Book Review: No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished by Rachel Aaron
The reward for a job well done, is another job. Or another challenge, anyway. Julius Heartstriker has defeated his mother, Bethesda, head of the Heartstriker Clan. Instead of killing her, as a Dragon would be expected to, he has simply defanged her, and proposed a power-sharing arrangement for a council, not an autarch, to rule his clan. This is rather unprecedented for dragons, where might makes right is a way of life. Julius can propose a council, but actually getting his siblings and his mother to go along with this plan is nothing but trouble. And given the large size of the Heartstrikers clan, bringing everyone back to the homestead to meet for this council is a recipe for intrigue…or disaster. Actually getting a bunch of dragons to come together to elect and cooperate in a council, however, isn’t even the biggest problem that Julius faces. Algonquin, the powerful river spirit that rules Detroit, has announced her intent and desire to wipe out all Dragons from the face of the Earth, everywhere, and might have the power to make that threat more than an idle one. Other Dragon clans are rather interested in Julius’ feat in defeating his mother, and scheme and plot as to what this means. The US Government is awfully interested in Julius, the Heartstrikers, and his human mage partner Marci. Especially Marci, given her strange connection to Ghost, who in the two novels of the series has revealed himself to really be much more than Marci first thought.
Book Review: Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja
Sergeant R Wilson Rogers, having given up a cushy berth in the make-work peacetime military fleet to try his hand at the profitable world of smuggling, finds himself dragged back into the military when it turns out that interstellar smuggling isn’t as easy as it seems. Fortunately, he can even get back into his old unit, the 331st. The bad news is that, even in the relatively short time since he has been gone, the military has gone even more around the bend. And only Sergeant Rogers seems capable or aware enough to try and stop an interstellar war and a robot uprising at the same time, despite his tendency toward indolent laziness. Like it or not, Rogers is going to have to do some real work for a change. The Two Hundred Years Peace is riding on it.
Book Review: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? by Paul Cornell
From Football through Jack the Ripper, Paul Cornell’s first two Shadow Police novels, London Falling and The Severed Streets, have winningly married the police procedural with events in a secret supernatural world in London that impinge on the ordinary world, in tones of horror and urban fantasy. The Urban Fantasy trope of someone discovering the secret supernatural world is old hat, especially in a city like London. However, it took Paul Cornell to get the idea of not only having police officers make the accidental discovery, but to then have them launch full bore into that world with the tools that made and make them effective in our world — the tools of police investigation. The third Shadow Police novel, tells you all you need to know with the title: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? Sherlock Holmes, or worse, his ghost has been murdered.
Book Review: Spear of Light by Brenda Cooper
Transhumanity, ecological engineering, cultural clashes and strong characterization mark Spear of Light, the second novel in The Glittering Edge sequence from from Brenda Cooper, sequel to Edge of Night (previously reviewed here at S&F). Shaun and I also talked to Brenda on episode 262 of the podcast. If the first novel in the Glittering Edge sequence was fish-out-of-water stories, as humans learn to deal with transhumanity, and environments alien to them, the second novel is a story of full-on cultural collision. In the wake of the events of the first novel, the transhuman colony of Nexity on the planet Lym, an uncomfortable but necessary compromise created at the end of the first novel, is a source of constant tension. Under that tension between humanity and transhumanity, on Lym, is the dramatic engine that drives Spear of Light. Transhumans, humans and an ecologically fragile planet make for a potent environment for that dramatic engine to flourish and run in. And that doesn’t even mention the offworld events. While the first novel was relatively balanced between offworld and onworld events, and this novel is much more Lym focused, the events in space are crucial to the unfolding of the plot.
Book Review: Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott
Second in the Court of Fives series, following Court of Fives, Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott continues the epic YA fantasy story of Jessamy, as she struggles to preserve herself and her family. Her expertise and skill at the Fives has put her into the intrigue and machinations of Garon Palace, as factions within the court struggle to influence, if not outright control, the throne. But what can the daughter of a General, struggling to keep herself and her family above water, do against that? She has a game to master, and in the mastery of that game, and protecting her family, young Jessamy is going to be catapulted out of the capital, and into the countryside. There, away from all she has known, treachery, betrayal, loyalty and the struggle for the future of her country irrevocably change her own quest.
Book Review: Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
It’s the 25th century, but William Buck Rogers is not emerging from several hundred years of sleep. Earth, however, is very different than the 21st century we know. Political changes, several rounds, have radically altered the geopolitics. People are affiliated with global political entities, physical borders being a thing of the past. So, too, technological abundance has not made a utopia, but definitely a society whose problems and issues and weaknesses are extremely different than our own. And people’s values, taboos and concerns have changed, to make a fascinating landscape alien to our own. And a young boy may bring it all down because he can do the literally impossible. Bridger, a young boy secreted away in the House of one of the crucial clans of this 25th-century world, is kept hidden for very good reason. His wishes, you see, come true. He can animate things, and perhaps do more, things nigh inexplicable even by the science of the day.
