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Norse Mythology: The Illustrated Edition
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Toto
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The Legacy of Arniston House (Edinburgh Nights #4)
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Breath of Oblivion (Astra Black #2)
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Bookshops & Bonedust: Deluxe Edition (Legends & Lattes)
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Legends & Lattes: Deluxe Edition
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Illustrated Edition
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The Failures
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High Vaultage
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The Complete Aliens Collection: Living Nightmares
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The Book of Witches
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Space Western Comics
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Red Dwarf: Discovering the TV Series
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Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward
I almost never read horror. I don’t like threatening bleak landscapes, lurking ghosts and witches, or (especially) intricately-described gruesome murders. Looking Glass Sound actually has all of those things. But the ocean is dangerous in the way oceans actually are—riptides and caves that fill at high tide. The witchcraft is oddly naive, though it does sort of work. And the gruesome murders took place years ago. You can dwell on those things, if you wish, but you don’t have to.
The book is about the three teenagers who, at the end of an idyllic summer, inadvertently uncover a series of decades-old murders and, possibly, reveal the murderer. Years later, one of the kids goes off to college, intending to become a writer in order to cope with the trauma of that wonderful, terrible summer. He is obsessed with it. He needs to write it about it. It’s his story, isn’t it? But he is not the only person who wants to tell the story.
At that point, a book that has been a compelling and beautifully written mystery begins to turn into a musing about the ownership of a story and the motives of the writers who produce that story. Layers of narrative about the same events begin to overlap, and increasingly often, contradict each other. The story changes its title; and the location changes from Whistler Bay to Looking Glass Sound. And the characters change their names and gender and destinies, depending on who has control of the narrative.
Through all this, no one speculates about how or why the murderer did what he did. As though the actual murders don’t really matter, the book does not explore the motives of serial killers. It also doesn’t question the reality of the ghosts or the magic that appear. Instead it explores whether or not the characters in a book are real. Because if the characters are real, the writing of a murder mystery may in itself be an act of murder. Is it possible that the writer is as evil as their invented serial killer?
If this is what modern horror is like, I’ll have to read more of it.
Catherine Lundoff Reading Cancelled
Unfortunately, the reading that Catherine Lundoff was to do on October 23rd has been cancelled. Hopefully we will be able to reschedule with her in the near future.
After the Forest by Kell Woods
This is a first novel by Kell Woods, an Australian librarian turned writer. I chose it because the title reminded me of Jack’s (as in the Beanstalk) song from ‘Into the Woods,’ which is called ‘After the Sky.’ The song is about Jack’s emotional journey following his fairy tale adventure with the giants. After the Forest is, likewise, about the consequences on Gretel’s life, after she escapes the witch in the gingerbread house with her brother Hansel.
In After the Forest, Greta lives on the edge of Arnsburg Forest with her brother Hans, in her now-deceased father and step-mother’s cottage. She gets by selling amazingly delicious gingerbread in the nearby town of Lindenfeld. Hans spends his days mostly drinking. It seems likely that being captured as a child by an old woman who plans to eat you leads to long-term emotional issues, but this is not Hans’ story. The now-grown eight-year-old girl who everyone knows shoved the witch into an oven is not unburdened either.
Greta has more than her memories of abandonment and cruelty to deal with. Along with the trauma, she carries the burden of suspicion from the good people of Lindenfeld. This is a place that, only five years ago, sentenced a witch to burning, and many people think that Greta is one also. She killed that old woman, didn’t she? Shoved her into her own oven? They would not be completely wrong. Greta’s gingerbread recipe is from a book that she took from the old witch’s house.
They would not be wrong about witches, either. They do exist, winding through centuries of warfare and injustice. Their tales are intricately woven with the lives of Greta and Hans, and of the townsfolk of Lindenfeld. No one is entirely innocent, or entirely guilty, and many carry trauma from their own stories. The result is a beautifully-written, completely unique interweaving of old fairy tales.
Saint Death’s Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney
We’ve been wanting to order this book since it won the World Fantasy Award last year. The author is a fairly young and very exuberant woman, who began writing the novel when she was in college in 2009. We finally tracked down the publisher at the WorldCon in Glasgow, and now have trade paperback copies in stock.
Miscellaneous Immiscible Stones (called Lanie) is a young necromancer, born into the powerful Stones family, which has long served the Blood Royals of Liriat as assassins. Necromancy is a rare and valuable skill, partly because the talent comes with a literal “allergy” to violence. Just hearing about some of her family’s exploits is potentially fatal to Lanie. Despite this, she remains kind and cheerful and without resentment. She is genuinely in love with dead things, and with Doédenna, Saint Death, the god who oversees death magic.
