Tara Abernathy is back in Dead Country, a new Craft Sequence book that starts the Craft Wars trilogy. She’s returning home to bury her father she hasn’t seen since she was driven away from her village with pitchforks. It’s not a happy homecoming, but she’s not planning to stay.
Fate has other plans. The village is in Badlands and under siege by undead people affected by a curse. Half out of duty, half out of defiance, Tara decides to save the village. It would be easier if she weren’t affected by the curse herself.
Helping her are her new apprentice, Dawn, whom she’s saved from the cursed raiders, and Connor, a childhood friend who might become more. Dawn is talented, filled with the need to learn, and infinitely angry. Not a good combination when they face an enemy neither them had believed possible.
This was an excellent start for a trilogy that will take the series to a new direction. It’s not like the previous books in the series, which had a complicated mystery at their core that were solved with Craft. This is about family, trauma and forgiveness. It’s not quite as exciting or mind-boggling as the original series, but enjoyable. The Craft isn’t very complicated, so people new to the series might be able to enjoy the book too, but it’s best read after the original series.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Max Gladstone’s
latest, Last Exit, is a blend of (pre)apocalyptic sci-fi, magical realism with
a horror twist, and a road movie. It shouldn’t really work, but it comes together
well enough.
The plot is
straight-forward. A group of people who have met in college and banded together
to find alternative worlds, gather one more time to find the one they left
behind. But the semi-intelligent rot that bleeds into the worlds, destroying
them, doesn’t want her to be found. It’s a constant battle all the way to the
crossroads at the heart of the alts, which is the onlyplace where they can find her. Sal is the
veritable MacGuffin, always a little out of reach, and never as important for
the plot as the characters make her to be.
The idea of
alternative worlds isn’t unique, but the rot destroying them makes it more
interesting, as does the idea that they can be accessed either with magic or
mathematic irregularities, depending on which member of the group you believe. The
alts were surprisingly boring though, and while the book gives an explanation to
why they’re all so similar, I whish more would’ve been done with them.
But the
weakness of the book is its characters. I couldn’t connect with any of them. I followed
them down the road, but I was never with them on the journey. I never felt
their emotions, fears or pain, because the character experiencing them was
never the point of view one. They told very little of themselves and at the end
of the book I had learned nothing new.
A road
movie is never about the road, it’s about the people on a transformative journey.
All the elements were there: four people who used to know everything about each
other, good and bad, have grown apart and into different persons in ten years
they haven’t seen each other. An epic journey is a chance for them to put the
past into a rest so that they can continue with the lives they’ve built for
themselves.
The characters
plunge into endless reminiscing of the time they met and how the band came to
be. Surprisingly little time is spent on remembering their time exploring the
alts. The crucial event that led Sal to be lost is brushed away with a quick
description that includes torture and fighting people to death. I would’ve
thought a trauma like that would merit a larger role in their healing process,
but instead they talk about the racism of the college they went to—arguably important, but meaningless for the plot,
even with its diverse cast—and the state of (present
day) America that they live in.
The token
outsider that’s supposed to push the characters out of their remembered
patterns only managed to enforce them. The climax was clearly meant to happen because
of her, but in the end she was pushed aside and played no crucial role.
All in all,
the plot could basically have been the same without Jane and the fantasy
elements for how little they meant for the characters. They went through their
journey and the world was different at the other end—or
at least it felt renewed for them, which is the best anyone can hope. If I’d felt
them transform with the world, the book would probably have made a greater
impact. Now it’s just something I’ve read. I dithered between three and four stars, but the long stretches that left me bored made me give it three stars in the end.
I received
a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
It’s been five years since I’ve posted on this blog, and I
think it’s time to revive it. I haven’t stopped reading, or reviewing books; I just
published the reviews on my other blog, Susanna Writes. I’m not entirely sure
writing two blogs is sensible, but I’m about to give it a go—again—anyway. It’s one of those things that make sense at the beginning of a new
year. So here goes.
