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Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

The City in the Middle of the Night

Review by Ralph Harris

Charlie Jane Anders hurls her latest book, The City in the Middle of the Night, against the boundary of imagination with her strange, beautiful alien world. Anders re-maps modern English onto new science fiction concepts and creatures, and begins the novel with a fictional translator’s note alerting the read that the text of The City in the Middle of the Night will use well known creatures and terms in lieu of the alien, helping to ease the jump into a world wildly different from our own. In theory, this seems wild and confusing but in practice, Anders’ stylistic chocie helps the reader understand the strange lives led on the planet January. Crocodiles are definitely not crocodiles, I would not suggest trying to ride their cats, and most food is likely nothing like its terrestrial counterpart.

One side of January permanently faces the local star and one side faces entirely away. A thin band of land between “day” and “night” provides a barely hospitable patch for the human colonists. In this narrow band of life, humans struggle to regulate their sleep and wakefulness. When inadvertent revolutionary Sophie is banished into the bleak wilderness outside her city, her life is saved by the mysterious aliens who roam January’s surface and what she learns from them may change the planet’s society forever.

Time is a key theme of Anders’ novel—the human settlements visited by the two main characters, Sophie and Mouth, are defined by how they structure life around the endless dusk. Anders masterfully constructs both settings, using her protagonists’ reaction to the flow of time in each city to paint a different kind of claustrophobia. I never thought I would describe a book as painting a story entirely in different shades of anxiety, but Anders nails the feelings of claustrophobia, fear of acceptance, inferiority and loss of identity all in the span of 360 pages.

No character in the story is “likeable,” but all of them are incredibly relatable. The awkward relationship between Sophie and her best friend/love interest, Mouth’s aggressively territorial protection and ownership of her birth culture, and several other character specific conflicts are handled with tact and painful accuracy. My interest in continuing the story hinged completely on the intricate setpieces and the air of mystery surrounding the alien life on January—on both points, Anders overdelivers.

The City in the Middle of the Night does not end cleanly, and perhaps it’s fitting that a story so well grounded in realistic and relatable protagonists ends with such an unsatisfying tilt. In this novel, Anders has lovingly crafted a unique world, and finishes with a wild twist that left me endlessly interested in the next book of the series.

Charlie Jane Anders hurls her latest book, The City in the Middle of the Night, against the boundaries of imagination with her strange, beautiful alien world.

Science Fiction & FantasyYAFantasy

We Set the Dark On Fire

Review by Angela Leeper

After spending the last five years at the prestigious Medio School for Girls, 17-year-old Daniela Vargas is ready to graduate at the top of her class. But instead of heading to college, Dani’s next step is becoming the Primera, or first wife, of the capital’s most promising young politico.

Tehlor Kay Mejia’s debut dystopian novel is set on an island where a border wall divides its citizens, and where ancient folklore prescribes two wives for the government’s elite rulers: a logical Primera who runs the household and a more sensual Segunda who bears the children.

Dani’s path should be straightforward, and she should enjoy the Latinx-inspired delicacies and life of luxury that come with being a Primera, but secrets from her past threaten to reveal her true (lower) social status and destroy her family, who are from the “wrong” side of the wall. Adding to the story’s tension are revolutionaries who want Dani to join their cause as a spy, gather intel on the Medio School and secretly aid the impoverished and illegal border crossers. With blackmail, clandestine meetings between Dani and the resistance, riots, a rival Segunda and more smoldering intrigue to deal with, Dani’s decisions aren’t always clear-cut. Mistrust, red herrings and plenty of twists and turns color the path as the once no-nonsense, go-with-the-flow Dani tries to find strength, passion and perhaps even love.

Although this is a fantasy, Mejia’s rich world building results in plenty of scorching, believable scenes. Reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, We Set the Dark on Fire burns with parallels to today’s biggest news headlines. Readers will walk away with thought-provoking questions to ponder, and the story’s ending will ignite further fascination and hopes for a series.

After spending the last five years at the prestigious Medio School for Girls, 17-year-old Daniela Vargas is ready to graduate at the top of her class. But instead of heading to college, Dani’s next step is becoming the Primera, or first wife, of the capital’s most promising young politico.

Science Fiction & FantasyFictionFantasy

The Bird King

Review by Matthew Jackson

With her debut novel, Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson announced herself as a powerful new voice in the realm of speculative fiction. With her new novel, The Bird King, she has cemented her place as one of the brightest lights of fantasy storytelling.

