Publisher: Angry Robot

#BookReview: Shoestring Theory by Mariana Costa

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Shoestring Theory by Mariana CostaShoestring Theory by Mariana Costa
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: cozy fantasy, fantasy, fantasy romance, romantasy, time travel romance
Pages: 400
Published by Angry Robot on October 8, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A queer, madcap, friends-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers time travel romance with the future of the world at stake, this charming fantasy tale is sure to satisfy fans of Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.
The kingdom of Farsala is broken and black clouds hang heavy over the arid lands. Former Grand-Mage of the High Court, Cyril Laverre, has spent the last decade hiding himself away in a ramshackle hut by the sea, trying to catch any remaining fish for his cat familiar, Shoestring, and suppressing his guilt over the kingdom’s ruin. For he played his part – for as the King, Eufrates Margrave, descended further and further into paranoia, violence and madness, his Grand-Mage – and husband – Cyril didn’t do a thing to stop him.
When Shoestring wanders away and dies one morning, Cyril knows his days are finally numbered. But are there enough left to have a last go at putting things right? With his remaining lifeblood, he casts a powerful spell that catapults him back in time to a happier period of Farsalan history – a time when it was Eufrates’s older sister Tig destined to ascend to the throne, before she died of a wasting disease, and a time when Cyril and Eufrates’s tentative romance had not yet bloomed. If he can just make sure Eufie never becomes King, then maybe he can prevent the kingdom’s tragic fate. But the magical oath he made to his husband at the altar, transcending both time and space, may prove to be his most enduring – and most dangerous – feat of magic to date…
Featuring a formidable Great Aunt, a friends-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers romance, an awkward love quadrangle and a crow familiar called Ganache, this charming story is imminently easy to read and sure to satisfy fans of fanfiction who like their fantasy lite.

My Review:

I picked this one up for the cat. Which is fair, because from a certain perspective, this whole story is, in fact and for real, all about Shoestring the cat. Even though, like Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, Shoestring is dead, to begin with.

If you’re also here for the cat, I will give you one spoiler, a spoiler that I seriously wished I had at the beginning. Because at the end, Shoestring will be just fine. Really, truly. (Not knowing that gave me some terrible approach/avoidance problems when I began reading the story. I was having as hard a time dealing with Shoestring’s apparent death as Cyril was.)

In a terrible future that should never have been, Cyril has been barely surviving as what used to be the Kingdom of Farsala literally rots all around him. It’s been years with bad air, almost no sun, and a starvation diet for both himself and poor Shoestring.

Cyril’s only reason for continuing this meager, guilt-ridden existence is to catch fish for his familiar, Shoestring. Everyone else he ever cared about is dead. From a certain perspective – namely Cyril’s – it’s all his fault.

But Shoestring’s passing is the cosmic kick in the pants that Cyril needed. Without Shoestring, he’s faced with two choices. He can either wither away into death, as all mages do when their familiars die, or he can get off his magical ass and go back and fix things.

Or at least try, making this whole marvelous story a fix-it fic, set in a magical world that needs a hell of a lot of fixing. The only problem is that Cyril isn’t really the right person to get the job. But he is the right person to keep his loved ones alive – and they absolutely are.

Escape Rating B: I had some mixed feelings about this book, in spite of how much I generally adore fix-it fics. Part of that can be laid at the feets of poor Shoestring, as I was nearly as heartbroken at his early, first-chapter death as Cyril was.

And, I’ll admit, I’m used to the protagonists of fix-it fics – which I usually love – being somewhat more competent hot messes than it seems Cyril could ever possibly be. He does not look before he leaps. It often seems as if he doesn’t even look after he leaps. Or at all. He doesn’t act – he reacts – and generally cluelessly at that.

Which is how his country got in the mess it did in the first place. Because Cyril is the heir to the Grand Mage of the whole entire kingdom and he’s supposed to be a whole lot more capable than he has ever demonstrated being. His great-aunt, Heléne, the current high-court witch, is that great and it seems from Cyril’s barely-adult perspective that she always has been.

But Heléne is slowing down, and Cyril hasn’t been stepping up. Which is why everything went pear-shaped. Because he didn’t see the rot in the kingdom at a point where it could be stopped. This time around, he has to do better, to be better, and at the beginning, he isn’t.

He does, eventually, and with frequent application of several boots to his ass, get better enough to figure out what went wrong the first time around – but he’s a bit slow on the uptake. Frequently. Often.

Which is why the comparisons between Shoestring Theory and Legends & Lattes fall spectacularly apart. They are both cozy fantasies – but they take vastly different approaches to both the coziness and the fantasy.

For one thing, Viv in Legends & Lattes is very competent and gets shit done. It’s just that what she wants to get done is very cozy in that her goal is to open a coffee shop. She has doubts, she has fears, she backslides in her ambition to eschew her old, violent ways as a mercenary – but she gets the job done because of herself.

Cyril gets the job done in spite of himself. In the end he does get there, but he faffs around a LOT. If it wasn’t for his friends he wouldn’t manage to get his head on straight. He IS, actually, quite capable – but he’s never been pushed to apply himself until now and it takes him a LONG time to get out of that mindset.

