Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire

 

This is yet another fantastic Wayward Children novella!!

I love Seanan McGuire’s writing. (Note: I review a bunch of her books so I am copying part of some of my other reviews here to save time.). She has quickly become my favorite living writer and I feel very lucky that she is so prolific. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person. 

I was already a big fan of Ms. McGuire’s when the first wayward children book, Every Heart a Doorway, came out, and I loved it! As a kid who grew up loving the Oz series and resenting the Christian imagery in Narnia, it was right up my alley. It is a wonderful book and this is an excellent series, definitely deserving of its Best Series Hugo win.  In this series, the odd numbered books are the main timeline, and the even numbered books tell stories outside the main timeline - sometimes introducing us to new characters when they travel through their Doors, and other times showing up backstory of preexisting characters. 

I was overjoyed when tordotcom and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of Through Gates of Garnet and Gold, especially since it is an odd numbered book, meaning it is advancing the main timeline. 

And we are back with Nancy, who started us off in the first book as our main character before she went back to her world, the Halls of the Dead, where she remains motionless as a statue for most of her time there. 

But Nancy returns to the school because something is killing the residents of her world. The adventure ropes in perennial favorites Sumi, Kade, and Christopher, and introduces a new girl from a world of moths and stories.

It sometimes felt like part of the reason behind this book is existing is to answer some critics of the first book that thought that Nancy was suicidal in wanting to return to the halls of the dead. By more fully fleshing out this world, the author helps to explain the appeal of this realm for Nancy, and how it has nothing to do with wanting to be dead. The cause of all the problems ties back into another character from earlier books, but I do not want to spoil that reveal here. Suffice it to say, that this book really moves the story forward in interesting and surprising ways and I cannot wait for the next odd number book in two years.

Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher (Audiobook)

 

In the past 4 years, or so, I have become a HUGE fan of T. Kingfisher aka Ursula Vernon. 

Ms. Vernon is the author of the Hamster Princess books, which both of my daughters have enjoyed (as have I!). Those books were my introduction to her, along with her social media presence, which I found through Seanan McGuire. 

Ordinarily, I don’t like horror. I never wanted to watch scary movies as a kid. I got nightmares from E.T.  But based on recommendations I read the Twisted Ones and The Holllow Places and I realized that I loved Ms. Vernon’s writing and I could make it through the scary parts unscathed with her as my guide. 

I started devouring her back catalog and putting all new releases on hold at the library.  I have subscribed to her Patreon and I convinced my wife to read Nettle and Bone, which she loved (as did I). I even backed the kickstarter for the rerelease of Digger, which was wonderful. 

I was very excited when I heard she had a new book out in 2025 called Hemlock and Silver and I was even more excited when I got an eARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

This new book is loosely based on the Snow White fairy tale, with some Rose Red in there too. Our main character is reminiscent of other Kingfisher protagonists - a somewhat awkward older (but not old) woman who is brilliant and skilled and in a bit over her head.  She is an expert on poison and is recruited to try to figure out what is making the princess sick. Without spoiling things too much, I can tell you that you may never look at a mirror the same way again after this novel. 

This book was wonderful and was a story I could have lived in forever. 

This was the one of the best new releases I have read in 2025 so far and it will probably be on my Hugo ballot next year! Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

I listened to this at 1.75 speed. 

Lucky Day by by Chuck Tingle

Who here doesn’t know about Chuck Tingle? Author of dinosaur erotica, unwitting target of the Rabid Puppies who turned their own hate against them, he is a neurodivergent pink-masked beacon of hope who preaches that love is love. I excitedly read Camp Damascus, his first traditionally published novel last year, and really enjoyed it! It was a tad rough in spots but the story and the message outweighed any minor issues. I loved his second traditionally published novel, Bury Your Gays, even more! 

So I was very excited when NetGalley and the publisher gave me an ARC of his new book, Lucky Day, in exchange for an honest review. 

