Jul 16 2022

No Time Like the Past by Jodi Taylor

After tangling things forwards and backwards in A Trail Through Time, Jodi Taylor offers more straightforward adventures for the historians of St Mary’s in No Time Like the Past. Which is to say, there are calamities, dangers expected and otherwise, narrow escapes, and scuffles with university bureaucracy. I would say that Dr Madeleine Maxwell, first-person narrator of the series, handles it all with aplomb, but the truth is that she is the cause of several of the calamities, she gets badly wounded in the middle of the book, and she nearly derails Western civilization towards the end by thonking the wrong person at Thermopylae.

No Time Like the Past by Jodi Taylor

Along the way, they try to rescue the budget by salvaging items from St Paul’s during the Great Fire of London and nearly burn up several historians for their trouble. That’s to say nothing of the summer festival of St Mary’s, where their boat is to race against the one from Thirsk University, competing by hook and by crook. Uninvited guests arrive, and several things blow up, only few of which were planned that way.

The visit to Botticelli makes up for a lot.

There is a wonderfully reflective moment between Max and Dr Bairstow, the director of St Mary’s: “I still remember your first day here. The day we met. You stumped into my office with, as I believe I remarked to Mrs Partridge afterwards, an armful of qualifications and a bucketful of attitude and nothing has ever been quite the same since.” (p. 365)

No Time Like the Past feels like a bit of a breather in the overall St Mary’s series. While there is at least one major development among the continuing characters, most of the book relates episodic adventures of the historians going back in time to observe something, getting tangled in contemporary events, and trying to sort things before History does the sorting for them — something that is generally fatal to historians outside their usual time. Some of the continuing villains do show up to cause trouble, but for most of this book the historians are quite capable of causing it for themselves. When I picked this up, I wanted to take a break from heavier reading, and it was just the thing.

The fifth book in a slightly convoluted series about time travel is probably not the best place to start, and the first four are plenty of fun, too.

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Jul 15 2022

Count Zero by William Gibson

How does Count Zero, William Gibson‘s second novel, hold up more than 35 years after its publication? That’s what I was thinking about, re-reading the book for the first time in at least a decade.

At the end of Neuromancer, Gibson’s first, genre-defining novel, something happened to the AIs and the entirety of cyberspace, something ineffable, something more gestured at than defined, but something that is implied to be transcendent. Count Zero begins seven or eight years after Neuromancer, according to oblique references about halfway through the book. Most of what Gibson is up to in Count Zero is oblique, an early trademark that continues into his current work.

Count Zero by William Gibson, Ace paperback from 1987

Count Zero tells three stories, only weaving them together very late in the novel. First up is Turner, a hypercompetent mercenary of ruthless corporate espionage and warfare. He starts the novel getting put back together after being blown nearly to bits in the first paragraph, a typically dense Gibson alloy of tech, geography, neologism and action:

They set a slamhound on Turner’s trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came screaming for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs and pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized hexogene and flaked TNT. (p. 1)

Turner is close to Case in Neuromancer, a classic noir protagonist, a driven operator out to do his job and in search of the edge.

Marly’s manipulative ex-boyfriend got her into an art-world scandalette, hoodwinking her into trying to pass a forgery along to a more prominent gallerist. She’s putting her life back together as she enters Count Zero, sleeping on a female friend’s couch, wondering where any money will come from. A job interview with Herr Virek, a renowned collector, turns out to be much, much more than she bargained for. Virek is looking for the artist behind some unusual found-object sculpture collages. He has wealth beyond Marly’s comprehension, and he is prepared to pay handsomely for her intuition. One problem is that the path to the artist runs through her ex.

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Jul 14 2022

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

I’m at the point in my reading life with Aliette de Bodard where I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not her, it’s me.

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de BodardMs de Bodard is widely acclaimed, and I just don’t get it. Yes, I have loved every single one of the premises of the stories I’ve read of hers, with possibly my favorite being The Tea Master And The Detective, a futuristic Asian female riff on Sherlock Holmes. The premise of Fireheart Tiger is just as compelling: a Southern princess is sent as a child hostage to far Northern courts, only to return an adult disappointment to her Empress mother. Add in a fire elemental and a politically sticky (and sapphic!) love triangle and you have all the ingredients for wonder.

