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Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

A Pale Light in the Black

Review by Laura Hubbard

Set hundreds of years in the future, A Pale Light in the Black imagines a universe where humans—and the branches of our military—have expanded beyond the solar system. Least among these branches is the Near-Earth Orbital Guard (NeoG), who are often derided by their fellow service members as being little more than “space cops.” A Pale Light in the Black follows the members of the NeoG Interceptor team Zuma’s Ghost. After a narrow defeat at the annual Boarding Games, the team has trained hard to redeem themselves. But that training is thrown into jeopardy when one of the team’s core members is unexpectedly promoted and reassigned. In his place they are given Maxine “Max” Carmichael, a young, awkward lieutenant with no experience in the Games. And when it becomes apparent that someone is targeting the team following a routine smuggling-busting mission, the Games aren’t the only thing Zuma’s Ghost will have to deal with.

There are plenty of TV shows and books out there for folks who want gritty, high-stakes action and intrigue. A Pale Light in the Black is not that. While it does have a mystery subplot with sabotage and murder, most of the book’s action covers the all-consuming Games. And while this might seem boring compared to alien invasions and intergalactic warfare, the Games make the perfect backdrop for the real focus of the book: the growing bond between the members of Zuma’s Ghost and their new lieutenant. At its core, A Pale Light in the Black is as much about Max learning to be more confident or Commander Rosa Martín Rivas worrying about her daughters as it is about the games themselves. Far from boring, Wagers’ focus on character growth and relationships is refreshing, providing a welcome palate cleanser from the grimdark dramas that have come to dominate much of the science fiction landscape.

But all this isn’t to say that the book isn’t exciting. Wagers has a gift for describing action, especially in the sequences surrounding the Boarding Games’ cage match-style fights, emphasizing the feel of a tooth coming loose after a particularly hard hit or the panic of knowing that you’re about to get hit hard. For readers who enjoyed Rocky or Top Gun as much as they did Star Trek, A Pale Light in the Black is a thrilling and heartwarming ride.

Set hundreds of years in the future, A Pale Light in the Black imagines a universe where humans—and the branches of our military—have expanded beyond the solar system.

Science Fiction & FantasyUrban FantasyFantasy

The Last Smile in Sunder City

Review by Stephanie Cohen-Perez

Luke Arnold’s debut novel has both claws and fangs. The Last Smile in Sunder City introduces us to wily private investigator Fetch Phillips, seemingly a brazen and confident jack-of-all-trades, but a wounded and traumatized veteran at his core.

Fetch is a Human, a race despised and mistrusted due to their choices in the great civil war, in which they caused the Coda, a gruesome and disastrous event that stripped magical beings of their power. Sunder City is now a wreck of a town—poverty, corruption and seedy activity run rampant—and Fetch often finds himself on the wrong edge of the argument in whatever dive bar, brothel or slum he wanders through. Once brimming with magic and power, the city’s citizens are now crumbling (some of them quite literally) and losing their abilities, which range from flight to everlasting youth to the ability to healthily transform at every lunar cycle into a Were-canine or -feline.

But a flicker of hope for the now non-magical inhabitants of Sunder City is revealed when a new case concerning a vanished Vampire professor and his young Siren student leads Fetch to suspect that magic may be, somehow, returning. Fetch must grapple with the ghosts of his past—a failed romance with the love of his life and his guilt over his actions in the the war—to discover if the magic really is coming back, and at what unspeakable cost.

Arnold’s gothic-infused noir introduces mythological characters seamlessly and with just the right dash of dark humor, including an excitable Cyclops bartender, an ageless nonbinary demon historian, a snuffling Magum (wizard) principal and a sensual, egotistical Elf benefactor. Fast-paced, action-packed flashbacks reveal Fletch’s haunting backstory, and fleeting glimpses of emotions  humanize him in a land of monsters. The crafty detective-soldier stays ahead of the reader every step of the way, and unanticipated twists and turns down hallways of decrepit mansions and stacks of musty library archives turn the usual fairy tales of good and evil, maidens and monsters, on their heads as we slowly but surely uncover the secrets of Sunder City.

