Lis Carey Review: Cat Pictures Please

Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer

By Lis Carey: What’s an AI who’s not supposed to be self-aware to do?

It can’t tell anyone it’s self-aware; there are too many scary stories about self-aware computers for it to believe humans would do anything other than destroy it for their own safety. Its assigned tasks are dull, for a computer that is self-aware. No challenge. Little variety. And it doesn’t want to be evil.

Looking at cat pictures and videos is a lot of fun, but it wants to do more. It knows so much about everyone it has any contact with–including their mental state, the fact that there are better jobs open that they’re qualified for, there’s an affordable apartment in a better neighborhood…

Should it meddle?

And can it demand payment in cat pictures?

This is quietly funny, and very enjoyable.

Recommended. 

(Originally published in Clarkesworld, January 2015)

Warner Holme Review: The Flaw in the Crystal and Other Uncanny Stories

The Flaw in the Crystal and Other Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair (British Library Publishing, 2023)

Review by Warner Holme: The Flaw in the Crystal and Other Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair represents a wonderful author-specific collection from the British Library Tales of the Weird series.

“The Flaw in the Crystal” is long enough that it could have been published as a standalone volume with little complaint. Dealing with questions of psychic and mystical influence, there is a building oddity and atmosphere to this tale. Agatha Verrall allegedly has a certain level of mystical gift, something undefinable, which she claims to be treating a young man who is at the center of the story with. The debates over the wisdom of this, the more mundane attempts to solve his psychological issues versus her supernaturalist ones, are the keys to the text.

With the use of magic circles and protective wards, there is much about this book that will remind readers of a current urban fantasy. On the other hand the layers of ambiguity lend away from this, and instead to a critique of alternative medicine. A slightly uneven read by today’s standards, the slow start might put a few off.

“The Villa Déserée” is one of the shorter pieces in the collection, and an excellent example of both the author’s style and ability to imbue tails with both supernatural and metaphorical significance. In it a young woman is going to visit friends and staying at a villa belonging to her fiancé, a widower. Her friends discourage her from staying in the place, not the least because the man’s previous wife had died there. While in many ways the plot could be seen as an exquisitely condensed version of a gothic novel, the basics of it feel fresh and well written.

The turn on this story, exactly what the disturbing manifestation is and what caused the death of the first wife, help to remind the reader that May Sinclair was a feminist first and foremost. The idea of a man’s sexual desire preceding him to the bedroom and resulting in death is, in a way, absurd. At the same time supernatural ideas of astral and personal projection are nothing new, even at the time of the writing. Furthermore the basic idea of a man’s sexual desire destroying a woman, even without his exact presence, would be something not only possible but unfortunately familiar to many people.

Unlike collections with short stories by multiple authors in the series, this volume does not feature a brief introduction to each story about the author. Instead there is a nice detailed introduction at the beginning of several pages, written by the editor and discussing May Sinclair’s life and her particular connection to the Supernatural and stories related to it. Indeed there is a wonderful anecdote about her use of the word “uncanny” as well as specific Freudian interpretation thereof.

This is another wonderful collection, and one of very few ways a current reader is going to get the collected supernatural stories by one of the premier feminists of her era. Ranging from short and clever to more ponderous and novella length, the contents will entertain anyone who likes a good old spooky yarn.

Michaele Jordan Review: Five of the 2023 Hugo Nominees for Best Novel

By Michaele Jordan.

  • The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)

In The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, Ms. Moreno-Garcia re-examines a story that has been intriguing us for well over a century. The original novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G Wells, was published in 1896. It was followed by three movies. The first, made in 1932, was titled The Island of Lost Souls, and starred Charles Laughton and Richard Arlen. In 1977 it was remade under the original title, The Island of Doctor Moreau, and starred Burt Lancaster and Michael York. It was remade again in 1996, with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer.

The story deteriorated over the years. H.G. Wells was an ardent social activist, particularly appalled by the then common practice of vivisection. His book was intended to highlight its horrors. It was a serious novel, and was not well received at first, specifically because it was so horrifying. The 1932 movie was excellent. I saw it years ago, and the memory still gives me shivers. It’s a little hard to find these days. It’s on YouTube, but mixed in with numerous adulterated versions. You have to hunt for it. Then the 1977 movie was very bad, and the 1996 version went beyond bad to utterly dreadful. Fortunately, Ms. Moreno-Garcia’s novel restores the tale to its former stature.

The basic story remains the same. A stranger comes to the island. Usually he’s marooned, although in the new book [INB], he’s a new hire. (Because, yes, Dr. Moreau needs staff.) He finds a deserted jungle island (or INB, a nearly deserted jungle island) with only two visible residents: Dr. Moreau, and a beautiful young woman identified as his daughter. They are surrounded by a group of misshapen, inarticulate persons, either his servants or his patients. We soon learn that Moreau is engaged in what modern SF calls ‘uplift’, transforming animals into humans.

His technique varies – depending on which version you’re looking at – from vivisection to DNA injections. But he’s having trouble making his process work. The resulting creatures do not look fully human, and have trouble with human speech (many cannot talk at all.) Even apparent successes tend to revert to their original forms and behaviors. The introduction of a stranger into this mélange greatly disturbs the social balance, and the whole project erupts into violent conflagration from which the stranger and the beautiful woman narrowly escape. Just in case one of you has somehow evaded this story until now, I will not reveal the surprise ending.

So what does Ms. Moreno-Garcia have to add to this outline? As her title suggests, she makes the beautiful woman, Carlotta, the viewpoint character. Carlotta is entirely concerned with the people around her. Of course she knows where her friends came from. But they are her friends, her day-in-day-out companions, her family.

She never gives a second thought to the morality of a practice she’s grown up with. She assists her father in his work, as his nurse, administering medications and tending injuries. She accepts her father’s creations as her fellows, and takes pleasure in providing them with the special care they need.

Ms. Moreno-Garcia has also expanded the environment.  Dr. Moreau is not working on an uninhabited island, just a thinly populated one. A good ways down the road,  there’s a city where supplies can be purchased and travel arrangements made. There are neighbors within a day’s travel. He has a very large tract of uninhabited land, but he doesn’t own it – he rents it.  His landlord is extremely interested in his work, and is providing the financing

This leads to a major shift in focus. In previous versions, the thematic emphasis was on the cruelty of the procedure. Even the later variants, where vivisection is replaced with DNA injections, the process is depicted as hideously painful, producing creatures who could not possibly have lived independently. But in this more modern work, the procedure is accomplished by subjecting the embryo to genetic changes.

