Book Review: THE RAGE OF DRAGONS by Evan Winter
Evan Winter self-published The Rage of Dragons in 2017. It soon received notice from an editor at Orbit, and in 2019 the publisher gave a freshly edited version of the novel a release, along with a deal for three further novels in its series entitled The Burning. The second novel of the series, The Fires of Vengeance, has recently been released, and a copy I picked up of that from my local bookshop (for this purchase, the aptly named Burning Books) now sits on my massive TBR stack. If you’re a regular follower of Skiffy & Fanty, you probably have already at least heard of The Rage of Dragons and its author. We featured Winter in episode #53 of the Signal Boost series (found here), and my fellow reviewer Paul Weimer praised the novel on Goodreads and Twitter. Paul even included it among books recommended to his followers at the start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, right as we all began self-isolating and looking for worlds to escape into within pages. (Also: see Paul’s review on Barnes & Noble here).
Book Review: FKA USA by Reed King
Marketed as a cross between The Wizard of Oz, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Road, and Ready Player One, Reed King’s FKA USA chronicles a misfit cast’s perilous and irreverent road-trip across the variegated geopolitical landscape formerly known as the United States of America. Published under the acknowledged “Reed King” pseudonym of a bestselling author and TV writer, the novel presents itself as an unabridged and annotated memoir composed by protagonist Truckee Wallace between 2086 and 2088 about events he experienced a year prior. With an irreverent tone lampooning social and political issues, the novel puts a lot of disparate ingredients into one romp of a tale. Its ultimate success for any given reader will largely depend on the type of humor they appreciate.
Book Review: VELOCITY WEAPON by Megan E. O’Keefe
Over the last few months, I’ve rediscovered just how spectacularly fun a good space opera can be. Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire had me hooked from its start, and reading Laurence Suhner’s captivating Vestiges has me baffled that no publishers have picked up her Quantika series for translation from the French to English. In addition to those, space opera fans can now add Megan E. O’Keefe’s Velocity Weapon to the to-read list. You may already recognize O’Keefe’s name from her successful steampunk fantasy, the “Scorched Continent” series, or you may have already caught the interview with her by Paul and I for the Skiffy & Fanty podcast. Her first book in The Protectorate series, Velocity Weapon is a well-crafted interplanetary adventure full of twists and turns, compelling characters, and irresistible teases of an expanded terrain for the chapters to come.
Book Reviews: THE CALCULATING STARS and THE FATED SKY by Mary Robinette Kowal
Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series began in 2012 when Audible.com published her novelette “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” within RIP-OFF, an original audiobook anthology. The Hugo-winning story subsequently saw print. Since then, Kowal has revisited the universe of that novelette with additional short stories, including “The Phobos Experience” in an issue of last summer’s The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Additionally, she has also taken the story back to its “origins,” starting a series of Lady Astronaut novels with The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky. The third novel in this series, The Relentless Moon, is due from Tor Books in 2020, meaning that you have plenty of time to catch up if you haven’t yet experienced this series of positivity and hope. Combining alternate history with science fiction, the series tells a story both progressive and uplifting. At the core of the series lies the principle that if space is the future of humanity, then the process of humanity’s movement beyond the confines of Earth should involve all elements of that humanity. The stories are about the societal and technical challenges that face the characters involved in reaching that goal of colonizing alien worlds. Starting chronologically in 1952, Kowal takes elements of history and spins in an imagined catastrophe to set in motion an alternate timeline where the space program could be built differently, perhaps with more diversity. The establishment of that diverse representation proves as great of a challenge for humanity as do the physical threats against extra-planetary survival. The Lady Astronaut series depicts its characters overcoming these challenges, one step at a time.
Book Review: A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE by Arkady Martine
Yes, Paul Weimer already delivered a ‘squee-tastic’ review of Arkady Martine’s debut novel, A Memory Called Empire, here earlier this week. But this novel is so notably brilliant that it’s worth fueling that hype with even more squee. Martine’s debut includes nearly all of the elements I would potentially look for in a great science fiction novel, balancing each of them to hit so many positive notes that I suspect other readers will find it just as elegantly captivating. Until now, I’ve never gotten to read a new release and think: This deserves to win all of the awards. I cannot fathom anything else coming this year to approach this level of achievement. Compared to Paul, I’m not as broadly read in the genre, and I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t even read Dune! I did, however, grow up adoring the novels of Asimov, and the space opera setting of A Memory Called Empire immediately drew my thoughts to his linked series. Martine takes the philosophical and political-historical intellect underlying the best of Asimov and refreshes the out-of-date social and cultural perspectives of his works. Several others have also drawn comparisons to the more modern Imperial Radch novels by Anne Leckie. While I liked Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, the narrative voice of Martine’s novel and the themes addressed through its plot resonated even stronger with me.
Book Review: THE CURIOSITY KILLERS by K.W. Taylor
Years have passed since the second American Civil War split the nation in two, and physicist Edward Vere now devotes his time in the New British Empire to time travel technology, all while limited to the mostly Victorian-era technology that this portion of the former United States is permitted. During an experiment, a spacetime bridge opens between Vere and historic aviator Wilbur Wright, who is working with similar experiments in his own time. Perfecting the technology, Vere enters into a business partnership with historian Benoy Johnson. Together they start a time travel service for select individuals (references required), facilitating clients to go solve mysteries of the past as observers. However, there is a catch: upon returning, a client will be debriefed and then have their memory wiped to ensure that the technology or the ‘natural’ secrets of time do not spread to the public.