Granada, the last Muslim emirate in Spain, is nearing the end of its existence, as the Spanish crown rises and the Inquisition comes with it. In this turbulent time, Wilson introduces us to Fatima, a concubine to the sultan, and her cherished friend Hassan, a mapmaker with a strange gift. Hassan can draw maps of places he’s never seen, and sometimes even alters the landscape around him to carve new paths. When a representative of the Spanish government visits and brands Hassan a sorcerer and sinner, Fatima feels compelled to save her friend, and the pair flees the relative comfort of court for the unknown. Guided by a resourceful and witty jinn, the pair ventures out into the world, buoyed by little more than faith and a story they’ve told to each other about a mythic bird king.

Wilson’s tale unfolds with all the grace and swiftness of a classic magical adventure, with strange encounters and new lands waiting with each turn of the page. There’s a familiarity, a lived-in quality, to the prose and sense of character that evokes an almost fairy-tale sensibility, but then Wilson digs deeper, into something as timeless as a myth but much more intimate. As it spreads out before the reader like a lavish tapestry, Wilson’s story becomes a gorgeous, ambitious meditation on faith, platonic love, magic and even storytelling itself, with a trio of unforgettable personalities serving as its beating, endlessly vital heart.

The Bird King is a triumph—immersive in historical detail and yet, in many ways, it could have happened yesterday. Wilson has once again proven that she’s one of the best fantasy writers working today, with a book that’s just waiting for readers to get happily lost in its pages. 

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with G. Willow Wilson for The Bird King.

Granada, the last Muslim emirate in Spain, is nearing the end of its existence. In this turbulent time, Wilson introduces us to Fatima, a concubine to the sultan, and her cherished friend Hassan, a mapmaker with a strange gift.

Science Fiction & FantasyShort Stories

A People’s Future of the United States

Review by Noah Fram

A People’s History of the United States, the seminal work by the late Howard Zinn, strove to tell American history not from the perspective of the victors, but from those who experienced it and, in many cases, suffered because of it. In response, Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams set out to compile a collection of speculative fiction to continue those stories, to imagine what the future will be for those history has forgotten. The result, A People’s Future of the United States, ably addresses that prompt. But in the process, it also asks another question, one with as many implications for contemporary life as any: what does hope look like in an increasingly dystopian reality?

The answers are predictably varied, from A. Merc Rustad and N.K. Jemisin’s resistance fighters to Ashok Banker’s accidental utopia, Jamie Ford’s illusory perfection to Seanan McGuire’s small, triumphant realization of harmony. There is a running theme of open conflict and formal division between California and the rest of the United States. Some, like Charles Yu’s “Good News Bad News” and Catherynne M. Valente’s “The Sun in Exile,” revel in comedy so bleak the humour feels spiteful. Others, like Omar El Akkad’s “Riverbed” and Lizz Huerta’s “The Wall,” are weighty and resonant. There are stories of grand causes (Mari Dahvana Headley’s “Read After Burning”) and personal triumphs (G. Willow Wilson’s “ROME”). But they all share three characteristics: the focus on history’s forgotten, omitted or erased multitudes LaValle and Adams envisioned; a willingness to wield the lens of speculative fiction to address the crises of the human condition; and an awareness, conscious or otherwise, of the difficulty in building the future on a rapidly-crumbling foundation.

Three stories in particular are worth detailed discussion: the opener, Charlie Jane Anders’s “The Bookstore at the End of America”; Gabby Rivera’s “O.1”; and Tananarive Due’s “Attachment Disorder.” All three are depictions of imperfect worlds, of places whose denizens must seek their own futures in a world where the very existence of any future at all is, was or soon will be in question.

Anders’s story is almost more about its setting than its story. A bookstore straddling a contested border, serving as the sole link between communities who once interacted freely and now each believe the other is condemned, is a marvellous conceit, and the conceptualization of books in general and fiction in particular as a refuge is among the most compelling narratives in this collection. What really separates “The Bookstore at the End of America” from its peers, however, is its almost startling lack of pretension. There is a massive, literally earth-shattering conflict unfolding around the titular bookstore, and yet Anders avoids it. Instead, she crafts a love letter to the kind of fantasy that appears nowhere else in A People’s Future, the kind that exists in a universe wholly separate from the real world. Its juxtaposition of the persistent joy of acknowledged fiction against the fatalistic horror of a rapidly decaying reality not only sets the tone for the rest of the volume, but also establishes a high benchmark for the quality of the stories to come.