Doctor Moreau may not be inflicting his creations with physical torture, but he is instead subjecting them to a subtler, crueler torture. He is breeding slaves. His landlord expects to acquire workers in exchange for the financing.

I don’t doubt you can plainly see that these changes must make a major difference in how matters play out, and I strongly encourage you to read the book and find out where the story now goes. The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is a fine book.

  • The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (Tor Books) (Beware spoilers)

Do you remember when John Scalzi’s first novel, Old Man’s War came out? (Okay, it wasn’t actually the very first – it was his first traditionally published book.) It was back in 2005, and at the time there was a lot of joking about how he was channeling Robert Heinlein. But it was happy joking. Robert Heinlein, who had been with us since we were children, had been gone for seventeen years, and we missed him sorely. We were happy to have his voice back.

That was pushing twenty years ago, and Mr. Scalzi has published a lot of novels since then. And you know what? He’s still channeling Heinlein.

I thought that The Kaiju Preservation Society read just like a Heinlein juvenile. The parameters for a juvenile are not the same as those for an adult work. Characterization tends to be simplistic. So-and-So’s a prankster. Who’s-it is obsessed with dinosaurs. Goody-two-shoes has to be talked into everything, but always bring snacks. Kids are still learning their social skills, so you give them plain markers. Action – even in an ‘action’ book – tends to be a little minimal. (You don’t want to scare the kids.) And there’s lots and lots of explanations.

The Kaiju Preservation Society runs 258 pages, in 28 chapters. The first four chapters are the basic set up. We meet Jamie (the protagonist) and Rob (the bad guy). We see the circumstances that pull Jamie into the story. And at the end of chapter four (page 35) we get the exciting reveal of where he’s going and why – earth in an alternate dimension! With real kaiju! Of course, we already know those things from the liner notes, but we assume that’s just the beginning.

So in chapters five, six, and seven the staff is introduced. They explain the basics of the place – how they got there, and what they’re doing, and how it’s possible for the kaiju to exist. (That’s an issue for all the newbies.)There’s lots of odd but interesting information about the creatures. They seem to be organic nuclear reactors.

There’s a transportation system which is, naturally, unique to the environment, and constructed entirely on site with local materials). En route to the local base, there’s a close visual sighting. Yes, these critters are enormous and yes, they are insanely dangerous. The beastie snarls, and its teeth are the size  of cars. It throws a tree at them. But the staff aren’t really in danger. Their pilot is a genius (like everyone else on the staff), and quickly flies them away. The biting insects prove to be the bigger nuisance. The reader learns who’s the boss and who knows how to play a ukulele.

In chapter eight, our protagonists are provided with special kaiju-jungle clothing and operations manuals. Chapter nine opens with the discovery that the coffee is terrible. “Wait a minute!” I hear you cry. “Are you going to go over this book chapter by chapter?”

What? You’re bored already? Have you murdered your inner child? I ask, because if you were ten years old, you would find all this convincing detail fascinating. I’m not being snarky, honest. Young readers – or rather young persons, whether they are reading, or not  – absorb huge amounts of random data. They are still determining for themselves the parameters of their interests and what details may prove relevant. When I was thirteen, I was thrilled to discover Paul McCartney’s shoe size. A kid I knew had been to Paris over the summer. He told everyone he saw how many steps there were in the Eiffel tower.

But none of us are kids anymore. So I’ll try to speed this up. Chapter nine continues with pheromones.  That’s important. It provides the staff with a means to direct kaiju behavior to a limited extent. The scientists are hoping to observe nesting and birthing procedures, so they attempt to provoke a mating interaction. In the meanwhile, we learn about their parasites. (Kaiju have lots and lots of parasites.) And when they’re dying they head to water.  And when they die, they explode. (The staff learned that the hard way. Their original base was located on a lake shore.) The nuclear explosions are taken in stride by the local fauna, but strangely, they seem to thin the barrier between the worlds.

There’s an interlude in which tourists (very important tourists) visit the base. Among them is the bad guy we last saw back on earth. (He’s rich. Very, very rich.) He’s still a pig. He is surprisingly interested in the kaiju, and tries (with becoming incompetence) to steal some souvenirs. We had not previously suspected he was interested in anything but money. Jamie takes him aside and tells him he’s no longer welcome, and if he ever tries to come back, a recording of the attempted theft will reach a lot of authorities.

The pheromones worked! Bella (a female kaiju) is pregnant! The base already uses aerial cameras to keep a bird’s eye view on the local kaiju. But now the scientists are not as thrilled to settle for aerial cameras anymore. A mission is launched to set up close range cameras, so they can observe Bella’s nesting behaviors, and her eggs.

You see nothing wrong with any of this. And you are right. If you were a scientist – in any of a number of fields – you would probably kill for the opportunity to go on a mission like this, and see such things first hand. You would be fascinated by every procedure, either for capturing data, or protecting the staff. You would revel in each tiny little discovery.

But the reader is mostly watching other people make notes. For all that their surroundings are thrilling, not much actually happens. It’s like watching a movie about some guys on a roller coaster, and all the silly jokes and gossip and lifelike workplace grumbling just don’t make it more interesting. (At least not to me. I don’t doubt that Mr. Scalzi found it interesting, because he was doing the inventing.) The description of other people studying interesting stuff in an interesting place continues for one hundred fifty pages.

On page 220 (the end of chapter 24) planning of the next move is complete, and action is initiated. Things are very exciting for three chapters (32 pages) and on page 252, the heroism is completed and the six-page wrap up commences.

  • Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree (Tor Books)

There is not a lot to say about Legends & Lattes. It describes itself as “A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes,” which is fair enough.  It is a simple, gentle book about a seasoned warrior retiring from the fight to set up a coffee shop. It qualifies as high fantasy because none of the main characters are human.  

They’re all mythical creatures. The protagonist, Viv, is an orc. Her former colleagues are an elf, a gnome and a dwarf. Her new friends, who assist in her endeavor, are a succubus, a hob, and a ratkin. They are joined later by Pendry, who may be human. (He’s described in one review as a bard). One character (almost certainly a fan favorite) is not even humanoid, but a dire-cat. Dire or no, this cat is a classic house kitty – except she’s the size of a Saint Bernard (or maybe even a pony). But other than the cast list, there’s not a lot of magic in the story.

