Mislaid In Parts Half Known by Seanan McGuire

 Mislaid In Parts Half Known by Seanan McGuire

This is a 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 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 no one of my favorite series. 

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 Mislaid In Parts Half Known. I have been hoping for eARCs of the wayward children books every year and this year I was finally lucky enough to get one!

This story starts with Antsy, who was introduced in the last volume, and follows her story at the school. The adventure (that’s not a spoiler, is it? Surely not) ropes in perennial favorites Sumi, Kade, Christopher, and Cora. There is a decent amount of world hopping in this book, and my only complaint is that it was too short! I know this is a series of novellas, but this volume, like several of the previous ones, feels so restricted by its length. I feel like this story could have easily been told in a 300-509 page novel and then we would’ve gotten more insights into the characters’ feelings and motivations. 

But that is a minor, minor quibble. This was another amazing entry in this series and I cannot wait to devour the next one!

Sleep No More by Seanan McGuire

 

This book was worth waiting for! I was on tenterhooks after the last volume, Be The Serpent, ended in a cliffhanger and this follow up did not disappoint!

I love Seanan McGuire. (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 no one of my favorite series. 

I was overjoyed when The publisher and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of Sleep No More - I couldn’t stand waiting any longer to find out what happened after Toby was ensorcelled to believe that she had never left her mother.  It turns out that Toby wasn’t the only one affected (or is that effected?). A large chunk of Faerie was totally rewritten and it was a thrill to see our characters acting familiarly yet differently based on their new roles in this revised timeline.  It reminded me of the TNG episode Condundrum in all of the best ways.  As the book progressed, the cracks in the illusion start to show in interesting ways.  I was very excited to see January, the cyber-dryad show up in a pivotal role.  This was a stellar entry in this series.  

And the bonus novella was excellent! It was from Rayseline’s point of view and really fleshed out her experiences during this time period in a way that I really appreciated getting, but would not have fit into the main narrative flow of this story.  

October Daye is perpetually on the top of my best series Hugo ballot - she deserves to win. This type of long running series excellence is what this award was designed for and none of the other nominees come close. This was another amazing entry in this series and I cannot wait to devour the next one!

To Each This World by Julie E. Czerneda

What a slog! I can’t believe I finished this book. I requested it from NetGalley because the premise sounded interesting. And it was! Humans on new earth, allied with mysterious aliens, get a radio message from other lost colony ships. But the aliens have a secret! So many good ideas in this book but the execution was just boring. I don’t feel like the mysteries were resolved well and the characters were just ciphers. And it was long. This was not the book for me. 

Translation State by Ann Leckie

Book of my heart!!!!! I loved Ann Leslie’s writing from the first time I read Ancillary Justice (which I have reread and listened to the audiobook of several times). I so enjoyed the Imperial Radch universe and adored each book in that trilogy. Provenance surprised me by being so different while still being in that universe and being so wonderful. So I was utterly delighted when Orbit and NetGalley gave me an eARC of Translation State in exchange for an honest review. 

I bounced off the first chapter the first time I tried to read this book. But then I remembered how all of Ann Leckie’s prior books had a barrier to entry, and once I broke the meniscus I could dive right in and never look back. )Provenance is a particular example of this.) So I tried it again a few days later and I fell in love with Enae! This book has three protagonists that alternate chapters and Enae was my favorite. We don’t get a lot of middle-aged single people who get to be protagonists and have adventures and I just fell in love with Enae right away. I also loved Reet, and Qven took a little longer to love - Leckie is a whiz at capturing an alien mindset. 

I don’t want to a point the plot points because they were too good and I want you to find them out by reading. This is probably the best book of 2023 and I anticipate it being a strong Hugo contender for best novel (and maybe a Best Series nod?) next year. 

Buy this book! Now!

Somebody’s Fool by Richard Russo

 

As I have mentioned before, I have loved everything Richard Russo has written.  I first learned about him when looking for a birthday present for a friend.  I saw Empire Falls in paperback in a Boston Barnes and Noble in like 2003 or so and it looked so good, I bought two copies - one for him and one for me.  I think this was before it had won the Pulitzer Prize.  I found it unputdownable.  His characters were so real and relatable, and the world was so perfectly drawn. My only complaint there was the time jump. 

