Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee

Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee is a space fantasy book aimed at younger readers. It's the first in a series and is entirely unrelated to Yoon Ha Lee's other books, which are adult science fiction. I don't generally read much middle grade, but I picked this one up mainly because of the author. I'd say its also at the older end of the category: the protagonist is thirteen years old, but spends much of the book pretending to be sixteen, so there is a bit of a YA feel to it as well.

THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD MIN comes from a long line of fox spirits. But you'd never know it by looking at her. To keep the family safe, Min’s mother insists that none of them use any fox-magic, such as Charm or shape-shifting. They must appear human at all times.

Min feels hemmed in by the household rules and resents the endless chores, the cousins who crowd her, and the aunties who judge her. She would like nothing more than to escape Jinju, her neglected, dust-ridden, and impoverished planet. She’s counting the days until she can follow her older brother, Jun, into the Space Forces and see more of the Thousand Worlds.

When word arrives that Jun is suspected of leaving his post to go in search of the Dragon Pearl, Min knows that something is wrong. Jun would never desert his battle cruiser, even for a mystical object rumored to have tremendous power. She decides to run away to find him and clear his name.

Min’s quest will have her meeting gamblers, pirates, and vengeful ghosts. It will involve deception, lies, and sabotage. She will be forced to use more fox-magic than ever before, and to rely on all of her cleverness and bravery. The outcome may not be what she had hoped, but it has the potential to exceed her wildest dreams.

Dragon Pearl follows Min as she sets out on an illicit adventure to find out what really happened to her brother. She sets off with almost nothing other than her fox-based shape-shifting magic and magical Charm, and finds herself very far away from her home planet. It was a fun space adventure involving morally ambiguous adults, new friends and dangerous situations. I enjoyed it a lot and I look forward to any sequels that may be forthcoming. Although the story is quite self-contained, it sets up a possible series and I definitely want to read those other stories.

As well as not being a big middle-grade reader, I also tend to steer away from space fantasy books, having been burned a few times before. To be honest, I wasn't sure how strong the fantasy element would be before I started reading, but I was assuming it would mostly be science fiction. It is set on other planets and in space, so it's science fiction if that's your definition of it. But the world building is very deeply steeped in Korean folklore and the associated magic. The story very prominently involves shapeshifting supernaturals and ghosts, and the titular pearl is a magical terraforming device. This worldbuilding worked for me very well. It felt very consistent — perhaps because it's directly based on real mythology rather than being entirely fictional. (I am trying very hard not to name the authors that previously ruined magic in space for me, can you tell?)

I highly recommend Dragon Pearl to fans of science fiction and fantasy, especially space adventures. Readers who are already fans of Korean folklore, or just want to learn more about it, will also find much to like here. I hope I will have the opportunity to give this book to my niece before she outgrows it.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: January 2019,  Rick Riordan Presents (Disney)
Series: book 1 of ? (I thought I saw the second book announced, but I am failing to find any info right now)
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from Kobo store

The Dinosaur Hunters by Patrick Samphire

The Dinosaur Hunters by Patrick Samphire is the first novella in The Casebook of Harriet George. Although it’s the first in the series, I actually read the second novella first, because it was included in The Underwater Ballroom Society anthology. While the two novellas do stand alone, I suspect reading them in order adds to the context for the second story.

Mars in 1815 is a world of wonders, from the hanging ballrooms of Tharsis City to the air forests of Patagonian Mars, and from the ice caves of Noachis Terra to the Great Wall of Cyclopia, beyond which dinosaurs still roam.

Sixteen-year-old Harriet George has never had the chance for an adventure. Now her older sister is determined to marry her off. Harriet can’t think of anything worse.

Meanwhile, her brother-in-law, Bertrand, has a problem. He’s never been much of a police inspector. As far as Harriet knows, Bertrand has never caught a criminal in his life. But now the famous jewel thief, the Glass Phantom, has come to Mars, and Bertrand has been given the job of tracking him down. If he fails, Bertrand will lose his job and the whole family will be ruined.

Harriet will not let that happen.

