Book Review: All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
A SecUnit assigned to the exploratory group PreservationAux has a problem. Two in fact. As an android, it’s supposed to serve the small exploratory mission to which it has been assigned. The SecUnit’s entire function is to support the exploratory mission’s investigation of a local planetary environment that it has placed a bid on to look at. Androids like SecUnit are a safety precaution from the Company because, well, alien planets can be rather hostile. And of course, they are handy recording devices, too, for the Company that is. A mandatory helper and a spy for anyone looking to explore the wild frontier in space. Given that planets are not monolithic single-biome worlds, having multiple teams from competing groups spread out across a newly found world is a pretty regular thing. Who knows what you will find over in the next valley, down the river a bit, from another team. One team can’t find everything on a planet. So when a neighboring team to SecUnit’s goes dark, that’s a bad sign for its team, a major concern. What disaster befell them? Environmental? Natural? Something else? Given the proximity, is it a threat to PreservationAux, and to SecUnit itself?
Book Review: The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard
In the aftermath of the fall of Morningstar of House Silverspires, just as it was seeking to become ascendant over the other Fallen Angel led Houses, the focus turns to House Hawthorn, part architect of Morningstar’s fall. Lord Asmodeus knows that each and every position and rank is under threat, and his attempts to shore up the power of his House, and himself, will lead him to send an embassy to the Dragon Kingdom underneath the surface of the Seine. In the meantime, even as Asmodeus schemes, an alchemist and an immortal try and survive schemes within Hawthorn, the Dragon Kingdom, and across Paris itself. Two broken and desperate protagonists in a world that is equally broken, but perhaps still salvageable. And perhaps the protagonists are salvageable themselves. House of Binding Thorns is the second full novel by Aliette de Bodard set in her post-apocalyptic early 20th century Paris.
Book Review: Wothwood by Natania Barron
A mysterious ruin in a dangerous wood. A fateful expedition. A strained relationship, ancient secrets & tensions. Wothwood by Natania Barron, part of the Broken Cities series of stories, brings a lean and mean novella sensibility to a secondary world quest fantasy with a lot of character and worldbuilding on offer. The story of Wothwood centers, really, around two characters, and their old encounter, which comes back in unexpected guise to challenge them, those around them, and the entirely of the land around. Braig Vann was seemingly destined to be the heir to Clan Bannercliffe, the next leader, Moramer of the Clan. Glannon Bel, however, his cousin, wrests the position away from him, leaving him to die at the edge of the Wothwood. Saved from certain death, Braig’s new life with the wandering, disenfranchised Tyckners is distant from his cousin’s eye for years, until an expedition from a nearby Empire comes to investigate the mysterious Wothwood for themselves. Caught up in that expedition, Braig’s return to Bannercliffe territory, and facing the Moramer Glannon Bel, is the driving force for old secrets, both between the two of them, and what truly lurks in the Wothwood.
Guest Post by Aliette de Bodard: Beyond the Cliché Shelf: Making Characters Vibrant and Unexpected
Today instead of a review from me, we have a guest post by Aliette de Bodard. Her second Dominion of the Fallen novel, The House of Binding Thorns, is now out, and you will see a review of it from me here soon. In the meantime, Aliette has some words to say about Characters: I used to struggle a lot with characters. My natural strength is worldbuilding: I can quite happily spend weeks and months reading non-fiction books on anything from the history of food in Vietnam to the role of servants in 19th-Century Paris, and slowly and painstakingly creating a universe from these inspirations. With characters… my earliest ones were correctly created as part of the setting, but I struggled with giving them individuality and personality beyond that. When I created memorable characters they almost always were by accident rather than by design — while the discovery process was wonderful, it was rather annoying to not be able to repeat that when I needed this!
Book Review: CONGRESS OF SECRETS by Stephanie Burgis
Known for her Regency-era fantasy series for middle-grade readers that began with A Most Improper Magick (published as Kat, Incorrigible in the US), Stephanie Burgis’ debut novel for adults, Masks and Shadows, similarly combined romanticism with the fantastic. Her sophomore novel, released at the end of 2016 by Pyr, continues this formula. Well paced and passionately infused with historical details and characters, Congress of Secrets will appeal to readers who enjoy a touch of magical darkness balancing Austenesque romance and historical intrigue. The story is set in 1814 at the start of the Congress of Vienna, a conference held by European powers to settle pressing geopolitical issues after the initial defeat of Napoleon. Clandestinely among the throngs arriving into the city are two former citizens who have spent years in exile, separated from Vienna and from one another after a traumatic night that ended in flames and escape from the secret police. Karolina Vogl, daughter of a printer who published pamphlets critical of the Holy Roman Emperor, is now a wealthy English widow named Lady Caroline Wyndham. With the passage of time and her new identity, Caroline plans to take advantage of the Congress to locate and rescue her imprisoned father. But Michael Steinhüller, an opportunistic con man who had been her father’s former apprentice, also uses the Congress as an opportunity to re-enter Vienna, posing as one “Prince Kalishnikoff” and looking for a score of a lifetime. Amid the diplomatic aristocracy Caroline and Michael each maneuver towards their goals, trying to avoid discovery. However, the greatest threat to their plans may be a chance, volatile reunion with one another, and reignited emotions of friendship and betrayal in their shared past.
Book Review: Brother’s Ruin by Emma Newman
In an alternate 1850s era, the British Empire is flourishing as vitally as it did in our timeline, but from different base causes. Instead of the power of the Industrial Revolution providing the motive power for Monarch and country, the Royal Society of Esoteric Arts provides the competitive advantage for Great Britain to stand astride the world. But this society of magicians is a merciless one, taking every person with magical talent, whether they like it or not. Charlotte Gunn seeks to aid her family from financial disaster that her father is in by making sure that her brother’s talents are seen and compensated for. Oh, and in so doing, hiding her own deep, dark secret from the Royal Society: Charlotte, you see, is a mage too. Charlotte, and her world, come to life in the Tor.com novella Brother’s Ruin by Emma Newman.