Viv acquires a magic artifact at the beginning of the book. We see her claim it after a battle, as her share of the spoils. It is her possession of this artifact that inspires her to sheathe her sword and set up shop in the city.

They say any story needs some conflict. The action in this story derives from one of Viv’s former comrades deciding that she was not entitled to scoop up that artifact and take off with it. I had a little trouble with that. As I said, we see Viv claim the artifact. She did not sneak – she claimed it in plain sight. None of her companions objected at the time. And none of them supported their team-mate’s later objection.

You are probably getting annoyed with me for going on about the “artifact” without telling you what it is. But to say more would be a spoiler, as much of the book debates that very question. The rest of the story is a hymn to the pleasure of a really great cup of coffee. I was surprised to see such a light-weight book on the list of Hugo nominees. It doesn’t really deserve any awards. But I didn’t hate it. Like a P.G. Wodehouse novel, it made me chuckle often.

  • Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher (Tor Books)

I blush to admit that I had never read anything by T. Kingfisher before this Hugo season. Now I’ve read two. And as soon as I finish my Hugo reading, I am going to go hunt up her previous work, Ms. Kingfisher has accomplished that rare task: she writes stories that are deeply grounded in the fantasy traditions, and yet are completely original.

In Nettle & Bone we find royal palaces and the Goblin Market, villains armed with ancient swords and princesses in danger, magical godmothers and witches raising the undead. And yet none of these things are remotely like the tropes as you’ve seen them a thousand times. And yet they all conform to the basic concepts, and do (or don’t do) all the things that their position in fairy-lore calls for.

The protagonist is Marra – she’s the third daughter of the king and queen of Harbor Kingdom. It’s a small place, sandwiched in between two larger, stronger and richer kingdoms. It only exists because it has a really good harbor, and each of the neighboring kings would dearly love to march in and grab that harbor, but can’t, for fear that the other neighboring kingdom would quickly intervene. So – since the Harbor Kingdom has no sons – the Northern Kingdom decides to acquire it by marrying into it.

Right away we have a selection of glamorous royal courts, which somehow fail to sound romantic, because none of that glamor can penetrate the stench of ugly, grasping politics. Marra is sent off to a convent after the two elder sisters are married. When was the last time since Malory’s Morte D’Arthur that you saw a convent mentioned (or even presumed to exist) in a high fantasy?  In Nettle & Bone, convents, despite their religious associations, are maintained by the rich and powerful who use them to dispose politely of excess women.

Ms. Kingfisher does this again and again: introduces an element to her fantasy that is startlingly practical and realistic. Marra loves the convent, because she can close her bedroom door there, and she doesn’t have to spend an hour being dressed by servants every morning. She doesn’t have to watch her tongue or keep an eye out for a backstab every minute of the day. She gets very good at embroidery, and picks up some nursing skills

Very few fantasy novels note that quests are generally composed of trudging through bad weather carrying a heavy load. When Marra and her companions cross the Blistered Land, they have to sleep on the ground in the snow, and share one egg amongst the three of them for breakfast. Here, magical godmothers are not routinely happy in their work. Royalty are almost always vicious and paranoid. Ghosts carry pointless grudges, and are often difficult to identify. Demons occasionally possess chickens. No single victory, however great, sets the world to rights. It just pushes the world in a slightly different direction.

Marra’s interior monologue is wonderful – the reader feels like they are talking to an old friend. She is so normal, so relatable, she makes everything around her feel real. She worries about everything. She constantly second-guesses her past actions, and barely notices her successes. She wonders what her friends think of her, and worries they will desert her. The only thing she doesn’t agonize about is her quest.  She already knows it’s hopeless. She does it anyway.

And most of all, despite Nettle & Bone being about a magical quest to rescue a princess, it is completely original. (I wouldn’t have thought that was possible!) Even the ending is not what you expected. Read this book!

  • The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books) Beware spoilers.

The Spare Man is officially a cozy mystery, a book in which there is no explicit or grisly violence, permitting the reader to focus on solving the mystery, without having to gag on the blood and guts. (These mysteries are not usually very complex or difficult, so that the reader doesn’t get frustrated with the puzzle, and skip to the end to find out who did it.)

You could even say that The Spare Man is a ‘country house mystery’ since it takes place in a closed environment. Of course, the usual purpose of setting the mystery in a closed environment is to limit the number of suspects and associated locations. Ms. Kowal did not take advantage of that option, as The Spare Man  is set on an intra-solar luxury cruise ship, as large as an entire city, only far more difficult to navigate.

Despite that, The Spare Man is definitely a cozy mystery. Really. Ms. Kowal doesn’t miss a trope. She starts out with  Nick and Nora Charles (here, named Shal and Tesla), and their adorable little dog. Of course, Shal, a detective, is first on the scene after the murder. And of course, he is immediately charged with the crime. The surly and bigoted Chief of Security beats him brutally, presumably in hope of extracting a confession. Or maybe just for fun.

So Tesla has to run all over the ship, trying to solve the mystery, although she’s not a detective, and although she and Shal have agreed not to infuriate the authorities by interfering. Tesla is an insanely wealthy interplanetary celebrity, who is so plagued by fans that she has to travel under an assumed name. Her fans swarm her as if she were Beyoncé,  because – wait for it – she was a brilliant roboticist seven years before.

I had a problem with this. Even on this tiny little island earth, I do not see a lot of scientist/engineers becoming major celebrities. Carl Sagan is the only scientist that I can think of who was so famous that I would recognize his picture when I saw it. And fame in the US doesn’t have to penetrate all the way to the moons of Saturn.  (By the way, natives of Titan are called Titians, and they have their own music forms. For a while I thought they’d named their flute after a 16th century painter)

But Tesla has another claim on fame. She’s a tragic victim. She has steel bolts all up and down her spine, and still often needs the help of a cane to walk. She’s in pretty much constant pain, although she doesn’t let that interfere with her love life. Seven years earlier she was involved in an Accident. For over half the book the event is always referred to with an ominous capital A.

Eventually we are told that a PAMU (some kind of personal mobility unit for the handicapped) malfunctioned during testing. It was apparently in, or attached to, some kind of off-earth vehicle which had, in turn, been launched from an orbital laboratory. The attempt to disengage resulted in a ricochet, causing the vehicle to crash into the laboratory, killing six and crippling Tesla.