So she comes up with a plan: she will capture the Glass Phantom herself. Even if that mean that she and Bertrand have to follow the thief’s intended victim, the Countess von Krakendorff, on a dinosaur hunt in the perilous Martian wilderness. But there is far more going on in this expedition than mere robbery, and the dinosaurs are not the greatest danger.

If Harriet cannot solve the mystery, her family won't just be ruined. She and Bertrand may not make it out of the wilderness alive.

In this novella we are introduced to Harriet who, at the age of sixteen, is living with her older sister and brother in law, after the death of her parents. Her brother in law is a police investigator but, alas, not very good at his job. Because Harriet can see that her future depends on his ability to bring in a paycheque, she decides to help him solve an impossible jewel thief case (which has been handed to him to give his superiors an excuse to fire him when he fails). And so, Harriet dresses up as a boy and accompanies her brother in law on a dinosaur hunting expedition in the hopes of catching the thief.

This was a fun and entertaining read. Harriet is pretty cool and I was amused at how she successfully manipulated Bertrand and his employers to keep herself safe. The world building is super weird and almost not at all scientific. There are dinosaurs on Mars, and airships and a breathable atmosphere. And a lot of their technology runs on springs and compressed air, which is actually pretty cool. It’s also probably sort of period appropriate, alternate history aspects notwithstanding.

I definitely recommend this novella for readers of speculative fiction after a cosy and fun read. It was relaxing (despite a bit of dinosaur-related peril) and I would definitely go and get the next story in the series if I hadn’t already read it.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2016, self-published
Series: The Casebook of Harriet George volume 1 or 2 so far
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from Kobo

Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee

Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee is the third and final book in The Machineries of Empire trilogy. I have previously read and reviewed Ninefox Gambit and Raven Stratagem. This is very much an overarching story told over three volumes and, even though each book introduces new point of view characters, the story depends very much on what went before. I do not recommend reading it out of order (start with Ninefox Gambit).

When Shuos Jedao wakes up for the first time, several things go wrong. His few memories tell him that he's a seventeen-year-old cadet--but his body belongs to a man decades older. Hexarch Nirai Kujen orders Jedao to reconquer the fractured hexarchate on his behalf even though Jedao has no memory of ever being a soldier, let alone a general. Surely a knack for video games doesn't qualify you to take charge of an army?

Soon Jedao learns the situation is even worse. The Kel soldiers under his command may be compelled to obey him, but they hate him thanks to a massacre he can't remember committing. Kujen's friendliness can't hide the fact that he's a tyrant. And what's worse, Jedao and Kujen are being hunted by an enemy who knows more about Jedao and his crimes than he does himself...

There are two main point of view characters in this final book: a servitor that spends a lot of time with the Cheris/Jedao that we've come to know and love over three books and a brand new Jedao constructed by Kujen and lacking most of his memories, which went with Cheris. Somewhat unexpectedly the book jumps forward nine years from the end of Raven Stratagem, which took a bit of getting used to. We do hear from Brezan but the mystery of what's going on with Cheris doesn't last nearly as long as it did in the previous book.

I really enjoyed getting to know more about the world of servitors and seeing further into their world. After the hints in the very first book that servitors would be important (when Cheris was the only one who bothered talking to them), I found this development very satisfying. Seeing the servitors from new!Jedao's perspective was also interesting since they didn't exist when he was human and he has no other memories of them. The other interesting piece of worldbuilding we get to see in more detail in Revenant Gun is the providence of their spaceships. I always thought it was cool that they were collectively called voidmoths (scoutmoths, needlemoths, etc) but now we finally learn that "moth" isn't just an affectation. The ships are bred and then modified. While living ships aren't exactly a unique idea, Lee does something new quite interesting with them that I won't spoil.

Revenant Gun was an excellent read. Being the last in a trilogy, of course this book brings the overarching plot to a close and, ends like any good dystopian series: with the overthrow of the oppressive regime. I enjoyed the whole series and I stand by the assessment I made in my review of Raven Stratagem: the first book has the steepest learning curve by far. The calendrical warfare stuff that took place near the start-ish of Ninefox Gambit was the hardest to get my head around and nothing in the later books really compares with that confusion. If you got through the first book and didn't like that aspect, but did like the characters, then I urge you to continue with the series.