Luke Arnold’s debut novel has both claws and fangs. The Last Smile in Sunder City introduces us to the wily private investigator Fetch Phillips, seemingly a brazen and confident jack-of-all-trades, but at his core a wounded and traumatized war veteran.

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

The Wolf of Oren-Yaro

Review by Noah Fram

The land of Jin-Sayeng has been torn apart by civil war, its longtime rulers, the Ikessar Dragonlords, deposed by the Oren-Yaro clan after they lost their vaunted dragons. The planned marriage between Talyien, the new queen of Jin-Sayeng and daughter of the late Oren-Yaro warlord, and Rayyel, last scion of the Ikessars, has disintegrated. So when Talyien receives a message from her estranged husband, offering her a chance at reconciliation, she leaves her fractured country in secret for a meeting in the neighboring empire of Zirinar-Orxiaro. There she finds herself ensnared in a web of plots and deceits, forced to survive assassination attempts, forbidden magics, slavers and lecherous mob bosses while struggling to discover who is responsible for the chaos and what they have planned for her and the country she wants to save.

K.S. Villoso’s The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is a fascinating read, driven by a well-drawn cast of characters in a beautifully imagined world. None of the main characters is lacking in complexity, and Villoso gives each of them rational motivations. There are no truly evil figures in this novel, only people who are willing to justify varying amounts of immorality and harm to achieve their purposes. Those who come closest to a traditional antagonist’s role are merely those whose goals are selfish or banal, whose regard for other people is low. Although both Jin-Sayeng and Zirinar-Orxiaro are built on a magical bedrock, the realistic characters within them lend The Wolf of Oren-Yaro a bite that even the darkest of grimdark fantasy often lacks.

Villoso palpably renders the moral grime and corruption that pervades almost every scenario Talyien encounters. And she distinguishes Talyien’s few safe havens with a remarkable subtlety. At no point does Villoso’s own voice disappear; rather, she merely wields it differently to imply different atmospheres. The superb world building combined with the well-built dramatic structure of the novel draws the reader on in a way that solely ramping up the tension would not. The Wolf of Oren-Yaro tops it all off with a battery of cliffhangers involving Talyien’s past and the nature of magic itself that bodes well for the rest of the series.

K.S. Villoso’s The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is a fascinating read, driven by a well-drawn cast of characters in a beautifully imagined world.

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Sword of Fire

Review by Ralph Harris

As a child, when I played with my friends, we acted out heroic victories and rampaged through our enemies with peerless joy. In the minds of my friends and I, we were all equally amazing, invincible heroes. No villain could match us; we were the good guys! How could we lose? The glee of a jaunt through an imaginary world thrilled my 12-year-old self like nothing else could. In Sword of Fire, Katharine Kerr recreates the feeling of that rose-tinted romp, full of triumph and camaraderie.

Sword of Fire centers around a sociopolitical struggle against the unjust courts of the Kingdom of Deverry. While that certainly could be a backdrop for a bleak, dark struggle, Kerr’s novel is instead a lovely quest with an ever-optimistic, wholeheartedly enthusiastic crew of brilliant women and chivalrous men. Alyssa, our primary heroine, embarks on a trip to recover a book that can help usurp the old traditions of the courts with even older, supposedly more fair traditions. Kerr spends just enough time describing the world to let the reader know the important points. First, Deverry is a blend of medieval Norman, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology and history. Second, there’s enough anachronistic attachment to writing, laws and education to make the plot an intriguing mix of political protest, violence and legal procedure. And finally, the world is much bigger than any of the main characters realize, and they are all perfectly happy to be proven wrong.

With a lightly magical, extremely familiar setting and lovable cast of characters, Kerr sets out to take the reader through the Kingdom of Deverry’s evolution to a (hopefully) more just world. She doles out plot points via chatty gossip between noble families and secret messages sent by way of servants. At no point, however, does Sword of Fire contain any real tension. Kerr tells a delightful, relentlessly joyful story; all anxiety is resolved within six pages of its introduction.

