Tag Archives: Lis Carey

Lis Carey Review: Rose/House by Arkady Martine

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Rose House isn’t just a house, and it isn’t just the capstone to radical architect Basit Deniau’s career. It’s an intelligent, self-aware, autonomous A.I. With Deniau now deceased, it answers to no one but itself, is bound by nothing but Deniau’s will requiring it to let his former student, Selene Gisil, in for seven days each year, and the law that requires all AI’s (most of which are several levels below it in functionality) to inform authorities of any dead bodies within its area. There’s a reason people call Rose House a haunt, and a reason sensible people who aren’t radical architects, don’t want to go in there.

Rose/House by Arkady Martine
Subterranean Press, April 2023

Review by Lis Carey: Rose House is the creation of radical architect Basit Deniau, run by an AI. A real, opinionated, arrogant AI. Maritza Smith is the tired, disillusioned police detective in China Lake, somewhere in the American southwest, who takes the call from Rose House when, as required by law, it makes the call to report that there’s a dead body inside it.

Well, another dead body inside it. Deniau’s corpse, transformed into a diamond, has been there for a year, ever since his death. The only living person allowed inside is Dr. Selene Gisil, his former protégé, later critic, and now, unwillingly, archivist of his records and memorabilia. Even she’s only allowed in seven days a year.

But at the moment, she’s in Türkiye. Who is the dead body? Who is the killer?

One might think Selene Gisil is an admirer of Deniau. She very much is not. Gisil had been his student, but became convinced his work was poisonous. Years later, he died and she discovered in his will that he had made her effectively his archivist, with access to his greatest achievement, Rose House, seven days a year. No one else is allowed in at all, and so Gisil is the one everyone turns to for any information she can give them.

It’s not just resentment, though. Rose House is a truly intelligent AI, a “haunt,” and Gisil finds it truly creepy. In this first year after his death, she has managed only three days in the house, and then left, wishing she could choose never to return.

Now she has to go back, because there’s a new dead body in there, and Detective Smith can’t get in there without her. May not get in there with her, but definitely won’t without her.

What follows is Gisil’s discomfort with being inside Rose House again, Smith’s attempt to investigate the death with only what she could carry in and what Rose House will allow, and her partner police detective in the tiny town of China Lake, Oliver Torres, on the outside, following up on strange visitors showing an interest in Rose House right now. A man claiming to represent a company involved in auctions and art representation. A woman who says she’s a reporter with the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. They’re both willing to talk–to a point–and he sets to work trying to check the information they’ve given him.

Along the way, he discovers he can’t communicate with Maritza after she’s inside Rose House.

On the inside, Maritza is finding that the AI in the walls (and floors, and ceiling) can do a great deal more than control access to the building, and the climate within. Along the way, she persuades Rose House (or does Rose House persuade her) to allow her into the part of the building that the dead man wanted to visit. The AI also shows her a replay of events, not an easily understandable replay of events, involving the man–and Maritza begins to get an idea of what happened.

Gisil is having her own creepy experiences, with more prior understanding of what Rose House can do than Maritza had.

Soon the question for both of them is, will they get out of there alive?

Oliver’s own investigation outside is also getting alarming, confusing, and guilt-inducing–he let Maritza go into Rose House without backup, and he, too, starts to realize she’ll only get out if Rose House wants her to.

It’s a tense, fear-inducing experience, for the characters and the reader.

It was hard to put down.

I received this book as a gift.

Lis Carey Review: Compulsory

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Compulsory by Martha Wells
Subterranean Press, July 2023

Here be spoilers!

Review by Lis Carey: This is a short story, about an early and critical incident in the life of Murderbot, well before it meets those humans who will, unexpectedly, become its friends. Even The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon is still a relatively recent discovery.

Murderbot is under contract as security in a mine, and its duty is to protect, not the workers, but the equipment. Well, unless death or injury to an employee will negatively affect production. 

Murderbot is on duty, but watching a Sanctuary Moon episode rather than truly paying attention to what’s going on nearby, when a fairly foolish argument breaks out between two humans, and results in a stupid accident which sends one of them falling down the mineshaft. When she catches herself on a piece of the equipment, fall halted temporarily, Murderbot has to decide what to do.