With the help of a dead woman called only Goodie Graves, Lanie has managed to survive nearly to adulthood. She spends her days in Stones Manor, happily gardening and learning to raise small things from the dead. She is almost ready for mice! She is secretly in love with her childhood friend, a non-binary priest of Sappacor. She is being tutored, somewhat unreliably, by a prior family necromancer, Irradiant Radithor Stones (also called Grandpa Rad), who won a war for Liriat generations ago. He is trapped disembodied inside the lock of a coffin containing his many enemies, and makes no secret of the fact that he intends to take over Lanie’s body some day. But all of their plans are put into disarray when both of Lanie’s parents meet expectedly violent ends, and Lanie’s appropriately-named sister, Amanita Muscaria, comes home to deal with their enormous debts.
Cooney has invented an exceptionally detailed, unique world. There are numerous types of magic, all tied to one of twelve wonderfully quirky gods and worshipped slightly differently in different counties. Many interesting people are vying for both Stones Manor and the throne of Liriat. Liriat itself has a long history of oddly amusing violence. (Also oddly hilarious are the famous assassinations and much deserved deaths of various Stones family members, often related in footnotes.) Every page seems to bring a new and delightful twist of customs or religion or tradition. Lanie’s necromancy is full of unexpected beauty.
Through all the plots and raising of the dead and cruelty (always distant because of Lanie’s allergies), Lanie remains a wonderfully sympathetic character, an uncomplaining perky goth necromancer, in love with both the living and the dead, and everything in-between. But, with her warped upbringing, will she ever understand what her beloved Saint Death really wants from her?
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
Somewhere around twenty-five thousand years ago, or perhaps about thirty years ago, on a nameless island paradise, a nameless woman had a child with a man who called himself Victory. Victory had the power to reshape the world, so the island became a peninsula that had always been there. Eventually the man became a religious leader called the Perfect and Kind. The woman became a possibly insane person called Mother-of-Glory who remembers a past that no longer exists. She named their son Fetter, because he was to be the chains that limited his father.
Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to make sense. Understanding is not important here.
The Saint of Bright Doors is Fetter’s story. Fetter has no shadow, since his mother cut it from him at birth. He can see the “invisible powers” which his mother calls “demons.” And he floats, so he must pay attention in order to keep himself literally grounded. His mother trained him in assassination, with the goal of eventually killing his father.
He has come to an ancient city called Luriat, which (according to his mother) came into existence shortly after Fetter’s birth. It is a complicated place, full of competing religions and governments. The people who think they know what’s going on, can do so only because they ignore things that don’t make sense. There are pograms and plagues and mysterious disappearances which go unquestioned and unchecked. There are visionaries and saints and the Unchosen, who trained to be visionaries and saints but didn’t quite make the grade. And throughout the city there are brightly painted doors which don’t open and seem to lead to nowhere.
This is a brilliantly written book, meant perhaps to teach the reader what it is like to live in a place of contradictions and displacement. Its dreamy unreality evokes a world where no one is entirely sure what they’re allowed to do, yet following the rules is of utmost importance. The book is more an experience than a story, yet the plot is deftly built, a solid narrative assembled, one brick at at time, from nonsense. It is well worth experiencing.
Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi
Normally I wouldn’t attempt a book described on the cover as “The Godfather meets Game of Thrones,” but Paolo Bacigalupi has written several wonderful novels in which terrible things happen. His novel, The Windup Girl, is one of my favorite SF novels. Set in a post-climate-change world, it is realistically brutal. But Bacigalupi’s characters are always portrayed with nuanced sensitivity. This adds layers of understanding both to the actions of the characters and the moral stakes behind whatever devastation might occur.
Navola is written as the first person narrative of young Davico di Regulai, the reluctant heir to the powerful, unforgiving Banca Regulai. The bank, and the di Regulai family, are based in Navola, a fictional city in an intricately-realized fictional world clearly inspired by Renaissance Italy. The book is more historical fiction than fantasy, but this is not historical Italy, and there is a dragon’s eye on Davico’s father’s desk.
Davico is more in tune with the landscape of Navola, and the wilds of surrounding Romiglia, than he is with the intricate plots his father creates to promote the family’s vast wealth. He spends pages and pages on lush descriptions of Navola—its gardens and towers and sunlight. He sees the beauty in the games of deception and subtle betrayal that his family plays, even though he thinks he is not very good at them. In his narrative, Davico sees only the ways in which he himself is inadequate, and never seems to notice the ways in which his world is lacking. Which is its own sort of criticism of the immorality of wealth and power.