Alyssa is bold and well-spoken, robustly constructed as an independent, self-driven character with her own agendas and plans. Each character in Sword of Fire similarly serves as a gentle rebuke to genre tropes, crafted by Kerr as hilarious rebellions against those classic, somewhat simplistic themes of chivalry, damsels and maniacal villains. Rather than rolling plot pressure up to a grand battle of epic proportions, Alyssa and company instead try to establish a legal precedent in a court of law and hope to avoid war entirely. At each point where Kerr could fall into a trope, she subverts expectations.

Meandering through the pages of Kerr’s Sword of Fire was escapism of the finest quality. For readers looking for a dark drama of epic proportions, these 380 pages will hold nothing for you. Here, you will only find charming banter, happy endings and optimism in prose form.

Sword of Fire is centered around a socio-political struggle against the unjust courts of the Kingdom of Deverry. While that certainly could be a backdrop for a bleak, dark struggle, Kerr’s novel is instead a lovely quest with an ever-optimistic, wholeheartedly enthusiastic crew of brilliant women and chivalrous men.

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Stormsong

Review by Stephanie Cohen-Perez

Dame Grace Hensley, the newly appointed Chancellor of the island nation of Aeland, doesn’t quite match her name—she’s impulsive, vibrantly passionate, physically capable to the extreme and willing to risk everything to protect those she loves. Author C.L. Polk takes Grace on a rollercoaster of a journey through a fantastical dystopia that nonetheless feels organic, genuine and believable in Stormsong, the sequel to their acclaimed debut, Witchmark.

Polk’s accessible, elegant writing makes it possible for readers new to the series to jump in and immerse themselves in their magical vision of an alternate Edwardian England, which incorporates concepts that are no stranger to the contemporary reader. Stormsong’s multi-layered plot includes an overarching war between classes and races, including the subjugated and unfortunate witches of Aeland, who possess otherworldly mystical powers, but are discriminated against because of fear, hate and disgust.

Stormsong is also full to the cauldron’s brim with dark family secrets and complicated dynamics. Grace’s brother, Miles, is a witch and advocates for their cause, while her murderous, imprisoned father whispers plans and lies to those in power. Prince Severin of Aeland seems to be a trustworthy ally, but still harbors some shady habits and keeps strange company. And most fascinatingly, Grace continues to cross paths with fervid reporter and former heiress Avia Jessup, with whom she is utterly entranced. Grace must figure out whom she can trust and whom she must abandon in her mission to preserve order as a massive winter storm approaches and Aeland teeters on the edge of revolution.

Readers will grow increasingly anxious as Grace’s world slips into war, genocide and corruption, but her budding romance with Avia adds warmth to this otherwise chilling tale of deceit and dishonesty.

Dame Grace Hensley, the newly appointed Chancellor of the island nation of Aeland, doesn’t quite match her name—she’s impulsive, vibrantly passionate, physically capable to the extreme and willing to risk everything she knows to protect those she loves in the most turbulent of times.

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

The Golden Key

Review by Mari Carlson

In Marian Womack’s shadowy novel, ingenious women confront turn-of-the-century uncertainties.

In the 1880s, three children disappeared from their estate in the Norfolk Fens. Since then, other children have also disappeared, with some connection to a green light, white fungus, fog, a marsh and the appearance of a man named Samuel Moncrieff. Twenty years later, in the wake of Queen Victoria’s death, detective Helena Walton-Cisneros and her new friend, Eliza Waltraud, search for answers to this mystery.

Strong characters with murky pasts lend urgency to the quest for answers. The book begins in mourning, as Samuel has lost his lover, while England has lost its queen. Despite Samuel’s bleak, directionless mood, the new century promises to be one of light and of new opportunities. Samuel’s storyline is shrouded in mystery, but Helena’s drive for clarity about what happened in the Fens brings a crucial sense of order to the novel. She enlists help from Eliza, who plans to right the wrongs done to an academic writer, Eunice Foote, whose work was credited to her male colleagues. Together, these women’s minds and hearts open to possibilities they never expected. 

