Children of Thorns, Children of Water by Aliette de Bodard

Children of Thorns, Children of Water by Aliette de Bodard is a novelette set in the same world as House of Shattered Wings. I had forgotten a lot of details since I read the novel — mostly character names — but this didn't negatively affect my reading of this story.

A prequel story set between The House of Shattered Wings and The House of Binding Thorns. Dragons, creepy magic, cooking (!).

Once each year, the House of Hawthorn tests the Houseless: for those chosen, success means the difference between a safe life and the devastation of the streets. However, for Thuan and his friend Kim Cuc, — dragons in human shapes and envoys from the dying underwater kingdom of the Seine — the stakes are entirely different. Charged with infiltrating a House that keeps encroaching on the Seine, if they are caught, they face a painful death.

Worse, mysterious children of thorns stalk the candidates through Hawthorn’s corridors. Will Thuan and Kim Cuc survive and succeed?

In this story we follow Thuan and his friend as they attempt to infiltrate one of the Houses of the Fallen in an alternate reality Paris. During the standard examination for entry into the House (as servants), something unusual goes wrong and everyone has to evacuate a wing of the house.

From what I remember, this story has a minor spoiler for House of Shattered Wings, but definitely doesn't require reading the second novel, House of Binding Thorns (I haven't yet). That said, my reading of the story was influenced by my prior knowledge of the world building and I suspect it wouldn't stand alone as a story as well as it does part of a whole. I believe it was intended to promote interest in House of Binding Thorns, which it does reasonably well. I am definitely interested in reading the sequel now that I've been reminded of the world again (if only I wasn't already so far behind on my reading...).

I recommend Children of Thorns, Children of Water to people who enjoyed House of Shattered Wings and want a taste of what's to come (I assume) in the sequel.

4 / 5 stars

First published: April 2017, Gollancz
Series: Dominon of the fallen 1.5 (as in, falling between House of Shattered Wings and House of Binding Thorns)
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley (but apparently it was offered as a pre-order reward for House of Binding Thorns)

The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard

The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard is a novel in a new universe that stands alone well. I have, however, been informed that there is a sequel coming, as yet unnamed.

In the late Twentieth Century, the streets of Paris are lined with haunted ruins. The Great Magicians’ War left a trail of devastation in its wake. The Grand Magasins have been reduced to piles of debris, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine has turned black with ashes and rubble and the remnants of the spells that tore the city apart. But those that survived still retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over France’s once grand capital.

Once the most powerful and formidable, House Silverspires now lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.

Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen angel; an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction; and a resentful young man wielding spells of unknown origin. They may be Silverspires’ salvation—or the architects of its last, irreversible fall. And if Silverspires falls, so may the city itself.

The characters are what really stood out for me in this book. They all have complex motivations that do not necessarily have much to do with each other's. The rich setting comes in a close second. For a start, it's refreshing to have  a fantasy book with an urban setting — albeit a ruined urban setting — set in Paris rather than in the US. And then there's the detailed way Bodard has destroyed Paris, and the world, before the opening of the story. The city is in ruins, but they are ruins that people have built lives around. But aside from mentioning that it's also a world in which not everything is as it seems, I don't think I can really do the worldbuilding justice. You'll just have to read the book yourself to see.

On to the characters! There's Philippe, a Vietnamese (or Annamite, as the alternate history of the book has it) ex-Immortal who ended up in Paris thanks to the sweeping force of colonialism. Although on the surface he may seem to have something in common with the Fallen, in that he's on Earth after being kicked out of the Jade Emperor's court, he hates the Fallen for what they've done to the world and their House system for what they've done to him personally. Despite this, the story opens with him getting caught up with House Silverspires, setting the main plot of the book into motion.

