Category Archives: Book Reviews

Warner Holme Review: Firsts & Lasts

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  • Firsts & Lasts, edited by Laura Silverman (Penguin Workshop, 2023)

Review by Warner Holme: Laura Silverman’s Firsts & Lasts is a themed anthology with a rather wide scope. While at first glance the concept is of covering important final and starting actions in life, the titles themselves often make it quite clear that this book goes beyond the normal by a good range.

“The First Time I Dated a Vampire” by Julian Winters deals with both death and romance in different measures. This is hardly a surprise given that title. A young queer POC named Tyrell is planning to watch a movie, something with a loose connection to a departed father. A cute young man working there, Sean Kam, is odd. Irritable pale, passionate, and cold skinned the twist with him is obvious even without the title. Coming to terms with change, and loss, and how the two are deeply interconnected is a surprisingly strong theme of the ensuing date.

The fact the author is familiar with Atlanta seems obvious, yet the story’s setting of Santa Monica feels quite well drawn. Further the pop culture references include more than a little bit of geek culture both celebrated and derided (Twilight being the big example of the latter.) While the racial and LGBTQ+ associations of wanting to be in groups because it is safer comes up in the story, one has a little trouble not thinking about how for many associated with geek culture at one time or another there was much similar policy in individual circles.

Kika Hatzopoulou’s “The (Hopefully) Last Demon Summoning” is another tale featuring classic supernatural creatures. Nina is the lead, and goes to school with a fair number of openly supernatural entities like half vampires and were-creatures. She also has feelings for a friend named Gino, and the pair are moving into very different directions after school. In her desperation she made contact with the titular entity, and now it is coming back to haunt her.

Change and fear are the main themes of this story, along with a certain degree of loss. They are dressed up in a very genre plot however that doesn’t even begin to disguise them, instead merely to give a face to self-sabotage. The idea that letting go may or may not be necessary, but one cannot simply hope that stagnancy is a good thing, is well expressed.

As with many anthologies there is a very nice “About the Authors” section which gives a respectable paragraph on each individual who provided a story. The acknowledgments are well written, not overly brief taking up about a full page of their own.

This is a solid anthology, one likely to introduce many readers to new authors. While this pair of stories is only a small sampling, it does illustrate the deftness with which the short pieces handle their themes and characters. Even without the ages of the characters the fact that this is targeted towards a YA audience is clear, however a wide variety of readers are likely to enjoy it. Recommended to curious parties, or those looking for an anthology along these themes.

Paul Weimer Review: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny: Volume 5: Nine Black Doves

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The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny: Volume 5: Nine Black Doves, Edited by David G. Grubbs, Christopher S. Kovacs and Ann Crimmins (NESFA, 2023)

Review by Paul Weimer: Nine Black Doves is the fifth and the penultimate volume in the six book NESFA series collecting the short fiction of Roger Zelazny.

When last we left the career of Roger Zelazny, Zelazny was starting to work his way writing through the Amber novels, and that, and other considerations meant that his short fiction output had continued to steadily decrease. In Nine Black Doves, we continue those trends, as the period of his work and life covered ranges from 1982 to 1990.  Let’s dig in.

 Amber comes up in a lot of the biographical materials here (although substantial work set in and about Amber per se will be in the sixth and final volume). Lots of other things are going on with Zelazny besides Amber (although it is looming ever larger) although I now really do see how weirdly backwards I got exposed to his career. The Zelazny of the 60’s and 70’s, writing the short fiction and mostly singleton novels is a different beast than someone working on what would ultimately become a 10 book series. I started with Amber and worked forward and back, but for readers who had been following “all along”, I can now see their point, and their unhappiness, as to how Zelazny’s career turned out.

And this is something Zelazny himself addresses at one point, talking about how his career is always about him trying new things, new forms, new ideas, and new experimentations. Zelazny is a writer who was always trying to “find new boundaries, only to break through them”. The Amber series itself can be seen of a piece with that, but more substantive discussion of Amber should wait until the sixth volume. Let’s put a pin in that, for now.