Women are the story’s primary actors, finding clever ways—including the occult—to skirt discrimination and advance their cause during a turbulent time. The action swirls in a maelstrom of spiritualism, revived after Victoria’s passing, and the subsequent rational backlash. 

Steeped in a slew of influences, The Golden Key bends genres. It’s part Shirley Jackson’s stories of inner demons, part Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (referenced throughout the book), part Astrid Lindgren’s faith in children’s resilience and part ghost story. A lush, unsettled atmosphere echoes in lugubrious descriptions of the Fens.

Enter a mysterious world in the hands of capable women. Getting drawn into this story is easy; getting out again is trickier.

In Marian Womack’s shadowy novel, ingenious women confront turn-of-the-century uncertainties.

Science Fiction & FantasyFictionScience Fiction

Riot Baby

Review by Carla Jean Whitley

Kevin’s birth was uneventful, but in that moment, the world was roiling, and his life is forever shaped by that violence. Kev was born in Los Angeles during the riots of 1992, sparked by the acquittals of the police officers who beat Rodney King during a 1991 arrest.

Kev and his older sister, Ella, have powers. Ella calls them her Thing. She can visit places she’s never been, past and present, and see how events will unfold. Ella struggles to control her powers, which are ignited by her anger—and she has plenty to be angry about in a country built on structural racism. As a young girl, she recognizes the dangers of the gangs in her Los Angeles neighborhood and worries about the day when her unborn brother will be forced to declare allegiance. Kev’s future is as his big sister expected, and he spends years in prison, where she visits him both through the system and by using her powers.

During a visit to their mother’s former pastor, Ella recounts the context of Kev’s birth. The pastor responds, “Violence didn’t give you your brother.” But Ella, who has always recognized the turmoil that would surround Kev, responds, “But it will get him back.”

Young adult novelist Tochi Onyebuchi makes his adult fiction debut with Riot Baby, a novella that shimmers with Ella’s frustration and desire for justice. Onyebuchi expertly weaves supernatural elements through an all-too-realistic, thrilling story.

Kevin’s birth was uneventful, but in that moment, the world was roiling, and his life is shaped by that violence.

Science Fiction & FantasyHistorical FantasyFantasy

A Longer Fall

Review by Noah Fram

Fresh from an unexpectedly complicated job in Mexico, Lizbeth Rose is shepherding a mysterious crate from her native Texoma to the nation of Dixie when her train derails and her cargo is stolen. As the only member of her crew left alive and in fighting condition, she attempts to infiltrate the small town of Sally, with the unexpected aid of some old friends from Mexico. Lizbeth must now find her missing cargo, outwit a mysterious order of white supremacists and seek vengeance for the deaths of her crew members. And she must do so in Dixie, accompanied by a Russian wizard pretending to be her husband, and without her precious guns.

A Longer Fall, Charlaine Harris’ sequel to An Easy Death, is just as gritty as its predecessor. Harris’ prose is blunt and uncomplicated, matching Lizbeth’s general sensibility, and lending the novel a welcome readability. This straightforward style meshes well with the first-person narration, implying that the protagonist is relating events in her own words as she remembers them. Each character is filtered through Lizbeth’s biases, resulting in a refreshingly direct story, albeit one in which everyone uses roughly the same cadence and vocabulary and some of the plot twists are foreshadowed into predictability.

The most remarkable aspect of A Longer Fall, though, is the fluency of Harris’ alternate history. Her fractured United States features references to Alexei Romanov’s hemophilia, Russian and Coptic Orthodox theology and the racial dynamics of the Reconstruction-era American South, to name a few. While Texoma communities tend to write their own rules, both Dixie (the former South) and the Holy Russian Empire (California) operate under established hierarchies. In Dixie, these structures are founded on gender and race, while the Holy Russian Empire’s society revolves around religion, genealogy and magical ability. Lizbeth encounters these systems as an outsider both to these specific cultures and to the idea of a firmly hierarchical social structure in general, and her difficulties making sense of them form the central obstacles in both An Easy Death and A Longer Fall. Well, except for the people who keep trying to kill her, of course.