Then there's Isobelle, a new Fallen with an unshakable link to Philippe, his efforts to get away from all the Fallen notwithstanding, who is taken into House Silverspires. She unquestionably changes the most throughout the book, partly because new Fallen start off naive and clueless (so there's nowhere to go but up) and partly thanks to the events of the book. She ends up getting close to Madeline, Silverspires' House Alchemist who has secrets and a traumatic past.

As far as these things go, I'd say Philippe and Madeline were my favourite characters. I also found Morningstar, who is not really physically present in the story, to be a very powerful echo of a character, resonating throughout the story. The repercussions of his actions are far reaching and Bodard did a commendable job of making him come to life as not much more than a memory. Selene, the currently leader of House Silverspires, constantly lives in his shadow and measures herself against him while trying to keep the house together. I sympathised with Selene, although she wasn't exactly my favourite person.

The House of Shattered Wings is a gorgeously written fantasy novel set in a world of post-apocalyptic/war decay. I don't usually like angel books, but this one definitely worked for me. I suspect the combination of Christian mythology with Annam mythology probably helped in that area. I have to admit I wasn't sure if it was going to be a stand alone or part of a series while I was reading. The end was quite self-contained but there are a few more minor loose ends that I'm looking forward to seeing explored in a sequel. But there are definitely to cliffhangers and the main plot is resolved.
I highly recommend The House of Shattered Wings to all fantasy fans. Anyone looking for a different kind of urban fantasy should definitely give it a try.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: August 2015, Penguin (US, cover above) and Gollancz (UK)
Series: Apparently there will be a sequel, but this volume stands alone well.
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Compay Articles of Edward Teach by Thoraiya Dyer / The Angælien Apocalypse by Matthew Chrulew

This book is a novella double from Twelfth Planet Press, printed so that the "front" cover has cover art for one novella and when you flip it over the "back" cover forms the front cover for the other novella.

~

The Company Articles of Edward Teach by Thoraiya Dyer is the first novella I read of the two. I've made no secret of admiring Dyer's work in the past, and this is no exception.

The story is about two disaffected teenagers, both of whom have zero desire to follow the paths their parents have in mind for them. Layla's parents want her to be a doctor, but she just wants to party, have fun, and make boys fall in love with her. Avi's parents want him to become a lawyer, but to avoid that fate he broke several driving laws so that his impending criminal record would prevent that future career.

At first I was a bit confused as to how Layla and Avi's lives matched the cover art and title, but then they both wander into a costume shop with a shifty shopkeeper and bam, magic costumes transport them back in time and into other bodies and also a pirate ship. The titular Edward Teach is Blackbeard the pirate (which some of you may have already known, but I didn't) and the two present day teens find themselves in the bodies of pirates with future and piratey memories warring inside their minds.

The story follows them as they learn how to function in this new world and try to survive. Dyer shows us a traumatic and life-changing experience for the teens in a brutal cut-throat (literally) world. I enjoyed reading about how each of them came to terms with their situation and their lives and how their experiences changed them.

The Company Articles of Edward Teach was an excellent read. I highly recommend it to fans of realistic pirates, fantasy and Dyer's work. It is worth buying this double just for this novella alone.

4.5 / 5 stars

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The Angælien Apocalypse is the first work I've read by Matthew Chrulew and Goodreads leads me to believe it might be his longest work thus far (short stories in anthologies are also listed).

It's about the end of days in the Christian Rapture sense,  except instead of what one might think of as conventional angels, the beings coming to Earth are aliens. Angelic aliens. Angæliens. And Demœliens. And the main characters get mixed up in the whole apocalypse thing.

And it was severely not my sort of thing. There wasn't anything specifically wrong with it that I can point to and say was done badly (well, except for the nitpicky thing where one of the characters', Joachim's, nickname, Joke, is pronounced like the noun not "yo-keh" as it ought to be). It was the combination of theme and content, I think. Possibly I'm a bit over stories which riff off biblical ideas in this way.