A lot longer than it took this reader to figure out who the true villain of the piece really was, and that Shoestring’s restoration would be part of Cyril’s reward for finally getting his act together.

In the end, I liked Shoestring Theory, but not nearly as much as I expected to. There just wasn’t enough of Shoestring himself in the story, and Cyril turned out to be a surprisingly incompetent protagonist for a fix-it story.

But I did enjoy the way the story turned itself inside out, that all of Cyril’s intentions and memories of that first, terrible, time around turned out to be not what he thought they were, and that he did manage to get to the truth and the whole truth of what went wrong the first time – and that it wasn’t ALL his fault.

So, in spite of Cyril’s frequent faffing around, the one thing he always was that shone through was that he loved deeply if not always wisely, that he had a huge capacity for trust even if it was sometimes misplaced, and that the story, the kingdom and even Cyril himself are finally saved by the depth of his loyalty to those he loves – and the reciprocation of that love and loyalty in full measure in return.

Cover Reveal: Shoestring Theory by Mariana Costa

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Cover Reveal> Spotlight
Cover Reveal: Shoestring Theory by Mariana CostaShoestring Theory by Mariana Costa
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: fantasy
Pages: 400
Published by Angry Robot on October 1, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A queer, madcap, friends-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers time travel romance with the future of the world at stake, this charming fantasy tale is sure to satisfy fans of Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.
The kingdom of Farsala is broken and black clouds hang heavy over the arid lands. Former Grand-Mage of the High Court, Cyril Laverre, has spent the last decade hiding himself away in a ramshackle hut by the sea, trying to catch any remaining fish for his cat familiar, Shoestring, and suppressing his guilt over the kingdom’s ruin. For he played his part – for as the King, Eufrates Margrave, descended further and further into paranoia, violence and madness, his Grand-Mage – and husband – Cyril didn’t do a thing to stop him.
When Shoestring wanders away and dies one morning, Cyril knows his days are finally numbered. But are there enough left to have a last go at putting things right? With his remaining lifeblood, he casts a powerful spell that catapults him back in time to a happier period of Farsalan history – a time when it was Eufrates’s older sister Tig destined to ascend to the throne, before she died of a wasting disease, and a time when Cyril and Eufrates’s tentative romance had not yet bloomed. If he can just make sure Eufie never becomes King, then maybe he can prevent the kingdom’s tragic fate. But the magical oath he made to his husband at the altar, transcending both time and space, may prove to be his most enduring – and most dangerous – feat of magic to date…
Featuring a formidable Great Aunt, a friends-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers romance, an awkward love quadrangle and a crow familiar called Ganache, this charming story is imminently easy to read and sure to satisfy fans of fanfiction who like their fantasy lite.

This is Luna’s SHOUTY face, because she can’t resist talking about it. After all, there’s a CAT in it – or there was and there will be. A cat named Shoestring and his person Cyril. Mustn’t forget Cyril, because he’s the one who catches Shoestring’s fish. When there ARE any fish, which is part of the problem.

Since George eats shoestrings (and sometimes even the shoes they’re attached to), so we’re ALL hoping he sleeps through this COVER REVEAL for Mariana Costa’s upcoming book Shoestring Theory. It’s about a mad king, a guilt-ridden mage, and a cat familiar who gives his life so his person gets off his duff and fixes things. Even if that fix needs to take them all back in time to a time before things went so horribly wrong that there are no fish left for Shoestring.

So here are Lucifer and Tuna, proudly displaying the complete, utterly gorgeous cover for Mariana Costa’s Shoestring Theory, coming on October 8, 2024 from Angry Robot Books. Preorder links are available HERE: https://angryrobotbooks.my.canva.site/shoestring-theory.

Just in case Lucifer’s implacable stare overwhelms the picture above, here’s a better picture – of the book cover at least!

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to meet Shoestring!

Review: The Cleaving by Juliet E. McKenna + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: The Cleaving by Juliet E. McKenna + GiveawayThe Cleaving by Juliet E. McKenna
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: Arthurian legends, fantasy, historical fantasy, retellings
Pages: 400
Published by Angry Robot on May 9, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Four women, four destinies – the future of King Arthur's court…
A new, feminist retelling of the Arthurian legends
The Cleaving is an Arthurian retelling that follows the tangled stories of four women: Nimue, Ygraine, Morgana, and Guinevere, as they fight to control their own destinies amid the wars and rivalries that will determine the destiny of Britain.
The legendary epics of King Arthur and Camelot don’t tell the whole story. Chroniclers say Arthur’s mother Ygraine married the man that killed her husband. They say that Arthur's half-sister Morgana turned to dark magic to defy him and Merlin. They say that the enchantress Nimue challenged Merlin and used her magic to outwit him. And that Arthur’s marriage to Guinevere ended in adultery, rebellion and bloodshed. So why did these women chose such dangerous paths?
As warfare and rivalries constantly challenge the king, Arthur and Merlin believe these women are destined to serve Camelot by doing as they are told. But men forget that women talk. Ygraine, Nimue, Morgana and Guinevere become friends and allies while the decisions that shape their lives are taken out of their hands. This is their untold story. Now these women have a voice.
Juliet McKenna is an expert on medieval history and warfare and brings this expertise as well as her skills as a fantasy writer to this epic standalone novel.