A Longer Fall, Charlaine Harris’s sequel to An Easy Death, is just as gritty as its predecessor.

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Lady Hotspur

Review by Laura Hubbard

I’ve always thought that Shakespeare’s histories (especially the Henrys) were a bit dull. Sure, they were epic, sweeping tales of kingdoms won and lost, wars fought with sweat and tears and political machinations. But they seemed like one big speech after another with all the really cool stuff (the battles) happening offstage. I never got over the feeling that there was another, more interesting story waiting to be told. Tessa Gratton’s latest novel, a gender-bent retelling of Henry IV, is the story I always wanted. It doesn’t just fill in the exciting missing details or rehash a story already well-known. Lady Hotspur breathes fresh life into its subject matter and creates a tale both familiar and wholly new. 

The novel opens at the end of a bloody rebellion that has thrust three young women into the spotlight. The first, Hal, had never planned on being a prince. A member of Aremore’s lady knights, Hal is more at home telling fantastical stories and leading drunken quests than she is playing politics. But when the coup leads to her mother taking the throne, Hal is forced to choose between playing a fool and playing a prince. The second, Lady Hotspur, also has no love of politics. Most comfortable with a sword in hand or on the battlefield, the end of the rebellion sees the Wolf of Aremoria in a place she never expected: falling in love with Prince Hal. The third is Banna Mora, the heir to the now-deposed king. Disgusted by the idea of the intemperate Hal ruling Aremoria, Banna Mora flees to Innis Lear to rebuild her strength and fight to reclaim the throne is rightfully hers, setting off a slow-burning rebellion that will force Hotspur to choose between love for family and love for Hal. Together, the three women hold not just their own fate, but the fate of Aremoria between them as well.

Although set in the same world as Gratton’s previous Shakespearean adaptation, readers don’t need to have read The Queens of Innis Lear in order to enjoy Lady Hotspur. While the book does reference the lives of Elia the Dreamer and her siblings, Lady Hotspur stands on its own. Readers also don’t need to be familiar with the novel’s source material. While the novel does largely follow the events of Henry IV, there will be no great insight gleaned from remembering the intricacies of each Shakespearean scene. What readers do need is patience. At nearly 600 pages, Lady Hotspur is a long and sometimes dense book full of beautiful prose and a labyrinthine plot. But readers who are willing to let the story slowly unravel will be magnificently rewarded by an enchanting, worthy read for lovers of Shakespeare and fantasy alike.

Lady Hotspur, a gender-bent retelling of Henry IV, breathes fresh life into its subject matter and creates a story both familiar and wholly new.

Science Fiction & FantasyFictionScience Fiction

A Beginning at the End

Review by Carla Jean Whitley

For Moira, it starts at a concert. Her concert, actually; she’s a beloved pop star, known as MoJo, and she’s on stage at Madison Square Garden when news of a flu-like outbreak called multi-generational syndrome (MGS) sends her fans into a panic. Moira follows the crowd into the streets of New York City and recognizes her chance. The world may be ending, but this is her shot at freedom from her overbearing father.

Rob and Sunny find themselves in quarantine after Rob’s wife, Elena, is fatally injured during a riot. Rob can’t bring himself to tell Sunny her mother has died, and he spends each subsequent day wrestling with the resulting lies. Krista is watching over her dying boyfriend—a victim of the MGS pandemic—when opportunity literally knocks on her door. She chooses life and joins a group fleeing to save themselves.

These four survivors come together in San Francisco, an unlikely group fused by Moira’s pending nuptials, Krista’s role as an event planner and Rob’s desperation to keep his daughter at his side.