Not very much happens for a lot of the book, yet it is strangely riveting. The tiny seeds leading to disaster do eventually bloom into the bloodshed promised on the book’s cover. In Davico’s hands, the violence is oddly dispassionate, as though he is able to ignore the corruption and danger that surrounds him, even when it is pointed at himself. Navola is devastating and fascinating. Its fantasy elements could be merely a dream inspired by a dead dragon, but there are rumors of a sequel in the works.
Two Graphic Novels for Grown-ups
Cursed Pirate Girl by Jeremy A. Bastian
This graphic novel stars a one-eyed young woman who has adventures while searching for her lost father, a not uncommon kid plot. The cover copy says that the story will “captivate adults and children alike.” It does indeed have a young protagonist and contains nothing objectionable for kids. But it is a complicated story, with lots of big words and deep meaning hidden in intricate drawings. Also, the author did his own lettering, in a lovely cursive script that only an advanced reader will be able to parse easily. It probably needs at least adult supervision.
The book is filled with interesting and unexpected characters. There is adventure. There are many varieties of pirates. There is a girl swashbuckling hero. The backgrounds, studied carefully, reveal all sorts of extra seafaring weirdness. The overall effect is a sort of nautical Alice in Wonderland, mixed with the zany pirate craziness of One Piece. It is incredibly inventive, seriously silly, a bit scary, and tons of fun.
Octopus by Richard Fairgray
This one is definitely not for kids. Though there is very little graphic sex, there is mention of multiple sexual relationships, past and present, woven through every page of the story. The book is a memoir of the author’s relationships with older men, looking back on the “messy and uncomfortable memories” of decades. It is a series of stories of encounters with aging men who once might have been the author’s lovers, but who always meant more than that to him.
Richard Fairgray promises to “make your bookshelf gayer, but not necessarily nicer.” Octopus is not the kind of gay memoir where awakening leads eventually to self-acceptance. It is gritty and raw, and full of angst and a fair amount of self loathing. It has the brutally honest sexuality of Robert Crumb and the introspective storytelling in graphic form of Will Eisner. But, well, lots gayer.
The stories look back with regret on relationships of caring that were lost partly because they were overlaid with relationships of need. And yet there is a haunting beauty to the stories. There is a sense of time wasted on unimportant things. It is a memoir written by a gay man who has learned that sex is a need that sometimes can be fulfilled by a friend, but that, ultimately, the friendship is much more important.
Three Graphic Novels for Kids
We’re just back from Heroes Con, a huge comic convention in North Carolina, where hundreds of comic and graphic novel writers and artists display their talents. These three caught our attention as appropriate for kids, and also well-written and fun.
Spider-Man: Animals Assemble by Mike Maihack
This is the first book in a graphic novel series called A Mighty Marvel Team-Up, featuring a childlike Spiderman and cameos by many other Marvel superheroes. The third book will be out soon. It is for readers of “all ages.” It has a wonderfully silly, kid-friendly plot that puts cooperation and neighborliness above fighting. All of the superheroes in the story are exuberantly friendly and helpful. And cute. There is an adorable pigeon companion. Remember: “With great power comes . . . an ability to do AWESOME flips.”
Cleopatra in Space by Mike Maihack
This series began in 2014 and is now up to six books. It was selected as a “YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers.” Cleopatra is a fifteen-year-old who is bored by her private schooling, and feels trapped by her life as the next Queen of Egypt. Her intelligence and skills are revealed by the inventiveness of the trouble she gets into. On one of her extra-curricular adventures, she is wafted to the far future, where she is expected, possibly, to save the galaxy someday. But first . . . she has to attend school. Fortunately, preliminary galaxy-saving adventures are sometimes available, and accompanied by a grumpy but adorable talking cat.
Cosmic Cadets: Contact by Ben Crane and Mimi Alves
This is a middle-grade, independent graphic novel, full of friendship and understanding, along with space adventure and a surprisingly tense plot. The kids of a very diverse intergalactic exploration crew go on their own planet-side adventure and discover friendly aliens. Each of the kids’ individual strengths contribute to a successful first contact. Meanwhile, the adults prepare for a war against the new alien species, in order to rescue their kids. Will the kids be able to clear up the misunderstanding in time? The story is very well written, with a cast of characters, both kids and adults, who break out of stereotypes and are relatable and unique. The authors are working on their next adventure.