My Review:

The story (or legend, or myth, or history) of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table is one of those “tales as old as time.” Whether one considers it a myth, or a legend, or a bit of fictionalized or fantasized history, there’s something about the story that speaks to generation after generation, and has since Sir Thomas Malory compiled his now-famous Le Morte d’Arthur back in the 15th century.

A compilation which was itself based on an earlier popular “history”, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century History of the Kings of Britain. All of the elements we now recognize as part of the Matter of Britain, King Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, Lancelot, the castle at Tintagel, the sword Excalibur and his final rest in Avalon are all in that 12th century tale, just as they are in this 21st century reimagining, The Cleaving.

Some stories, and some characters, are so profoundly immortal that they must be reinterpreted for each generation and the story of King Arthur is one of those tales. Each generation has reinvented the “once and future king” for over EIGHT centuries so far.

There’s no sign of that stopping any time soon. Rather the reverse. The Cleaving, with its gritty medieval setting and its female-centered perspective on the deeds and misdeeds of the arrogant and autocratic and all-too-frequently abusive men they were supposed to serve and obey, shows the reader a somewhat more-plausible version of a story we all believe we know and love. The Cleaving tells another, rather different side to a legend and makes it all that much more “real” and even believable by that telling.

And it’s going to inform and inflect (or possibly infect) the next generation of tellers of this beloved tale. As it so very much should.

Escape Rating A+: The Cleaving is a compelling conundrum of a book. On the one hand, the story of King Arthur and his knights has been told, and retold, over and over, to the point where it forms one of the foundational tales of western literature along with a considerable number of the archetypes therein.

But very much on the other hand, in order to be considered a good book right now, The Cleaving has to be, and very much is, considerably more than merely a rehash of a story we already know. So it has the hard work of being a book where readers will already know how the story ends, while needing to tell its familiar story in a way that is fresh and new and will appeal to the audiences of its time and not just play on the nostalgia of those already familiar with the story.

The Cleaving succeeds in dancing on that very high and narrow tightrope by telling the story from the perspective of the women who usually exist as mere ciphers in its background while the men perform all the deeds of derring-do and conduct all the important business of their realms.

What The Cleaving does with the familiar story doesn’t change the story nearly as much as an earlier explicitly feminist and fantastically magical version – Marion Zimmer Bradley’s ultra popular The Mists of Avalon – did. Rather, The Cleaving takes that original story of men doing manly things and shows it from the perspective of a group of intelligent, influential women who performed as society forced them to in public – while maintaining their own thoughts and their own council behind the scenes.

It’s a portrait that feels more realistic to a 21st century reader without stretching the bounds of anachronism. These women were expected to manage complicated households, oversee large budgets for those households, keep everything running smoothly whether their lords were in residence or not – and even act in place of those lords when they were away – as many often were.

That level of intelligence and capability can’t be faked for very long at all without being found out. On the other hand, public subservience is easy to fake just by schooling one’s expressions and keeping one’s mouth shut except to be agreeable and above all, meek. It would require getting used to the sensation of swallowing one’s own tongue rather a lot, but it can be done. Especially in front of men who would be inclined to believe it anyway.

So in public they all seem meek, mild and accepting of the inevitable. Because the abuse they suffered, whether physical or emotional, was inevitable. Their choices were few. But in private, they mitigated what damage they could. Even if it wasn’t nearly enough.

So Uther, with Merlin’s connivance, rapes Ygraine while wearing her beloved husband’s face. With Merlin’s connivance, the child of that rape becomes king. With Merlin’s connivance, a whole lot of things happen that probably shouldn’t. (There’s a possible interpretation of this version of the Arthurian legend as Merlin interfered with a whole lot of things that he should have left well enough alone and karma is a bitch.)

Because of the way the story plays out, and just how much the queens are influencing events when the men are too busy pillaging to pay attention, even though we know how the story ends we don’t know how it gets there, and it keeps the reader turning pages to learn what is different and what remains familiar when told from a formerly hidden point of view.

Based on this latest variation of these seemingly eternal legends, we’re clearly not done with Arthur yet. Is it possible that this is what was truly meant by that sobriquet, “the once and future king”?

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Thanks to the publisher, Angry Robot, I’m giving away one copy of The Cleaving to one lucky US or UK commenter on this tour!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: World Running Down by Al Hess

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: World Running Down by Al HessWorld Running Down by Al Hess
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: dystopian, post apocalyptic, science fiction
Pages: 299
Published by Angry Robot on February 14, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A transgender salvager on the outskirts of a dystopian Utah gets the chance to earn the ultimate score and maybe even a dash of romance. But there's no such thing as a free lunch...
Valentine Weis is a salvager in the future wastelands of Utah. Wrestling with body dysphoria, he dreams of earning enough money to afford citizenship in Salt Lake City - a utopia where the testosterone and surgery he needs to transition is free, the food is plentiful, and folk are much less likely to be shot full of arrows by salt pirates. But earning that kind of money is a pipe dream, until he meets the exceptionally handsome Osric.
Once a powerful AI in Salt Lake City, Osric has been forced into an android body against his will and sent into the wasteland to offer Valentine a job on behalf of his new employer - an escort service seeking to retrieve their stolen androids. The reward is a visa into the city, and a chance at the life Valentine's always dreamed of. But as they attempt to recover the "merchandise", they encounter a problem: the android ladies are becoming self-aware, and have no interest in returning to their old lives.
The prize is tempting, but carrying out the job would go against everything Valentine stands for, and would threaten the fragile found family that's kept him alive so far. He'll need to decide whether to risk his own dream in order to give the AI a chance to live theirs.