I enjoyed this book, but I didn’t love it as much as Bury Your Gays.  The premise is that one day a bunch of incredibly unlikely things happen, like fish raining from the sky, and millions of people die from unlikely accidents. The protagonist is a statistics professor who just breaks when her mostly estranged mother is killed in front of her and retreats from her fiancée and the world until a former FBI agent convinces her to join his investigation of what is causing these unlikely events. 

The cosmic horror driving the plot and its resolution didn’t feel all that compelling to me, and the third act heel turn of a character felt abrupt to me, but the main thing I disliked in this book was how the protagonist just abandoned her fiancée. I know it is supposed to be emblematic of how broken she was, but it just made her very unlikable to me.  This books was good but not great. 

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I have said in the past that I used to think I didn’t like Adrian Tchaikovsky’s books. I mean, I was told that I SHOULD like them since I’m a big fan of Peter F. Hamilton’s space opera doorstoppers. But when I tried to read one of his books a few years ago I rage-quit it like 12% of the way through. 

But then when his novella Elder Race was nominated for a Hugo, I read it and enjoyed it. I also read Ogres when it was nominated, and it wasn’t half bad. I enjoyed Service Model when the publisher and NetGalley gave me an eARC in exchange for an honest review, and it wasn’t bad. My main complaints were too many pop culture references and some incoherent worldbuilding. His other big novel from last year, Alien Clay, really didn’t do much for me. I hated the protagonist and felt it was dreary. 

When I reviewed Service model, I explained that I would definitely check out this author’s next book. And here we are!

Shroud is a much more interesting first contact novel than Alien Clay. Scientists crash on a planet, meet some eyeless aliens who live in the dark, and survive until rescue. We also get some sections from the aliens’ point of view. 

Although not a riveting page turner, I did enjoy this book. 

Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders

 

I have loved Charlie Jane Anders’s writing since her io9 era. I really enjoyed All the Birds in the Sky and her YA trilogy. I think it was back in 2017 when I was at NYCC and got an ARC of The City in the Middle of the Night and got her to sign it and she was thrilled because she didn’t think they had them available for giveaways yet. (That may be my favorite book of hers.)

So I was overjoyed when I got an eARC from Tor and NetGalley of her new novel, Lessons in Magic and Disaster. It is a story about a trans woman teaching her lesbian mother magic, as the back cover promises, but it is about so much more. It is about love and loss and parenthood and childhood and how to exist in the world. This book made me laugh and it made me sad in all the best ways. The flashbacks to the life of the protagonist’s mother were some of the most riveting sections of the book. I wonder what a nonSF book by this author would look like? Probably also amazing. The view of academia and anti-trans right wing hate in this book seems almost quaint compared to the hate and vitriol I’m seeing in the news today- it’s hard to believe that the real world has gotten so much worse since the author wrote this novel. I cannot recommend this book enough. 

Galaxy Grifter by A. Zaykova

 

I’m always looking for a good space opera. I love a universe with lots of aliens and spaceships, as do many. Sometimes I feel like everyone is still chasing the Firefly vibes, and that is why I requested an eARC of Galaxy Grifter from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I think this book was aiming for an easy breezy vibe, like the chillest parts of Firefly, but this book really missed the mark for me. 

Maybe I’m more alert to anti-semitism than I used to be, but when you make your protagonist an amoral thief from a rich privileged family who only cares about material things and you name him Levi in a book where no one else appears to be Jewish, it really feels antisemitic, playing into all of the heinous stereotypes that I had hoped that we had left behind in the 20th century. When you have him drug people to get information and act as an accessory to multiple murders and then you still want us to root for him, I think you are barking up the wrong tree. I don’t understand why the female lead ever has sex with him, let alone falls for him. Much of the dialog is stilted (like when the male lead talks about how he enjoys being a thief) and the overall plot is dull. I cannot recommend this book. 