I went back and started reading his entire back catalog and loved it all (though a few of his other books also used a time jump to skip past difficult parts). 

I especially loved Nobody’s Fool, set in the small upstate New York town of North Bath. Its characters were indelibly stuck in my brain, so I was delighted when, a few years ago, he came out with a sequel years after the original called Everybody’s Fool. That became a new favorite. So I was over the moon when I found out Mr. Russo was continuing the story with a third book, Somebody’s Fool. 

This book is a pretty direct continuation from the second novel, set a few years later. The main focal characters are Raymer, no longer police chief now, Sully’s son Peter, and Sully’s former lover Ruth (and her daughter Janey). The book was absolutely riveting and remarkable and it filled me with the joy only an incredibly well written book can. I had a few issues with the lack of consequences for an utterly awful unredeemable cop because it seemed illogical based on everything else in the narrative, but that’s a minor quibble. This was a joy to read. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

The Witch King by Martha Wells

 

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 read some of the Rakusa series when it was nominated for the Best Series Hugo. So I was very excited when NetGalley and tordotcom gave me an eARC of Ms. Wells’s new fantasy, The Witch King, in exchange for an honest review. 

And it was great! But maybe not as great as I was hoping? I think maybe I doomed it with unfairly high expectations. You see, the thing about the Murderbot books that really resonate are Murderbot itself, and to a lesser extent, ART. Those characters feel so real and so perfect that they carry me through. Sometimes the secondary characters feel like ciphers but I always took that to be because Murderbot doesn’t pay that much attention to them. 

The Witch King starts out strong, and ends strong, but there are so many characters with similar sounding names that even the Dramatis Personae section in the front of the book couldn’t always help me remember who was who. I never really felt I got to know many of them, and the protagonist, Kai, was not nearly interesting enough to carry the story the way Murderbot can. I never really felt like I knew why I should be rooting for Kai. 

I also didn’t love the structure interspersing flashback chapters after every chapter or every other chapter. Especially because each chapter was so long, it felt like it robbed the story of narrative urgency.  Also, the book felt like it was too long for the story it was telling and I would’ve enjoyed this more at novella length. 

This review feels like a lot of complaining. Don’t get me wrong - I did enjoy the book. The world building was interesting and there were a number of fun set-pieces. It just wasn’t the home run I had been hoping for. 

Small Change series by Jo Walton

I love Jo Walton! Well, I only met her once at a book signing, and she was perfectly delightful, but I mean to say is that I love her books. 

I first encountered her in 2013, when I checked Among Others out from the library - I knew it had won the Hugo and the Nebula Awards and I I wanted to check it out.  I was in love with this book.  I loved the protagonist and I loved the magic.  I remember reading through the section on how the narrator thought she had used magic to conjure up the book club at the library and then I turn the page and found a bookmark that some previous reader had left in this library book I was reading. The bookmark turned out to be a torn our page from her day calendar. The day of the calendar page was the day of my first child’s birth. This made the book feel even more magical.

So when My Real Children came out, I borrowed it from the library and I also loved it. And then I found out about her Thessaly books.  As a lapsed classicist who loves robots, time travel, and Greek mythology, this seemed like the perfect book for me. And it was! I devoured the series and was thrilled to be able to meet Ms. Walton at a bookstore in Brooklyn for her book tour of the third volume, during which I got her to sign all three books in the series.

So I was thrilled beyond belief when Tor and NetGalley gave me an eARC of her Small Change series from the Tor Essentials line. 

This volume contains the complete series, comprising the novels Farthing, Ha’penny, Half a Crown, and the short story “Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction”. 

If you haven’t read them before then woo! are you in for a treat!  These may be the absolute best alternate history books I have ever read, even better that the Lady Astronaut series (which I love!).  The books are set in a world where Hitler and England signed a truce. Jews in England are second class citizens at best, and fascism has crept in so slowly that people have barely realized it. These books read even more strongly now in the 2020s than they did when they were written, with the rise of fascism at home so much clearer, now that so many are willing to say the quiet part out loud. 

But they are also mystery novels! Each book alternates between one point of view character and Inspector Carmichael, who is investigating the mystery. 

I don’t want to spoil the plot but I will say that I regret having read these books only because I cannot read them again for the first time. Truly fantastic.