Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the novella's grounding in cultural differences and the twist of a strong math "Harmonizer" tech, and while I also appreciate the fundamental message of acceptance, I had a really hard time with the message's the execution here.

Don't get me wrong, the writing was good and I loved the firm opening leading to a great horror tale set in a well-imagined SF universe, complete with a reverse fish-out-of-water twist. 

It's what happened afterward that I take umbrage.

I like tales of acceptance. It is a core trope of SF, for heaven's sake.

What I don't like is a completely insane turnaround in a plot firmly rooted in terrorism and attempted mass-murder of [ a whole university after the aliens killed almost everyone on Binti's spacecraft. And it was all done because the chief lost his stinger.]

Where is the consequence of these horrible actions? [Oh, we're slapping the wrists of the scientists who lopped off the chief's stinger and exiling them to some other place in this galaxy of worlds. And all that death that you aliens caused? Yeah, fine, whatever, here's the stinger and by the way, you want to go to school here?]

WTF.

Sorry, this might have been pulled off better had it been a much longer format with a lot more than a hate-and-prejudice exhortation of death in place of a meet-cute. Perhaps an adventure a-la Enemy Mine where they have to learn, slowly, to tolerate each other. And THEN end with [Hi, Binti, child ambassador.]

And don't get me started on Why Mud Cures All Ails. [The aliens are high-tech. They even managed to alter Binti at the molecular level. Are you seriously telling me that they couldn't figure out that a bit of mud would save all their people's ailments and turn Binti into some honoured demigod? Read my lips: Deus Ex Machina.]

Other than these fairly huge issues, though, I thought the novella was charming and well-written and it might have been something quite glorious with a bit more meat and plot. I'm glad I read it. :)
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Heirs of Empire by Evan C. Currie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So I was reading this old-style fantasy adventure with the stalwart knight picking up an protecting the young children of the rightful king who had just been deposed right in his castle. After a few cool battles and gathering together all the outcasts that this female knight could find, they rally behind the idea of the children and the empire and take on the deposing military to reinstall the monarchy.

Have you heard this one before?

Yeah. Me, too.

I think SF is learning the wrong lessons from the recent popularity of Fantasy. We don't want the extremely tired STORIES of the old Fantasy regime. We want modern Fantasy's facile willingness to break all the rules and while enjoying awesome rule-based magic systems that harken to the days of old-tyme SF reliance on science-in-story.

So what happened? Did we run out of good tales to tell?

Oh, all right, this space-opera adventure did have it's good moments. The writing was comprehensible and very vivid in moments. A good deal of the high-tech was pretty damn awesome to see in action, just like a wonderful modern-fantasy magic battle, and I think I'll also say that I loved the trains a lot more than I originally did. That was some neat piece of juxtaposition for the novel.

I just wish the bare-bones of the story was more original. Hell, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd have welcomed some convoluted politics and treachery after a while, just to break up the monotony of fighting. I'm not a huge fan of MilSF. I tolerate it. This wasn't exactly bad, but it tires me out. I want meat to my stories, cleverness to the plot, depth to my characters. This novel was serviceable, but the only thing that really stood out was the tech and the glam.

If you're looking for tech and glam, then I'm sure you'll love this novel! :)

I'm not giving up on Currie, mind you. This is only my first shot at his work, and I promised that I'd dig into Homeworld and I will. I might just have to wait until I refill my batteries, first. :)

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The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was awash in strange expectations and assumptions before picking up this book, and after coming out the other side, I'm happy to say that this thoughtful novel pleased me.

It didn't wow me, but it certainly pleased me. I was very worried it wouldn't because the period of the late seventies and early eighties was a time of Fantasy that I just never really liked.

What? But this novel is SF!

Yes it is, and I loved all the old incorporation of alien life, our dying sun, quantum physics extrapolations and Odd Reality, but at its heart, the novel reads just like a Fantasy.

The apprentice must face a difficult choice, is engaged with wise old men, must suffer the consequences of his heroic and/or compassionate actions, and is thus expelled to make a way into the wide and difficult world carrying a sword and a complex menagerie of companions.

Sound familiar?