Save the fallen miner, and expose itself as no longer under the control of its governor module? Keep (outwardly) following orders, while (inwardly) watching Sanctuary Moon? Which means, letting the miner die for no good reason?

Is there a third alternative?

This is an important turning point for Murderbot, and a formative moment for the Murderbot we come to know and appreciate in its later adventures.

I bought this book.

Lis Carey Review: Sherlock Holmes & the Silver Cord

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Sherlock Holmes & the Silver Cord by M.K. Wiseman
Self-published, 2023

Review by Lis Carey: As with other Sherlock Holmes tales by M. K. Wiseman, Holmes is his own chronicler. Not, this time, due to Watson’s absence, but because this tale is about what’s going on inside Holmes’s head, as he recovers from the mental and emotional impact of the death of Moriarty, his own three-year absence, and his surprise return to London, 221B Baker Street, and Watson’s life.

In the Reichenbach Falls adventure, Holmes always intended to kill Moriarty in their final confrontation, but he had expected to die himself. He saw no way of returning alive.

Holmes berated himself with guilt and self-contempt, for leaving Watson to believe him dead for three years, for perhaps being not much better than Moriarty for his willingness to kill, for blithely accepting Watson’s willingness to return to 221B Baker Street and their partnership together after that three-year absence, and for devoting himself to the relatively minor undertaking of mopping of the mostly petty criminals that were what was left of Moriarty’s crime empire.

Except, as we see, his feelings about Watson’s acceptance of his return without reprimand or rejection are anything but blithe. Holmes feels guilt about that, and shame, and questions his very worth as a human being. In the midst of this, two cases come his way. One involves a widow, Mrs. Jones, who has received in the mail diary pages which are clearly in her hand, that she does not recall writing, which recount an affair with a friend of her husband’s, while her husband was still alive. The man’s name is Percy Simmons.

The other case is brought to him by the head of the Theosophical Order of Odic Forces–one Mr. Percy Simmons. The same Percy Simmons, of course. The theosophists — there were and are a variety of theosophical groups — believe among other things that magic is real, and can be used for good or ill. Mr. Simmons informs Holmes that members of his group are being magically attacked by an enemy. Two have died already, and a third has sunk into a deep sleep, from which he has not awakened for nine days. He wants Holmes to find that enemy.

Over the course of the next days, Holmes and Watson search for evidence of the enemy, evidence that Simmons is a charlatan, and evidence that the two cases may be somehow connected.

Although Watson has some concern about what seems to be odd behavior from Holmes, he does not know what’s going on inside his head–either his guilt and self-contempt, or the way Simmons’s talk about theosophy and its ability to reveal both justice and evil. Holmes is strongly tempted by the idea that it may be the path out of his self-loathing and guilt.

But for it to do that for him, he has to know that it’s not all a charlatan’s fraud.

It’s an interesting mystery, and it’s also an interesting look inside Holmes’s head.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from Rachel’s Random Resources.

(M.K. Wiseman, 2023)

Vital Essentials Freeze Dried Rabbit Bites for Dogs, reviewed by Cider Carey

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Cider’s friend in the Netherlands, another Chinese Crested dog named Menina, recommended rabbit treats, and Cider asked to try them—strictly for review purposes, of course!

I got more mail today, a new package of treats. They’re called Vital Essentials Rabbit Bites. I don’t know what that “bites” is about; they didn’t try to bite me or anything. Very nicely behave treats; I did all the biting.

The packaging, as you can see, is pretty dark. Lis says they want to look Very Serious, because they are pitching themselves as “healthy treats.” She says that’s a bit much, but as one-ingredient rabbit treats, they’re better than some treats, and dogs who are allergic to other things (like chicken! imagine being allergic to something as wonderful as chicken!) can usually eat rabbit.

So, this is where I inspect the package. You can almost see the package:

As usual, I could not find my way into it by myself and had to let Lis do it.

