read. react. repeat.
Stories of the Raksura vol. 1, by Martha Wells
Stories of the Raksura vol. 2, by Martha Wells
The Overstory, by Richard Powers
The Golden Enclaves, by Naomi Novik
The World We Make, by N.K. Jemisin
Wicked Wonders, by Ellen Klages
We Unleash the Merciless Storm, by Tehlor Kay Mejia
The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson
Into the Riverlands, by Nghi Vo
Demon Magic and a Martini, by Annette Marie, read by Cris Dukehart
Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist, by Tim Federle
This delightful book is a bunch of recipes for cocktails (and some mocktails and snacks), each preceded by a witty, entertaining paragraph that ties the recipe to the book or character that inspired it. The pun-filled names are probably the best part; in addition to the titular tequila, my favorites included “Remembrance of Things Pabst,” “One Hundred Beers of Solitude,” and a mushroom toast recipe called “Alice’s Adventures in Wonder Bread.”
Eemotional drama finally hits this lighthearted series as a demon attack drags secrets into the open, and Tori is forced to reckon with how far she is willing to go to protect her friends. (Answer: extremely far.) Her usual snarky attitude remains firmly in place, which helps to move the story along without things getting too heavy. I also like how firmly this series is set in Vancouver; when demon attacks threatened the cobblestone streets of Gastown, I was able to picture the scene very well.
Another installment in the continuing adventures of cleric Chih and their companion bird, Almost Brilliant; in this volume Chih wanders into the violent Riverlands seeking tales of the folk heroes (and villains) whose fights became legend. As usual with Chih, they find out that there is more to the story than is generally told. I loved the Riverlands characters introduced in this story, and how their interactions with Chih added depth to their stories.
This book is subtitled “Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.” There is plenty of the murder and madness, but the magic is more metaphorical and is mostly found in the dreams of aspirational architects and of Chicagoans looking towards the future. The book covers the frantic design and build of the 1893 World’s Expo in Chicago, driven by the architect Daniel Burnham, and intersperses the story of the serial killer H. H. Holmes and how he took advantage of the anything-goes environment in the city. It’s a weird combination but it works; the architect chapters are jammed full of quotes and detail whereas the murder chapters are obviously more speculative, but Larson’s writing style was so engaging that I couldn’t put down the book at any part. Fascinating reading, with lots of juicy historical tidbits.
Sequel to We Set the Dark on Fire, this one is from the viewpoint of Carmen, Daniela’s rival-turned-lover-turned-?????. When Carmen returns to the rebellion, she finds that the balance of power has shifted against her, and has to choose between her orders and her heart. Carmen’s fire and drive move the story well, but the narrative spends a lot of time on her internal angst over her relationship with Dani, and her internal wibbling contrasts a bit too sharply with her steely warrior persona.
Short story collection. Klages’ narrators are often (but not always) children, and she is absolutely aces at a child’s narrative voice: authoritative, secretive, with an eye for details often missed by adults; The Education of a Witch is a prime example. The stories don’t always have fantastical elements, but they often feel as if they could, even the ones firmly grounded in fact. I loved Mrs Zeno’s Paradox, which clearly grew from watching someone help themselves to just half of whatever piece of food is left, as well as Amicae Aeternum, in which two girls find a way for their friendship to survive separation and reach into eternity.
Sequel to The City We Became, this book shines with the same love of New York and its in-your-face attitude. The overall plot is a little less focused, mostly because Jemisin, having introduced a Big Bad, needs to find a way to a) explain its presence, and b) defeat it, which necessitates a certain amount of infodumping and handwaving. Although it’s all perfectly well executed, the events of the plot honestly feel like a distraction from the best parts of the book, which are the various incarnations of New York being extremely and wonderfully New York to one another and to the world at large. The antagonists are a bit cartoonish and flatly menacing (“Make New York Great Again,” Proud Men, etc), but honestly, I can’t deny that their real-world counterparts feel a bit like that in the real world as well.
Triumphant conclusion (I think?) to Novik’s Scholomance series, this one following directly on the cliffhanger ending of the second novel. Grumpy heroine El, having found a way to rescue the entire student body from the deadly Scholomance, is consumed with guilt over the fate of her boyfriend Orion; however, she is reluctantly dragged back into action when she learns that monsters are threatening the protected enclaves of other magic-users. As she fights monsters while working on a way to rescue Orion, she uncovers deep secrets connecting the enclaves, Orion, and her own family history. Really impressive plotting, tying things together in unexpected ways, and the inevitable infodump filters entertainingly through El’s indignant viewpoint. Her character, which layers hostility and rudeness over a deep core of caring and righteousness, is delightful. (Actually, now that I think about it, she’s really just a teenage wizard Murderbot.) The interactions between the characters were good too. Very satisfying read.
This enormous tome was really two separate books, but with the same characters. The first is a collection of short stories, each about a character and how their story is tied to a tree; further stories are sometimes about the original character’s child or descendant, but the trees remain the heart of the stories. (The depiction of the blight of the American chestnut, and the steamrolling impact it had on American lives, is beautifully conveyed.) In the second part of the book, the stories of some (but not all) of the characters begin to converge, each in their own way moved to take action against humanity’s selfish, careless assault on nature. Although the writing was polished and beautiful, the overall book was very uneven for me; after the sharp focus of each of the introductory stories, the plot moved jerkily between the nine (!) protagonists’ viewpoints, staggering from one story to the next, eventually breaking off without really reaching a solid conclusion.