I might have balked at such a blatant use of tropes for an SF novel had it not also been full of characters I truly liked. What a relief! Plus, I'm a freaking sucker for libraries and book-talk, even when the books and philosophies entertained are of a far-off time and "supposedly" alien to us.

In point of fact, this far-off time feels more like a feudal dark-ages and I really got into the novel by the point it felt like a shadow of A Canticle for Leibowitz. It didn't end there, by far, but that was the point it grabbed me and didn't let go. :)

The rest of the adventure and the discussions of love and affection and sex, even with the societal ick of institutionalized sex-work, was somewhat hit-and-miss for me, though, but I couldn't help but be charmed by Severain's puppydog-outlook. It might annoy others, but it felt like some of the most genuine parts of the novel.

Lastly, I loved the world-building. It was all understated and slipped in so gently that we the readers were delightfully focused upon the characters long enough to be surprised by the full weight of the world. It didn't hit me over the head. Instead, it charmed. :)

I don't think I'm going to have any issues reading the rest of these novels, and that's a real surprise for me! Like I said, I have had a lot of bad experiences with Fantasy during this time period. But then, that begs the question, doesn't it? Maybe I'm simply freer with praise and lax criticism because it is, ostensibly, SF?

I admit I might be influenced by my expectations in both directions, but it doesn't change the fact that I liked the novel. :)



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Titanborn by Rhett C. Bruno
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By the time I got to the end of the novel, I had Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" playing in my head. It really sums up the fantastic end perfectly.

I honestly had some weird ideas about what I was going to expect in this novel, from other's reviews, mainly, but in the end, I was very, very happy with what I got.

It began with the feel of a MilSF novel, changed well into a bounty-hunter novel with burgeoning buddy-fic written all over it, and then, surprisingly, it became a character study without a single stitch of purple prose or fluff anywhere to be seen.

I was quite happy to see such a lean and trim tale, let me tell you. Every piece was necessary and played to one hell of a fantastic end.

Mind you, this is NOT a flashy SF thriller. There are thrilling aspects. I wouldn't say this is a world-building masterpiece, either, but what develops is an extremely well thought-out and detailed solar system.

Mal and Zhaff really grew on me, slowly, solidly, through each mission, whether alone with Mal or together to the end. I saw some really nice comparisons to early PKD with Zhaff being "almost" a simulacra in all but the synthetics, and it doesn't overpower the tale. It doesn't hurt that Zhaff's story is just as interesting as Mal's.

I found myself wanting more. I actually thought to myself, before the end, that I'd really enjoy a long series including these two.

Suffice to say, I'm definitely keeping my eye out for more. The story never stalls. Real progression is the novel's strongest resource, and when the hammer hits, it hits hardest in our hearts.

Thanks goes to the author and Netgalley for a copy of this very fine novel!

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A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow Wow Wow

Yep, it's going to be one of those reviews. A review where the reviewer just can't find the right words to gush over the brilliant novel, get enthused over all the new twists and turns that Lila and Kell have undergone, or how much the reviewer wants to tear something apart over the damn cliffhanger.

That's right. Cliffhanger. God Damn It. And it's good. Real good.

That's not to say that the novel isn't fully self-sufficient and glorious and exciting and full of better magic than even the first in the series, because it is.

I loved the first novel. But I UBER-loved this one. The transition is perfect and perfectly reasonable and lets me get a real gush on over Lila. She's still the same spitfire, but this time she's a LOT more dangerous.

And she's also a big sweetie.

Kell has it bad in so many ways, and I truly sympathize with him. His problems aren't so easily fixed by making a few hard decisions or being more understanding. He's doing the best he can, I love him for it.

The fact that these two have one of the best slow-burns going on that I've ever read, and I've read a good number of great slow-burns, is only spice to the great raging fire of magic pouring out of these books.

Did I mention that there was great magic?

That there's some of the best magic action scenes in the business in these novels? That it follows Sanderson's Law down to the letter? That one of the main characters we get to know and love is called Alucard and one of the pirate's mates is Stross? Yeah, I got a huge kick out of both of these names, too, but no, Alucard isn't a vampire. :) No Dracula, sorry.