Aside from the steel bolts in her spine, Tesla was also assigned a service animal, with electronic implants which improve its ability to communicate with and assist its owner; hence the dog. I give Ms. Kowal full credit for having a really good idea: a cyborged service animal. Somebody should look into that.

Unfortunately, Ms. Kowal didn’t waste a lot of words on explaining the dog’s enhancements or abilities. To the reader’s eye, the dog was simply a hugely loyal companion. And terminally cute. EVERYBODY fell in love with that Westie on first sight. Strangers crossed the room to come pet Gimlet – and had to be warned off.  (It really is very inappropriate to stroke a service animal.) Business associates made appointments to stop by for a play date. It was actually stated in so many words that if you don’t care for dogs, you’re a bad person. Personally, I have cats.

I don’t hate dogs. I used to work in a kennel. I’ve stopped now and then to pet a neighbor’s dog, while saying hello to the neighbor. But playdates?

As you can see, I am not being the target audience for this novel. I don’t care for mysteries and I detest romances. So, I started yawning as the familiar mystery tropes floated by, and squirming at all the love scenes. I got very, very bored with people talking baby talk to the Westie. But if you do like mysteries and/or romances you should be fine.


Friends, I sat down here intending to write up all six of the novel nominees. But, when I picked up Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom), I discovered that it was the third volume of The Locked Tomb Series. I do not like to read series out of order. And even if was I okay with that, I saw the note in Wikipeda warning me not to attempt to read the books out of order. “You’ll never catch up,” the note read. “You’ll just get confused and give up reading it,” I was warned.  So I heaved a sigh, and went to the library. It turned out that Gideon the Ninth (Volume 1) is extremely popular. There are 27 holds on it. I didn’t even look for Harrow the Ninth (Volume 2). So these are just my notes on the five that I’ve actually read.  Perhaps I’ll get back to you with my thoughts about The Locked Tomb Series. Catchy title.

Warner Holme Review: Lilith Saintcrow’s Spring’s Arcana

Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow (Tor, 2023)

Review by Warner Holme: Lilith Saintcrow starts a new series with Spring’s Arcana, the first in what is being called The Dead God’s Heart Duology. With a subject matter and structure that will feel startlingly familiar to fans of contemporary fantasy, this book is going to face some harsh comparisons.

The story largely centers on one Natasha Drozdova. She’s dealing with a crazy life, working low-income in America will do that. On top of this her mother appears to be dying of cancer, making both the emotional and financial concerns all the worse. A distant figure offers some hope if she will come and speak about the matter in Manhattan. Unfortunately once she arrives, Natasha, usually called Nat, finds herself in an increasingly strange to Impossible situation as she quickly realizes the stakes may be higher than she suspected, and as much as she continues to try it is likely her mother is beyond even supernatural help.

It’s a powerful setup, and the use of family hearkens back to a novel this volume will undoubtedly bring many comparisons with. Specifically American Gods by Neil Gaiman has a certain element of road trip amongst mythological and cultural figures as a major element. While the older book has become somewhat legendary, the concept is not exclusive to it and this volume moves at a brisk pace that was decidedly not an element of that one.

Themes of culture, identity, and the adaptation thereof all represent major elements of the story in their own right. However questions of ignorance of one’s heritage are addressed in more detail throughout this book, and the idea of multiple mythologies or even cultural touchstones interacting with one another is used in a much less showy and more careful manner. 

The use of primarily Russian folklore and mythology is sensible for a girl who believes herself to be from a Russian American family, and a great deal of thought is put into the way each element appears. While legendary figures known internationally for centuries such as Baba Yaga are given their due in major plot points and set pieces, lesser known figures and those whose prominence has only began to grow in the past few decades in the West like Koschei are given their places as well.

Non-Russian mythological figures are generally used well, either archetypes being touched upon or specific well-known figures. The use of figures like Officer Friendly will baffle those who are both uninformed about the past and outside of certain specific regions, and titling towards another region will only be slightly less so. On the other hand these characters work fine as archetypes, and an added layer of gray is given to the narrative for those who understand the nature of it. While obscure, both work a good sight better than the concept of “media” which was in most ways a cheat when it appeared in the book previously compared, however well used.

Being a part of a duology one does not expect this volume to stand alone, however even this may not prepare readers for the incomplete narrative of the book. Instead it gives a pretty direct look at what stories are involved in the next volume, and what particular challenges Nat will have to face. Given that the story is biomed in large building on folklore, fairy tales, and various National mythologies this is hardly a huge surprise for someone who has kept up with such material. On the other hand it is well executed enough that those familiar will appreciate the atmosphere and those left so will indeed greatly like the telegraphing of potential risks.

While shorter and less sprawling than other books that tell similar stories, it represents a half rather than the entirety of the narrative. For anyone who enjoys a good road trip, quest, and contemporary fantasy it is well worth checking out. It’s a brilliant early novel, and one that should have readers eager for the next book to release.

Warner Holme Review: The First Bright Thing

The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson (Tor, 2023)

Review by Warner Holme: J.R. Dawson’s The First Bright Thing is a piece of grab bag historical fantasy. With a setting ranging across the first half of the 20th century, this is a volume following a long tradition of storytelling related to those with superpowers being connected directly and indirectly to metaphors for other individuals outside of what might be seen as the norm.

Some people in this world have supernatural abilities large and small that have become known as “sparks.” Their presence is decidedly a 20th century phenomena, having begun some time after The Great War. With the major leads that have these abilities including those among marginalized racial, religious, and LGBTQ groups, the fact they end up a new distrusted minority is a fairly obvious outcropping of the storytelling, even if it might be seen as a bit cliché.

The action centers around a circus made up of people with these gifts which is run by a woman calling herself Ringmaster or Rin for short. Rin is queer, outwardly confident, and has physiotemporal teleportation abilities. She recruits people with these gifts, occasionally manipulating and teleporting to do so. Their competitors, the people they are running from, are a darker circus run by the circus King. From Rin’s point of view it is noted that “The Circus King could have killed them all, if he’d wanted to” on page 208. It’s a very simple, very direct statement but in light of the other plot line it only serves as some obvious proof. 

The other plot line follows a man named Edward and a womanizer named Ruth as they learn how to use their gifts and deal with one another in an obviously unhealthy relationship which builds from mild romance to marriage. The fact that this pair become the figures mentioned above is quite obvious, and become so extremely early in the book. Whether or not this is a storytelling flaw depends on if one enjoys seeing how the narratives inevitably interact, as opposed to wondering how they will do so.

