Book Review: Behind the Throne by K.B. Wagers
Behind the Throne by K.B. Wagers takes a familiar idea, the fish out of water, from a distant part of a galactic empire, and updates it for a 21st century mentality and enlightened point of view. In not all, but many works past, the protagonist would be male, it’d be a patriarchal empire ruled by a King, Emperor, what have you. Women would have at best secondary roles, with even the occasional strong female character having a relatively unexplored interior life, and certainly not a full-on point of view that gives us her real story (I’m looking at you, Princess Leia). A man’s world, where men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. Some novels and novelists have tried to buck this sausage fest of space opera in the past. Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta series, for example. Some of Debra Doyle’s and James D. MacDonald’s Mageworld novels feature a strong female protagonist front and center. Even with these exceptions, Space Opera and space adventure have for decades been overwhelmingly a male-dominated and male-catered affair. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo cast long shadows indeed.
Book Review: All Good Things by Emma Newman
I was introduced to the writing and the work of Emma Newman by means of Between Two Thorns, an urban fantasy novel. I don’t normally read much urban fantasy as a general rule, but I was taken by the small stories Newman wrote in support of the novel and that world, and by the writer herself when she came all the way from the U.K. to attend a local convention here in Minneapolis. I was enchanted by her writing and her personality, and resolved to read all of her work henceforth. That decision led me to read more of the Split Worlds, as the series has come to be called, so I read Any Other Name and All is Fair, the second and third books in the series. When Newman, in conjunction with her husband, started Tea and Jeopardy, what is now a Hugo award-winning podcast, I started consuming that as well. Other writing efforts took the author’s time, and I started to read those wonderful SF efforts as well.
Book Review: Buried Heart by Kate Elliott
All good things must come to an end, and with Buried Heart, author Kate Elliott brings to a conclusion the YA Court of Fives trilogy. Talking about plot developments in the third and final volume of a trilogy is difficult and perhaps foolish to try, so I will instead discuss the essential theme of this volume, one that has been slowly surfacing through Court of Fives and Poisoned Blade, but here gets its full fulminating flowering: Revolution. In Buried Heart, Efea’s oppressed status, something that the author has been delineating from the very first chapter of Court of Fives, comes out in full force. Of course within the potential revolution of Efea against the tyranny that holds it is the struggle of powers around it, and the struggles of the current royal occupants to hold the throne against kin and family. The first two novels, which suggested that Jessamy, the Spider, would be subsumed into that dynamic entirely, prove to have been a false flag. In the third volume, Jess finds herself caught between father and mother, her lover and her land, and must make often difficult choices as the people of Efea struggle to reclaim their freedom.
Book Review: An Alchemy of Masks and Mirrors by Curtis Craddock
In this first novel in his Risen Kingdoms series, Curtis Craddock is coming at us like the love child of Alexandre Dumas and Frank Herbert, possibly as fostered in his youth by Scott Lynch. It’s a helluva combination, and I don’t make a comparison like this lightly. If you’re a fan of any of those authors, or of intricately plotted fantasy that’s full of surprises, well, grab onto a restraining rope and climb aboard my airship. That’s right, I said airship. The fantasy world of the Risen Kingdoms is one of floating continents*, some thickly settled, some just discovered. Travel between them is by airship — but don’t think this is steampunk. I said Alexandre Dumas, not Jules Verne! Our heroes are a Princess and her faithful King’s Own Musketeer (see?), who quickly learn that, while neither has been of much value in their native land or to the local ruling family, both now have grand destinies, because the Princess has to go marry the Prince of a rival nation and might become that nation’s queen one day, and her musketeer must go with her to continue his life-long charge of Keeping Her Safe.
Mining the Genre Asteroid: The Argylle Series of Elizabeth Willey
The Kingdom has a problem. A set of problems, really. An untested young prince from a family of long-lived warriors and sorcerers has to deal with magical beasts mucking about in the great Forest near the city. A rather large Dragon has appeared, threatening to cut off a road to a nearby world. A hitherto unknown sister has appeared on the scene. A cousin from an old and still grudge-holding realm has popped up, too, seeking to establish relations, personal and diplomatic. It’s a lot on the plate of the young prince, and his siblings, who are trying to manage the kingdom as best they can. No one has any idea where their father, the ruler, or their uncle, the sorcerer, is. Oh, and the secret to the family power is a magical primal node of power in the Castle basement. Roger Zelazny’s Amber you say? You’d be forgiven for thinking so, but the prince is Gwydion, the power source is a Spring, the Kingdom is Argylle, and the author is Elizabeth Willey.
