the US (I certainly knew nothing of the latter, and only learned that there was a real elephant named Topsy — who in real life never worked in a radium factory, shockingly — in a blog post by the author after I'd read the book). I will be recommending it to all and sundry at the slightest provocation.

5 / 5 stars

First published: January 2018, Tor.com
Series: No
Format read: ePub eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Taste of Marrow by Sarah Gailey

Taste of Marrow by Sarah Gailey is a novella about hippos, and the people that interact with them, set in an alternative 1890s US South. It is the sequel to River of Teeth, which I previously reviewed and which I found contained a bit too much hippo violence for my hippo-loving sensibilities.

A few months ago, Winslow Houndstooth put together the damnedest crew of outlaws, assassins, cons, and saboteurs on either side of the Harriet for a history-changing caper. Together they conspired to blow the damn that choked the Mississippi and funnel the hordes of feral hippos contained within downriver, to finally give America back its greatest waterway.

Songs are sung of their exploits, many with a haunting refrain: "And not a soul escaped alive."

In the aftermath of the Harriet catastrophe, that crew has scattered to the winds. Some hunt the missing lovers they refuse to believe have died. Others band together to protect a precious infant and a peaceful future. All of them struggle with who they've become after a long life of theft, murder, deception, and general disinterest in the strictures of the law.

In my review of River of Teeth I said that I probably wouldn't read the sequel because of all the hippo violence. So why did I? Well, I was told the second book had less hippo violence (true), I was invested in the characters and wanted to know what happened to them and I got a review copy of it. I started reading it near the end of a series of long-haul flights and continued while jetlagged, which probably wasn't the best way to enjoy it.

This novella picked up a few months after the previous one left off and followed two groups of characters that had become separated due to the events of the previous book. The plot centres on the characters trying to find each other again, with a bit of tying up of loose ends. There are less hippos in this one and less page time spent on their riding. Ferals do show up and meet untimely ends but on a smaller scale than in the first book. I found the hippo violence easier to overlook in this one.

I enjoyed this book but I didn’t love it. I kind of glad the series is over so I don’t have to make difficult decisions about whether to read more. Balancing my love for hippos (and my desire not to see them hurt) with the less upsetting aspects such as th diverse characters. And, for all that I’m not a fan of westerns, this one works for me (despite being set it the South, it does take a lot of queues from westerns).

I recommend Taste of Marrow to fans of River of Teeth. It doesn’t really stand alone, so if the notion of hippo-riding takes your fancy, start with the first book. If you’re indifferent to hippos but on the look out for stories with a variety of diverse characters, then I strongly suggest giving this series a go.

4 / 5 stars

First published: 2017, Tor.com publishing
Series: Yes. River of Teeth book 2 of 2
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via Netgalley

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey is a novella that I was a bit torn about picking up. On the one hand, it features hippos, my favourite animals, but on the other hand, it seemed to be a bit of a western (although, technically, all the action takes place in the south, it definitely takes cues from westerns). In the end, I bought it because a) hippos and b) I had seen some good reviews.

In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true.

Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.

This was a terrible plan.

Contained within this volume is an 1890s America that might have been: a bayou overrun by feral hippos and mercenary hippo wranglers from around the globe. It is the story of Winslow Houndstooth and his crew. It is the story of their fortunes. It is the story of his revenge.

This is certainly the most diverse western I've ever seen, at least when it comes to the composition of the main band of misfits. The main group of five contains two women, two men and a gender queer person; only one of them is a white guy. This allowed the narrative to touch on a few things that would affect women and non-white people more than white guys. That said, all of the miscellaneous background and minor and/or antagonistic characters except for one (a bartender near the start) were male. A bit more variety on that front, like female henchmen, would not have hurt. That's a fairly minor quibble, though.

My main problem with this book was the violence. There was a lot of pointless bloodshed, cruelty and murder, and not just on the part of the bad guys. This is one of the general things I dislike about westerns (the other major one being the usual sausagefests). It's not that I object to violence in books, but I prefer it to have at least a bit of a purpose. And that's just the human-on-human violence. There was also a significant amount of hippo-on-hippo violence (mostly feral hippos in the background, OK, fine), (feral) hippo-on-human violence, and human-on-(feral)-hippo violence. That was pretty upsetting to read, especially the extreme bloodlust and oddly carnivorous nature of the feral hippos. So in that respect, this was definitely not a book for me. I just like hippos too much.

Also, there was a bit near the very end which, frankly, baffled me. It's a major spoiler, so spoiler shield ahead...

I just do not understand why the bad guy blew up the dam and destroyed all of his own boats. I understand why he wanted to screw the main characters over. I understand why he wanted the feral hippos to go up river, but surely the boats represented a significant portion of his wealth? How will he be a kingpin without his casino boats?