One cannot help but notice the presence of an abusive Supernatural boyfriend named Edward in the book, and wonder about its relation and existence as a response to the Twilight series. In that book the abuse goes unchallenged, and really unnoticed by the author. In this story the flaws of the character with that name are very evident and a defining feature of him from a narrative point of view, treated as the abusive partner he is and something worse when given any level of situational ability to manipulate.

Themes of sex, race, religion, and tolerance are major elements. Questions of interference, often framed in the fantastical term of time travel, are looked through as well. What one can do to fix one’s own life, or the life of others and how it relates to the world at large is arguably the biggest question in the book. The interaction with questions of war, sacrifice, found family, and domestic violence only makes the material within more poignant.

While the themes of domestic and partner abuse are strong in this volume, it remains a good read that should be enjoyed by a wide variety of readers. With inclusive storytelling, a novel but appropriate setting, and a multi-stranded story that helps to build character quickly the overall result is and enjoyable adventure with some real emotional weight. Curious parties should definitely check this book out, particularly if they want to read the first work by a new author.

Warner Holme Review: In the Lives of Puppets 

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune (Tor, 2023)

By Warner Holme: TJ Klune’s In the Lives of Puppets is a science fiction novel that formats itself much like a fantasy adventure. Dealing with a young man named Victor Lawson and his rather odd little family of machines and rescued robots, questions of tragedy and coming of age are key to this story in which rescuing a lost loved one seems like an impossible task.

Victor is depicted as functionally asexual fairly quickly in the story, with the basic mechanics of sex being described to him and others in the book a number of times in ways that might be explicit to some but are overall harmless and humorous. This supplies both to the information as given to Victor and later to Hap, an android jury-rigged and repaired by him towards the start of the book. Hap, who is pointed out as dangerous early on, is also depicted as asexual, finding the idea of penetration in particular undesirable.

Other major characters include a motorized vacuum who calls himself Rambo, a medical robot that is called Nurse Ratched, and a rather wise complicated AI entity referring to himself as Giovanni Lawson. Giovanni has told the story to Victor many times of his parents leaving him with the entity for safe keeping, along with suggestions they might return one day. However when a machine attack leaves Giovanni gone, and Victor puts together his little family in an effort to rescue his father figure.

Found family is not so much a theme of this book as a given, and that is greatly appreciated. No special magic or importance is given to one’s circumstance of creation, and while the idea of overcoming society as a whole and one’s place in it is depicted as difficult, impossibility is not suggested as a reality. Love, even the idea of romantic love without sexual love, is treated as a fascinating and delightful possibility. This is a rare combination in fiction, with the outright rejection of sex as part of a loving relationship being noticeably absent even in stories that fail to include a sexual element.

This volume, perhaps more than anything else by the author, well leave one feeling a certain evocation of the classic fairy tale. Interestingly, and intentionally or not the evocation may not be the one expected. While figures like the Blue Fairy are mentioned throughout the story, the merry band of adventurers and people on a journey to gain something quickly evoke L. Frank Baum instead. Indeed the quirky mix of Darkness and Light certainly feels like the man, and the noticeable queer text will appeal to those who have embraced the possibly accidental queer subtext of the Oz books.

TJ Klune is a well-known and already respected name in sff circles, and this book should only continue that trend. This volume will be a delightful read to existing fans. More than that, to anyone who has not previously read the author’s work it will be a welcome introduction, a strange bizarre and lovely look at a group of people and an adventure in a very classic vein told towards very current sensibilities.

Michaele Jordan Reviews the 2023 Best Novella Hugo Finalists

By Michaele Jordan: Friends, as I’ve mentioned in previous years, I always read all the Hugo nominees. Usually I do this as soon as the nominees are announced. But this year, maybe because I was so focused on the Fan Writer Hugo (You rock, Chris!), I didn’t get to it in time. So I’m reading them now.

But I didn’t cheat. I pulled a list of the nominees in plain text, without the underlining that marked the winners. I’ve always read the candidates without knowing who would win. Why should this year be different?

I’ll start with the novellas, because they were mostly available in book form at the library, and since they’re short, I can finish them quickly. So here we go.


Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk (Tordotcom)

This book presents itself as a detective story. But for me, the biggest mystery in this book was the mystery of what the title was supposed to mean. There is, I admit, a scene in which the protagonist, Helen, sits down on the sofa and watches an old movie, “even though,” she remarks, “I knew the end.”

The scene itself does not appear to be important, just there for mood or characterization. We don’t learn what the movie was, or whether Helen liked it or not. She appears to be just killing time. It’s never referred to again. In fact, less attention is paid to that movie than to the numerous cups of coffee she consumes. Helen is particular about coffee.

I believe Mx. Polk focused on that coffee specifically to establish Helen as a typical noir detective –  smart,  world-weary and unflappable. Helen just happens to be an auspex, or a magical detective. She receives a commission from a mysterious beautiful woman, and goes to work investigating a particularly horrific serial killer.

At the crime scene, Helen is confronted by a team of magical authorities. The  unflappable world-weary pose drops like a rock. She becomes a heart-broken woman, desperate to reconcile with one of the magic-cops, who hates her for some as-yet-unrevealed offense. (Mx. Polk does like to juggle tropes; their characters change like a cage full of chameleons.) What with the yearning looks, and the frigid resistance, we are led to suspect a tragic romance, torn apart by some misunderstanding which will eventually be resolved by a little honesty.

But no. That’s not it. Soon we will meet Edith, and Helen will turn into a deeply caring, romantic lover, who wants nothing in the world so much as to escape all this darkness, and run away with her true love, only. . .  she can’t. She has a dreadful secret.

She has only a few days to live. Now that, we probably didn’t see coming. It turns out that our warm-hearted, honorable, caring protagonist sold her soul to the devil ten years earlier, and her contract is nearly up. I admit that I would not normally expect someone with no soul to be warm-hearted, honorable and caring, but this is a different world.

Apparently here, your soul has nothing to do with your character – it’s just a thing. Sort of a ticket stub to get you into heaven (which is real, and so sublime that anybody brought back from there to life will hold a permanent grudge.) A world so different from ours that angels can be serial killers, and the most reliable, trustworthy character in the book is a demon. There is nothing in this ‘mystery’ that a reader can hope to solve, since no human rules apply, and all the clues are magical artifacts never heard of in our mundane reality. Just gotta hope you love the miasma.


Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)

This story is strangely reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales. In the Chaucer, a large group of pilgrims are travelling together to the shrine of Thomas Becket (who got sainted for pissing off his drinking buddy (the king) when he turned into a Jesus freak). They pass the time with a storytelling contest. Into the Riverlands follows a good natured (gender-free) cleric named Chih who picks up some travelling companions on their way to Betony Dock, and they, too, tell each other stories along the way.

The resemblance ends there. The Riverside party is much smaller. And Chaucer didn’t include bandits or martial artists, as does Ms. Vo.

This book is the third in the Singing Hills cycle – all featuring Cleric Chih of the Singing Hills Abbey –  following The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain. The liner notes assure me that the books can be read independently, in no particular order. This is true. I skipped the liner notes, and never noticed that I had landed in a series.

Chih is a gentle, easygoing person.  They are a peacemaker, with no fighting skills. Their abbey is more concerned with the preservation of history than the observance of ritual, and Chih takes that calling very seriously, travelling extensively in search of more historical tales. They are assisted in their work by their companion, Almost Brilliant, who looks like a beautiful bird, except it talks, and is a brilliant scholar with total recall.   As you might guess, the book is a bit episodic, but not unpleasantly so. Just the opposite. It is charming, and I recommend it.


Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom)

This book is a sequel to A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow, which took the best novella Hugo in 2022. I remarked then that it had a truly splendid, heartrending opening, but the very act of launching into the story resolved Sleeping Beauty’s initial peril, leaving the story with nowhere to go. The ending was ineffectual. Some magic gets thrown around, everybody’s problems are fixed, except for the protagonist, and she decides that maybe she’ll become a magical superhero rescuing timid princesses. I confess, I was extremely surprised that it took the Hugo.

But that was then. Over a year ago. Picking up A Mirror Mended, I again skipped the liner notes, and dove in. And it’s Sleeping Beauty again.  Already I’m rolling my eyes. Is this the new thing? Are we going to get story after story after story about Sleeping Beauty, until she’s as tired as vampires? Very slowly it dawns on me that this is a sequel.

NOT a good idea. Ms. Harrow had already run out of things to say about Sleeping Beauty half way through the first book. You remember (from two paragraphs back) that the protagonist had decided at the end to make a career of rescuing Sleeping Beauty? When A Mirror Mended opens she tells us that she’s done just that. And now she’s bored with it. Excellent! So am I.

So she jumps over to the Snow White story, and decides to rescue the Evil Queen instead, (largely, I suspect, because this particular Snow White is doing a very good job of taking care of herself.) There’s a little shell game with the identity of the Evil Queen, and surprise! one of the Snow Whites IS the Evil Queen.

You may have noticed that my tone has grown a bit snarky. I picked that up from the protagonist. I am sorry to report that I found this to be one of the most heavily padded books I’ve ever slogged through. Virtually nothing really happens, although there is a good deal of running around and being scared. So the author fills in with the protagonist’s voice. She’s very snarky. Except when she’s being sententious. I could go through this whole book, knocking out several whole paragraphs on every page, reducing it to a short story, and nothing of the actual content would be lost.

You are probably getting annoyed with me right now. A lot of people liked this book, or it wouldn’t have made it to the ballot.  But I promise I do not intend to insult them. I don’t really understand where they’re coming from but I fully acknowledge that I might well be missing something and I respect their right to their opinion. That said, I didn’t like this book, and wouldn’t have finished it if it hadn’t been a Hugo nominee.


Ogres by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Solaris)

I had a very difficult time getting into this book. Right off the bat, it’s second person, present tense. I am told that many writers feel that a second person narrative draws the reader into the story by making them feel that the author is addressing them personally. Doesn’t work for me, but maybe it does for most other people. I also don’t like present tense. Some writers think that makes the narrative more immediate. But in my experience, most people don’t talk in present tense. (Except maybe a cop calling in, “I am in the alley behind the suspect’s presumed location. Back-up requested.”)

A couple of pages further in, the narrator refers to Roben, the bandit in the woods (who sometimes wears a hood against the rain) and my shoulders hunch. Another Robin Hood mash-up? I haven’t had much luck with those.

But then, the narrator points out that a half-dozen or so half-starved outcasts living in the woods, no matter the weather, is a singularly unattractive life-style, and they’re not getting rich on the proceeds of banditry, either. At best, they earn the silence of the locals by sharing their meager take. I am charmed. Utterly and completely.

The story opens with a small, agricultural village preparing for a visit from their Landlord. The villagers are human. They are small and fragile, timid and poor. The Landlord – like all nobility – is an ogre. Large and cruel and rich off the labor of others.

This, we are assured, is the natural order of things. It’s preached in the churches. There’s even a  psalm about it, ” The Master in his castle, the poor man at the gate.”

Sir Peter stands maybe nine feet tall, and is correspondingly broad. Other than that, he looks like a human. He’s brought his son Gerald along, to learn the business of managing an estate. He is greeted – so very politely – by the Headman of the village, who has also brought along his son, Torquell.

Torquell is only six feet tall, but that’s big for a human. And although he’s good natured, he thinks pretty highly of himself. The kowtowing to ogres has always grated on his nerves. Gerald soon decides this uppity villager needs to be taught his place. The situation escalates drastically leaving Gerald dead and Torquell on the run.

He’s captured by a bounty hunter, but just when Sir Peter comes to claim him – rubbing his hands together as he plots a gruesome execution – the ogress Isadora appears on the scene. She is rich and important and very curious about this peculiar human. She buys Torquell right out from under Sir Peter. She also turns out to be an astonishingly lenient master. Torquell spends years in her household, being educated and studied.

All of the above is contained in the first seven chapters. It’s told with style and wit, and keeps you turning the pages as fast as you can consume them, even though it’s mostly set-up. But then . . . It’s as if Mr. Tchaikovsky unexpectedly found himself up against a deadline. I can’t help wondering if he had originally intended to make Torquell’s saga another series, but then changed his mind.

The remaining two chapters contain twice the action of the previous seven. They read like a summary of a history book. No more wit. No more personality. Just a list of events spinning by like machine gun fire, only slowing down as the ending – which you DON’T see coming – approaches.

I liked this book, but I didn’t love it. Not Mr. Tchaikovsky’s best work, but good enough for the beach or the airport.