My Review:

World Running Down turned out to be my third climate-apocalypse dystopia in a row, after Junkyard War and Perilous Times. The world is going to hell in a handcart and it’s all humanity’s fault no matter how you look at it. But these three looks at the view from that handcart are quite different. And all, surprisingly, hopeful.

At first, Valentine Weis doesn’t seem to have much hope. Or, perhaps, hope’s all he’s got without any real way of making any of his hopes come close to realization. At least not until Osric drops into his life – just about literally – with an offer that Valentine probably should refuse.

Because anything that looks too good to be true generally is – especially with people who actually still have a conscience and at least an ounce of compassion for their fellow beings. However those beings present themselves and whatever they happen to be made of.

In his very post-climate apocalypse world, Valentine lives his life on the outside looking in. Someone is offering him the opportunity to finally be on the inside. The question is whether the price is one that he’s willing to pay.

Salt Lake City is one of the few remaining, functional cities in the U.S. It’s a place where healthcare and transportation are free, where it seems as if everyone has enough to eat and a place to live. It’s a place where the rich get richer and the poor peek through the glass at all the things they can’t have without citizenship. Or sponsorship. Or both.

Valentine has none of the above. Instead his only possession is a barely functioning van, his only friend is more of a frenemy, he’s just barely breaking even on the delivery and salvage jobs he takes to keep body and soul together. And he’s trapped in a body he knows is wrong, deals with regular and depressing bouts of body dysmorphia and keeps falling further behind in his quest to save up enough money to get admitted to the place where he can get the medicines and the surgery he needs to make his external appearance reflect his inner self.

Osric, on the other hand, isn’t even human. He’s a Steward, an elite artificial intelligence who has been placed in a mere android body by nefarious person or persons unknown and sent out by even more nefarious persons to rope Valentine and his friend Ace into a job that must have one hell of a catch – because the fee for doing it is beyond Valentine’s biggest hopes and best dreams.

Which he just might manage to make come true. Not by giving in to what either those nefarious persons or his best frenemy/business partner Ace might say is the best thing – but by doing the actual, honest-to-goodness right thing. No matter how much it breaks his heart.

Escape Rating A: Before I even attempt to get into any more detail, first things first. And the first thing is that I loved World Running Down. A lot. Which kind of surprised me, not for itself, but because it was the third climate apocalypse dystopia book I read in a row, and as a subject that’s kind of a downer.

But the book itself isn’t a downer at all, which is really all down to Valentine. He just so earnestly wants to be a genuinely good person in spite of the world running down. Given a choice between the right thing and the easy thing Valentine chooses the right thing every single time – quite often to his own detriment.

He’s not unrealistic – at all – about just how FUBAR’d his world has become. He just doesn’t let that affect his own decision making process. He knows that things overall are heading towards an even hotter place than the climate, and he’s cognizant that he can’t fix much of that. But he’s committed to making things a little better as he can to those whose lives he actually touches.

Which is what gives the story both its hopefulness and its poignancy.

Valentine himself is caught in a “catch-22”. He’s trans, he needs both meds and surgery to complete his transition – which he very much desires to do. To be able to do that he needs to get residence in Salt Lake City, and for that he needs to pass a citizenship test. Which is just as big a hurdle because Valentine has ADHD or some variant of it which hasn’t even been diagnosed, making it difficult for him to study and retain certain kinds of information. Math gives a lot of people trouble. It gives Valentine a double dose of trouble, and he needs to get it to pass the test. Doing the original job would be a shortcut to his dreams – but absolutely does come at much too high a price.

But this isn’t just Valentine’s story, although we see much of it from his perspective. It’s also Osric’s story, and it’s the story of the job they are contracted for and the huge cloud wrapped around the silver lining of the payoff for doing it. Both parts of which result in discussion of artificial intelligences and the definition of what makes a being of artificial intelligence intelligent enough to be self-aware and eligible for citizenship.

And then the whole story works its way around to just how much heartache and heartbreak can be caused by trying to do what you think is best for someone you care for and how demeaning it is to make those decisions without their input.

There’s more. There’s just so much more. More than I should get into here, no matter how tempted I am. Which is very.

Between the climate apocalypse, the dystopian elements, the so, so sharp divide between the haves and the have nots, and both the political and the romantic issues that are raised by the questions of sentience and artificial intelligence, World Running Down touched on themes that brought to mind (my mind at least) a whole shelf of books that a reader might find equally appealing and/or interesting and very much vice versa.

So if you’ve ever read any of the following, you will probably also find World Running Down to be running right up your reading alley. And if you like World Running Down, these may also appeal; A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune, Automatic Reload by Ferrett Steinmetz and The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson.