But speaking of experimentations, one of my favorite Zelazny works, and one where he was challenged and then challenged himself, is one of my favorite Zelazny stories, “24 views of Mt. Fuji by Hokusai”.  This is a very atypical story for Zelazny in that it has a female protagonist at its center. It’s an interestingly crafted tale, with our main character Mari traveling to various viewpoints of the mountain on her own personal pilgrimage, and slowly revealing how and why she is doing it, and the force opposing her.  Along the way with the technological entity that she faces, we get all sorts of literary allusions (including to the Mythos), a couple of different SFF styles of story and much more. It’s wildly ambitious and succeeds on every level, and it was a welcome friend to read again. 

We also get the pre-novel finale set of Dilvish stories here, as well. I can well see, after reading Devil and the Dancer, Garden of Blood, and the eponymous Dilvish the Damned just why Zelazny at this point decided to write The Changing Land and finally have Dilvish have his confrontation with Jerelak after all. The stories do not tire and do not get old, but in an aggregate, after a while, I could see why Zelazny would wonder “Well, when IS he going to catch his white whale, or die trying to do so?”  I do think that Dilvish has unfairly not been part of the genre conversation of sword and sorcery (The famous Appendix M of the 1e Dungeon Master’s Guide mentions Jack of Shadows and Amber, but not Dilvish specifically. A missed opportunity there by Gygax, I think).  I do think that some OSR game out there could be inspired by this set of Dilvish the Damned stories and run with some of the ideas, here. 

There are a number of shared universes that intersect with Zelazny’s work at this point. This is no surprise because the 1980’s are the height of the shared universe trend in science fiction and fantasy. It’s nothing new for Roger, of course,  Zelazny has always been collaborating, as we have seen. Here we get a small boomlet of them. We have a story in Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers universe. We get a Niven Magic Goes Away story set in the modern day. I’d read the Magic Goes Away story (“Mana From Heaven”) and it is an old favorite of mine. I don’t previously reading the Berserker story. (“Itself surprised”). This was, of course, another clever Zelazny story playing with the premise.

And then there is of course, the one that is still ongoing, and that is George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards. Zelazny had missed the Thieves World saga and he had regretted it. So when Martin asked him to join Wild Cards, he did with both feet. Famously, Zelazny created one of the more memorable, and potentially powerful characters in the Wild Cards verse, but circumstances meant that only a couple of those stories (by Roger) ever gotten written. This book collects “The Sleeper” and “Ashes to Ashes”.  

 “The Sleeper” introduces us to Zelazny’s character and his origin story, and slowly lets the character and the reader figure out his superpower. As it turns out, Croyd Crenson is a teenager who gains the ability to randomly change his powers, appearance, status as an Ace or a Joker, and even his personality between cycles of what amounts to hibernation. This makes him potentially the most powerful character in the entire Wild Cards verse, and he has an enormous flexibility as a result.  He loves his family, and wants to be there for them, and is afraid of them slipping out of his life through his involuntary hibernations. He’s functionally immortal, as a result, but it is an often pathos filled immortality.  While others have run off with the character in the two decades since, these two stories give us the original and undistilled version of Croyd, who he is and what he does. 

It should be noted, fittingly, that we get a remembrance of Roger Zelazny as a person and his work from George R.R. Martin himself. I find, personally, reading these as these volumes march toward his too-soon end of his life, that I feel them becoming more poignant and melancholia-inducing in me. This is not Martin’s intention, mind, but something I bring to the series and to these remembrances. We also get a lovely remembrance from Melinda Snodgrass, as well.

In addition to those, we get a good assortment of other odds and ends here. Outlines for COILS, which he would eventually collaborate on with Saberhagen. An outliner and a bit of a world document for his Alien Speedway shared world series, which sadly and tragically never was completed. A good selection of poetry, and, once again, a biography of the relevant period of Zelazny’s life covered by the publication of the stories. As you might have guessed, given his smaller short story output, this volume’s essay on his literary life by Kovacs covers more chronological years, 1982 to 1990, than in any of the previous single volumes (except for volume one, of course, which goes from his birth to 1961).  

With just one volume left to go, I look forward to, in the sixth and final volume, completing the literacy legacy and history of my favorite SFF writer. And, oh yes, “completing the cover art” that is spread across the volumes of this series. 

Stay tuned. 