I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle
Peter S. Beagle is a Grand Master—his 2018 world fantasy award proves it—with numerous other awards and achievements. He has not written very much, overall, but he is best known for The Last Unicorn, which he wrote in 1968 and has never been out of print. I remain fondest of his even earlier book about love after death, A Fine and Private Place. This newest book has decades of praise for Beagle’s long writing career on its cover, from multiple other Grand Masters.
I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons is a comfortable read, written with Beagle’s spare, elegant prose, which says only what needs to be said, no more or less. Its young protagonists are quirky and adorable, all convinced of their proper place in a medieval society. They are mostly wrong. But they don’t really need to overturn societal expectations or reinvent tradition. They merely need to learn who they truly want to be.
Robert is a young man who loves dragons which, since his job is to exterminate them like the rats they are, is not a particularly worthwhile trait. Beautiful Princess Cerise expects to someday marry a prince, but she’s not in any hurry about it and is meanwhile secretly teaching herself to read. Crown Prince Reginald looks like a prince, but is not very good at being one, and doesn’t like it very much. They all find adventure, whether they want to or not, and grow along the way.
No new ground is broken in the novel, not really. The only idea I haven’t seen before is the premise that dragons come in all sizes and most are merely nuisances, living in the walls of castles like rats. But there are solid characters working out realistic relationships against a rigid social structure, all the while dealing with dragons that turn out to be far more dangerous than anyone suspected.
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Based on the amount of publicity I’ve seen, including an advance reading copy sent to DreamHaven (thank-you, Simon and Schuster!), this book is poised to become a bestseller. There are supposedly already multiple translations and a TV series in the works. As you might suspect, this does not happen for new science fiction authors. Indeed, though the book has time travel at its core, it isn’t really SF. But it’s not really a mainstream book either.
The Ministry of Time is an interesting book, fast-paced and well-written. Though the science makes no sense, its version of time travel is no more objectionable than in any standard SF book. There is romance, but the book isn’t just about that either. The joy is in the exploration of social mores over time, as five people from the “present” (a near future dystopian London, where climate change is verging on disaster) and five people “rescued” from the past, interact. It is a treatise on being an expat; on not-belonging in one’s time and place.
The main plot revolves around the relationship between our nameless first-person narrator, whose mother escaped from Khmer Rouge Cambodia, and Commander Graham Gore, rescued from Fitzgerald’s doomed 1845 Arctic Expedition. It seems likely that Kaliene Bradley did a lot of research about the expedition, and was already half in love with Commander Gore before she wrote the book. Their interactions are delightfully full of intelligence, warmth, and humor. And, of course, growing sexual attraction.
There are also Lieutenant Cardingham (1645) who is an unrepentant chauvinist, Margaret (1665) who plays the part of the suddenly-liberated lesbian, nearly-invisible Anne (1793) and Arthur Reginald-Smythe (1916) whose name fits him perfectly. Together they try to understand modern life and the modern woman. When they fail, which is often, it is usually because modern life is truly and inexplicably odd. Their observations are wise and hilarious: Margaret wants a “tabard ‘broidered” with the words Feminist Killjoy, and Arthur reinvents the theremin. But it is Graham’s keen insight and mild sarcasm that propel the reader happily forward, even as the true nature of the time travel program is revealed and tensions begin to rise.
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose
I have noticed a trend in young adult literature for its female heroes to be incredibly sure of themselves. I come from an era in which young women often spent most of their stories trying to get over the negative things they’d been taught about themselves. But these days female protagonists start with an astonishing lack of self doubt. They can, therefor, proceed directly to breaking traditions and speaking their minds without hesitation.
Anequs (pronounced Ahn-eh-KOOS) is a fifteen-year-old woman who lives with her family on the remote island of Masquapaug. Her peaceful life is transformed when the last of a native species of dragon hatches unexpectedly and bonds to her as its Nampeshiweisit (meaning belonging to the dragon). Even in Vastergot, the city built by the people who colonized the mainland, the hatching of a dragon is a major event. Anequs must go to the mainland with her dragon to attend a mostly-male boarding school for dragoneers. There, she quickly learns that a Nampesheiweisit and a dragoneer are not exactly the same thing.
Blackgoose’s world-building is wonderfully rich. There are lovely depictions of Native customs and life, somewhat idyllic, but probably accurately based on Native American culture. The Vaskosish colonizer’s world is also well-developed, clearly based on the British colonization of New England, but with its own set of gods and holidays which are reminiscent of Viking lore.