I wish you hours of joyful reading in some fascinating worlds gone very wrong that still have hope of things coming round right. Definitely starting with World Running Down. But don’t just take my word for it. World Running Down is in the midst of running on tour at the following sites. Check ’em out!

FEBRUARY
Tues 14 Curiosity Killed the Bookworm
Tues 14 Civilian Reader excerpt
Wed 15 @cklockwork 
Thurs 16 @brittni.in.ink 
Fri 17 @bookish_black_hole 
Fri 17 Reading Reality
Sat 18 It Starts At Midnight
Sun 19 @dexterous_totalus 
Mon 20  @TinasAlwaysReading 
Tues 21 Scrapping and playing 
Wed 22 FanFi Addict
Thurs 23  @intothevolcano 
Fri 24 E. J. Dawson
Sat 25  @kevinscorner 
Sun 26  @thespineofmotherhood 
Mon 27  @Booksforscee 

MARCH
Wed 1  @from__my__bookshelf 
Thurs 2  @moyashi_girl 
Fri 3  @chippyreads 
Sat 4 SparklyPrettyBriiiight
Sun 5  JamReads
Mon 6  @sophi3saur 
Tues 7  @bookstagramrepresent 
Wed 8  @pufflekitteh 
Thurs 9  @emilysarahart 
Fri 10 FanFi Addict
Sat 11  @luchiahoughtonblog 
Sun 12  @josephina_rae 
Mon 13 superstardrifter
Tues 14  @bookwormescapes 
Wed 15 @kevinscorner 

Review: Obsidian by Sarah J. Daley

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: Obsidian by Sarah J. DaleyObsidian by Sarah J. Daley
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: epic fantasy, fantasy
Pages: 400
Published by Angry Robot on January 25, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Shade Nox is a fiend, a rogue, and a wanted murderer, though her only true crime is that she chooses to dress like a man. Proud and defiant, she wears her tattoos openly as any bloodwizard would, and carries obsidian blades at her hips. Those who laughingly call her a witch to her face soon learn an unfortunate lesson: Shade Nox might be an abomination, but she wields her blades with devastating precision, gleefully shedding blood for elemental magic that matches any man’s.
Shade scratches out a dangerous living in the broken Wastes, but now that they are growing more unstable and dangerous, Shade and her people need their own Veil to protect them. She vows to raise one—a feat not accomplished in over a hundred years. But the Veils are controlled by the Brotherhood, who consider them sacred creations. They would sooner see all the Veils collapse into dust than allow a witch to raise one.
With the help of her friends and allies, and her own indomitable will, Shade stays one step ahead of her enemies. Her zeal is only tempered when she learns the true sacrifice required to raise a Veil—a secret even the centuries-old Brotherhood has forgotten. It is too high a price to pay. Nevertheless, she must pay it, or she will lose everything and everyone she loves…

My Review:

Obsidian is just WOW! There, I’ve said it. Now I have to attempt to be articulate – and it’s not going to be easy.

Think of this as a post-apocalyptic story, but this is NOT our world, so this wasn’t our apocalypse. Just that there’s a point in the past that’s distant enough that civilization has regrouped while still present enough that effects are still being felt.

Or felt again.

While the story opens with a somewhat disgraced former Captain of an Imperial Army, Raiden Mad is not our main character. That position is reserved for Shade Nox, who cuts her way into this story with her obsidian knives and holds onto the center of the narrative with hands dripping with blood – not all of it her own.

But some of it is, because the magic of this world is blood magic – blood magic that Shade, as a woman is not supposed to have or be able to wield. And doesn’t that sound all too familiar?

Especially since Shade seems to be much better at it than the blood wizards of either the corrupt church known as ‘The Brotherhood’ or the criminal ‘Capomaji’ who read like a protection racket run by Mafiosi – with magical enforcers along with the usual legbreakers.

Those traditional mages are losing their power – and, as the powerful often do – refusing to admit that loss while covering it up with even more repression of anyone of whom they do not approve.

Shade Nox is number one on all those lists.

But Shade has a secret. Of course, she has several, but one is big. HUGE. The size of an entire city. Or at least it will be IF she can manage to pull it off. And that’s where Raiden Mad and his Emperor come in – and why the Brotherhood is so desperate to take them all out.

Because at the same time the magic seems to be dying, the reason for that magic is becoming that much more of a threat.

Whatever the apocalypse was – it killed the ecology of the planet. The Brotherhood gained their power and their near-monopoly on so much more because their bloodmagic was the only thing that could carve out a safe bit of territory where life could thrive.

But power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Brotherhood has been so invested in maintaining their power that they’ve corrupted the way it is used for their own ends. Now it’s destroying them, the cities their power made possible, and the land that surrounds them.

Mother Nature bats last, and in this world she has a very big bat studded with thorns. So to speak.

Shade Nox has the power, most of the knowledge and all of the will to create a new, safe territory that won’t owe a damn thing to the Brotherhood. Who are bound and determined to stop her at all costs.

But not nearly so determined as Shade Nox is to beat them.