Warner Holme Review: The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle

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The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle by T.L. Huchu (Tor, 2023)

Review by Warner Holme:  T.L. Huchu’s The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle is a continuation of the author’s Edinburgh Nights series, once again following Ropa as she attempts to deal with the rich and powerful in the Scottish magical scene while also pleasing her personal patron, only for bodies to start piling up. It’s an obvious but quite enjoyable setup which can easily expand in any number of different ways.

Class, race, and other excuses for bigotry are a major portion of this story. Ropa is attacked and looked down upon for it of course, a continuing theme throughout the book yet that is only the beginning of the use of themes in this particular story. The continued presence of characters like Francis Cockburn as individuals with a personal hatred of Ropa on such grounds is only reinforced by such characters as Montgomery Wedderburn.

More than even the previous volumes in the series, there is a strong anti-Scottish cultural streak in this book. That is not to say it is bigoted or jingoistic, but instead merely that any Scottish organization is depicted as both out of date and corrupt. While there may be some truth to this, there is for most organizations that are significantly old and have any level of power, the introduction of new branches to help make this point has a mixed effect. Specifically, Ropa finds a new Council of sorts complicating her life when she has the allegedly leading figure of the Society of skeptical inquirers as her personal patron. Sir Ian Callander is, suddenly, not nearly as powerful as depicted previously. The idea of organizational changes causing this might be interesting, but a group called The Extraordinary Committee are instead responsible, and it seems they have suddenly always existed. 

Given that this is the third book in the series, and Ropa began the series as a teenager it does seem strange she hasn’t managed to learn any significant facts like this. Really, it’s something equivalent to discovering after living in a place for a couple of years that there is a court system, with the idea you would have been completely unaware of it simply because you were friends with the Prime Minister. Odd, foolish, and with a character who’s supposed to be frequently skeptical and experienced about the regular world it’s utterly bizarre that she wouldn’t have considered such a possibility.

The book very much reminds how an author and series can grow. The first book in the series, The Library of the Dead, is far more flawed and difficult read in comparison, while in several ways sporting much the same structure and better characters. The social commentary in it is stronger, with fewer negative and probably unintentional implications, then in the proceeding books as well. The lead has become a more likeable individual, and her support for her friends more understandable.

Fans of the series should definitely check this book out, however new readers might find themselves a little lost. The book takes a little time to catch readers up, just as it gives hints to a potential new status quo in the following upcoming volume. However even on its own it’s a decent read, merely one with a lot of orphaned references. To someone looking for a book that isn’t traditional urban fantasy but never steps far outside of it, easy to recommend.

Warner Holme Review: Wild Spaces

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  • Wild Spaces by S.L. Coney (Tordotcom, 2023)

Review by Warner Holme: S.L. Coney’s Wild Spaces is a novella at its longest, and a short and bittersweet piece dealing with concepts ranging from family to Lovecraftian horrors. While a book handling such disparate concepts is certainly nothing new, it is nonetheless impressive both due to style and the relative brevity of this work.

Teach is an adorable dog rescued by the young lead and reluctantly accepted by his parents. Fitting with the classic archetype he is a pretty Inseparable companion of the young man as he notices the oddities of his family and surroundings, before discovering how he is changing as well because of them. While Teach and the parents, as well as in disturbing and often dangerous grandfather, play major roles in the story they are not by any means the leads.

The young man is given a fair bit of focus, yet kept deliberately opaque in terms of a great many of his details. The most obvious of these is that names are avoided whenever possible, leaving him largely identifiable as “the boy” even while the occasional mention of an actor or piece of culture reminds readers that proper names do indeed exist. In fact even local names, such as the page 92 mention of a young woman named “Lissa Martin” who represents a first somewhat physically romantic encounter for the young man. This is well sandwiched within other statements, and the concept only serves to make it disturbing in decidedly atypical ways.

There is a question asked of many books, like this one, with a dog on the cover. That is whether or not it lives. In this particular situation, that’s not nearly as easy to answer as someone might have hoped. Nonetheless in one manner and another the book begins and ends on the animal. The status of the dog is a character and not merely a plot device is relevant throughout the book, however the separation various individuals feel is well illustrated by the fact he is given a proper name when most individuals appearing in the pages of the book as characters do not receive such a detail. This seems not sloppy, but instead used for the purpose of reminding readers of different types of isolation as well as pushing into the cosmology of a child where a dog will be remembered more for a given name than a parent.