The science of dragon lore is also quite unique. Dragons, you see, can shape the world with their breath. This means that, with proper channelling, their breath can perform chemical reactions to break down elements. In the emerging industrial society of the colonizers, dragoneers use their dragons to create essential supplies. But without proper control, their breath is vastly destructive. Dragons are also instruments of war, and being used to suppress the Native tribes of the West.
Anequs, as a girl from a colonized society, is truly in danger. If she cannot prove herself to be “civilized” enough to control her dragon as demanded, she and her dragon can be put to death. And yet, she speaks her mind repeatedly, and so far has been getting away with it, if not actually converting people to her Native worldview. There will undoubtedly be a second book, as To Shape a Dragon’s Breath has been nominated for a Lodestar Award (Best YA Book), and Moniquill Blackgoose has been nominated for the Astounding Award (Best New Writer).
The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu
Wesley Chu is acclaimed for his Tao Series and the Eldest Curses Series (with Cassandra Clare). He was born in Taiwan and claims that a “steady diet of wuxia” martial arts movies informed both his childhood and this new series, called the War Arts Saga. I read the book because Chu was announced as the Guest of Honor for Minicon 59, next Easter.
The Art of Prophecy introduces Wen Jian, the Hero of Prophecy, Champion of the Five Under Heaven and Savior of the Juun People. Someday, the Hero will defeat the Eternal Khan, the immortal leader of the enemy Katia People. But for now, Jian is merely a clueless, badly-trained young man. He has just begun training under a new and very opinionated Master, an old woman named Ling Taishi, when the Eternal Khan is defeated by accident. This pretty much invalidates the prophecy and renders the Hero, at best, an embarrassment.
Ling Taishi rescues young Jian from his former masters and the rulers of the Five Enlightened States, which begins an exciting voyage of escape, hardship, and martial arts battles. The entire world seems to be united against the Hero and his now-disgraced Master. And it is an enormous, wonderfully well-developed world; full of treacherous terrain, interesting cultures and schools where the magical secrets of martial arts techniques are passed on to the worthy.
The story is told from multiple points of view. In addition to Jian and Taishi, there is Qisami, a young highly-trained assassin, and Sali, who was a loyal friend to the no-longer-quite-so-Eternal Khan. I am not sure why a male author chose to tell the story of a boy Hero mostly through female characters, but it worked fine for me. Perhaps the Eastern traditions of wuxia—insanely badass, magical martial arts—are no more unrealistic for women than they are for men.
This is an exciting and engaging book, full of adventure framed by loyalty, honor and betrayal. One suspects that the Hero will eventually be needed after all, but likely not in any expected way. But first he has to get through the rest of his training, atop the requisite inaccessible cloudy summit, in the second book, The Art of Destiny, now available in hardcover.
Citadel by C.M. Alongi
This book was recently listed as a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award in Genre Fiction, to be given to a Minnesota author on May 7th by the Friends of the Saint Paul Library. Two other books previously reviewed here are also nominated: Liberty’s Daughter by Naomi Kritzer’s and Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs. Congratulations!
Citadel is the “first full-length novel” written by C. M. Alongi, whose publisher apparently doesn’t count her earlier fantasy novella series. (The publisher also doesn’t mention her very popular YouTube channel.) The book reminds me of some of Sharon Shinn’s works, where a story that seems initially to be fantasy turns into science fiction as the plot is revealed.
The protagonist is a young woman named Olivia who lives in an isolated city called Citadel, walled against extreme tidal flooding and incursions by a hostile species known as “demons.” She is somewhere around nineteen years old, but seems older since she is mourning her fiancee, killed a year ago in a battle against the demons. She has not been diagnosed with autism, since the diagnosis is unknown in Citadel, but she has many signs of it, along with a discomfort with communicating verbally. She is never without her notebook in which she answers conversation, makes copious notes on natural history, and writes eloquent letters to her dead fiancee.
However, Citadel is becoming a dangerous place to live, particularly for anyone who is in any way different. People who disagree with the current government, which has established a religion around exterminating the demons, are being put to death. It is a very bad time for a young woman, already harassed for her differences, to learn that said demons are sentient. Leaving the city and living in the hostile environment around it might actually be less dangerous for Olivia than remaining at home.
This is a fine SF read, with interesting world-building and a modern female protagonist whose confidence is unburdened by her repressive upbringing and is well up to the adventures ahead of her.