In “O.1,” the end of the world is hardly an apocalypse. Rather, it is an adjustment, a recalibration of sorts. It is, in many ways, the most hopeful story of the collection. Its lack of a true antagonist makes the urgency of Rivera’s conflict an even more impressive demonstration of her considerable skill, and her vision of a world without greed is almost utopian. But more than any other story in A People’s Future, “O.1” highlights the tension inherent in such a project. When the fractures in reality are so clear, any attempt to heal them necessitates a cataclysm, and Rivera’s IMBALANCE is a kind of deus ex bacteria, a benevolent hybrid of Vernor Vinge’s artificial intelligences and N.K Jemisin’s vengeful Stillness. It is a vision of an ideal future, yes, but of one that is imposed, not achieved, and shot through with an acknowledged fragility that lends an undeniably hopeful story an air of melancholy. It relies on the belief that, left to our own devices, we will never truly heal our wounds.

“Attachment Disorder” could be interpreted as the inverse of “O.1.” It depicts a world ravaged by plague, where those with the antibodies at once prized and feared, and where a delicate peace brokered by human powers relies on surveillance and control. Like “O.1,” its fundamental struggle is one of navigating the balance between freedom and safety. But unlike Rivera’s piece, Tananarive Due’s story is not one of beginning anew. Rather, it is one of continuing, of the quiet resistance of going on as before, of not subscribing to a new world order. Rivera’s heroes give birth to a world—Due’s refuse to let one die. And instead of a melancholy utopia, Due has somehow crafted a hopeful dystopia out of resilience, necessity and the basic human instinct to care.

A People’s Future of the United States concludes with Alice Sola Kim’s “Now Wait for This Week,” a stark reimagining of Groundhog Day, told from the perspective of an unwitting repeater. It compellingly depicts the inevitability of repeating a forgotten history and the deep-seated frustration of those who remember. There may be no better way to conclude such a collection of well-crafted, frequently terrifying and sometimes beautiful visions of America’s future.

A People’s History of the United States, the seminal work by the late Howard Zinn, strove to tell American history not from the perspective of the victors, but from those who experienced it and, in many cases, suffered because of it. In response, Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams set out to compile a collection of speculative fiction to continue those stories, to imagine what the future will be for those history has forgotten.

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

Polaris Rising

Review by Gerry Paige Smith

After being violently apprehended by mercenaries, Ada von Hasenberg’s mind is already sorting through her options for escape as she’s dragged along spaceship corridors toward an uncertain end. As the fifth daughter of one of the vast Consortium’s most powerful Houses, she’s managed to survive for two years on the run from her fate as a political pawn destined for a strategic marriage. But even with the skills and resources she’s acquired as a fugitive among the stars, her father’s enormous bounty for her capture has finally brought Ada to heel.

In the dark confines of her captors’ brig, Ada finds her last chance to escape may be hanging in chains on the opposite wall. Notorious across the systems as the Devil of Fornax Zero, her cellmate Marcus Loch represents both certain danger and potential salvation. United by the knowledge that they each face a different kind of doom, they combine talents in a dangerous bid for freedom. Despite an instant physical attraction between them, Ada fears she’s hitching her getaway hopes on a killer, and Loch knows his escape might be complicated by the company of this tempting fugitive scion.

Sprinting from planet to planet on stolen transports as they scrabble for resources and allies, Ada and Loch accidentally discover technology that rival Houses would kill to possess. The pair’s path to freedom evolves as they struggle to unravel the tech’s mysteries before the Consortium erupts into war. In their quest for answers, the revelation of a shared enemy in their pursuer binds Ada and Loch closer. But the vast difference between their individual motives may send their smoldering romance up in flames.

An independent woman with powerful self-knowledge, Ada’s story is free of “rescued princess” tropes that can diminish a space opera. In a refreshing turn, Mihalik doesn’t compromise the action with a constant sexual undercurrent, but rather allows Ada and Loch to revel together in singular moments that perfectly punctuate the novel’s high energy pacing. The erotic elements are written with an economy that lets sex be sex, without an excess of emotional angst or contrived foreplay. The romance is raw, spare and more powerful for it.

Along with her remarkable world building, Mihalik introduces rich supporting characters that are deftly drawn into both the running battles as well as the layered political intrigue. With Ada and Loch’s future unclear and the fate of worlds hanging in the balance, Polaris Rising sets a magnificent stage for Mihalik’s next installment in the Consortium Rebellion trilogy.