At around 120 pages this is not a long read, and will likely be finished in a single sitting for many readers. There is a quiet elegance to much of it, a sad and disturbing tale of discovery that exquisitely uses concepts pioneered and popularized by Lovecraft in a way that would make Bradbury proud. This one is easy to recommend to curious parties, in no small part because of its length and quality. That said, the tastes of the reader will always make a difference, and the feeling of this story lending so much towards both strange everyday life and using the grotesque in the style of a fairy tale give it a style that will remind readers of many things but not quite map to any of them.

John Hertz Review: My Brother’s Keeper

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  • My Brother’s Keeper by Tim Powers (2023)

Review By John Hertz: (Reprinted from Vanamonde 1590)

It’s a Tim Powers story. Strange things are happening early on.

It’s a Tim Powers story. “Nothing is revealed” does not apply.

On the Andrew Davis front cover of the Head of Zeus edition a bookshop got for me William Gibson says, “Tim Powers is a brilliant writer”. The back cover has “A masterly, compelling … tale … among the greatest fantasy writers – Dean Koontz”. Both true.

It’s 1830. Three children — nowadays we’d probably call them pre-teens — are at Ponden Kirk, a crag of sandstone rock on Haworth Moor, West Yorkshire, England. It really does look like two stacks of gargantuan petrified books. Go and see it if you dare. The first of the three to speak, and a page later the first to be named, is a boy. Since the book begins, and this Prologue opens, with poems by Emily Bronte (1818-1848), you guess this Branwell is her brother (1817-1848). Right. He says “This is exactly how it was in my dream”. Since the fifth line of the poem beginning the book is “A mute remembrance of crime,” you guess he is unreliable. Right again.

Classically speaking, tragedy does not come by accident. Someone does something wrong, seemingly trivial then, which turns out to have crashing consequences.

Branwell involves Emily and her sister Anne (1820-1849), and their father Patrick (1777-1861). The portrait of Patrick Bronte in the National Portrait Gallery of London shows he really did wear his neckcloth like that (ch. 2). Branwell really did leave a portrait (also in the NPG) of Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily, and Anne around a ruddy pillar he painted over a portrait of himself (ch. 8). Emily’s concern for him — as we’d call it nowadays — is one reason for the title.

Emily tries to help a wounded man on the moor. When she comes back he is gone. We see him again, though he is not the protagonist any more than Branwell. Christianity is triune; we keep meeting people — gods — knives — that are biune. Minerva is here. So are promises, courage, and the wages of sin.

So is Ogham, the ancient Celtic tree-alphabet. So is another Keeper. So is invitation.

Nabokov (1899-1977) said “To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.” Bearing that in mind, Powers explains things. Why did Emily, Anne, Branwell, die young?

Daniel Dern on Steven Brust’s LYORN: A Non-Plot-Spoiler Shortie

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Review by Daniel Dern: LYORN is the seventeenth novel of a planned nineteen by Steven Brust — which can, according to author, be read in any order: in the order written/published, or according to their internal chronology, or as-you-please. Brust said in the notes for The Book of Jhereg, “I made every effort to write them so that they could be read in any order.” I recommend the first of these methods, as much as possible.

Note that Brust has another half dozen or so novels in the same universe — the Dragaeran world, with many of the same characters, I dunno what if any mega-reading-order is, if any, best.

In Steven Brust’s fantasy series about Vlad (short for Vladimir) Taltos (pronounced tal-tosh), “a short-statured, short-lived human in an Empire of tall, long-lived Dragaerans,” (per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Brust#The_Dragaeran_books.)

On page seven I came upon this:

(Stop reading here if you’d rather be surprised!)

Continue reading →

Lis Carey Review: The Mimicking of Known Successes

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  • The Mimicking of Known Successes (The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti #1) by Malka Older (Tordotcom, March 2023) 

Review by Lis Carey. Holmesian mystery! Sapphic romance!

Earth is no longer habitable, or perhaps, not yet habitable again. The surviving remnants of humanity are living in colonies in orbit around Jupiter. Mossa is an investigator assigned to investigate a man’s disappearance at a rail station. She follows the limited evidence about him back to the university town of Valdegeld — where her former girlfriend, Pleiti, is a scholar working on the re-terraforming of Earth. Awkward as it will be, she needs to talk to Pleiti to get the information she needs to investigate anything in the cutthroat academic politics of Valdegeld.