It wasn't badly written and there was a lot of action. I just felt my attention wandering a lot while I was reading and, as a result, it took me much longer to get through than the Dyer novella (a few days, interspersed with other reading compared with one evening). As I have said, I can't quite pinpoint why and I suspect your mileage may vary.

3 / 5 stars

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First published: 2010, Twelfth Planet Press
Format read: Paper! Made from trees!
Source: Purchased at Continuum Convention
Challenges: Half of it goes towards the Australian Women Writers Challenge

Outcast by Adrienne Kress

Outcast by Adrienne Kress is a YA novel set in a small town in the southern US. The blurb  was the factor that made me want to read it. Unfortunately, the blurb was also the high point of the entire book.

After six years of “angels” coming out of the sky and taking people from her town, 16-year-old Riley Carver has just about had it living with the constant fear. When one decides to terrorize her in her own backyard, it’s the final straw. She takes her mother’s shotgun and shoots the thing. So it’s dead. Or … not? In place of the creature she shot, is a guy. A really hot guy. A really hot alive and breathing guy. Oh, and he’s totally naked.

Not sure what to do, she drags his unconscious body to the tool shed and ties him up. After all, he’s an angel and they have tricks. When he regains consciousness she’s all set to interrogate him about why the angels come to her town, and how to get back her best friend (and almost boyfriend) Chris, who was taken the year before. But it turns out the naked guy in her shed is just as confused about everything as she is.

He thinks it’s 1956.

Set in the deep south, OUTCAST is a story of love, trust, and coming of age. It’s also a story about the supernatural, a girl with a strange sense of humor who’s got wicked aim, a greaser from the 50’s, and an army of misfits coming together for one purpose: To kick some serious angel ass.

Outcast was severely overwritten. I felt that, with the possible exception of the dialogue, just about every second sentence could have been cut. Reilly's inner monologue is very repetitive, driving home statements far more than necessary. A direct consequence of this was an abundance of telling rather than showing (which isn't automatically a bad thing, but was in this case). It was very frustrating to read.

I mostly kept going because I was hoping for the big reveal regarding the angels and world building to be interesting.  It was distinctly underwhelming. (But by the time it came around I was too close to the end to stop reading and sacrifice writing this review.) And the romantic resolution at the end was a bit odd <spoiler redacted>.

The one upside is that this is another book about angels (along with Rise of the Fallen) that did not annoy me because of the way the angels were treated (I get the feeling that without direct evidence of weird shit going on Riley might have been an atheist). Yay, "only" bad writing! Oh and most of the supporting characters were pretty good, especially the non-cookie-cutter cheerleader and the Catholic priest disenfranchised by the angels. Although I also thought that some of their interactions, notably at critical moments,  could have been more complex in terms of motivation.

If you're the kind of person that notices when a book is poorly written, definitely give this one a miss (unless you're into that kind of thing). If you're not usually one to notice poor writing and the plot has got you interested,  then by all means,  give it a go, just don't set your expectations too high.

2.5 / 5 stars

First published: June 2013, Diversion Books
Series: no
Format read: eARC
Source: publisher, via NetGalley

Rise of the Fallen by Teagan Chilcott

Rise of the Fallen by Teagan Chilcott is a début YA novel about demons, angels and elementals. It's set mainly in Australia and can be described as urban fantasy or paranormal romance (although more on the romance elements below). The blurb:

Appearing as students at a local Brisbane high school, Emilie and Cael are centuries-old elementals on the run. Their inseparable bond starts to fray when Soul, an irresistible demon, comes on the scene and Emilie follows him into the savage world where she and Cael were once kept captive.

Emilie is enchanted by Soul and a new existence where nothing is sacred - where death comes in the alleyway and graveyard brawls are commonplace - and she has to find her way among the shape shifters and vampyres in a demon hierarchy as complex as algebra. At first Soul's intentions seem honourable, but Emilie soon finds that all is not as it seems...