After being violently apprehended by mercenaries, Ada von Hasenberg’s mind is already sorting through her options for escape as she’s dragged along spaceship corridors toward an uncertain end. As the fifth daughter of one of the vast Consortium’s most powerful Houses, she’s managed to survive for two years on the run from her fate as a political pawn destined for a strategic marriage. But even with the skills and resources she’s acquired as a fugitive among the stars, her father’s enormous bounty for her capture has finally brought Ada to heel.

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

The Gutter Prayer

Review by Alice Gunther

“Just Another Day,” my favorite song from the Oingo Boingo album Dead Man’s Party, isn’t about death, but about the uncanny awareness of survival: “There’s life in the ground.” In his debut novel The Gutter Prayer, Irish game designer Gareth Hanrahan takes that sentiment to skin-crawling heights. The catacombs of his city of Guerdon contain two species of scavenger ready to fight over your corpse: the Ghouls (descended from cannibals, according to local mythology) and the Crawling Ones, sentient beings who are libraries unto themselves, each being formed from thousands of memory-preserving worms. Hanrahan claims to have written “more game books than he can readily recall,” and it’s hardly surprising: role players may find themselves desperate to know the stats for antagonists such as Ravellers—who convincingly ape humans by knitting themselves together from aspects of various victims—and Tallowmen, an alchemically-made police force who are half-human and half-melting candle wax. This won’t be a series for the weak of stomach, but Hanrahan’s writhing world manages the rare trick of being dismal without being dreary. It’s as lively and multifaceted as the maggot-infested underside of a dead raccoon.

If you’ve read your share of fantasy you already know the protagonist, a feisty urchin beset by powers she didn’t ask for and prophetic visions she can’t shake. More intriguing are her two companions, who each illustrate terminal illness: Spar, infected with a disease that is inexorably turning him to stone (the pricey medication he injects to keep it at bay can only forestall its progress), and Rat, a ravenous young ghoul (“young” being the operative word; mature ghouls are too far gone in their flesh-cravings to exhibit normal consciousness, lending a new urgency to the old fear of becoming like your parents). If these characters often seem like living inroads to the concepts they represent, the ideas are sufficiently rich to make a meal on their own, particularly given the surprising eloquence of their expression. A particular scene stopped me in my tracks by using a literary device to take Spar’s crisis from conjecture to direct experience on the part of the reader. I hope others will catch the same visceral chill I did. The old story of the untutored wunderkind coming into her own even gets some welcome heft through creative addition. To cut a complicated story short, the “gods” that selected her for their purposes are less abstract, and more oddly situated, than one might expect.

None of this mentions the story itself, which loosely involves the machinations of rival pantheons and more directly has to do with power struggles in Guerdon’s teeming underworld. At times this book can seem like a Crawling One, coming at you with more individual worms of information than you’ll know how to process. Yet its extreme extroversion of scope is tempered by an unusual introversion of style. The characters, and there are many, feel and experience the events around them far more often than they talk about them, and the erosive flow of Hanrahan’s prose is as lovingly crafted as his Lovecraftian setting. Spar’s futile medicine “digs away at the channels of his thought” like “pure rainwater washing away debris in a gutter,” and Rat’s heightened sense of smell shows us a world in which—from the saltwater tang that distinguishes sailors to the chemical smell of factory-soaked locals—“each person is shrouded in their past doings.” If the elaborate setup sometimes swallows up the storyline, it’s still an appropriate starting point for Hanrahan’s Black Iron Legacy series, and those in the market for a dense, disturbing and original entry in the crowded realm of high fantasy will have a hard time getting their minds out of The Gutter Prayer.

“Just Another Day,” my favorite song from the Oingo Boingo album Dead Man’s Party, isn’t about death, but about the uncanny sense of awareness: “There’s life in the ground.” In his debut novel The Gutter Prayer, Irish game designer Gareth Hanrahan takes that sentiment to skin-crawling heights.

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

The Kingdom of Copper

Review by Laura Hubbard

Nahri thought she was going to be a doctor. As a grifter in Cairo, she saved up in the hope that one day she’d be able to afford to study at a university that would take a woman. When she accidentally summoned the ancient warrior Dara and learned of her own Daeva heritage at the beginning of Chakraborty’s debut The City of Brass, Nahri’s life changed forever. But in the aftermath of Dara’s death at the hands of Prince Ali, her life has been turned upside down. Nahri is alone. So too is her once-friend Prince Ali, whose treasonous sympathies towards the shafit, humans with djinn blood, have forced his father to banish him, all but putting a price on Ali’s head. As both are pulled deeper into the ever-shifting schemes of Daevabad’s royal court, a darker force looms that threatens to shatter the fragile peace that keeps the city from tearing itself apart.