So I don't think I'll be reading the sequel. This wasn't a bad book. The characters were certainly interesting and I am curious about what happens next... but the cover and blurb of the sequel (Taste of Marrow) do not bode well for the hippos. Fans of westerns will probably enjoy it more than I did, and I highly recommend it to fans of westerns looking for diversity in their reads.

4 / 5 stars

First published: May 2917, Tor.com
Series: Yes. Book 1 of 2 (so far?) of the River of Teeth series
Format read: ePub
Source: Bought from Kobo

Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan

Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan is the first book I've read by this author. She's one I've been meaning to get around to for ages — I even have one of her earlier books on my TBR shelf — and when a NetGalley promotion for this one landed in my inbox, I thought, Why not? Well, actually, first I thought "Buh?" because the blurb in the spam and the blurb on NetGalley were not very helpful. The Goodreads blurb, below, at least tells us a bit of what the book's about.

Tell the Wind & Fire is about a young girl called Lucie who lives in a New York very different from the New York we know: the city is torn between two very different kinds of magic, and Lucie’s own family was torn apart years ago by that conflict. Lucie wears magic rings and carries a burden of guilt she can’t share with anyone.

The light in her life is her sweetheart boyfriend Ethan, but it turns out Ethan has a secret too: a soulless doppelganger created by dark magic, who has to conceal the face identical to Ethan’s with a hood fastened by a collar nobody but a Light magician with magical rings can take off… and who introduces himself to both of them by, for reasons nobody can understand, saving Ethan’s life…

The first thing you should know about this book that isn't in any blurbs is that it's riffing off A Tale of Two Cities. Which I haven't read but really should have realised from the opening line (which of course I recognised), but didn't for longer than I care to admit. The two cities in this book, rather than London and Paris, are both New York; a New York separated into the Light and the Dark and rarely the twain shall meet. The time period is alternate near future, I think. A lot of things were the same and technology wasn't much advanced other than involving magic. But it's not like magic was an especially recent discovery.

I quite liked Lucie, the main character. She was born in the Dark and had a crappy life until when she was 14ish and got herself and her father out into the Light. Now she has a reasonably good life with a boyfriend that loves her and safety, something she grew up lacking. Of course, everything falls apart in the opening chapter and the life Lucie thought was safe suddenly isn't. What I particularly liked about Lucie is that she's a survivor. Except for when she's actively trying to save someone she loves, Lucie spends most of her time focussing on surviving. Which isn't to say she doesn't do anything questionable, but she does try to make sure she is keeping the people with power over her happy. When several spanners are thrown into the works and people she cares about are in danger, she does the best she can.

I found the first part of the book steady-paced but not unputdownable. I wasn't bored, but I wasn't entirely sure what was going on or where the story was going. The last part (the last third or so, I think) was more exciting and with higher stakes. I had more difficulty putting it down at that point but, interestingly, I also found the story more predictable. I suppose I also liked the negative portrayal of the revolution. Lucie can see that the revolutionaries have a point, but the means they use to reach their end prevent them from being too sympathetic, which is a viewpoint I can get behind.

So I enjoyed Tell the Wind and Fire. Possibly my two least favourite things about it were the blurbs (so confusing) and the title, which makes sense eventually, but not the first time the phrase appears in the book. My favourite aspect was Lucie and the way in which her relationship with her boyfriend was an established part of the story. That is, they had already been dating for two years and, while the story gave them a bumpy ride, it was not about romance or relationship drama. I don't think we see enough of that, especially not in YA.

I recommend Tell the Wind and Fire to readers of YA who are interested urban fantasy, revolutions and stories of oppression. It's not the most formulaic or trope-ridden of YA books (unless riffing off Dickens is a trope) and, actually, I wasn't entirely sure it was YA until school was mentioned (another thing the blubs could've made clearer). I certainly intend to read more Sarah Rees Brennan books when I get around to it.

4 / 5 stars

First published: April 2016, Clarion Books
Series: No.
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Curses and Confetti by Jenny Schwartz

Curses and Confetti by Jenny Schwartz is the third novella in her Bustlepunk Chronicles that started with Wanted: One Scoundrel (and continued with Clockwork Gold). This one continues the romance between Esme and Jed in the lead-up to their wedding, while introducing a new mystery and set of shenanigans for them to deal with.

Esme Smith and Jed Reeve are getting married. The unlikely pairing of an Australian suffragette and an American inventor is set to be the wedding of the year—until the Gypsy Oracle arrives in town, a man is killed, Jed is hopelessly compromised and Esme has to save her man and survive…Grandma!