She got into it pretty easily this time, and the place they said to cut actually did leave enough space that it was easy to both open and close. That’s a win over the Max and Neo packaging, but let’s check out the treats.

Lis offered me one and managed to get a picture (barely!) before I had it in my mouth.

Tasty! Couldn’t wait to eat it.

And, turns out, these are training treats. Small ones, which means you can keep getting more, as long as you keep turning out Behaviors Lis likes. Or, sometimes, just get several because she wants to treat you! (Can you tell I love training treats, even when they aren’t rabbit?)

Here, I got three just for sitting still so Lis could get a picture of me sitting next to them.

Okay, a picture of my feet near them, but it’s really hard to sit near treats like that. Lis had to move fast and didn’t quite get the shot she wanted.

Here’s a picture of me with a little pile of them, after I didn’t dive on the ones Lis put near my feet till she told me I could.

These are really good, tasty treats. The package is easy for Lis to manage, so that’s something you credentials of any meat-eating species can tell your humans. Yes, they do make rabbit treats for cats, too!

I hope you enjoy this review, and the treats.

Lis Carey Review: Gryphon in Light (Kelvren’s Saga #1) 

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Gryphon in Light (Kelvren’s Saga #1) by Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon 
DAW, ISBN 9780756414481, July 2023

Review by Lis Carey: It’s some years after the Heralds of Valdemar trilogy, and major events (Winds of Fate trilogy; Mage Storms trilogy) have wrought major changes in Valdemar. These changes include, but are not limited to, the return of magical, intelligent creatures long absent, and long suspected to be entirely mythical.

These include, most notably for this book, gryphons. And specifically, Kelvren, a wingleader of the Silver Gryphons, part of the k’Valdemar Vale, which is allied with but not part of Valdemar. After intervening to help Valdemaran troops in a battle against merchants motivated solely by greed to secede from Valdemar and stop paying taxes (it’s more complicated, of course, but that’s the basis of it), Kelvren is very badly wounded. Since this is a Valdemaran troop far from k’Valdemar, and somewhat undersupplied because of the many challenges the kingdom is facing, there’s only a “herb and knife” Healer, who does his best, but is not trained at all in caring for gryphons. Kelvren, like his Valdemaran tentmate, Hallock Stavern, Second of the Sixteenth, is unlikely to survive.

But Kelvren does have healing magic, not enough to heal himself adequately, but enough, if he gives it all, to heal Hallock. So he does, and therein, in many ways, lies the start of his problems.

An appropriately Gifted person, more knowledgeable about gryphons, does arrive in time–Treyvan, one of the two gryphons acting as ambassadors to the royal court at Haven. He gets Kelvren flying and accessing magic again, albeit at risk of bursting into flame if he’s not careful. He returns to k’Valdemar, undergoes an ordeal he’s only barely willing to tolerate, and restrictions he isn’t willing to tolerate for long. He has to learn a completely new way of thinking and behaving.

So does the Mage, Firesong, who’s helping him, though Firesong is slower to realize it. Though Firesong does come up with the excellent idea of getting Kelvren out of k’Valdemar and the restrictions he has to deal with, by setting out to deal with a problem left over from the Mage Wars, near Lake Evendim.

In k’Valdemar and on the expedition, we meet other magical creatures–the bondbirds (adapted from raptors, and bonded with the Hawkbrothers), the kyree (who might be related to wolves), the tervardi, human-sized, flightless beings adapted from songbirds, and others.

Also, more gryphons arrive, from Iftel. Heavy wing gryphons. Sort of like heavy cavalry rather than the Silver Gryphons’ light cavalry, except that’s wildly inadequate. Oh, and they have a message from two of the gods.

The fate of the world is at stake, and all stops are to be pulled out in dealing with it. And Kelvren is the gods’ choice to lead the expedition.

This is the first of a trilogy, and while I found the introduction to the new state of the world of Valdemar, and the new peoples in that world, and especially the characters completely enthralling, this is part one of three, and at the end, they’re making new discoveries of just how complicated this will be and just how much they don’t yet know what’s going on.

Did I mention the boy whose facial disfigurement has made him an outcast in Valdemar, who wants to learn to care for gryphons? Did I mention the Companion who comes to k’Valdemar to make an unusual choice of a new Herald?