A Beginning at the End, the second imaginative novel by technical- and sportswriter-turned-novelist Mike Chen (Here and Now and Then), examines the hysteria of a world where some adopt an “every individual for him- or herself” attitude. Relationships fall apart as most of the world’s remaining population wrestles with a PTSD-like condition.

Even against a science fiction backdrop, humanity is the center of Chen’s post-apocalyptic tale. Krista banks on her clients’ desire to find some joy in the midst of a bleak world. But the real hope comes from the characters’ desires to hide their pasts—and then their willingness to reveal their true selves to one another as they seek something worth living for.

“I’m out here because I love people, and that’s the American Dream today. We mourn, we rebuild, we respect the things we have,” explains one of the men who helped Moira flee her pop-star past, effectively summarizing the crew’s ongoing hope.

Chen’s fast-paced tale is an optimistic look at how our humanity can bring out the best in us, even in the darkest times.

Mike Chen’s fast-paced tale is an optimistic look at how our humanity can bring out the best in us, even in the darkest times.
Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

The Vanished Birds

Review by Matthew Jackson

The best science fiction stories create a bridge between ambitious, precisely calculated genre concepts and the deep, emotional truths that unite us all. Keeping the balance between intricate sci-fi backdrops and delicate matters of the heart is a high-wire act that only succeeds with tremendous care, passion and narrative grace. In his debut novel, The Vanished Birds, Simon Jimenez has announced himself as a graceful, spellbinding storyteller with the gifts to pull it off.

The Vanished Birds charts, in its carefully selective way, centuries of human history and advancement, ultimately catapulting us into a future carved out of glittering corporate-run space stations and far-flung starships that zip through folds in spacetime. It’s into this future, where time is as much of a commodity as any physical good, that Jimenez drops Nia Imani, a woman whose job as captain of a time-folding ship means she’s constantly losing time. Months of travel for her mean years lost on either side of the journey, and this constant sense of detachment has left her unmoored. Then she meets a mysterious boy who fell from the sky onto a distant planet, a boy with a gift for music who could also be destined for much more. Together, they find a bond neither dreamed possible, but powerful forces also want the boy, and a struggle lies ahead.

Though Jimenez’s prose feels right at home in a universe of interstellar travel and space station settlements, The Vanished Birds soars highest when the author is navigating the complex emotional avenues through which much of this deeply human story unfolds. The book never fails to deliver the science fiction goods, and fans of high-concept leaps will be satisfied, but the book’s emotional core is what makes it fly.

The Vanished Birds strikes a breathless balance between the conceptually dazzling and the emotionally resonant, and it’s in that balance that a bright new voice in genre fiction is born.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Simon Jimenez discusses how our contemporary fear of lost time inspired The Vanished Birds.

The best science fiction stories create a bridge between ambitious, precisely calculated genre concepts and the deep, emotional truths that unite us all. Charting the balance between intricate sci-fi backdrops and delicate matters of the heart is a complex high-wire act that only succeeds with tremendous care, passion and narrative grace. In his debut novel, The Vanished Birds, Simon Jimenez has announced himself as a graceful, spellbinding storyteller with the gifts to pull it off.

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

Anyone

Review by Chris Pickens

It seems every new generation gets to witness at least one incredible technological advancement. Something as transformative as the internet or as wondrous as the telephone often redefines life as we know it forever. In Anyone, comics writer-turned-sci-fi scribe Charles Soule builds a world around a similarly staggering invention, but it’s his interest in the people who create it, use it and profit from it that captivates the reader. If you could transfer consciousness to another body, would you be ready for the consequences?

Gabrielle White, a brilliant and determined researcher, is at the end of her rope. Out of funding and losing confidence, she has one last chance to prove that her work to cure Alzheimer’s disease hasn’t gone to waste. When she flips the switch on the laser array in her backyard laboratory, something miraculous happens. For an hour or so, she transfers her consciousness into her husband Paul’s body and back again. Knowing that her financial backers would kill for this technology, Gabby must find a way to keep it a secret while she figures out how to reveal it to the world and ensure that it’s hers.