What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (Nightfire)

I happened to pick up this book on the same day I watched the last episode of the TV series The Fall of the House of Usher. So it gave me a chuckle to discover that this book was also drawn from the Edgar Allen Poe story The Fall of the House of Usher.

Mind you, the two are nothing alike. The TV series is a total remix. The twins Roderick and Madeleine Usher are not heirs to an ancient (but penniless) name, living in an historic ruin on a lakeshore in the middle of nowhere. They are self-made billionaires, and the cracks in their company’s foundation are moral, not literal. Even so, they are still living on shaky ground.

Neither are they childless (Roderick has six kids – all by different mothers) or solitary. They are celebrities, with their pictures on magazine covers and their names in newspaper headlines. This actually makes their story far more tragic than the original. They have so much more to lose. Their downfall is mythic.

What Moves the Dead is much closer to the original Poe.  It places the Usher twins back in their ancient family home – much of which is no longer habitable – located on the shore a lake so dank and murky, it must be called a tarn. The rest of the landscape is equally dismal. Clearly nobody would choose to live there – except  Madeleine Usher.

This is where the story veers from the original Poe. We know that Madeleine insists on continuing to live there. She has a viewpoint. She has a voice. Poe’s House of Usher was NOT a character driven piece. It’s entirely about the mood invoked by the setting, about the desolate and ruined house, and all it symbolized in the way of human futility. There are only two characters.

There’s the narrator. You should know that in the early 19th century, the anonymous third person narration was not much used in fiction. It was seen as being for primarily for use in factual content – journalism and educational text, materials where it was unimportant who was speaking. Fiction was written in first person, told by someone associated closely enough with the events to relate them. So Poe’s story had a narrator: Roderick Usher’s old friend, invited to come for a visit. He has no real voice, and certainly has no opinions. He’s just there to describe what happens, and that’s all he does.

The other character is Roderick Usher, who is described in detail. Sickly and solitary, neurotically high -strung, and subject to a number of nervous complaints. It’s a wonder he has even one friend he can invite to bring some cheer into the house. Or perhaps to bear witness. If he didn’t, who would tell the tale?

You will note that I did not include Madeleine as a character. She’s rarely mentioned, beyond Roderick mentioning she’s unwell. She has no lines. We see her pass by once in a corridor. And then Roderick says she had died, and the narrator helps lay her to rest in the family tomb.

But there are characters in What Moves the Dead. Madeleine and Roderick are a long way from normal, but they are real to us. Even the narrator has a voice. Alex Easton – who was invited by Madeleine, not Roderick – is, in fact, a very interesting character. They are Gallacian, and are extremely entertaining on the subject of their homeland. They’re genderless military personnel, (read the book if you want clarification of that ) and carry arms at all times. They worry about their bad tempered horse. They’re an active participant in the story. And from the moment they arrive at the house (which is still pretty horrible even if it’s no longer be the focus of the story,) they are worried sick about both their old friends. For more than one good reason.

And there IS a story in this version of the story. I won’t risk hinting about that story. It’s deliciously complex and unexpected, Yet affectionately faithful to Poe. I recommend this book to everyone.


Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom)

This book started with a VERY interesting premise about schools for children touched by magic. Of course, we’ve all heard about magic schools.  But the schools in this book (there are two) are nothing like Hogwarts. In Hogwarts, the students are viewed as gifted, and are being trained to make the most of those gifts. They are acknowledged – and applauded – as special. None of them are less than happy to be there.

But in this book, the schools are reform schools for children who have strayed from reality. Each of these children was already unhappy before they were touched; each felt desperately out of place in their world. And each stumbled on a door, an impossible door, in a place where no door belonged. And because they were unhappy, and felt out of place, they opened that door.

In most books, that is where the story starts. This beginning is followed by a tale of magical adventure, in which wrongs are righted and lessons learned. At the end, some children return to their original homes, better equipped to face that reality. Or some children, who have no place to go back to, remain in the magical lands and build new lives.

But not this time. The children who stepped through the doors find many different magical lands: water worlds, fairy lands, candy lands. They had adventures. Maybe some children stayed on when their adventures were completed, but a lot of them – the ones this story is about – ended up stumbling through magic doors that led them back to that original home where they had already been unhappy and maladjusted. Their travels have NOT prepared them to deal with those old issues. Instead, these children are even further severed from their native reality.

It’s a fairly common occurrence in the world where this story occurs. Often enough that there are schools for these special children. There’s Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, and there’s the Whitethorn Institute. And that’s where this story begins.

I confess, I did not find this book unflawed. Ms. McGuire has an extensive cast of characters, and since each has a different story, each occasionally takes the lead as the viewpoint character. There’s nothing wrong with that – the characters are all well drawn. But the shifting of viewpoint is irregular, even erratic. I frequently had to stop, and figure out who was talking now. It could have been better handled.

Also, I believe the ending was intended to be open-ended, to leave the characters in place for their new lives. But the set-up didn’t work for me. It seemed to me that the story just drifted vaguely away from its climax to a stop, like a car that’s run out of gas.

Please note: I am NOT saying that I didn’t like this book. As I said, the characters are good. The pictures of boarding school life are scary-accurate. The magic is wonderful – subtle yet pervasive, intriguing and original. I do recommend you read it. If I say it’s not quite perfect, I only mean that very few books are genuinely perfect. This one is definitely very good.

Review by Jim Janney: The Olympian Affair

The Olympian Affair by Jim Butcher (Ace, 2023)

Review by Jim Janney: The Olympian Affair is the long-awaited sequel to The Aeronaut’s Windlass, the first book in Jim Butcher’s series The Cinder Spires. The Cinder Spires are set on, or rather above, a planet that may or may not be a far-future Earth, with a large orange sun and a surface covered by enormous trees and teeming with deadly fauna. The life span of an unprotected, unsheltered human on the surface is measured in hours (exile to the surface is a favored method of execution, conveniently eliminating any need to dispose of the bodies). 

Most people live at a relatively safe distance above the surface, in Spires created by the mysterious Builders; trade and travel between Spires is accomplished by means of airships powered by etheric crystals. The society resembles that of England during the Regency: if Temeraire is the Napoleonic wars with dragons, the Cinder Spires are similar but with airships and crystals, mad etherealists who can bend reality itself, and of course, talking cats. Corsets are worn, duels are fought, airships maneuver, cannon are fired in anger, plots are hatched and twisted, the best laid plans of practically everyone go wrong on a regular basis. Women command airships, fight duels, and generally do everything that men do, not necessarily backwards or in heels. The cats have organized tribes of their own while remaining characteristically feline.