The Elysium Heist by Y. M. Resnik

I’m a sucker for a fun heist story - who isn’t? All I knew when I requested this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review was the tag line that it was a sapphic Ocean’s Eleven type tale. It sure lived up to that billing! This book threw together an interesting group of women to pull off a heist at a casino. I enjoyed a lot of this book, even if the characters often felt like stereotypes. I could rest easy if I never had to encounter the virginal prostitute trope again, and I felt that the author could have used one more pass from a Jewish sensitivity reader. I enjoyed the fact that one of the protagonists was an observant Jewish woman, but her embracing of her own lesbianism felt rather quick, and I don’t think the author realized how her villainous husband played into several antisemitic stereotypes. The prostitute’s asexual sister who was in love with the casino’s AI was fascinating and I wish the whole book had been about her. I don’t mean to sound too critical - this was a fun and breezy summer read. 

Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree

Can you capture lightning in a bottle twice? Yes. Three times? That’s iffier. 

I first heard about Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes from Seanan McGuire’s Twitter account. She often will talk about upcoming books that she loves, and she described it in such a way that I was very much looking forward to reading it. 

It didn’t disappoint- it was a very nice, sweet, cozy story, and I really enjoyed it. It might have bordered on being too twee, and the inventions of cinnamon rolls and other coffee shop staples felt a tad too convenient at times, but that didn’t detract from the joys of the book. 

So I was overjoyed when Tor and NetGalley gave me an eARC of the prequel, Bookshops and Bonedust. Set years before L&L, this book focused on a Viv who was just starting out in the mercenary business when she gets injured and stuck in a seaside town to recuperate. The cast of characters was even more fun than the last book, and Viv seemed either to be more well rounded or just better written in this volume. 

Fast forward two years later and this new book, Brigands and Breadknives, which is a sequel to both! I received an audio eARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This book focused on Fern, the ratkin bookseller from the last volume. It is now a few years since Viv opened up her coffee shop and Viv has convinced Fern to move to her city and open a new bookstore there. I loved revisiting this world and I mostly enjoyed the main chunk of this narrative. But the story begins with Fern disaffected with book selling for no discernible reason and being too afraid and/or embarrassed to tell Viv, and then accidentally running away.  

I understand the author wanted Fern to go on an adventure. The problem is how he got her into it. It made Fern into both a moron and an asshole. She ends up just disappearing from her friends (and her pet!) with zero notice. And she acts very unlikable throughout much of the story. There are alot of wonderful things about this book, particularly the titular bread knife, but the author didn’t think enough about how much I would hate the protagonist for her choices in this book. 

I listened to the audiobook of this novel at 1.75.

Cesar Romero by Samuel Garza Bernstein

I never used to think I was a person who liked biographies until I read the Power Broker. I got into it when listening to the Power Broker podcast on 99% Invisible with Elliot Kalan and once I started it I couldn’t stop. After finishing that I read all of Robert Caro’s LBJ books and I realized I did like biographies after all. So I was curious when I saw a Cesar Romero biography on NetGalley. I of course loved the ‘66 Batman series, but otherwise I didn’t know much about Mr. Romero. This book was enjoyable and well written, but it felt a bit thin. I know not everyone is Robert Caro, but I was hoping for a little more depth here. This book sometimes fell into plot synopses of Cesar Romero’s work without delving very deeply into his inner life. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and am glad I read it. 

Silver and Lead by Seanan McGuire

A marvelous book, a tad smaller in scope than the last two but no less impactful.  

I love Seanan McGuire’s body of work. (Note: I review a bunch of her books so I am copying part of some of my other reviews here to save time.). She has quickly become my favorite living writer and I feel very lucky that she is so prolific. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person. 

I started reading her works under her own name, starting with Sparrow Hill Road, which is amazing, but I picked it because I was intimidated by her long running October Daye series. I had read some Urban Fantasy before, and I fondly remember Mercedes Lackey’s Diana Tregarde books, but my tastes run more to science fiction and then secondary world fantasy, so I was hesitant to dive into such a long series. I picked up the first book, Rosemary and Rue, when it was on sale as a kindle daily deal, and I found it somewhat disappointing compared to her other work. I reminded myself that it was her first published novel, so I cut it some slack. Then Incryptid was nominated for the Best Series Hugo in 2018 and I dove into that instead. I loved it! So I vowed to give Toby another chance. And I was so glad that I did! It is now one of my favorite series. 