Escape Rating A+: If you’ve ever wondered what Dune would have looked like if someone took that climate catastrophe combined with precious resource planet and re-wrote the thing so that planet-native Chani was the protagonist instead of “white” imperial savior Paul you’d get something like Obsidian – although it probably wouldn’t be nearly as good. (I’m saying this and I loved Dune – at least the book versions.)

I think this is also going to remind readers more than a bit of the “Sapphic Saffron Trifecta” of 2021, The Jasmine Throne, She Who Became the Sun and The Unbroken, with their female-centered epic stories although Obsidian does not include much romance at all, queer or otherwise, until the very end.

There’s actually a bit of the Mage Winds of Valdemar series, in that the chaos magic that has wrecked most of this world seems to sweep in and alter everything it touches – people, plants and animals alike, with dangerous and deadly results. And it’s getting worse.

There’s also a bit of the blood magic of the Dragon Age series, although sideways a bit. Shade, and the magic she controls with her obsidian knives, is powered by her own blood willingly sacrificed. It does sound a bit bonzo when you read it, but it is self-limiting and those limits are dealt with. She can’t go too far or she’ll lose control, consciousness and die. She’s also not sacrificing anyone else to achieve her ends – which is one of the places where that Brotherhood has gone off the rails more than a bit.

The story here is about power, as epic fantasy so often is. The Brotherhood wants to keep the power they have. The Empire that Raiden Mad represents isn’t really a threat to local power, although they could be in the future. They just want to deal with some reasonable people – which the Brotherhood most certainly is not.

The empire could be a threat to local power later, but at this point, they’re at “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” stage of things. The Brotherhood has made itself the empire’s enemy. The Brotherhood is most definitely Shade’s enemy. So they are friends of expediency. The future may be different, but first they have to get there.

The heart of this story is Shade’s quest for the hidden knowledge that she needs to raise a protected territory of her own, and then making the sacrifices necessary to raise it. It’s a journey that takes her through a lot of dark places and even darker hearts – including her own.

And it’s not over when Obsidian ends. This feels like the start of a truly epic saga. I certainly hope so and am looking forward VERY MUCH to where the author takes us next!

Review: The Moonsteel Crown by Stephen Deas

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Moonsteel Crown by Stephen DeasThe Moonsteel Crown (Dominion, #1) by Stephen Deas
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: epic fantasy, fantasy, urban fantasy
Series: Dominion #1
Pages: 384
Published by Angry Robot on February 9, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The Emperor of Aria is dead, and three junior members of a street gang are unwittingly caught up in the ensuing struggle for the throne, in the first epic adventure in a new fantasy world from a master of the genre.
The Emperor of Aria has been murdered, the Empire is in crisis, and Dead Men walk the streets...
But Myla, Fings, and Seth couldn't care less. They're too busy just trying to survive in the Sulk-struck city of Varr, committing petty violence and pettier crimes to earn their keep in the Unrulys, a motley gang led by Blackhand.
When the Unrulys are commissioned to steal a mysterious item to order, by an equally mysterious patron, the trio are thrust right into the bitter heart of a struggle for the Crown, where every faction is after what they have.
Forced to lie low in a city on lockdown, they will have to work together if they want to save their skins... and maybe just save the Empire as well.
File Under: Fantasy [ Sword-Monks Chicken Foot Dead Men Walking Murdering Bastard ]

My Review:

The Moonsteel Crown is one of those stories where the reader gets dropped into the middle of what is obviously going to be a long and convoluted story. Or at least this reader sure felt like she was dropped into the middle of a story that had already begun.

Although this story, particularly from the introduction in the blurb, sounds like an epic fantasy – and the series that this opens looks like it really will BE and epic fantasy – that’s not the way that things seem as the story opens. And we only get hints of the overall epic scope even as the story closes.

What it feels like we’re introduced to is an urban fantasy in an epic fantasy setting, in the way that the Chronicles of Elantra start out by using a very junior member of the city watch to introduce readers to a world that gets bigger and bigger as it goes along.

The difference here is that Kaylin’s world in the Chronicles of Elantra (start with either Cast in Moonlight or Cast in Shadow) feels functional. There are forces attacking from the outside, and there is PLENTY of political skullduggery on all sides but for the most part the city works.

The city where we begin the story in The Moonsteel Crown doesn’t feel functional. It feels like one of those urban fantasies where the criminals aren’t merely everywhere but are taking over, like Simon R. Green’s Nightside or Hawk and Fisher. It’s the Discworld‘s Ankh-Morpork without Vetinari to keep the city running effectively.

And our heroes aren’t even competent enough to be anti-heroes. They are all failures in one way or another – or a lot of ways. Myla is kind of a failed paladin. Not exactly, but close enough. She knows what she’s doing with her swords, but she’s lost her purpose and she’s drowning in drink and regret. Fingers is actually a pretty good thief, he’s just so superstitious that nobody takes him seriously and his superstitions get in his own way entirely too often.

And then there’s Seth. Seth is a failed cleric. Like an old friend of mine in the real world, Seth didn’t have any problem with the vows of either poverty or chastity, but he absolutely could not hack the obedience. Religious orders do not like people who question – and Seth had and continues to have WAY too many of those. To the point where he got drummed out of the best life he’ll ever have only to find himself washed up in the same tavern and the same gang as Myla and Fingers.