It’s an awkward reunion indeed, but Pleiti is ready to help her.  

The academic politics are even more complicated and vicious than Mossa thought.

Rekindling her relationship with Pleiti is possibly even more complex and difficult.

The man’s disappearance is entangled in the academic conflict over the right way to terraform Earth. Mossa is a coolly analytical, very observant researcher. Pleiti is smart, capable, but with more emotion and connection to other people.

Together, they make a great team. Whether their relationship will rekindle, and be solid, remains open to question.

A satisfying mystery, in a genuinely sfnal setting.

This is a 2024 Hugo Awards Best Novella Finalist.

Paul Weimer Review: New Adventures in Space Opera

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  • New Adventures in Space Opera edited by Jonathan Strahan (Tachyon, 2024)

Review by Paul Weimer. The Jonathan Strahan-edited New Adventures in Space Opera places a big marker on the definitive anthology heralding the newest iteration of New Space Opera.

Space Opera, as Strahan notes in the introduction, has gone through a number of iterations, evolutions and attempts at definition, some more serious than others (Norman Spinrad’s description of Space Opera as “straight fantasy in science fiction drag” is not quite as far off the mark as one might think). But the amusing thing is that, there have been several times that there has been a next crest of space opera, another “New” Space Opera. The previous New Space Opera hit the field in 2003, and Strahan edited The New Space Opera and The New Space Opera 2 at that time.  

Here, now, in the 2010s and the 2020s, we have yet another new iteration of a “new” Space Opera, another stop on the journey of the subgenre. Strahan notes that this is a time where “the fascination with empire faded and its terrible impact was more deeply interrogated.”  He thus marks Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice as a herald of this latest iteration of space opera, and also notes the “pulpy energy” of works such as Guardians of the Galaxy.  

It is in this spirit, and this mode, and this energy that Strahan seeks to chart the New Adventures of Space Opera in this volume. And we get a strong set of stories by a wide variety of authors exploring this latest set of dimensions of Space Opera.

I’ve always thought an anthology like this (or any anthology, really) needs a strong opener and a strong closer. The first story is going to dictate whether you are going to continue on to the next story or start randomly skipping stories or go off and play Balatro instead. The last story in an anthology works like the anchor in a relay race. Done right, it leaves you in a good place for the anthology as a whole, and you are far more likely to remember. “Hey, Strahan is a good editor. What’s his next anthology? Or one I missed?” 

So with that in mind, the opener for the anthology is Tobias Buckell’s “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance”. It is, as one might suspect, set in his diverse and wild Xenowealth space opera universe, and centers around the relationship between a robot and a CEO. It’s a story about the rich and powerful trying to escape punishment and retribution, and willing to try and manipulate a robot and its rules and laws in order to do it. The robot’s solution to the dilemma raised by Armand is ingenious and clever. 

For a closer, Strahan picks Karin Tidbeck’s “The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir”. The conceit of putting fake television shows, series, podcasts and other media as codified by Martha Wells in the Murderbot Chronicles is now standard furniture in the new space opera. In this story, the story of the Andromeda Station tv show’s narrative is point and counterpoint to the story of the titular ship Skidbladnir, a living biological ship which itself feels like a callback and a call out to Farscape’s Moya. It’s a story in rapturous and joyous reference and dialogue with recent space opera. It’s a story that is designed to get you “dancing out into the streets” after you have finished the story, and thus the anthology.  

 And there are a meaty set of stories in between these two. Some of the highlights include:

“Extracurricular Activities”, a Yoon Ha Lee story set in the Machineries of Empire, following the story of a special forces operative/spy. It’s funny, it’s sexy and it is queer, and paints a corner of their Empire verse in the familiar colors of the novel. T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) comes in with a story, “Metal like Blood in the Dark”, that feels like it is as much in dialogue with fairy tales (particularly Hansel and Gretel) as it is with the new space opera, as a pair of constructed sentient machines learn some harsh life lessons. 