October Daye is perpetually on the top of my best series Hugo ballot - she deserves to win. This type of excellent in a long running series is what this award was designed for and none of the other nominees come close.

I was overjoyed when Tor and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of their first October Daye book after the series switched publishers because we have been waiting a long time to find out what the fallout of was of Toby and a large chunk of Faerie was totally ensorcelled. This was another amazing entry in this series and I cannot wait to devour the next one!

 

This book picks up several months after the end of the last one. It felt a little bit like when your favorite sitcom picks up after summer break and the characters tell you that not much has happened in the past few months. Toby is a few weeks from her due date and has been effectively sequestered by her family, who are concerned about her safety and the safety of the pregnancy. I would’ve had a lot of harder time reading this book if I didn’t trust Seanan McGuire so much as an author. I know that she is never going to have her characters be raped, and I believed that she would not hurt or kill this baby. 

This book had a couple of blasts from the past show up again to cause trouble, and it really made me wish that I had done a complete reread before this book. My plan is to get all of the audiobooks and listen to them before the next volume comes out. But she did a good job catching people up on what was going on. Is it bad that one of my favorite parts of the book was a tease for the future? Once again, Marcia popped up in a very tiny role and I can’t wait to find out what that reveal is going to be.

Many of the secondary characters got a moment to shine in this book, though I would have liked to see a little bit more of Jazz. I feel like she is often sidelined. 

But that is a minor quibble. This book was a fantastic page turner from beginning to end. 

Making History by K. J. Parker

 

A while back, I became a fan of K. J. Parker. I first heard the name of this author via Jo Walton’s monthly reading lists on Tor dot com. So I requested an eARC of A Practical Guide to Conquering the World by K.J. Parker and loved it! It was grabby (in a “can’t put this book down” kind of way) and it was thoroughly enjoyable. I said I’d be looking out for more books by K. J. Parker and I later really enjoyed an eARC of the Long Game and Pulling the Wings off Angels, which were both delightful books! After that, I went back and read Sixteen Ways to Defend A Walled City and How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It, which were also wonderful, and the Saevus Corax books, which were also a blast.

This story centers on a linguist in a university who is roped into a project by the current dictator to help gin up a nonexistent ancient language as part of a project to justify an impending invasion of a neighboring polity. Like most of Parker’s books that I have read, this one is also a first person tale in which the protagonist is a clever bastard (in a thoroughly enjoyable manner). The final twist genuinely surprised me and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. 

This novella captured all of that Parker wit without overstaying its welcome.  Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell

 

I fell in love with John Wiswell’s writing when I read his story “Open House on Haunted Hill”, which blew me away. Last year, I was thrilled when I got an eARC of his first novel. 

I adored Someone to Build a Nest In and was eagerly anticipating his next book.  I was over the moon when DAW and NetGalley gave me an e ARC of Wearing the Lion in exchange for an honest review. 

This book is the story of Heracles and Hera and their relationship. As a lapsed classicist who loves mythology, this seemed like the perfect book for me. And it was! This was the best, most human, and kindest version of Heracles I have ever seen; likewise, Hera and the other deities are at the most relatable. 

This book kept surprising me. As someone with a passing familiarity with the 12 Labors of Hercules, the nontraditional ways this Heracles solves the problem of how to deal with the Nemean Lion and the Lernean Hydra were surprising and ultimately delightful. The murder of his children hit hard, and I would’ve appreciated a content warning, but all in all this is s sad warm, loving book. 

As I said about his previous novel,everyone who loves monsters should go buy this book. It was that good. 