Because Seth and Fingers go way back. Way, way, way back. All the way back to their childhood and all the way down to the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder where they barely managed to keep themselves and each other alive.

Although that’s still true.

So this isn’t a story about a band of heroes or even a band of brothers. It’s about a band of misfits who can barely keep themselves or each other together most of the time. A motley crew who seem to be sinking further and faster into the underbelly of the city.

At least until Seth discovers that he isn’t so much a failure at being a cleric as he is a possible success at being a destroyer of worlds. Unless, of course, most probably, he manages to fail at that, too, just like he’s failed at everything else in his life.

Escape Rating B: This is not a happy book. I’m glad I wasn’t reading it during one of the recent weeks where it felt like the real world was getting darker just before it turned completely black – because that’s certainly what’s happening in this story.

I’ve read other stories, particularly in fantasy, where the protagonists are a band of misfits as they are here, but never a group quite this sad or quite this downtrodden. At first I was thinking that they reminded me of the ragtag bunch in The Emperor’s Edge, but in the end that band of misfits is quite competent. They’re a group that are misfits separately but manage to gel into a competent whole at least some of the time.

Myla, Fingers and Seth never gel, and one of them – at least – is always worse off than they initially appear.

And then there’s the way that Seth’s story arc trends downward, not into incompetence but into something far worse and a place much, much darker. Seth turns out to be one of those characters, like Kihrin in The Ruin of Kings and Serapio in Black Sun, where by the end of the story no one is certain, least of all the characters themselves, whether their purpose is to save or destroy, and whether that destruction will result in a descent into darkest evil or a cleansing fire.

Or possibly both.

This was an easy book to get sucked into but a hard book to love. It is very dark as quite probably any view of any place as seen from the absolute bottom of the ladder would be dark. No one’s motives are remotely pure, and even worse, they’re being lied to by someone with the worst of intentions, which spins their personal stories even darker.

I know this all probably sounds a bit terrible and you may even be wondering why I finished it or why it gets a B rating. But it does suck the reader in. The way that all of their stories spiral even further downward is compelling. And the reader does wish they could grab either Myla or Fingers and shake them until a little bit of sense comes out.

Because we feel for both of them. They did not get into the positions they are in out of their own choice, and survival from day to day is the best they can do. They’re both trying to find a bit of light, and it seems like Myla finally does.

Seth, on the other hand, seems to be searching for the dark assiduously and with determination, but even that could turn out to be the light at the end.

This is a story of a group of little people who are doing their best and worst to get through the day – and survive the night – in spite of themselves and their circumstances. They are characters with few choices but upon whom the fate of an empire might reside.

Even if they haven’t remotely figured that out yet. And it’s that “yet” that I’m very interested in seeing in future books in this series.

Review: The Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Heart of the Circle by Keren LandsmanThe Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, urban fantasy
Pages: 400
Published by Angry Robot on August 13, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads


Sorcerers fight for the right to exist and fall in love, in this extraordinary alternate world fantasy thriller by award-winning Israeli author Keren Landsman.

Throughout human history there have always been sorcerers, once idolised and now exploited for their powers. In Israel, the Sons of Simeon, a group of religious extremists, persecute sorcerers while the government turns a blind eye. After a march for equal rights ends in brutal murder, empath, moodifier and reluctant waiter Reed becomes the next target. While his sorcerous and normie friends seek out his future killers, Reed complicates everything by falling hopelessly in love. As the battle for survival grows ever more personal, can Reed protect himself and his friends as the Sons of Simeon close in around them?

File Under: Fantasy [ Love Squared - Stuck in the Margins - Emotional Injection - Fight the Power ]

My Review:

In a kind of twisted way, The Heart of the Circle reminded me of American Magic in that they both feel like responses to the Statute of Secrecy in Harry Potter. In American Magic, the reveal of the secret of magic is treated like a weaponized virus or other standard spy-thriller macguffin.

But The Heart of the Circle, while also having aspects of a thriller, feels like it comes out of the urban fantasy tradition, and not just because it takes place in a major city, in this case, Tel Aviv.

I say the urban fantasy tradition because this is a minor variation on our current world, but one in which magic not only works, but always has worked, a la Harry Potter. However, in The Heart of the Circle, magic has not only always worked, but it has always been known. There is no Statute of Secrecy here.

Which doesn’t mean that there aren’t witch hunts.

In the past, magic and magic users have been respected and feared. But mostly respected. Or so it seems. We are dropped into this story sometime in their 21st century, and pretty much in the midst of the action. Ancient history isn’t talked about a whole lot, because the present is going off the rails.

A group of religious fundamentalists has done an all too effective job of weaponizing the human hate and fear of “the other” and turned it against the sorcerers. There’s a constant drumbeat in the press to turn sorcerers into “the other” so that their humanity can be legislated away. So that they can be harassed and discriminated against and killed without consequences.

The language and methods that they use will sound all too familiar to anyone who has read about the Holocaust – or read the news or followed twitter regarding the way that immigrants in the U.S. are being demonized this day.

