Book Review: Between Worlds — The Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories by Martha Wells
Six by Six: A New Kind of Spec-Fic Anthology was a kickstarter conceived by a sextet of science fiction authors: Bradley Beaulieu, Brenda Cooper, Stephen Gaskell, Tina Connolly, Will McIntosh, and Martha Wells. The idea was to make an anthology of anthologies. Six authors, each with a short anthology of selected stories, six in number. Thirty-Six stories in total. Now that the kickstarter has completed and the rewards been given, the individual authors are making their anthologies available to the general public. Between Worlds: The Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories is Martha Wells’ volume within Six by Six.
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.
Book Review: Radiant by Karina Sumner-Smith
Sitting squarely in the borderlands between science and fantasy, Karina Sumner-Smith’s first turn into novel length fiction (after a number of well received stories, including the Nebula nominated “An End to All things”) is the strongly crafted story of the ghost-seeing young woman Xhea in RADIANT, the first in the “Towers Trilogy”. The science fantasy city of the Lower City and the Towers floating above provides a secondary world urban fantastical environment for Radiant’s story. Class in this world is very much a function of the ability to use magic. Those who can and do practice magic competently live in the floating Towers that serenely hover over the ruination and post-apocalyptic state of the Lower City left behind. The dregs of society, on the other hand, live in those lower city ruins, in quarters ranging from makeshift shelters in ruined subway tunnels to skyscrapers that try and reach the sky.
Book Review: The Dragons of Heaven by Alyc Helms
In the darkened streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown, Missy Masters is struggling to take up the vigilante-hero mantle of her retired, estranged grandfather, Mr. Mystic. Missy shares his stubbornness, his intimate connections with Chinese culture, and his uncanny ability to cross into a realm of shadows and exert limited control over the creatures within. Just as she literally straddles worlds, Missy also dances a line of pretending to be an aged, but expert, male superhero while training to advance beyond her actual novice abilities. She aspires to the strength and moral right that her grandfather embodied while battling against memories of his emotional distance, his personal secrets, and the prejudices common of his generation. Typical of masked superheroes, she has two lives, the separate worlds of Missy Masters and of Mr. Mystic. And she has past experiences, a world away in China, that have led her to be the woman and vigilante of the present.
Book Review: Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold
Everyone knows and loves Miles Vorkosigan. The “little admiral”, who thanks to a chemical attack on his mother while she was pregnant suffers from a shortness of build, brittle bones, and an drive to prove himself against all comers. He is the heart and center of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan universe. But what about Ivan? “Ivan, you Idiot”? The breezing through life cousin of Miles, who seems mostly engaged in trying to avoid the wrath of his mother, and any responsibility whatsoever? Wine, women, and having a good time as much as he can, without a care in the world or a thought in his brain. Is he really as stupid and shallow as Miles makes him out to be? Aral Vorkosigan, father of Miles, once mused that Ivan couldn’t possibly be faking his stupidity — or is Ivan better at this than even Aral realized? Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance gives us an entire novel to explore a story about Ivan and of Ivan, and a reconsideration of who and what he is, what he thinks he is, and what he wants to be.
Book Review: Queen of the Deep by Kay Kenyon
Janet Zabrinski, now Jane Gray for the stage, is an actress with dreams of being in a Broadway production. It’s not an easy life, however, in the big city of New York. Her best friend and roommate Rickie is battling cancer. Things seem to be just falling apart, with strange dust storms, the world crumbling, and an odor of decay about the city, and the entire world. Even as the role of her life falls into her lap, an encounter with a childhood friend, a childhood friend that Jane had thought to be imaginary, sends her into a space between worlds, and to another universe. A strange universe indeed, one shaped and in the appearance of a great ocean liner, a world whose fate has unexpected connections to Earth. And to Jane herself.