As far as epic fantasy goes, The Kingdom of Copper checks all the boxes. It presents readers with a world so vivid that it doesn’t require the suspension of disbelief. Nahri and Ali’s world simply is, and we as readers just happen to be lucky enough to get a brief glimpse into it. Chakraborty creates characters who are complex and who have motivations and allegiances that require them to make bad (and sometimes even contradictory) decisions. And that’s okay. They’re characters we want to root for even when they aren’t always wise or likeable.

More than anything, the second novel in S.A. Chakraborty’s Daevabad Trilogy is a great epic fantasy because it’s just that. It’s epic, and that’s what makes it so much fun. Although most of the action takes place within the city of Daevabad, it’s clear that much more is at stake than the fate of a single city. Nahri, Dara and Ali’s story is rooted in a millennia long conflict, which means that the slightest (even unintentional) gesture has the weight of centuries behind it. The pressure of that enduring cultural conflict also means that the solutions in Chakraborty’s world can often be painful, forcing characters to compromise and politic in ways that epic fantasy rarely allows. That sort of politicking could leave The Kingdom of Copper feeling dry or cold. But it is neither of those. Nahri’s situation has intensely personal and emotional stakes, and many of the choices she’s forced to make frankly don’t have right answers. And it’s that focus on individual choice that really makes Chakraborty’s trilogy work. It is epic fantasy that is shrunk to the perspective of the individual. If you’re looking for a compelling, heart-rending drama that just happens to also be one of the most thought-provoking epic fantasies to come out in a long time, look no further. Just make sure to read The City of Brass first.

Nahri thought she was going to be a doctor. As a grifter in Cairo, she saved up in the hope that one day she’d be able to afford to study at a university that would take a woman. When she accidentally summoned the ancient warrior Dara and learned of her own Daeva heritage at the beginning of Chakraborty’s debut The City of Brass, Nahri’s life changed forever. But in the aftermath of Dara’s death at the hands of Prince Ali, her life has been turned upside down. Nahri is alone. So too is her once-friend Prince Ali, whose treasonous sympathies towards the shafit, humans with djinn blood, have forced his father to banish him, all but putting a price on Ali’s head. As both are pulled deeper into the ever-shifting schemes of Daevabad’s royal court, a darker force looms that threatens to shatter the fragile peace that keeps the city from tearing itself apart.

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

The Post

Review by Laura Hubbard

If you don’t like being surprised by books, then Kevin A. Muñoz’s debut novel The Post is not the book for you. If, however, you are a fan of adrenaline-packed, post-apocalyptic mystery and adventure, then it might just be right up your alley.

The Post opens in The Little Five, a small, wall-bound community near the ruins of Atlanta, Georgia, ten years after a pandemic wiped out most of the world’s population. The Little Five’s chief of police is Sam Edison, who seeks to create what little order he can in a world where zombie-like creatures called Hollow Heads threaten humanity’s very existence. After two refugees are murdered shortly after seeking asylum in The Little Five, Edison uncovers a human trafficking ring that extends throughout Georgia, one that some residents of The Little Five have secretly been complicit with. When Sam attempts to imprison those sympathizers, the ring takes the mayor’s stepdaughter hostage in retaliation, reminding everyone that there are far more sinister things in the world than mere Hollow Heads.

The Post is a celebration of the sci-fi and action genres, but it is not captive to them. Sam is the epitome of the gruff action hero with a tragic past, but the chief is also deeply sentimental and often naïve, a fact that humanizes parts of the novel that could easily feel callous if presented in the usual cold, analytical tone of many action novels. Sam’s perspective forces readers to reckon with the humanity of those—whether human or Hollow Head—who end up at the other end of the police chief’s gun. And from that perspective we’re forced to consider an important question: Who is less human, the Hollow Head or the man in charge of a trafficking ring? Similarly, while the novel builds a spectacular mystery (How deep does the conspiracy go, and who, exactly, is behind it all?), it doesn’t do so at the expense of the pacing of the novel itself. The result is a perfect blend of action and mystery, part revenge tale and part chase.