I haven't had a particularly good track record with books featuring angels. Happily, Chilcott does not fall into the trap that other authors have with the portrayal of the angels (although the angels don't get nearly as much page time as the demons, what they did get didn't annoy me, so yay).

However, I didn't find Emilie the most endearing of characters. At the very start she struck me as a bit stupid and I felt like she was relying on Cael and Soul to dictate her life for her. Fortunately, as I got to know Emilie better, I came to realise that wasn't quite true. It turns out she's just hideously naive, which caused a bit of face-palming but was generally less bothersome. I never quite understood what she saw in Soul though and why she kept following him around when she didn't really have to. At first I thought magic, but by the end that definitely wasn't true. Possibly it just took a lot of him doing morally reprehensible things to knock the naive out of her. In any case, it didn't quite feel like romance to me. Emilie is very quickly convinced that Soul cares about her and loves her, and while that is evident in his actions, I couldn't see a reason for her to want to be with him. At least a relationship with Cael would have been based on long-standing mutual trust. Not one for dedicated romance fans.

Which brings me to the writing. It was a bit rough. I felt character — particularly relationships between characters — was not very well developed and some of the conversations were stilted. I was a bit baffled by some of Emilie's actions, despite her explaining some of them to us. There could have been more descriptions of setting, particularly the more mundane Earthly settings, to ground some of the action. Overuse of "seemed" and "strangely enough" and other adverbs was grating although it did improve as it went along.

The ending was strong, setting up the next book in the series well. I read that the last chapter was what inspired the author to write the book, and looking back, I can see how everything was leading up to that point. It was definitely the most clearly drawn scene.

I think teens looking for a quick adventure story might enjoy Rise of the Fallen, particularly if they're into paranormal fantasy. It will be interesting to see how Chilcott's writing develops in the future.

3 / 5 stars

First published: April 2013, Magabala Books
Series: Yes. Book 1 of 3
Format read: eARC
Source: Review copy provided by the publisher
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

City of Lost Souls is the fifth book in Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series. You can read my reviews of the rest of the series at these links:

1. City of Bones
2. City of Ashes
3. City of Glass
4. City of Fallen Angels

City of Lost Souls continues to follow Clary and Shadowhunter friends as they (mostly) fight the good fight and try to stop demons destroying the world.

I enjoyed City of Lost Souls much more than the previous book, Fallen Angels, which fell a bit flat for me. It picks up immediately where the story left off in book 4, and I was worried it would be more of the same in a bad way. But it wasn’t. I spent a lot of time shaking my head at Clary’s poor decisions but they were entirely in keeping with her character and none of them were overly stupid (something I hate), just risky.

In the previous book, I started to warm to Simon, Clary’s best friend, after being fairly ambivalent towards him in the original trilogy. He continues to increase in awesomeness, as do most of the Team Good (hehe) characters, with the exception of Alec to whom I was previously ambivalent and now spoilers. Perhaps it’s just that Alec dulls in comparison with Magnus, who had the most amusing lines in this one.

Vague review is vague, but it’s difficult to review a book 5 without spoilers for previous books. I have enjoyed this series (admittedly not as much as the prequel series set in 1870s London) and I highly recommend it to fans of urban fantasy YA. This is the only series featuring angels that I’ve read which hasn’t annoyed me with its religiosity. (Also, it has a Jewish vampire, what’s not to like?) If demon killing and humour sound like they might be your thing (kind of Buffy-style humour, although Clary and Buffy aren’t that similar), give the Mortal Instruments series a go.

4.5 / 5 stars

Exile by Rebecca Lim

Exile by Rebecca Lim is the second book in the Mercy series. You can read my review of Mercy here.

Exile continues the story of Mercy, an angel who for reasons unknown to her is cursed/sentenced to briefly possess different humans, constantly jumping around and never knowing where she’s going to end up next.

This time, she lands in Melbourne into the body of Lela a 19 year old girl who works at a coffee shop in the city and whose mother is dying of cancer.