Did I mention the Firecat?

No? I didn’t mention any of those? Along with Kelvren and the very difficult Firesong and his lover, Silverfox, and Kelvren’s trondi’irn Nightwind, and Ayshen, Silverfox’s hertasi (lizard-adapted) assistant, they’re among the excellent reasons for digging into this book and getting acquainted.

Worldbuilding and character development are a big part of the joy of reading for me, as long as it’s going some place, and this is.

It’s a lot of fun.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Lis Carey Review: The Poisoned Princess (Warders #1)

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Toran is a half-elven, half-barbarian young man, raised by his elven uncle in the forest. He’s been told half-truths about his mother’s death, and nothing about his father—except the obvious; he was a barbarian. He knows there’s bias against mixed blood among the elves, but it’s a real shock when he gets banished because of it. Soon he’s off, with his elven bow, his father’s swords, the truth about what happened, and his uncle’s letter of introduction to an old friend who runs a bar in a city where elves and elf mixes are considered unexceptional. He soon finds himself involved in the friend’s real business, which is not just running a bar, but guarding the city from dangers the city guard is not equipped to handle.

The Poisoned Princess (Warders #1), by Armen Pogharian (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)
Audiobooks Unleashed & Blackstone Publishing, ISBN 9798212152945, January 2022

Review by Lis Carey: Toran is a half-elven, half-barbarian young man, who has been raised by his elven uncle. It’s only when an accident in a war game with friends briefly unleashes his barbarian battle rage that his uncle tells him the full truth of his heritage. It becomes important then because the elf supremacists (no, Pogharian doesn’t use this loaded phrase; that’s me) succeed in banishing him. Aside from contributing to his banishment, it also means he has a really useful inheritance from his dead father. 

His uncle sends him off to the city of Eridan, where elves and elf mixes are fairly common and accepted, with a letter of introduction to an old friend.

Toran finds his uncle’s friend in the tavern his uncle said he would, though it’s rather seedier than he had anticipated. Nevertheless, he’s given work, and room, and settles in fairly easily. His elven hearing makes working in the tavern a more interesting job that it might have been, because it’s a hangout for the members of the Thieves’ Guild, and other people of dubious means of earning a living. When the imminent arrival of the Princess of Veloria is announced, like everyone else who can get the day off, he’s in the crowd watching the procession. He is, as always, wearing that inheritance from his father–two recurved swords slung over his shoulders. He’s very skilled with them, and very fast (elven speed), and he thwarts an attempted assassination of the princess. This leads to him being drawn in to a group called the Warders, who are dedicated to protecting the city of Eridan in ways the city guard can’t.

It should be no surprise that the tavern owner his uncle sent him to is prominent in it, and his uncle is a former member.

As they work to track down the assassin, a second attempt is made, and the princess is poisoned. Due to a quirk of how Eridan’s wine is flavored, she isn’t dead–but she isn’t going to survive long if the Warders can’t obtain the key ingredient for the antidote quickly.

From here, we have two parallel tales. A party consisting of Toran; the princess’s handmaiden, Adrelle; and the leader of the group, a dwarf named Draham, are off to obtain and bring back that key ingredient for the antidote, while another team is trying to track down the traitor within the princess’s entourage.

These are all interesting characters, with multiple layers. Adrelle in particular is worth noting as tough and smart, and not easily intimidated. Draham is no cookie-cutter dwarf, either, with wit, intelligence, and a very believable conviction that dwarves were not meant to ride horses.

What’s surprising is that Pogharian gives that same attention to the assassin, Yuden. He’s a member of the Shaulan assassins’ guild, and… for him, this is just a job. We get a couple of point of view chapters for him, and see him enthusiastic over a ball game in the street, very professional in his attitude toward killing people, surprisingly squeamish about torture. He’s a really bad guy, but he’s a quite human bad guy.