It’s worth nothing that many post-apocalyptic novels are described as gritty and visceral, but that Muñoz’s work takes that description to a new level. It deals with some heavy content, including abuse, child death and sex trafficking. The Post doesn’t pull punches when it comes to the fight scenes typical of its genre, either. Sam’s encounters with the Hollow Heads and with fellow humans are visceral to the point of being uncomfortable. And his internal monologue provides a window into the mind of a person who has had to suffer abuse in order to make it as far as the end of the world. However, for readers who choose to take the time to really dig in, The Post is a gem that rewards them for their time. Just when you think you’ve gotten everything figured out, Muñoz hands out a piece of information that you could have never anticipated, but that you realize in retrospect was awaiting you the entire time. The only thing you’ll complain about at the end is that it wasn’t longer.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

If you don’t like being surprised by books, then Kevin A. Muñoz’s debut novel The Post is not the book for you. If, however, you are a fan of adrenaline-packed, post-apocalyptic mystery and adventure, then it might just be right up your alley.

Science Fiction & FantasyFictionFantasy

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Review by Matthew Jackson

BookPage starred review, February 2019

A novel that truly defies all efforts of categorization is a rare thing. When his Dark Star Trilogy was announced, Marlon James’ new genre endeavor was dubbed a kind of “African Game of Thrones,” an epic saga that merged history and fantasy into something new. The first volume in the trilogy—Black Leopard, Red Wolf—has arrived, and even that rather enticing description doesn’t do it justice. James has once again delivered something that must be read to be believed, a majestic novel full of unforgettable characters, gorgeous prose and vivid adventures.

Tracker, James’ narrator, is a man without a true name, a man who seems to walk in the margins of society after a difficult childhood turned him into a loner. Still, he is renowned for his “nose,” the ability to search for and find lost things with uncanny skill, and so he is called into service to search for a vanished boy. To find the boy, he must also attempt a rare collaboration, teaming up with a strange band of characters, among them a shapeshifter known as Leopard. As the hunt begins and Tracker tells his tale, he must explore not only the significance of the boy he’s searching for but also the nature of truth itself. 

Tracker’s voice—rendered in visceral, evocative prose—is immediately seductive, from his colorful use of profanity to the way he describes not just what happens to him but also how the perception of it all can shift in a moment. It’s the kind of voice that can carry you anywhere, and James puts it to good use, propelling the reader forward into an African fantasy landscape that rivals the greatest sword-and-sorcery storytellers in the history of the genre. The ambition is familiar, but the places James takes us are not, and that’s an irresistible combination.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf heralds the arrival of one of fantasy’s next great sagas and reaffirms James as one of the greatest storytellers of his generation.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Tracker, James’ narrator, is a man without a true name, a man who seems to walk in the margins of society after a difficult childhood turned him into a loner. Still, he is renowned for his “nose,” the ability to search for and find lost things with uncanny skill, and so he is called into service to search for a vanished boy.
Science Fiction & FantasyHistorical FantasyFantasy

The Winter of the Witch

Review by Ralph Harris

A three minute jaunt into your local bookstore will reveal a plethora of books detailing the lives of young, magically gifted girls, but no author marches her gifted protagonist through trials (and oppressive Russian winters) like Katherine Arden. From the beginning of her Winternight trilogy, Vasilisa Petrovna has been constantly bombarded with tragedy, and Arden’s conclusion, The Winter of the Witch, is no different. Quite literally burned, battered and cursed with broken ribs, Vasilisa has been thrust into the public spotlight. And contrary to the previous entries in the trilogy, she cannot escape the dangerous attention of men and chyerti this time around.

Finding a place to live in the world of Orthodox Russia has been difficult for Vasilisa, and her final quest for power and responsibility is marked with copious opposition. Even after emerging victorious over each foe she has encountered, Vasilisa must endure Bruce Willis in Die Hard-levels of abuse to reach her goals, with little to no reprieve. Seemingly in pace with her injuries, Vasilisa also exponentially expands in power, adding several spheres of power to her magical portfolio. Many of these tricks and explosive flashes come with particularly satisfying payoffs.

The Russian language can confuse Anglophone readers (looking at you, Doctor Zhivago), so Arden has added in several detailed notes about Russian names and a glossary of terms to help the unfamiliar. With a fluid incorporation of Russian diminutives and references, Arden wonderfully blends Russian culture into her novel. Conversations are brought to life in a realistic and relatable fashion, even when half the participants are devilish fey creatures.