Although, in fine fantasy fashion, the reasons behind this particular weaponization of hate and fear turn out to be nothing like they seem to be. The most interesting agendas are extremely heinous and deeply hidden.

Following our protagonist, Reed Katz, we become involved in the sorcerers’ community as everyone fears for their livelihood and their lives, and we watch them fight back. We become involved in their world and we feel for their plight. They have not, in fact, done anything wrong. They are being hated, and killed, for what they are – while the people who murder them are not even condemned for the crimes they have actually committed.

In Reed’s story, and the story of his community, I saw reflections of our present. The story’s setting in Israel may allow Americans to pretend that this can’t happen here, but it is. The fantasy setting allows readers to see the situation from a distance, but it is all too easy to recognize that it is here and now.

This begins as a story of a beleaguered community dealing with unrelenting hate. It becomes a story about rising up and not just protecting that community, but about proactively discovering the heart of the hate – and exposing it for what it really is.

The Heart of the Circle turns out to be love. Not only romantic love, although that is certainly there, but love of all kinds and all stripes. The love of friends, the love of family, and especially the love of community.

Escape Rating A+: This is a book that sucks the reader into its heart, and doesn’t spit you out until the final page is turned. And I loved every minute of it.

Review: Shadowblade by Anna Kashina

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Shadowblade by Anna KashinaShadowblade by Anna Kashina
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy
Pages: 432
Published by Angry Robot on May 21, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A young sword prodigy must impersonate a lost princess and throw her life into a deadly political game, in this kinetic epic fantasy novel by the author of the award-winning Majat Code series

Naia dreams of becoming a Jaihar Blademaster, but after assaulting a teacher, her future seems ruined. The timely intervention of a powerful stranger suddenly elevates her into elite Upper Grounds training. She has no idea that the stranger is Dal Gassan, head of the Daljeer Circle. Seventeen years ago he witnessed the massacre of Challimar's court and rescued its sole survivor, a baby girl. Gassan plans to thrust a blade into the machinations of imperial succession: Naia. Disguised as the legendary Princess Xarimet of Challimar, Naia must challenge the imperial family, and win. Naia is no princess, but with her desert-kissed eyes and sword skills she might be close enough...

My Review:

This was another book that I read at least a couple of weeks before I wrote this review, and for the same reason as the last time – because I was a bit disappointed.

(I’ve discovered that this happens for one of two reasons – either because the book disappointed me and I don’t want to write about it – or that I loved it so much that I need a few days to let the urge to squee tone down a bit. I’ve also discovered that the disappointment generally lingers while the squeeing does not tone down very much at all – but I try.)

The reason that I expected to love Shadowblade was that I absolutely adored the author’s previous series, the Majat Code. The books in that series, Blades of the Old Empire, The Guild of Assassins and Assassin Queen, were among my very favorite books in the years they were published.

But I didn’t love Shadowblade. I did like it, but I just didn’t love it. And the why of that feels like it’s in direct consequence to both that previous epic series and to another book with a somewhat similar storyline, Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep.

And the key difference is that the previous epic series was just that, an epic SERIES. And that Kill the Queen, while it hits many of the same plot beats as Shadowblade (or the other way around) is the first book in a SERIES, emphasis on series if that wasn’t obvious by the ALL CAPS.

Shadowblade has an epic story to tell. It begins with the death of one entire ruling house at the hands of a rival, and one baby brought miraculously out of the slaughter. It picks up years later, with that baby now a young woman, a young trainee swordswoman who is about to be ejected from her training, her guild, and any possibility of a halfway decent life.

That’s the point where the political machinations that maneuvered her escape so long ago come back into her life and begin meddling. Not, of course, for her own good, but for theirs.

And possibly everyone else’s. But there’s a secret puppetmaster hiding in the shadows, determined to wrench the future into a pattern of their choosing – no matter what – or who – it costs.

Escape Rating B-: I’m putting the rating here so I can continue talking about the story and my disappointment with it.

Shadowblade is a standalone epic fantasy, but the story it has to tell is too big and too, well, epic. In order to fit into a single volume it feels like too much worldbuilding and too much story ended up on the virtual cutting room floor.

This should have been at least a duology. It feels like there might have been more than enough story for the author to have even committed trilogy – and I’d have happily signed up for all of it!

Instead, Naia’s training years, which should have had plenty of drama, are reduced to a few brief scenes at long intervals. There was so much to explore even at the point where she is introduced to readers as a near-adult. There seems to have been an awful lot wrong at the Blademaster “Academy”, Naia seems to have been at the heart of it, and yet we don’t know how she got into the fix she’s in. While information supplied later gives us the gist of the immediate issue it feels like Naia’s difficulties with her trainers have much deeper roots that we don’t get to see.

Another place where the story gets very short shrift is the romance. Because there is one. But we’re supposed to accept Naia’s HEA without seeing the relationship building that leads to it. That part of the story felt rushed, but then so did a lot of it.

There was just so much fascinating story lurking in the background that just didn’t seem to make it onto the page. I wish it had. That trilogy would have been epically awesome, while the single-volume we got is just OK.

Shadowblade should have been a truly epic story – but whatever caused it to be a single-volume rather than the longer work it needed to be means that the epicness fell short.

As always, your reading mileage may vary.