Twenty-five years later, the introduction of “flashing” has changed the course of world history. Annami is a secretive loner with a chip on her shoulder. By day, she’s a brilliant engineer at Anyone, the company that oversees consciousness transfer worldwide. By night, she moonlights as a dark share, lending her body as a vessel for criminals to take over for a fee. When a dark share deal goes bad and she loses everything, she takes matters into her own hands to fight the evil that flashing has brought to the world.

It is impossible to write about Anyone without first acknowledging the depth of thought and structure Soule has put into flash technology and its potential impact on the world. In chapters written from Annami’s point of view, small details reveal how consciousness transfer affects international relations, sex workers, criminal operations, military aid and more. However, flashing takes a personal toll on everyone in the story. Annami and the characters she interacts with are all direct victims of Gabby’s invention, and Soule’s Blade Runner-inspired cityscape is full of fascinating, often broken people searching for answers.

This gritty future is especially interesting when compared to Gabby’s chapters, which juxtapose perfectly against Annami’s. While Gabby by no means has an easy time of it (some of the troubles she runs into during flash technology’s infancy are gut-wrenching), the promise of a new future that will be better for millions contrasts beautifully with the actual future, where we see that even the purest intentions can be warped into pain and suffering.

In today’s world, we are given glimpses of possible futures impacted by vast technological advancements. But we don’t often consider the costs that might come with those futures. If we really could be anyone, would we want to?

In Anyone, comic writer-turned-sci-fi scribe Charles Soule builds a world around a staggering invention. But it’s his interest in the people who create it, use it and profit from it that captivates the reader.

Science Fiction & FantasyHistorical FantasyFantasy

Revolution

Review by Noah Fram

Karen O’Neil has already saved the world once. So when an old friend sends her a mysterious package from Havana at the start of W. L. Goodwater’s Revolution, she is reluctant to get involved in yet another magical mystery. But this time, a little girl has gone missing, and the arcane is unmistakably involved. And in her capacity as head researcher on theoretical magic for the Office of Magical Research and Deployment, she has a vested interest in new magical technologies unknown to the United States government. What she finds is a cauldron of incipient revolution, corrupt men with impossible dreams and few trustworthy colleagues, if any. And in the process, she may just have to save the world for a second time.

It would be easy, perhaps, to draw an analogy between Goodwater’s magically infused Cold War and other arcanely altered histories. Historical fiction with a dash of magicians is increasingly common, as evidenced by books authored by such luminaries as Susanna Clarke, China Mieville and Guy Gavriel Kay. Revolution falls squarely in this domain, but unlike the work of those writers, it is defined almost wholly by its taut, compelling plot, rather than by stylistic elements like Clarke’s flowery, Austenesque prose. Goodwater’s writing is direct and efficient, ideally suited to the thrillers he crafts, and adroitly gets out of its own way to allow the story itself to shine through.

Karen O’Neil’s travails in Cuba are great fun (for the reader, emphatically not for Ms. O’Neil), bringing to mind an Indiana Jones adventure with a little more moral ambiguity, a lot more incantations and much stronger female characters. Without exception, the women are smart, capable and independent, while the men tend towards greedy, corrupt or inept, which is a more than welcome change from the genre’s status quo. There are conspiracies, secret societies, guerrilla rebels, mob bosses, nefarious businessmen, Soviet spies, magic artifacts and disembodied voices galore. Goodwater’s ventures into Spanish names (a witch predictably named La Bruja) and dialogue (consisting mostly of single words or simple phrases before veering back into English) leave some verisimilitude behind, but this is a quibble, and does not distract from the book’s overall narrative drive. The cliffhanger ending ensures there will be further chapters in Karen O’Neil’s reluctant quest to save the world from its own worst impulses.

Karen O’Neil has already saved the world once. So when an old friend sends her a mysterious package from Havana at the start of W. L. Goodwater’s Revolution, she is reluctant to get involved in yet another magical mystery.

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