Arden also embraces another commonly Russian trait in her writing: stoicism. Arden’s entire cadre of fictional actors constantly shrug off the weight of the horrors they bear, pushing themselves to a new edge. There is no commentary on the value of ignoring grief, no celebration of their grit. Just an acknowledgement of humanity’s inevitable tendency to ignore the wounds we incur, physical or otherwise. But when a character does, eventually, break down, they find themselves comforted, allowed to mourn. This respect for grief is rare, and well written in The Winter of the Witch. Seeing characters agonize over their past scars brings a true depth to even the most vile among them. While understanding a tragic backstory can help a reader sympathize, seeing a person or character truly suffer invokes empathy (even within my cold, dead heart).

To readers of the previous books, there is no spoiler in revealing that the end is not perfectly happy. Arden does go out of her way to wrap nearly every loose end the series has set up, and therein lies my only criticism. Arden writes the mystical and mysterious forces of her fey world well, and keeps the reader engaged with its mysteries. But in answering almost every possible question I could have had, Arden removes that mysticism from the setting. Some readers may find they like a tidy ending, but for a book fraught with sacrifice and cost at every turn, I would have liked to see an ending just as messy.

However, The Winter of the Witch was a fantastic way to end my literary year (as this reviewer read it in the last weeks of 2018), and I would highly recommend it. Arden explores the line between paganism and Christianity in a way that lends respect and power to each, which is especially amplified in her impressive final installment of the trilogy. Vasilisa is a heroine worth rooting for and her final story is just as impressive.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Katherine Arden about The Winter of the Witch.

A three minute jaunt into your local bookstore will reveal a plethora of books detailing the lives of young, magically gifted girls, but no author marches her gifted protagonist through trials (and oppressive Russian winters) like Katherine Arden. From the beginning of her Winternight trilogy, Vasilisa Petrovna has been constantly bombarded with tragedy, and Arden’s conclusion, The Winter of the Witch, is no different. Quite literally burned, battered and cursed with broken ribs, Vasilisa has been thrust into the public spotlight. And contrary to the previous entries in the trilogy, she cannot escape the dangerous attention of men and chyerti this time around.

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy

Review by Chris Pickens

Let’s face it: We all want to feel cool. We want to place ourselves in our favorite story and imagine what it would feel like to win. Of course this vision is different for everyone. Yours could be belting out a hit song on stage in front of thousands, or making a last-second buzzer beater with your high school crush looking on or mowing down hordes of zombies before croaking out a one-liner. Here’s the good news about Alex White’s A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy: You get to feel unbelievably cool reading it. This genre-mixing sequel to White’s A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe turns up the action and attitude to 10 and never lets up, making for one hell of a ride.

In a future when humans have conquered the stars, the motley crew of the Capricious has almost no time to rest on their laurels from saving the Galaxy. Nilah, the temperamental yet brilliant racer, and Boots, the world-weary former treasure hunter, team up with the crew to investigate rumors of a galactic cult bent on unlocking the secrets to an ancient and dangerous magic. Determined to thwart the designs of the cult’s mastermind, Nilah, Boots and the rest of the crew must use all the tools at the Capricious’ disposal to infiltrate and combat a group bent on galactic control.

This is a well-developed world with layer upon layer of detail and nuance. Not only does White meticulously script small things like how the crew communicates in combat situations, but they've also managed to build out large-scale geopolitical movements with similar ease. Keep in mind, this is the second book of a series, so this world and these characters have had some time to expand. It can sometimes be a bit daunting when details rush past in the heat of battle, but the payoff is a feeling of being plugged into the action.

Some might say a magic system doesn’t belong in a space opera, but White makes it work. Many characters in this world are able to control specific magical capabilities like hacking electronic systems or reading minds. It’s an interesting way to give the crew a different level of interactivity, both with each other and their adversaries (of which they seem to have many). In one sequence, Nilah is trying to outrun a massive enemy machine, but chooses to try to hack its systems with a magic spell. Readers can look forward to many other small magical moments throughout the narrative.

It’s clear from the get-go that A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy wants to take you on an action-filled adventure across space. But at its core, it’s a story about a close-knit group of people, with both talents and scars, just trying to do the right thing. That’s what had me reading past my bedtime. It’s anything but a bad deal for the reader.

Here’s the good news about Alex White’s A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy: You get to feel unbelievably cool reading it. This genre-mixing sequel to White’s A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe turns up the action and attitude to 10 and never lets up, making for one hell of a ride.

