Book Review: The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander
Brooke Bolander jumps from stories to novellas with The Only Harmless Great Thing, her #Tordotcompublishing novella. The novella is a strongly affecting and moving story that proves that her emotional strengths in reaching an audience do translate from her short stories to novella length. Brooke Bolander first came to my literary attention with “Our Talons can crush Galaxies”, her Nebula and Hugo nominated story in Uncanny magazine that mixed Gods, revenge and a very sharp, short package. When I heard that Bolander was writing a novella that was an alternate history that involved the radium girls, a part of history I only had the vaguest notions about, I was thus intrigued. What could and would the author do at novella length in an alternate history? I was not sure, but I wanted to find out.
Book Review: The Trials of Solomon Parker by Eric Scott Fischl
Eric Scott Fischl grabbed my attention in a big way recently with his harrowing debut novel Doctor Potter’s Medicine Show, and only tightened his grip on it with this follow-up. But once again, caveat lector. Just as its predecessor held considerable peril for sympathetic vomiters and those triggered by sexual violence, The Trials of Solomon Parker starts off with scenes of underground mine disaster so well-researched and vividly described that the claustrophobic or those living with PTSD might find it rough going. And then there’s that litany of other horrors, including domestic violence, that follows. Eek. Those who tough it out, though, have a reward in store for them that might even seem to carry a whiff of Kurt Vonnegut, or perhaps even Gene Wolfe, to it. For, like its predecessor, this is not merely a quality work of historical fiction. There’s Time Travel as well as copper in them thar hills!
Guest Post by Stephanie Burgis: Alternate History: Taking a New Path
I love historical fantasy, both as a reader and a writer – which won’t surprise anyone who’s read any of my first five novels. Three of them (forming the Kat, Incorrigible trilogy) were frothy, fun MG adventures set in Regency England; two of them (Masks and Shadows and Congress of Secrets) were dark, romantic adult fantasies set at different historical points in the Habsburgs’ Austro-Hungarian empire. My first three MG novels and my first two adult novels have been very different in tone from each other, but there was one thing all five of those novels had in common: They all approached historical fantasy as a secret history, in which magic worked discreetly behind the scenes of our real history books. (For instance, the opera house at Eszterháza Palace really did burn down in the historical year I wrote about in Masks and Shadows – but in reality, I very much doubt it was burned down by an act of dark alchemy! Or at least…that certainly wasn’t the official explanation that landed in any of the history books I read. 😉 )
Book Review: MJ-12 Shadows by Michael Martinez
Syria, in the Middle East, is full of turmoil. Violence, political chaos, powers outside the region meddling and backing various factions and individuals, only enflaming and extending the conflict. The government there is on the edge of collapse, as outside agencies and internal struggles threaten to destroy Syria entirely. Good people trapped in a horrible situation that there seems no way out of, and everything even the United States tries to do just makes it all worse. A novel detailing the modern-day tragedy there? Sadly, no. The year is 1949, and we are in the midst of an alternate history, a history where the end of the Second World War and the start of the Cold War was marked by the emergence of paranormally gifted individuals, individuals who are scooped up by the espionage apparatuses of the United States and the Soviet Union, as the game of espionage takes a fantastic turn.
Book Review: STEEL VICTORY and STEEL MAGIC by J.L. Gribble
This Sunday I featured Steel Blood for my first offering in the ‘A Book By Its Cover’ series of humorous fake reviews. I haven’t yet read this third volume in J.L. Gribble’s Steel Empires series, but I have read the first two novels, Steel Victory and Steel Magic. Seems the perfect time to write real reviews on them. In the most general sense, at least one part of that Steel Blood cover-inspired ‘review’ is correct. The Steel Empires series is a fusion of many different genre elements that make it hard to precisely classify. Urban Fantasy/Alternate History is the publisher’s cover labeling, and indeed the series overall recalls elements of The Southern Vampire Mysteries series by Charlaine Harris (the basis of True Blood), built into an alternate history world. But added into this melting pot one can also find dashes of post-apocalyptic SF and Steampunk. All of these elements don’t mix equally, or as successfully, but on the whole the two novels have character-driven and plot-driven fun that is as solidly written as the most popular urban fantasy series out there.
Book Review: Everfair by Nisi Shawl
Approximately nine years ago, while browsing a local library’s new release section, I came across Filter House. A short story collection by Nisi Shawl, its description and critical blurbs promised rich literary fantasy from a talented and distinctive voice that was new to me. Reading it, I realized that promise was no exaggeration. Filter House is significant in both its quality and its revelation of a culturally non-dominant perspective (particularly within the SFF community). Nominated for a World Fantasy Award and winning the James Tiptree Jr. Award, Shawl’s collection did not go unnoticed within the critical community. Yet, I somehow felt unfulfilled after completing the collection. I had no regrets reading it; I appreciated it. But it still baffled me in its unfamiliarity and its thematic focus. Its Otherness required contemplation, attentive to the subtle graces of Shawl’s writing and listening to her viewpoint. For me, one read-through wasn’t sufficient to fully experience it.