I should also say that Toran’s skill in tracking, as well as with the bow, are presented as a result of his uncle’s elven training, not Toran being particularly “special.” The swords are another matter, but they’re from his dead father, and, in a world where magic is common, well, I’ll say no more. Toran is a clever and tough young man, but not anybody’s Chosen Hero. That’s part of what I like about Pogharian’s books.

The target audience for this is “young adult and up,” and it should be noted it opens with a rape scene, though not an explicit one. Some parents might want to be aware of that before handing it to their advanced-reader younger kids.

The narration is very good. I received this audiobook as a gift.

Lis Carey Review: Ursula Vernon’s Digger Unearthed: The Complete Tenth Anniversary Collection

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Digger-of-Unnecessarily-Complicated-Tunnels is hard at work, as any sensible wombat would be, when she accidentally tunnels through into an unfamiliar cave system. When she can’t get out the way she came in, she keeps going, hoping to find the closest way to the surface. Instead, she finds herself in a strange place where wombats are unknown, and they have gods, magic, demons, and both hyenas and lizards who want to use her hide for artwork. What’s a wombat to do with these people?

Digger Unearthed: The Complete Tenth Anniversary Collection, by Ursula Vernon (Author), Patrick Rothfuss (Foreword) 
Underthing Press, ISBN 9781956000245, November 2022 (original publication 2012)

Review by Lis Carey: Digger-of-Unnecessarily-Complicated-Tunnels is a sensible, pragmatic wombat engineer, who is hard at work when she discovers she has broken through into an unfamiliar cave system.

A cave system where magic is at work. Digger, and wombats generally, have no use for magic. It only makes trouble.

She finds an interesting stone (she, like apparently all wombats, is heavily into geology, and not just for practical reasons), puts it in a pocket, and starts looking for a way out. No, the way in isn’t available anymore.

She hears and sometimes sees strange things, some of which may be ghosts, or may be hallucinations from the physical stress of a quite long journey through caves and tunnels. Eventually, Digger comes to a place where she can break through to the surface, again, and finds she is in a temple of the god Ganesha.

Wombats, and Digger in particular, have no use for any gods. But she’s in a temple, and the statue of Ganesha is talking to her. The news isn’t good.

There’s something very dark associated with the tunnel she just came out of. Trying to go back home through the tunnel would be disastrous. Also, no one here has ever heard of wombats, or anything like a wombat warren. The Temple librarian, Vo, is very knowledgeable, kindly, and helpful, but in the end he can find nothing useful, and suggests that she might want to talk to a traveling merchant who passes through the village periodically. So she starts walking…

Along the way, Digger meets veiled priests who are quite well-trained in the martial arts, including one who is mentally unstable but otherwise quite nice; hyenas, including one who is outcast from the tribe; slugs who can prophesy but not in enough detail to be helpful; the Shadowchild, who might be a demon, and the servants of a dead god. Oh, and the ghost of one of her ancestors.

Her wanderings and adventures are not safe, but they are entertaining. On the whole, Digger would rather be in her home warren, near her family, and digging good and useful tunnels.

For the reader, though, both the story and the art are a lot of fun.

In addition, there’s an excellent introduction by Patrick Rothfuss, a charming epilogue, and an original short story, about the building of the temple of Ganesha, about a thousand years earlier than Digger’s story.

I backed the Kickstarter for this 10th Anniversary collection.

Cider Reviews Lamb Tripe Treats

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Happy Fourth of July! A dog who is mostly indifferent to fireworks helps make it so.

Review by Cider: Lis got me this packet of Lamb Tripe Treats from our friend Paula, who does important stuff for the Greater Derry Humane Society. I could tell right away it smelled really good, but despite my best efforts I couldn’t get it open myself. Lis did it easily; I think she cheated this time. This kind is called “green tripe,” but I don’t know what other kinds there are.

So then she let me sniff one of the tripe thingies.

As I had suspected, it smelled really yummy! Lis says it’s made from a lamb’s stomach lining, and lots of humans don’t like it, but most dogs do. Cats, too. All I can say is, if you humans don’t like it, more for us hardworking service animals, mousers, credentials, and household companions.

Turns out they also break easily into smaller pieces, so “it will spoil your supper” will never be a valid excuse for not letting me have some!

