Book Review: Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron
As the daughter of two powerful magic users, big things are expected of Arrah. However, while she is able to see magic, she has never manifested signs of having any herself other than a natural resistance to mind-influencing spells. When a friend of hers disappears as part of a spate of child kidnappings, Arrah takes desperate measures…
Month of Joy: Favourite Photos of 2019
Well. 2019 sure was a year, wasn’t it? I must admit I found it a tough one. It was the kind of year that wore me away and built a wall between me and my words. So, I’m going to let my photos do most of the talking. Here are some of my favourite photos I took in 2019. Last January I went to the zoo to take photos with a family member on a special visit with the meerkats. Here is one of the sentinels keeping an eye on things.
Book Review: The Year of the Fruitcake by Gillian Polack
Could chocolate somehow bring about the apocalypse? Does a group of middle-aged women hold the fate of humanity in their hands? These are some of the many questions tackled in Gillian Polack’s new science fiction novel, The Year of the Fruitcake: or Aliens with Irony. It’s a complex, fiercely feminist narrative that tackles issues of colonialism, cultural appropriation, and the marginalisation of women.
Book Review: The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie
Pride month might be over, but it’s never too late for lesbian pirates and kaiju. However, don’t expect fluffy YA romance from The Abyss Surrounds Us. This is a post-apocalyptic YA sci-fi that follows a tradition of tackling darker topics. Where The Hunger Games looks at living under an oppressive regime and In the Dark Spaces addresses being the sole survivor of a massacre, The Abyss Surrounds Us tells a tale of emotional manipulation and abuse. It begins with climate change. The oceans have risen, the flood walls of New Orleans have fallen, and the governments of the world have split into smaller territories. Ostensibly, these splits were intended to make it easier to protect these smaller population clusters. However, some people always fall through the cracks, leading to a pirate problem in the NeoPacific. Cassandra Leung is a teenager from the Southern Republic of California. Her family is part of the world’s solution to the plague of pirates. They breed and train Reckoners: giant, genetically-engineered sea creatures created to protect their bonded ship. The Reckoners have proved a very useful solution thus far, albeit one that relies on a delicate ecological balance. The creation of Reckoners is carefully monitored so that enough food can be engineered to feed these monsters without disrupting the rest of the ocean’s ecology. In order to preserve both this ecological balance and the political power balance, Reckoner handlers are expected to protect the secrets of their industry with their life, if necessary.
Book Review: CATCHING TELLER CROW by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina
The Aurealis Awards are Australia’s premier juried award for speculative fiction and were presented today in Melbourne. I had the privilege and delight of being part of the jury for the Best Young Adult Novel category. That particular award went to Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina. I wanted to share a bit about this fantastic book, but please note the opinions here are my own and do not reflect the rest of the jury or the Aurealis Awards at large. Catching Teller Crow follows Beth Teller, who died in a tragic accident several months ago. Since then, she has been helping her father, a police investigator who is struggling to cope with his grief. His boss has sent him to a rural Australian town to oversee a case in which a children’s home burned down, claiming one adult victim. It should be a straight-forward job, something easy to facilitate a return to work for Michael Teller after his bereavement. But of course it’s not, as the Tellers discover when they begin interviewing Isobel Catching, a teenage witness.
Book Review: Descendant of the Crane by Joan He
Descendant of the Crane is a Chinese-inspired YA fantasy novel about politics, leadership and sacrifice. When the King of Yan dies suddenly, Hesina knows her father has been poisoned. In order to launch an official investigation, Hesina must take her place as the queen—no easy task when this involves gaining the approval of her mother. Plus, any ruler of the Kingdom of Yan faces a number of troubles. Whole villages are disappearing without a trace along the border, but Yan’s philosophy prevents the country from going to war. Within the capital there’s rumours that the soothsayers, the magic users who propped up the previous regime of profligate emperors, aren’t as dead as once thought, and neighbours begin to turn on each other. Hesina must somehow balance these concerns with her quest for the truth about her father’s death and her growing awareness of treachery from within her court.