But from the very start, the characterizations make no sense. Thanh, our main character, feels that she’s derided for being “thoughtful” unlike her glamorous, take-charge sisters, and thus “fobbed off” with the task of diplomatic negotiations, and all I’m reading from this is that Thanh is whiny and has no appreciation of the importance of her job. I also feel that she confuses “thoughtfulness” with “introversion” as Thanh is nowhere near as smart as she believes. She is, in fact, deeply childish and shortsighted, as you can tell from the pitiful attempts she makes at diplomacy, all the while deriding her mother’s input (and she has the nerve to complain that the foreigners have no concept of filial piety, like oooookay.)

Actual spoilers abound for the rest of this review, so stop here if you’d rather skip them.

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Jul 13 2022

It’s A Sign by Jarrett Pumphrey and Jerome Pumphrey

Mo Willems is a staple in our household, so when I (belatedly) discovered that he had an imprint called Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! I knew I had to check it out. More importantly, I had to check it out with my kids. Jms grew up on Knuffle Bunny, while Joseph had always seemed more partial to Elephant and Piggie (tho that latter might have been because he wanted to read more about trumpet players like Jms, who took the instrument up for a year in fourth grade.)

It’s A Sign begins and ends with short (and hilarious!) vignettes featuring Elephant and Piggie, with a cameo from Pigeon at the end. The book itself is about four friends who decide to start a club but run into various sorts of trouble naming it. Each of the friends has a strength, however, that they can all combine to this purpose. Perhaps they can even… find a sign as to what they ought to do next?

I read this first with Jms, and he and I fell about with laughter at the lighthearted antics depicted here, even if Jms did precede his appreciation with a “Dad jokes!” proclamation. To which I said, “Excuse me, Mom jokes, too!” Joseph was insistent on reading the book himself out loud, but I had to read the book to Theo in order to engage him with it. Not the fault of this very entertaining book, which even Theo admitted was “okay good” when I asked him whether the story was okay or good. He’s a fairly reluctant reader to begin with, alas.

But Jms, Joseph and I really enjoyed it. The jokes were funny for all of us, with adorable, tho fairly minimalist, illustrations perfectly underscoring the script and emotions. The sixty or so pages are also a perfect length for young readers, and the E&P bookends are a terrific way to get Willems’ fans into something new. As a grown-up (who is, coincidentally, baby stepping her way through learning a foreign language,) I really appreciated the sneaky way in which beginner-to-intermediate language skills were introduced, as well as the brief, humorous biography of the Pumphrey brothers who wrote and illustrated this.

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Jul 12 2022

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

So I requested this novel ahead of reviewing Sarah Pearse’s upcoming follow up to it, The Retreat. Interestingly, the publicist seemed a little reluctant to send it over — not a problem I’ve usually had with books from larger publishing houses, who don’t have to watch their margins as closely as smaller presses do. I put it down to maybe them not wanting to give away a Reese’s Book Club selection for free, but after reading the book, I’ve come to an even more practical conclusion: this book just isn’t that good. Worse, it’s been poorly reviewed, even by my most generous friends (who seem to prefer the sequel anyway!)

The Sanatorium is the first in the Detective Elin Warner series. Elin is a British police detective on extended leave from her job after a murderer she was apprehending attempted to kill her, too. Now she’s accepted an invitation from her estranged brother Isaac to come to an isolated Swiss hotel to celebrate his engagement. Her boyfriend Will is along for moral support, tho she hasn’t really told him much about her troubled relationship with Isaac beyond the fact that he pretty much left her to care for their dying mother on her own, not even coming back for the funeral.