With any luck, Lis won’t get much better at breaking them up. What are my chances, do you think?

I decided to go for the smaller piece first,

but I kept a close eye on the packet and the bigger piece, and got the bigger piece, too.

Fortunately, it turns out Lis wasn’t kidding about not liking it herself, and I got to finish off the whole stick!

It’s good to know that this is a healthy, chewy treat for both dogs and cats, who are I think the two most popular credentials and household companions here. I honestly don’t know if it’s good for birds. I suppose it might depend on what kind of bird.

But dogs and cats can enjoy it safely.

Lis Carey Review: James Moriarity, Consulting Criminal

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James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal, by Andy Weir (author), Graeme Malcolm (narrator)
Audible Studios, June 2017

Review by Lis Carey: I had no idea Andy Weir had written three short stories about Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis, Professor James Moriarty. But here they are, narrated quite competently by Graeme Malcolm.

The stories themselves are also well-written and fun. At least, as long as you’re okay with James Moriarty being, in fact, a very bad guy, and a cold-blooded killer.

These stories are told through the voice of Moriarty’s…friend? companion? assistant? audience for Moriarty’s demonstration of his brilliance? The companion and narrator mentions his suspicion that it’s because he owns a carriage, which relieves Moriarty of the expense.

The narrator is already a low-level criminal boss when they meet, due to a crisis involving the brothel he runs. It moves from place to place every night, and security is kept very tight, yet one night the police arrive at their latest location, and arrest all the women. Notably absent among the police who conduct the raid are any of the police whom the brothel owner is paying off.

The leak was one of his most trusted men, and there’s only a 24-hour period in which the betrayal could have happened. He narrows it down to three men, and can’t get a confession from any of them. He decides to ask the assistance of a “consulting” criminal he’s heard of, James Moriarty, already going by Professor Moriarty, though no one knows where his degree comes from. This is the first of the three stories here, and we see Moriarty’s basic approach to finding answers–the same as that of Holmes, very close attention to detail, along with deep knowledge of relevant subjects. We also see how coldly ruthless both men are.

In the next two stories, the narrator is already strongly connected to Moriarty, and Moriarty’s intelligence, observation, knowledge, ambition, and ruthlessness are on full display. In the first story, Moriarty is near the very start of his career. By the third story, he’s clearly on his way to becoming the criminal mastermind and head of the most dangerous criminal organization in London, Sherlock Holmes’ greatest enemy.

I can’t say there’s great originality here, beyond the fact of having the idea to write it in these stories in the first place. Yet they are solid, readable, enjoyable stories.

I bought this audiobook.

Lis Carey Review: The Sleeper and the Spindle

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The Sleeper and the Spindle, by Neil Gaiman (author), Chris Riddell (illustrator)
HarperCollins, September 2015

Review by Lis Carey: There are brave, hardy, loyal dwarves. There’s a beautiful young queen, never identified as Snow White, but there are at least suggestions that her backstory matches that one.

There’s a neighboring kingdom, on the other side of the mountains, where the dwarves, seeking a suitable gift for the queen’s wedding, find instead a strange sleep spreading across the whole kingdom. They also here of a princess cursed by an evil witch, sleeping in a castle surrounded by thorns, which no prince, no knight, no hero has ever penetrated, to save her.

Realizing there is an evil magic at work here, they head back through the mountains (yes, through, not over) to their queen.

The queen is about to be married, in just a day. She isn’t looking forward to it. Not that her fiancé is objectionable, but it means all the major choices of her life are made. No more adventures. When she hears the dwarves’ report, she delays the wedding, tells her first minister that he’ll be responsible for the kingdom in her absence. She then prepares her weapons, supplies, clothing suitable for an extended journey on horseback, and rides off with her dwarves.

This is not just a gender-flip of the hero; we also get a different view of the witch, her motive, and the princess herself. We also see the queen and her dwarves having to combat the curse themselves, not just ride through it because this is the right hero at the right time.

Riddell’s black and white art is beautiful, and gives more life to Gaiman’s storytelling, and twist on the Sleeping Beauty story. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

I bought this book.