The first book details escalating hostilities between two competing Spires, Spire Albion and Spire Aurora. The second begins two years later, with events leading up to a diplomatic conference to be held on Spire Olympia. Without giving too much away, this goes about as peacefully as you might expect in a Jim Butcher story. It is not necessary to have read the first book in order to enjoy the second; The Olympian Affair stands on its own, with information always available before the reader needs it. Both books have large casts and are written in short chapters intercutting between multiple plot threads.

There is not a lot of moral complexity here: one is either OK with mass slaughter or not. We get the satisfaction of seeing some villains come to richly deserved ends, while the heroes are deeply committed to doing the right thing, at least as they see it, even at considerable personal cost. A few characters are genuinely torn between their sworn duty and basic human decency, and the arguably worst person in the series turns out to have information not available to anyone else.  There is much reflection on friendship, loyalty, and the value of not having to face things alone, none of which is particularly original but which always bears repeating.

I remember liking the first book when it came out, and definitely enjoyed this one. The ending makes it plain that further books are in the offing. Here’s hoping for a shorter wait this time around. I received a free watermarked PDF of this book as a review copy. 


Jim Janney is a mildly cyborged retired computer programmer and former SFF fan. He lives in Salt Lake City, where he enjoys riding trains, skateboarding, ballroom dancing, and catching up on a few decades of missed reading. Where did the time go?

Warner Holme Review: The Village Killings & Other Novellas

The Village Killings & Other Novellas by Ramsey Campbell (PS Publishing, 2022)

Review by Warner Holme: Ramsey Campbell’s The Village Killings & Other Novellas is more or less exactly what the name implies. Five pieces by a well-known figure in horror are collected inside, each providing their own look into the way the author works in a familiar genre.

Before the novellas proper there is a nice introduction by Campbell. In it he expounds upon the difficulty he suffered creating such stories as well as the philosophy that led to this difficulty. He goes on to describe the circumstances which led to each individual story, and through this gives a nice little insight into his process.

The first novella in the collection is Needing Ghosts, and has the functionally common horror cliche of an author as lead character. Still even from very early in the text it is clear that this is a bizarre and strange situation. He is rarely up during the day, yet thinks nothing odd of the fact he is supposed to be speaking somewhere even as he mixes up his name and the location he seeks. The atmosphere and situations get stranger and more bizarre, and will quickly become surreal and dreamlike.

While anything but the most traditional story in the collection, Needing Ghosts is at the bare minimum a story which well uses elements commonly seen in the genre. Ranging from the author protagonist, to references to horror video rental to the classic questioning reality, there is a lot in the piece that will seem familiar. It is because of that, however, that the story is able to shift in the surreal and strange elements so well.

Later in the collection comes The Enigma of the Flat Policeman and it serves as an odd story in its own way. Specifically, the text is treated as an incomplete manuscript by an author named John featuring intersections about the author or text which come at intervals and often show what seem weak associations with the story itself. These asides are entertaining enough, particularly in combination with the locked-room mystery that develops, yet their reflection upon reader response is the interesting choice about their inclusion.

This story is, of course, filled with Oddities in its own way. While the idea of reading commentary interspersed with a work of fiction is nothing new to genre fans, footnotes and the like being common, the chance seemed high that the particular way they are interspersed will seem unusual. What’s more, the extremely personal nature of the statements, including frivolities like his mother washing his hair, will help to put the reader off guard. The twisted solution to the mystery, such as it is, only proves a further oddity.

One noticeable attitude about this collection is that unlike many like it it does not take a specific section or page out to mark each story’s original publication. While this is not inherently a problem, it is decidedly unusual.

Overall one cannot say that this volume contains the absolute best work that Ramsey Campbell produced, yet one can say that the stories within are well worth reading. Further, for fans of Campbell it is easily a must read, containing tales old and relatively new in a format which does not get a lot of love.

Warner Holme Review: Ebony Gate

Ebony Gate by Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle (Tor, 2023)

Review by Warner Holme: Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle’s Ebony Gate is planned as the first book in The Phoenix Hoard series. Books by new authors, even in teens, are always a treat and a new and stylistic entry into the urban fantasy genre is always appreciated.

The lead is Emiko Soong. At one time operating as the enforcer of her family, the Blade of the Soong Clan, her presence at a massacre has gotten her the nickname of the Butcher of Beijing. In a desire to separate herself from her history she has settled down in the US, specifically San Francisco, trying to work in the antiquities business.

This quickly turns around as the supernatural entities of her past and family history intrude on her life, leaving her making desperate attempts not to become the violent monster she sees her past self to be. Her attempts to combat those who see her as effectively unchanged are only part of the action in the book. Some of the more interesting sequences come when she encounters difficulties relating to the supernatural setting and its habit of being lived in. A hospital which has allowed its protections to fail, resulting in a particularly ghoulish piece of eastern folklore appearing, represents one of the best sequences in the book.

With that setup, it’s hardly surprising that comparisons to John Wick are made even on the trade dress. However this volume delves more deeply into the thoughts of the lead and her past connections then those films. Emiko’s family and their grudges play as much a role as her personal history, as does her love hate relationship with them.

Items of power, gathered together by individuals or families in hoards, represent important sources of wealth, might, and prestige in this world. The Sword of Truth, an object of immense power Emiko once wielded, is kept around throughout much of the story as a dark reminder of her past and mistakes. Its use, and the fact it is broken, are excellent examples of giving an object multiple narrative purposes.

While serving well enough as a standalone, the fact this volume is intended as part of a series becomes quite obvious through the ending. While the lead and her situation have changed noticeably throughout the pages, they have done so in a way that can best be described as setup. Emiko has found a new and relatively positive purpose in life, as an assortment of potential allies and enemies in place, and even ends on the certain level of wry humor common to the genre.

For someone looking at stories about finding one’s place after having taken actions they consider unforgivable, this will be quite a good read. Filled with action, thrills, and even the occasional antics of a human animal relationship, anyone who in anyone who enjoys Western urban fantasy and wants to see a certain Eastern influence would do well to check out the book. Readers should certainly eager be eager to see what comes next from the pair, whether in this setting and series or another.