Sure, there's a few old funhouse tropes like pirates and tournaments, but the best thing about the book is the characters, the panache of the writing, and the perfect pacing.

Am I a fanboy forever? Won over?

Yep. It looks like it. :)

I caught myself several times trying to actively stretch out the story, praying that it would never end, and of course, when it did, as it did, I wanted to rage and scream and spit.

I didn't do those things, of course, although, it was a very near thing. ;)




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A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well what can I say? It was so much better, in my humble opinion, than Vicious.

Maybe it was just the fact that I didn't have to force a square into a circle in liking the characters in this book. Maybe I just love Lila's charm.

This is the kind of love story I like. Gentle knives, running away from your world, being tempted by unlimited power and learning damn hard lessons. Oh wait, did I say it was a love story? No. It happens to *have* a love story that I loved, but it was so damn mild and only a hint of one that it never even whelmed the main tale.

Which was AWESOME.

Or perhaps I ought to say that I loved the four Londons or at least the idea of the four Londons and now I'm just sitting here wondering about all the other places not mentioned and wondering if I ought to spill some blood to see that true balance and evoke just a trickle of the magic, for, after all, we do live in the gray, do we not? By god, perhaps I really ought to say, the magic words to vacate this world and be done with it!

The main characters were easy to like, and while they weren't too deep or complicated, they were very charming, nonetheless. Hell, the whole damn novel was charming as hell, and oh, yes, I Was Entertained. :)

Am I a solid, full-fledged fan of Schwab's writing? I didn't think so, before, but with this, I'm afraid I've fallen over into the dark side of London.


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Raising Caine by Charles E. Gannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Here we have a story of Better Living Through Genetic Supremacy, now brought to you by distant offshoots of humanity and aliens devoted to interspecies symbiotic cooperatives. Cool, right? Not far off from any of the old-style SFs thinly or thickly veiled as modern commentary on schools of thought. As far as it went, the book pulled it off nicely, with lots of action, discovery, and third-person unlimited PoV including the bad guys, again.

And like the previous two novels in this series, I wanted to like the story more than I did.

I truly like the square-jawed heroes as far as they go, and this third novel changes tack yet again to play with the third well-established trope, "The Exploration and Reveal of an Alien World and Species," to a very complex and exciting world-building effect.

The first novel enjoyed "The Induction of a Hero into High-Tech Spycraft and Alien Meet," while the second novel's foundation was firmly in "The Resistance and Defeat of an Alien Invasion." All three novels had an extremely strong thread of story, thankfully, and even wrapped up a lot of the initial questions of the first book quite neatly.

Unfortunately, it lost my interest more than a handful of times and it took some fairly heroic effort to get it back, and sometimes I was annoyed all out of proportion. Some sequence of events were almost a tribute to some of the worst aspects of old SF.

For example, imagine this sequence of events: Hunted by clones on an alien world, sick with planetary defence spores, riding on the back of alien water swimmers, hungry and afraid, we'll now treat you to a long-ass diatribe on the alien sexual characteristics of the beasts we're riding, in detail, in utter disregard for the fact that Caine is having a hard time breathing and is afraid that the clones will have tracked the nanites he's infected with.

Great!

Great tension destroyer.

Unfortunately, it's pretty common in old style SF, too, where the joy of creation and world-building overbalances the flow of the tale. Oops! I just wish it hadn't happened so much here!

I love great spaceship descriptions and battles and running and hiding for my life as much as anyone, but I think what I really wanted more of was actual character development, more active story changes rather than pew pew and duck and cover. A little goes a long way for me, and these last two books were FULL of them.

So if you're a fan of action adventure SF with pretty amazing world-building and very well-thought out alien species and development, I think you'll love this novel. It harkens back to the old days very intelligently and does those same old days much better because it's full of much more accurate science.

This is the second to the last of the nominated 2016 Nebula books *that I've read*, and while I am not voting because I can't, I'll just pretend for a moment that I am. :)

This novel isn't the winner. It's excellent for what it is, but it's overlong and somewhat a throwback.

I'm sticking with The Fifth Season, then Uprooted for now.

I still need to read Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard. It might upset the apple cart. Who knows?

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