When Isaac’s fiancee, who happens to work at the hotel, goes missing, Elin reaches for a reasonable explanation despite Isaac’s belief that something terrible must have happened to Laure. But as a snowstorm descends on the sanatorium-turned-hotel perched precariously in the Swiss Alps, Elin’s concern grows. The simultaneous announcement of an avalanche cutting off the roads with the discovery of a body floating in one of the heated pools spreads fear throughout the staff and guests trapped on the premises. With the Swiss police unable to make it through the snow, Elin takes charge, securing the scene and collecting as much evidence as she can. But a cunning killer is ready to strike again and again, and Elin soon finds herself overwhelmed as she strives to secure her loved ones from the threat looming over them all.

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Jul 11 2022

Discovering The Underground With Snow White by Tom Velcovsky & Jakub Cenkl

I had a blast spending time at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference 2022 recently, and one of the highlights was definitely coming across the Albatros Media booth. They’re a small Czech press and this was their first time exhibiting at ALAAC, and I was so pleased to be able to chat with the publisher of some of the most beautiful educational books I’ve had the pleasure of reading this past year.

At the end of our conversation, the lovely people of Albatros pressed on me this volume to go with the postcards and stickers I’d already picked up from their booth. Now that I’ve had time to sort through most (but not yet all: it was a lot!) of my haul from ALAAC, I’m pleased to present this as my very first selection for review!

And it’s not just because I dearly love fairy tale adaptations, which this is, or cleverly constructed papercraft, which this also is. It’s because this beautiful and thoughtfully created volume pleases so much the polymath in me. My only regret is that childhood me never got a chance to enjoy a book quite like this, because she would have adored it even more than I do.

For Discovering The Underground With Snow White, the traditional fairy tale is adapted ever so slightly to more prominently feature its subterranean elements. The mining occupation of the dwarves is an obvious hook, but from the very start the Evil Queen summons a prisoner from underground caverns, instead of the traditional huntsman, to dispatch Snow White in exchange for his freedom.

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Jul 10 2022

A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

“Sleeping Beauty is pretty much the worst fairy tale, an way you slice it” says Zinnia Gray, first-person narrator of A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow. She adds, “Only dying girls like Sleeping Beauty.” (p. 2) And there’s the first catch, because Zinnia Gray is dying, victim of a rare genetic defect, most of whose carriers die in their teens and none of whom has made it to age twenty-two. The novella opens on her twenty-first birthday.

A Spindle Splintered by Alix M. Harrow

Zinnia grins and bears it through a family birthday party that everyone pretends to believe isn’t a pre-wake. Her “best/only friend” (p. 2) Charm — Charmaine Baldwin — rescues the mood with a text that’s a request, a promise, and an omen: “meet me at the tower, princess.” (p. 4) The tower is a leftover guard tower from an abandoned state penitentiary. Charm has done up the highest room in the tower with “strings of pearled lights crisscrossing the ceiling and long swaths of blushing fabric draped over the windows; a dozen or so people wearing the kind of gauzy fairy wings that come from the year-round Halloween store at the mall; roses absolutely everywhere, bursting from buckets and mason jars and Carlo Rossi jugs. An in the very center of the room, looking dusty and rickety and somehow grand, a spinning wheel.” (p. 6) Twelve fairy godmothers, but they all drift off and eventually it’s just Zinnia and Charm. Near midnight, Zinnia dares Charm to prick her finger on the spindle. “You’re the princess, hon,” answers Charm. Zinnia tries to divert her with facts about the original version of Sleeping Beauty — she has a degree in folklore and “alcohol transforms me into a chatty Wikipedia page.” (p. 6) Zinnia takes the dare, though, pressing her finger onto the spindle. “And then something happens, after all.” (p. 8)

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Jul 09 2022

A Scandal in Brooklyn by Lauren Wilkinson

This fun new short story puts a modern-day Irene Adler center stage where she belongs! Told through the eyes of her old friend Tommy Diaz, A Scandal In Brooklyn follows Irene as she answers another friend’s request for aid.

Priya Stein hasn’t seen or heard from her husband Victor in days. Turns out that he’s volunteered to participate in a cutting edge tech experiment sponsored by none other than Irene’s estranged tech mogul husband himself. Irene uses her connections to get Priya, Tommy and herself onto the compound so that at least one couple can be happily reunited.

