Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham

 Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham

I’m getting old. At this point in my life I think of all of the books I have not yet read and all of the books I wish to reread, and I have decided I am not going to finish books I don’t like. Sadly, I am giving up on finishing Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham at the 48% mark. 

I was initially very excited by this book. I really enjoyed the Expanse novels (except for the last one, it didn’t end particularly well) and I know that Abraham had written well-received fantasy novels before his foray into science fiction, so I was excited when Orbit gave me an eARC of a new book in a new trilogy in exchange for an honest review. 

I tried. I really did! This book is long, and I have read a lot of it, but it doesn’t have that sense of grabbiness that I want from a book - this book is easy to put down and hard to pick up again. The pacing is slow and all the characters (save one) are either boring ciphers or bad people. I don’t like any of them. Except Sammi. She is the only reason I kept reading as long as I did, and I still want to know what happens to her, but not enough to slog through the rest of this tome. 

I’m not saying the book is bad. But it’s not for me. If you want a fantasy doorstop on a slow build, it might just be for you. 

Spelunking Through Hell: A Visitor's Guide to the Underworld by Seanan McGuire

This is the book I have been waiting for and it did not disappoint!!!!

I am a HUGe fan of Seanan McGuire’s books - she is one of my favorite authors, hands down, and for good reason -she consistently writes numerous excellent, honest, and fun books every year.  I was thrilled when DAW and NetGalley gave me an eARC of her newest Incryptid novel, Spelunking Through Hell, which is the 11th novel in the series.  This is it! This is Alice’s book! We finally get to travel with her as she roams the multiverse looking for Thomas, her missing husband!

(To recap, the Incryptid series involves a family of cryptozoologists that work to protect the natural diversity of the hidden world. Every few books, the point of view narrator shifts to another member of the same family, which has the added benefit of keeping the series fresh and invigorated.)

In order to get ready for it, I binge read all of the Alice and Thomas short stories on Seanan McGuire’s Patreon page. Are they necessary to enjoy this book? No. Do they make this a much richer and more rewarding novel? Yes, immensely!!

The beginning of the book felt a bit slow to me - which is odd, because it spends a lot of time on action as Alice dimension hops and gets into some big action set pieces, but I can’t really explain it. All of this in the beginning was necessary to set up what follows, so it’s not that big of a deal. 

Should I spoil the best parts of the book for you? No? Well, suffice it to say that if you care about these characters and this series then you will love this book. It was satisfying in all of the right ways. 

One tiny quibble - at one point Alice makes some Star Trek references, but according to the timeline, she left on her dimension hopping journey in the early 1960s before Star Trek premiered. I’m sure she could have caught an episode here or there when she was visiting earth in the past 50 years, but I don’t recall her ever being a big pop culture or sci-fi fan in her earlier appearances. 

My only real complaint is I have to wait a whole other year to find out what happens next!!! This book is a must buy. Thanks to DAW and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

A Practical Guide to Conquering the World by K.J. Parker

 I had never read anything by KJ Parker before, but I remember Jo Walton speaking fondly about his prior books in this world, Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City and How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It, so I was thrilled to get an eARC from Orbit and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Jo Walton described Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City as a “grabby” book - a book that grabs you, that you can grab and not want to put down. This book was definitely grabby, with a fun first person narrator that was not necessarily likable but fun to be in the head of. 

As a former classical studies major, I really appreciated most of the author’s callbacks and references to actual history (those that I picked up on, at least - I’m sure I missed a bunch). 

A few times, towards the end of the novel, some of the coincidences felt a little too contrived, but this is a minor quibble. The book was super fun from start to finish and I wholeheartedly recommend it. I am going to go check out the earlier books by this author soon!

The Year's Best Science Fiction Vol. 2 edited by Jonathan Strahan

 As I have said before on more than one occasion, I am wary of anthologies - I worry about changes in quality and tonal whiplash between stories in themed multi-author collections.  But I really enjoyed Jonathan Strahan’s first volume of this year’s best series last year, and I was right that I would like this year’s too! Thanks, NetGalley, for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.  Probably my favorite story was The Pill by Meg Ellison, an amazing story that had a real core of truth to it. 

Chef's Kiss by Jarrett Melendez

 After weeks of contemplating the cute cover of this graphic novel, I finally requested it from NetGalley.  I’m glad I did! The book was as cute as the cover made me expect it would be. The story is slight - Ben has graduated college, looking for work, finds a restaurant where he fits in, despite his original plans to be a writer.  The story is a nice. Owing of age tale of a boy/man learning to make his own decisions. The romance is nice, a tad slow, but overall very cute.  Some weird choices marred the book from being perfect for me.  The stoner roommate character detracted from every scene he was in - he added nothing to the plot and was just overall terrible.  The pig-as-food critic idea was kinda neat, but the scene where he is smoking a cigarette as a shorthand way of saying he was having a food orgasm fell completely flat.  Overall, a book long on cuteness, if a tad short on substance. 

Light Chaser by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell

I love Peter F Hamilton! I love the Commonwealth books so much, as well as the Void trilogy, and I adore Great North Road.  I thought the Salvation Sequence was hit and miss, but when I finished reviewing it, I said that I looking forward to trying his next series. And I was so right! I got an audio advanced reader copy of A Hole in the Sky and it was fantastic! So when I found out he had a novella coming out. Few months later I was excited to try Light Chaser, which Mr. Hamilton co-wrote with Gareth L. Powell.   

While the Light Chaser wasn’t bad, it did not live up to my expectations.  Sometimes, when two authors collaborate, it works seamlessly and one would never know it was a joint effort by two different minds.  (I’m looking at you, James S. A. Corey.). Sometimes, it feels less seamless.  Sadly, Light Chaser fell into this camp.  While the book had some interesting concepts, the execution felt flawed.  I found the change in writing styles in different segments to be a bit jarring.  

 I am very much looking forward to everything else Mr. Hamilton chooses to write, but I don’t think Mr. Powell is to my taste.  But I appreciate and thank Tor and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

Oh, I so wanted to love this book! 

I have been reading a lot of fantasy lately, and I really was jonesing for some good science fiction. I had heard of the author Tade Thompson, and heard good things, but hadn’t gotten around to Rosewater (which is on my TBR pile).  So when I saw a new book by him available as an eARC from Orbit on NetGalley I got excited. It sounded like it would be right up my alley - locked room murder mystery on a space ship! What fun! And the book started out very promisingly. We’re introduced to Shell, the young woman on her first voyage as captain. Then we meet Fin, the disgraced investigator trying to get his job back. 

And from there, the book spirals out of control, like the ship falling out of orbit. It feels like the authority had a bunch of interesting ideas but no coherent way to put them together into one story. They don’t all feel like the belong to the same story. All of the characters are ciphers- none of them get any development and they all felt flat and samey. 

Sometimes it feels like the author got 1/3 of the way into the book and didn’t know where it was going and threw in something new. Robot wolf! Evil AI! Political drama with earth! Vengeful exploited workers! Aliens who might be ghosts! It’s all too much and none of it works. 

But I think the biggest problem is that it’s not a good mystery. There are no clues. There are no suspects. The author just puts in an extremely long infodump chapter 2/3 of the way through telling you who is the bad guy and why. 

All that being said, I liked the writing style and I might try another book by Tade Thompson. But not right away.