Two Books by T. Kingfisher
Ursula Vernon (aka T. Kingfisher) will soon be returning to Minneapolis to be the Author Guest of Honor at Minicon, and we’ve made an effort to acquire some of her backlist. I have for some time been hearing great things about Swordheart and the Paladin series, which begins with Paladin’s Grace. Initially, I had to borrow them from a friend, who obviously treasures them. But now we have some copies in stock!
Swordheart is the story of a “respectable middle-aged widow” who does not expect much from life, and so is not prepared to fight for her inheritance or position. This changes, a little, when a battle-scarred and dishonored man emerges from an ancient sword that has become hers. With the help of a priest of the Rat God, who is a lawyer—because the Rat God’s priests believe that legal aid is the best way to help people—both widow and warrior find the courage to simply seek happiness.
Paladin’s Grace takes place in the same world but does not overlap much, so can easily be read as a stand-alone. The death of the Saint of Steel has left His holy-berserker Paladins abandoned and bereft. Those who didn’t die or succumb to battle madness have made a new but empty life as servants of the Rat God. Their leader takes a small step toward redemption while defending a perfumer named Grace who is mistakenly caught in an assassination attempt against a foreign prince. Again, both perfumer and Paladin make the big step to allow themselves to seek happiness.
Both books are gently funny and bittersweet at the same time. They are both sort-of romances and are surprisingly thrilling, despite their older, world-weary protagonists. It seems that the battle to stand up for yourself or defend someone else from a small wrong, requires its own form of heroism. There is redemption and grace to be found in simple courageous acts.
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
A New York Times Bestselling book from 2022 does not really need a review from me. But the sequel just came out, and a customer recommended it to me. They were right. The Atlas Six is a treasure trove of beautiful writing, interesting characters, and odd wisdom.
Six young people, all accomplished medeians (magicians), are recruited by a mysterious man named Atlas Blake, for an unexpected and unusual opportunity. They end up secluded together in the Library of Alexandria, which has attained a sort of sentience and is now located somewhere in England. There, they research whatever philosophy, science and magic the Library will permit them.
The idea of an ancient and vaguely dangerous knowledge is not new, nor is the existence of a hidden magical library. The magical system invented by Olivie Blake, a merging of philosophy and science, is confusing enough that I did not really try to understand it. That said, much of the magical philosophy is actually basic psychology based on common sense and observation, and is extremely well done. The musing on the nature of villainy and heroism that starts on page 299, for example, is almost worth the price of the book.
But it is the characters—the six people chosen by Atlas, Atlas’ assistant, and Atlas himself—that are the core of the book. Every one of them is deeply flawed and holding powerful secrets, which they are hiding from the others, the reader and, sometimes, themselves. The relationships between all eight of them are fully realized and often wrenching. None of them are particularly likable, but they are so brilliantly understood within the story that you come to care for them all. This renders the trap that is closing around the chosen Six particularly poignant and riveting.
The Atlas Six covers the discovery and training of the Library’s newest students. It becomes clear that the trap closing on the students is part of a larger problem. The exact nature of the disaster that might be looming over Atlas and/or the Library remains to be seen in the second book, The Atlas Paradox. Both books are now available in trade paperback.
The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis
Connie Willis is a master storyteller with numerous Hugo and Nebula Awards under her belt. She excels at brilliant, frantic science fiction stories that manage to be closely personal and engaging, while somehow still ending up as world-saving adventures.
Francie is a typical Connie Willis heroine. She is ordinary, smart and well-meaning, with a huge measure of sardonic practicality, just like her author. She arrives at her best friend’s wedding during a festival at the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. Her goal is to stop her best friend from once again making a bad marriage decision. She ends up being abducted by an alien while wearing a neon-green, glow-in-the-dark bridesmaid’s dress. It’s not her fault. Really. Francie is the only person in the book who is exactly what she seems.
The abduction quickly goes astray, turning into a chaotic and hilarious road trip, as the alien (literally) ropes in more people, each more eclectic and unexpected. Many of them are obviously well-versed in the lore surrounding UFOs and abductions, though Willis of course turns their information completely sideways. The growing group has to evade UFO nuts and tourists and traffic cops and Men in Black and (maybe) other aliens. They are never entirely sure what they are doing. Or exactly why.
In the end, though, on The Road to Roswell, knowing everything about science fictional UFO tropes is not as nearly as useful as kindness and a full working knowledge of 1950s cowboy movies. They’re a great way to learn to communicate, you see, and the alien has a thing for Monument Valley . . . It’s best to just run with it. The book is tons of fun—Connie Willis at her best.