She also has a vivid dream in which Luc, her angel love who is always beseeching her to find him, visits her. This time he has a plan for reuniting them.

Overall, I felt a bit ambivalent about this book. It wasn’t bad, in fact the writing was objectively fairly good. But the story, especially the angelic parts, completely failed to resonate with me. Which is more a comment on me than on the book. Compared with Mercy there were more magical dream-sequences which particularly didn’t do it for me. We do learn more about who and why Mercy is, but Luc has always seemed a bit creepy to me and if anything he seems more so after Exile. He’s her star-crossed lover and they’re being punished for some reason by being kept apart and he spends his time trying to stalk her down. On the bright side, it gives me someone to cheer against. Also the sort-of love interest from Mercy reappears and is a much more likeable prospect.

Unsurprisingly, as Mercy learns more, everything seems to get more complicated. If I have one complaint about the story structure it’s that it ends too soon for us to really get into to the meat of the mystery. However, it does end in a logical place and it’s not an unsatisfying ending. I do want to know more, but the sequels aren’t very high on my to buy list. Mostly, it’s just a little bit too goddy for my taste (but objectively, really not that religious).

One final note: I’m not sure this is terribly YA. The protagonist is on the cusp of the requisite age group but thematically this series hasn’t struck me as very YAish. I suspect the shortness of the books contributed to them being marketed as YA. It’s not that I think they’re inappropriate for young people, I just didn’t feel they quite fitted into the usual YA mould (but it sort of makes sense from a marketing perspective since they’re short and fantasyish it would be harder to sell them as adult fiction).

If you like YA fantasy with angels, then I highly recommend this book. If you like YA that’s lighter on the fantasy and more rooted in the real world than, for example, your standard vampire story, this is also a book you might like.

3.5 / 5 stars

Mercy by Rebecca Lim

Mercy by Rebecca Lim, is a YA book about Mercy, an angel (or something like that, it’s not entirely articulated, despite what the blurb says). She is forcibly thrust into random girls bodies and forced to take over their lives. She never knows where she’ll wake up, who she’ll have to be or why. This time, she wakes up as Carmen, a star soprano singer in a high school choir. The choir is visiting the town of Paradise for a concert and preparations and Mercy/Carmen finds herself billeted with the family of a girl who disappeared two years previously.

Although everyone else assumes the missing girl is dead, her twin brother believes she is alive and hasn’t given up searching for her. Mercy realised that he’s probably right and joins him in his search and attempts to work out who the culprit is.

Although this is a YA book, it reminded me a bit of serial killer books I’ve read in the past (Michael Marshal [Smith] springs to mind), but that’s possibly more a reflection of the dearth of crime novels I’ve read. Nevertheless, I found something appealing about Mercy’s attempts to work out who did it and try to get inside the criminal’s mind. That aspect of the novel was dark in a different way to, for example, YA dystopias. It was about the darkness inside one person than the darkness of an oppressive society or a war.

Lim has a more poetic writing style than most other YA books I can think of. Also, written in first person, Mercy spends more time philosophising than other YA characters that spring to mind (possibly because she’s not really a teenage girl). She also spends time wondering who and why she really is, who the mysterious probably-angels that she dreams about are and so forth. I didn’t find those parts as exciting as the who kidnapped the girl parts and at times they got a bit tedious.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the parts where she didn’t care what the bitchy girls thought of her/Carmen and didn’t respond as insecurely as Carmen would have. There was pleasure to be derived from watching the bitchy popular girl squirm. Oh, and Mercy isn’t a terribly kind person, which, if anything, added to her character, in my opinion.

Overall, Mercy is a well-written book. I’ll be picking up the sequel although my impression is that almost all the supporting characters will have changed. Hopefully Mercy’s character will be enough to carry off the dramatic change (according to the blurb and Shaheen’s review).

4 / 5 stars