Priya’s relief at learning of her husband’s safety is, alas, short lived. While undergoing a virtual experiment, Victor is stung by digital bees and dies. Neither Irene nor Tommy believes that Grace, the AI responsible for running the simulation, is responsible for his death. Besides, how could a digital bee possibly cause someone to go into anaphylactic shock?

The characterization was the strongest part of this short story, for me. While the mystery was decent, I felt like the story hadn’t been polished enough action-wise, as things just sort of happened one by one. The experience was more like watching dominoes falling than enjoying a story unfold organically. That said, I really did like the characters of Irene and Tommy, and would love to read more of their exploits together. It was fun to hang out with the two of them in this vaguely Holmesian short story. Perhaps more importantly, I really want to see Irene stick it to her hopefully soon-to-be-ex-husband.

The good people behind this story and its accompanying book tour have also provided us with a short interview with Lauren Wilkinson, as well as an excerpt and a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card! Check it all out below.

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Jul 08 2022

Die, Vol. 4: Bleed by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans & Clayton Cowles

I’ve had time to think about it, and tho this final installment of the RPG-nerd series made me cry, it also made me kind of mad, and this is why: there’s a bizarrely “time to put away childish things” overtone to the ending that really irritated me. Kieron Gillen was trying to tread a fine line here between embracing the real world and showcasing both the benefits but more the downsides of RP and, for me, he ultimately fell too much on the downside. Which makes me sad, because I truly loved Volumes 1 and 2 of this series.

Anyway, in this book, the gang is all back together as they attempt to prevent Die from taking over the real world. After sailing to a creepy island in the middle of nowhere, they find a dungeon that’s equal parts Call Of Cthulhu and Mines of Moria. But the mobs they face within are greater than anything they’ve ever had to defeat before, and the final boss’ challenge a greater conundrum than anything they’ve had to solve to get here.

Interspersed with their adventure/ordeal are brief pages showing what’s going on in the outside/real world while they’re stuck in Die. Mild spoiler: they do make it back out, but not all of them and not all the better for wear. Ash, especially, needs to confront her own demons, not only in her gender identity but in the ambivalence she has about returning to the real world, which she secretly fears might have been the reason Sol was lost to them all that time ago. And, you know, I really like how this series emphasises how useful RPGs are for helping people explore genderfluidity and sexuality, but it was handled in, I hate to say this, a surprisingly old-fashioned conservative manner. Even at the ripe old age of 44, I felt that the thinking here was very end of the 20th century, which I hate to remind y’all was over twenty years ago. I get that Ash’s fears and concerns were realistic, but I wish we’d seen more of their courage in the real world once all was said and done.

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Jul 07 2022

Asterix Omnibus #7 by Rene Goscinny & Albert Uderzo

ably translated from the French by Joe Johnson.

This omnnibus collects brand new translations of three full Asterix tales, originally written in the 1970s: Asterix And The Soothsayer, Asterix In Corsica, and Asterix And Caesar’s Gifts. Perhaps most interestingly, it also includes an afterword by Alexander Simmons, writer and founder of Kids’ ComicCon, who addresses the casual racism of the comics, tho not to any great extent. Still, it was nice to see those instances of mildly xenophobic humor pointed out, as they definitely don’t translate well to the mores of this day and age.

Which is not however an accusation one can level at the rest of the book! The puns and other associated wordplay still elicit as much, if not more, laughter from me than they did when I first read the Asterix comics back in the 80s. The main characters are Asterix, a small hero with a big heart; Obelix, the menhir deliveryman who is his best friend, and Dogmatix, Obelix’s scrappy little white dog. If you don’t laugh at the fact that some of the surrounding Roman encampments are named Laudunum and Aquarium, then yes, perhaps these are not the books for you. But if you’d like some nimble linguistic jokes to go with the ultimately hopeful, and often well-researched, tales of a small Gaulish village resisting the efforts of the steamrolling Romans to assimilate them into empire, then these are delightful must-reads!

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