The Emilie Adventures by Martha Wells

 

These books are so much fun! I really enjoy the writing of Martha Wells.  (And I missed running into her in a College Station bookstore by about 16 minutes last December!) We all love Murderbot, right? Murderbot is one of the absolute best characters to come out of SF in years. I remember when I read the description of Martha Wells’s All Systems Red and thought to myself “I’ve got to put that on hold at the library!”  And I was right - it was excellent. I have eagerly awaited each new Murderbot book and also have been reading some of Ms. Wells’s other fantasy books. (The Witch King was good, but my heart belongs to Murderbot.)

So I was very excited when NetGalley and the publisher gave me an eARC of The Emilie Adventures, an omnibus reprinting of of two fantasy novels written by Martha Wells, in exchange for an honest review. 

These books are more YA than some of her other books, and maybe that’s why I enjoyed them so much? They really reminded me of fantasy adventure novels I read as a kid. It’s a steampunkish secondary world fantasy, where there are guns and airships are powered by magic. Emilie is a young teen orphan who runs away from an unkind uncle and ends up stowing away on a ship headed inside the hollow world in the first book, and, although not great at everything, she is quite capable without seeming like she has main character plot armor. I had so much fun with these books, especially the second one, which dealt well with the repercussions of her running away from home as well as including some exciting “alien” characters. Highly recommend. 

Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd by Delilah S. Dawson

 

When I was younger, I read a lot of tie-in fiction. I became a huge Star Trek fan in the late 80s, and once I was all caught up on TOS and TNG, I turned to the novels. I read all the ones that had existed at that point and then bought them when they got released. That is how I found authors like Diane Duane and Peter David. I also loved the Dragonlance books. When they started coming out with D&D novels in other campaign settings, I bought the spelljammer and Ravenloft books too. So I was very excited when I saw that there was a new D&D tie in novel available on NetGalley. I got an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

This book was so much fun! It really had the feel of a modern adventuring party that did not optimize themselves for anything besides fun. There was a cleric, a Paladin, a wizard, an artificer, and a barbarian. They all got captured by the mists and ended up in Barovia where they get invited to Castle Ravenloft to meet Count Strahd. 

Reading through this book and seeing some of the classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters and spells really gave me a warm feeling inside.  The characters in this book are quite interesting; although some of them seem flat at first, they all have hidden secrets. Sometimes I thought the manner in which the secrets were revealed was a little heavy-handed, but that is a minor complaint. I really enjoyed this book, including a late shift in location that was unexpected but delightful.  The final twist was something I bounced off of initially, but after sitting and thinking about it for a few days, I think I’m OK with it.  This was a fun read!

Observer by Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress

 

Very interesting book, but I would have preferred a new solo Nancy Kress novel. 

I first (re)discovered Nancy Kress a few years ago when I was in an reading dry spell. I was listlessly perusing the library shelves feeling like I had nothing to read when I came across a copy of her then-just published novella After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall. I recognized her name from having read Beggars in Spain years before so I picked it up. 

It blew me away. The book was a masterpiece. The author created a fully realized world, She didn’t need a thousand pages to do it. Up until that point I had been disdainful of shorter works; Nancy Kress made me realize just how much hard work and talent was needed to excecise economy when world building. 

However, this book isn’t just by Nancy Kress Here she has coauthor Robert Lanza, a scientist who seemingly wanted to get his ideas into the form of a novel. 

There is alot of awkwardness in the book. I almost stopped reading halfway through the prologue- it was boring and dull and every character’s name started with a W and I couldn’t tell them apart and I didn’t care about any of them. 

Am I glad I pushed through that! Even though some parts of the book read like a dry, poorly written physics textbook (during which I kept muttering to myself that Lanza should’ve let Kress write this alone) those dull clunky sections were massively overpowered by the well drawn characters and the very real emotions that jumped off the page down my throat and lodged in my sternum. 

I wish the book had had content warnings for child disability and child death. 

I understand from some cursory internetting that Lanza may believe in the observer-created reality that the characters believe in in the novel. I can’t say that I’m convinced myself. It sounds a lot like wish fulfillment to me. But it sure has given me a lot to think about . . .