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.