Anyway, Revenant Gun was a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy and I look forward to seeing what Lee writes in the future. (And in the meantime, I still have a lot of his short stories to get to.)

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: June 2018, Solaris
Series: Machineries of Empire book 3 of 3
Format read: ePub/paperback
Source: ARCs from publisher

The Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

The Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee is the author's first novel. It grabbed my attention because I had heard good things about the author, but hadn't gotten around to trying any of his short stories.

To win an impossible war Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.

Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris's career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris's best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress.

The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao--because she might be his next victim.

I went into this book without any particular expectations beyond "science fiction". What I got was more creative worldbuilding than I expected and a relatively character-driven narrative, although there are also a lot of battle scenes. The interstellar society — the hexarchate — is very regimented, with people split into six different factions with specific roles. The main character, Cheris, is a Kel captain, which means that she's a soldier in a moderately standard sense of the word, but with some unusual additions based on the science/magic of the civilisation (science/magic in the Clarkian sense). The method of both fighting and societal control is particularly interesting, based on calendars with other cultures/rebels that follow different calendars being heretics. I also liked that the space ships are called "moths".

The opening of The Ninefox Gambit was a little confusing at first. The opening battle scene complete with weird maths as a weapon was a little difficult to get into, but the story quickly shifted to being more about the characters than about the maths or the fighting. That said, I should note that it probably fits most definitions of military SF and that the maths is basically all fictional and you certainly don't have to understand it in the way some of the characters do. A Greg Egan book this is not.

The interaction between the two main characters, Cheris and the ghost (sort of) of the mad general Jedao, is one of the most interesting parts of the book, along with Jedao's backstory. Jedao is an insane traitor who the Kell have kept alive because he has also never lost a battle (if you ignore the one where he slaughtered both sides). Cheris, with Jedao attached to her, has to retake the Fortress of Scattered Needles (pictured on the cover, how cool does it look?) from heretics without letting Jedao do anything detrimental or omnicidal. Jedao's powers? He can talk; but he's that good.

This was a surprisingly enjoyable read. The opening made me think it would be a bit impenetrable, but on the contrary, I was soon hooked and didn't want to put it down. (Also, I think I was primed for reading this book at this point in my life: it contains references to board games and Kdramas, both rabbit holes I've recently fallen into.) I recommend this book to fans of far future science fiction and military SF.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: June 2016, Rebellion
Series: Yes. Book 1 of 3, The Machineries of Empire trilogy
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Kaptara Vol 1: Fear Not, Tiny Alien by Chip Zdarsky and Kagan McLeod

Kaptara Vol 1: Fear Not, Tiny Alien written by Chip Zdarsky and illustrated by Kagan McLeod is a surprisingly funny and weird space fantasy comic. I would not have known about it if it hadn't been listed on NetGalley and it caught my eye due to being written by Chip Zdarsky (aka the illustrator of Sex Criminals), and drew me in because of the (admittedly very short) blurb.

Keith Kanga crash lands on KAPTARA, a world filled with danger and weird danger and dangerous weirdos! And if he can't survive, then Earth, the place where YOU live, is doomed!

The premise here is basically a group of astronauts on their way to Mars end up going through a wormhole-type thing and crash land on a fantasy alien planet. The main character, Keith, illustrated on the cover, is a gay bio-engineer/environmental scientist whose defining characteristics are not being physically strong and running away from trouble. The latter is particularly useful when things on the alien planet start trying to eat him.

Keith meets up with some of the varied inhabitants of the planet, who are quick to inform him that the Earth needs saving. But Keith would rather stay here where people are nice to him... The story seemed to me to be a mix of pre-Golden Age SF ideas (stories about alien planets with the merest nod towards the science part of SF) and very now, kind of internetty elements. It was weird and quite funny at times.

I would recommend Kaptara to anyone with a sense of humour to whom any of the above appeals. I am looking forward to reading more when the next volume is released. Will the Earth be saved? Who knows!

4 / 5 stars

First published: January 2016, Image Comics
Series: Yes, vol 1 of ongoing series, collecting issues #1–5
Format read: eARC
Source: NetGalley