It’s been my habit for the past couple of years to write a
list of books that I hope to read at the beginning of the year. There are so
many books being published, that it’s hard to keep track of them all. With a
list, I’ll at least remember the most interesting ones. So far, I haven’t once
read everything on the list, as I keep reading outside it, but it’s worked well
otherwise. If you want to know what I read last year, here’s a post I wrote on
my other blog (although, in hindsight, I should probably have published it on
this one).
This year, I pledged to read sixty books in Goodreads Reading Challenge, meaning that I should read five books a month. For the past
two years, I’ve read fifty-five books a year, so I’m not entirely hopeful that
I’ll be able to do it, but it won’t be for the lack of reading if I don’t.
The list for 2019 has sixty-nine books. Fifteen are
transfers from the previous list, eight of which were already on the list
before that one. Only the books that I really think I want to read, even if I
didn’t find time for them before, made it to this year’s list too. Thirteen books
are published this year, and they mostly belong to ongoing series by my
favourite authors. The rest are mostly books that I already own, but haven’t
got around reading, or belong to series that I haven’t managed to catch up with
yet. I even went through my Kindle to see what gems I had hidden there, and
added them on the list.
My list is heavy on urban fantasy and fantasy: thirty UF
books and nineteen fantasy books. That pretty much reflects my reading habits
in general. Everything else is genre fiction too; it’s seldom that I read
literary fiction these days. There are ten sci-fi books that I want to read,
but only one contemporary romance, which is odd, considering that I write them
myself, but those tend to be the books that I add on my list as I come across
them. Here are some of the books that I’m especially eager to read this year, in
no particular order.
Summoned to the Thirteenth Grave by Darynda Jones. This is
the last book in her Charley Davidson UF series of a grim reaper that I absolutely love, so it’s with part
eagerness and part dread that I wait for it to come out. The publication date
is January 15, so not long to wait anymore. And then it will be over. Forever.
Vicious and Vengeful by V.E. Schwab. I love everything she
writes, and I expect to find these two books exciting too. I got the first as a
birthday present last year, but then waited to read it until I had the second
book too, which I got for a Christmas present. So those go to the top of my
reading pile.
Wolf Rain by Nalini Singh is the latest in her long Psy-Changeling
paranormal romance series. There hasn’t been a weak book yet, so when it comes
out in June, I’ll be reading it instantly. And she’ll probably publish other
books this year too that aren’t on my list, and I’ll be reading all of them
too. This one doesn’t have a cover yet.
The Savior by J.R. Ward is another auto-buy. It’s the book
seventeen in her Black Dagger Brotherhood UF series of vampire warriors, and each book has been excellent.
She’s publishing other books this year too, and all will go on my list. The
first of those is Prisoner of Night, which is set in the same BDB world,
and is published next week.
The Wicked King by Holly Black is the second book in her
Folk of the Air series of fairies and humans living among them, and it’s
published January 8. The first book was exciting, and I expect the follow up to
live up to its predecessor.
Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone is a space opera
published in June. I’d hoped there would be a new Craft Sequence book, because
the next one can’t come fast enough, but I’m sure this will be great too.
Another book by him that I’m waiting for, written with Amal El-Mohtar, is This is How You Lose the Time War that comes out in July. I’m
not exactly sure what genre that one belongs to, but it has everything, spies, time-travel,
and love.
Brave the Tempest by Karen Chance is
the latest in Cassandra Palmer UF series. It’s been too long since the previous
book and this one can’t come fast enough. Until then, I can return to her UF
world with Siren’s Song, a shorter story, which doesn’t have a publication date
yet, but should come out soon.
That’s just a small sample of what’s
to come. I also look forward to reading Atlas Alone by Emma Newman, fourth book
in her Planetfall series, Exit Strategy and Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells, which
belong to her Murderbot Diaries series, and Raven Tower, the new Ann Leckie
book. And, truly, all books on my list are those that I want to read. It’s just
that occasionally I have to prioritise.
The first book of the year has been
selected already too. That’s The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman. It’s the
fifth book in her Invisible Library series, and so far it’s very good. I’ll write
a review once I’m finished. Until then, let me know what you’ll be reading this
year.