This instalment in the romance of Esme and Jed focuses on their wedding planning, which is rudely interrupted by a scandal and a curse. While Esme juggles wedding planning with appeasing the town gossips over the scandal, hosting Jed's grandmother, and her women's lib plans, Jed gets distracted by clockwork (and helps on the scandal front). I did find the steampunk elements a little bit less quirky than in the earlier novellas, but perhaps that's because the worldbuilding is more established by now (and there was no cause for anything to explode).

Curses and Confetti was not a long read but it was a pleasant and relaxing one. Life has been a bit stressful lately, so it was a good book to wind-down with in bed. If you enjoyed the earlier novellas in the series, I definitely recommend picking up this one. I hope there will be more stories in the series because I would like to know what Esme and Jed get up to next.

4 / 5 stars

First published: 2014, self-published
Series: Bustlepunk Chronicles, book 3 of 3 (so far)
Format read: eRC
Source: the author
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Uprising by Sarah Cawkwell

Uprising by Sarah Cawkwell is the first book in the Heirs of the Demon King series. It's set in an alternate historical timeline where magic and demons cause changes to English history as we know it. The blurb from goodreads:

Epic fantasy meets alternate history in a sweeping saga that crosses the medieval world. Matthias Eynon must escape the clutches the Witchhunters and locate the masters of the four magic arts to overthrow the tyrannical Demon King, descendant of the twisted Richard III.

Mathias Eynon's dreams were small. A dabbler in magic, and son of a magician, he expected to live in obscurity in his home in the Welsh hills, quietly conducting his experiments and hoping not to draw too much attention to himself.

But fate has other plans for him. It is the Year of Our Lord Fifteen-Ninety, and a revolution is quietly brewing, here and further abroad. Richard V has overstayed his rule, some say; others whisper that the whole line of Demon Kings must be burned out. Mathias son of a man executed for the practice of magic, forbidden by the paranoid king is set to become a symbol, and a leader.

And to do that, he needs champions. A wise woman sends him to the corners of the known world to the frozen lands of the Danes, to the pirate-haunted ports of Spain, to the mountains of the German Empire, to the burning sands of the Holy Land to bring back masters of the four magic arts. With the best and brightest of Richard's Witch Hunters on his heels, he sets out to gather his allies.

It's a long blurb, but I wanted to include it because Uprising has two main characters Mathias, who is mentioned above at length and Tagan, who maybe doesn't get as many as many point-of-view scenes, but is just as important to the plot. She's not even mentioned in the blurb as a love interest (which she also is)! I didn't like Tagan as a character, but now I'm outraged on her behalf. Poor Tagan. Moving on.

Uprising diverges from real-world historical events thusly: Richard the Lionhearted brings magic back from the Crusades (then dies). Magic spreads throughout England (and Wales) and is eventually outlawed more or less because the peasants were getting too uppity. When the War of the Roses comes along and Richard III is about to be defeated, he makes a pact with a demon to win. So Henry Tudor is defeated and Richard III's offspring get lumped with the demon curse/pact. The actual action is set in the time of Richard V. Mathias and Tagan go on a quest to save the world. Most of the story is their journey and their being surprised at how different everything is from Wales. Also, we are repeatedly reminded that they're Welsh (actually, that was mostly amusing).

This was not the worst book I've ever read. But it was far from the best. I chose to read it because I thought I should branch out from my usual fare of Aussie-authored fantasy; a decision I now regret. It was a hard slog to read. This was not helped by the fact that it essentially had two prologues: an excerpt from a history book followed by Richard III making his pact with a demon, the latter taking place about 100 years before the main action. It was not a short prologue and I was already finding the book tedious by the time I got to chapter one. I had hoped that things would pick up then, but they did not. I have to admit, I ended up making my iPad read the book to me while I did something else with my hands. If I hadn't had that option, I probably wouldn't've finished it.

The main problems are that the prose just isn't interestingly written. There's more telling than there should be (rather than showing). Then, even when interesting things were happening, I found myself getting annoyed at mainly Tagan and Mathias for being naïve and shocked easily. Tagan, especially, was often patronised and — unrelatedly — set her jaw determinedly an awful lot. I also didn't like their courtship at the start (they were betrothed for most of the book, I think from the very start) which was a bit stilted, awkward and patronising, none of those in an endearing way.

So, to summarise, I did not like Uprising and I will definitely not be suffering through the sequel. I am a bit torn as to how many stars to give it, though, since it was technically not so bad (Cawkwell can string sentences together competently, that was never an issue); it's main flaw was not being engagingly written. I suppose since I'm tossing up between 2 and 3 stars I'll split the difference. Suffice to say, I don't recommend this book. If anything, it has confirmed my fears about branching out geographically to new BFF authors.

2.5 / 5 stars

First published: June 2014, Abaddon Books
Series: Heirs of the Demon King book 1 of (I'm assuimg) 3
Format read: eARC
Source: Review copy from the publisher