Science Fiction & FantasyShort Stories

How Long ’til Black Future Month

Review by Laura Hubbard

Short story collections are like potato chips. Sometimes you sit and eat a few and can put them away, spreading out your treat to enjoy on another day. Other times you sit and eat an entire bag in one sitting because the chips are just that good and you can’t help yourself. How Long ’til Black Future Month?, N.K. Jemisin’s new collection of short stories, is the perfect example of the second kind of collection. Each of the pieces held within is masterfully written and beautifully imagined, making the book difficult to put down even as it flits from dragons in Earth’s ruined sky to predators among us to the relationship between machines and reality.

At the same time as she builds different worlds, Jemisin experiments with different narrative structures, points of view and story forms. In another collection of short stories, this sort of exploration to the limits of speculative fiction could feel like experimentation for experimentation’s sake. However, the way Jemisin plays with the structural elements of her short stories feels necessary, helping pull readers into the hopelessness of being stuck in your own fractal universe or the feeling of power and powerlessness that comes alongside the birth of a great city. Each story grabs you by the collar, sometimes whispering in your ear before letting you go and other times pulling you a breakneck speed.

Readers of Jemisin’s other works will recognize some of the worlds (she describes a few of the forays into fictional worlds as “proofs of concept” in the introduction) but these short stories aren’t short drabbles exploring a not-yet-full-realized fantasy realm. They are powerful stories that deal with issues of race, gender and religion. They give readers windows into worlds that feel so real that you could slip inside them—not that you would want to—and inhabit her characters’ lives. Anyone who appreciates Jemisin’s work, speculative fiction or simply the art of the short story shouldn’t miss this collection. But beware: Once you get started, you might not be able to put it down. It’s just that good.

Short story collections are like potato chips. Sometimes you sit and eat a few and can put them away, spreading out your treat to enjoy on another day. Other times you sit and eat an entire bag in one sitting because the chips are just that good and you can’t help yourself. How Long ’til Black Future Month?, N.K. Jemisin’s new collection of short stories, is the perfect example of the second kind of collection. Each of the pieces held within is masterfully written and beautifully imagined, making the book difficult to put down even as it flits from dragons in Earth’s ruined sky to predators among us to the relationship between machines and reality.

Science Fiction & FantasyHistorical FantasyFantasy

The Mortal Word

Review by Noah Fram

Irene is a Librarian, sworn to maintain the balance between order and chaos by carefully observing and, when necessary, stealing works of literature and history. Her Library stands apart from a vast array of alternate universes, and Irene travels between them to find and protect game-changing works of literature. She is (mostly) content with her typical daily duties of infiltrating the private libraries of brutal feudal lords and reading books so extraordinary, most mortals would never know they’d ever existed.

So when she is called to investigate a murder that could threaten that balance, Irene must apply her ingenuity and adaptability to preserve the most delicate of peaces and protect her Library while uncovering the truth. And if she and her friends and fellow investigators happen to stumble across a conspiracy or two along the way, they can only hope that any of the lawful and regimented dragons, chaotic Fae raconteurs, or suspicious and secretive senior Librarians will believe them.

Genevieve Cogman’s prose in The Mortal Word is characteristically light and witty, and filled with the kind of unexpected literary references one would expect from a book about magical librarians. Even more impressive, however, is Cogman’s ability to craft compelling standalone novels, while still using the developing relationships among her characters to tie the entire Invisible Library series together. Her series is reminiscent of the better, longest-running television serials, and the murder mystery aspect of The Mortal Word lends it the air of an unusually comedic episode of “Law and Order.”

The Library itself, and its relationship to humanity, is itself a fascinating take on an established literary tradition. Borges wrote of a Library of Babel, in which all possible writing was catalogued in an infinite and barely-navigable maze, but Cogman’s Librarians have more in common with Connie Willis’ time-traveling historians. They are not merely collectors, but have an explicit purpose in their behavior, and must be cautious when their activities in some world or historical era have unintended consequences. Cogman’s version of reality stands apart from its peers as one of the few versions of reality where, if the narrative lines up just right, anybody can be a knight in shining armor, a poem can bring down a dragon and a kiss really can bring back the dead.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Genevieve Cogman about The Mortal Word.

Irene is a Librarian, sworn to maintain the balance between order and chaos by carefully observing and, when necessary, stealing works of literature and history. Her Library stands apart from a vast array of alternate universes, and Irene travels between them to find and protect game-changing works of literature. She is (mostly) content with her typical daily duties of infiltrating the private libraries of brutal feudal lords and reading books so extraordinary, most mortals would never know they’d ever existed.

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