 “The Justified”.  Here we have an Ann Leckie story, and a corker of a one. It is NOT set in the Ancillary Justice universe and instead borrows from Mesopotamian and Egyptian myth and religion as much as space opera and science fiction tropes. And it definitely fits the mission of the new space opera as outlined by Strahan in critiquing and analyzing the consequences and problems of Empire.

Charlie Jane Anders’ “A Temporary Embarrassment of Spacetime” is a sexy and funny story of an unusual pair of aliens that start off trying to escape a giant space blob. And things get really weird. And yet it is also a heartwarming story of found family that has resonances with a lot of other found families in space opera. And it definitely has the pulpy energy of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Aliette de Bodard comes in with a Xuya story, “Immersion”, that is a devastatingly powerful story about colonialism, language, customs, cultural assimilation and assumptions and much more. It has a sharpness that can be missed in some of her other stories and novels. The story cuts its themes into a reader, ruthlessly, even through its veneer of politeness. 

These and the other stories in the volume together are an excellent representation of what space opera is doing in the short-of-novel space. Space Opera is hard to do at short lengths, and short fiction in general these days has a lot of challenges in publication and reaching readers. This anthology brings together a set of stories that you may have missed. New Adventures in Space Opera gives you another chance to become part of the continuing genre conversation within Space Opera.

Lis Carey Review: Mammoths at the Gates 

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  • Mammoths at the Gates (The Singing Hills Cycle #4) by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom, September 2023)

Review by Lis Carey: Cleric Chih travels widely, gathering stories, with a talking hoopoe bird. The hoopoe, Almost Brilliant, has perfect recall and serves as Chih’s neixin, ensuring that the stories will be retained perfectly, even as Chih records them on paper.

For the first time in years, Chih and Almost Brilliant are arriving home at the Singing Hills Abbey, to add their stories to the archives, and to rest. But there have been some changes at the abbey.

Cleric Thien, mentor to Chih and others when they were young and still new to the abbey, has died. Thien’s hoopoe, Myriad Virtues, is mourning as only a being with perfect memory can, and it’s been somewhat disruptive. 

More disruptive than that, however, are the royal mammoths at the gates of the abbey, and the two sisters demanding the return of the body of their grandfather, once the patriarch of the Coh clan of Northern Bell Pass. Which is to say, the body of Cleric Thien, who intended to be buried according to the rites of the Singing Hills Abbey, not those of his former clan.

The granddaughters are not taking no for an answer, and the mammoths, if given the order, could crush the entire abbey, including all its treasured archives.

Chih finds themself, with less assistance than usual from Almost Brilliant, needing to learn a great deal very quickly about the clan, about Thien’s history both before joining the abbey and since, and about the history of the hoopoe. What’s Almost Brilliant doing instead? Spending a lot of time with Myriad Virtues, helping, comforting and maybe something more.

I’ve loved all the Chih and Almost Brilliant novellas. In this one, because Chih themself needs to learn more about the abbey’s history, there are some fascinating additions to the reader’s understanding of what they are all about.

This is a 2024 Hugo Awards Best Novella.

Lis Carey Review: Thornhedge 

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  • Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor Books, 2023)

Review by Lis Carey: We have a princess, sleeping in a tower. The tower is entirely surrounded by a tall, thick, dangerous thornhedge. We know this story!

But no, this is T. Kingfisher, and she does strange and wonderful things to fairy tales.

Our heroine is Toadling, born in the tower, but stolen away by fairies, and raised in the warm waters of faerieland, in the loving care of the toads. And then she is summoned to go on a mission, to make a blessing on a newborn princess in the tower, to prevent harm. Such a simple mission. What could go wrong?

Everything, really. Starting with the fact that the queen thinks she’s come to steal the baby princess.

Toadling finds herself committed to staying to keep the child out of trouble. Or trying to, because the child is the problem. Toadling finally sends the princess into a long, long sleep, after events I shall leave you to discover for yourself. Watching over the sleeping princess and making sure no brave and hearty heroes find and rescue her may not be exciting, but it is, mostly, peaceful. Except when it’s not.

And then comes the first in a long, long time. A knight. A Muslim knight. He is, for reasons, obligated to save the princess. Toadling absolutely must prevent this. They are both intelligent, reasonable, and very likable people.

How can both goals be satisfied? Can either be satisfied?

It’s a lot of fun.

This is a 2024 Hugo Awards Best Novella Finalist.