Completed Books, Awaiting Reviews

Greetings to all my internet friends and neighbors, and to all my family members who may have stumbled here, Bebe is now a great-great-grandmother! Aki Alexander Emiohe was born yesterday, the first great-grandchild for my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, and me.

Welcome, little one!

Now, to the matter at hand: I was slightly successful the other day in sneaking in a few words about Laura Montgomery's "Simple Service," although in no way could what I wrote be termed a proper review by Papa Pat. Still, you have to prime the pump.

That's a term that only a very few readers will understand. In the days before municipal water supplies existed, water came from a well, and the wells supplied that water via a hand pump. In order to create the needed suction, you poured a bucket of water down a pipe, and then pumped away. You always made sure the bucket was left filled after using the pump!

So, here are a few more buckets; these are books I have read, and am waiting to be able to review them. My hope is that by writing these thumbnails, I'll break through the block. If that doesn't work, it will at least make a down-payment on what I owe the writers for the work they put in.

"Simple Service," Laura Montgomery. Since I have already written a few lines about it here, I'll cut and paste and edit what I said about Laura Montgomery's excellent book "Simple Service: Martha's Sons, Book One." The series Montgomery has started is called "Martha's Sons." This Martha is a person of literature, living on a planet that was not what they were looking for, and thus designated as NWWWLF. She has multiple sons and daughters, and two of them in particular are the main characters of this compelling book, addressing themes of family loyalty and conflict, the difficulty of living on a planet which requires extensive terraforming, the tendency of oligarchies to resort to ever-more repressive measures to keep in power, all giving us a lovely, lovely back-story to her "Waking Late" series.

"Death's Talisman," J. F. Posthumus. She's not a bad person; not at ALL! In fact, she does her very best to rise above the wild oats sown during an admittedly wilder youth, when she was wont to smite her enemies. Now, she's with child, and she is discovering things about the baby daddy, and her mama is a bit of a nutter, and...goes on from there. I have no excuse for not reviewing this one earlier; I've had it at least since July 8.

"Star Marque Rising," Shami Stovall. I feel THE WORST about not getting this one reviewed earlier. Not only have I had a copy since last February (I think), the writer is fairly new to the scene, and deserved better treatment at my hands. The book is a glorious, exploding spaceships, evil empire space opera, with a bodacious twist: Stovall has incorporated The Prisoner's Dilemma into the writing, both literally as a drinking game the characters play, and as the primary framework for the story. I found it to be brilliant.

"The Replicant War," Chris Kennedy.  It COULD be argued that this is the last Dragon review, except I didn't review the entries for the category that included this as a finalist (Media Tie-In). Most, but not all, of the CKP books I've read are in a different storyline, featuring mechs and aliens; what sets this one apart is that gamer geeks discover that the hot new game they are playing is really happening. I don't think I qualify as a Gamer, but I do recognize the appeal of an immersive experience that takes you away from the demands of work and study.

"Gold on the Hoof," Peter Grant.  This is the third installment in the story of Walter Ames, a former Confederate soldier who heads west to make his fortune. Grant does a magnificent job of making the seemingly dull routine of building a transportation company, rebuilding rifles, and selling horses into something exciting. Of course, evil corrupt businessmen, liars, cheats, thieves, and thugs with guns have something to say about how things are done as well.

"Bob's Saucer Repair," Jerry Boyd.  Mild-mannered Bob finds intergalactic love, and a chance to make a few bucks, when his mechanical skills allow him to get a discombobulated spaceship working again. This is PRIMARILY told humorously, but there is sufficient intrigue and gun-play to raise it far, as in WAY, WAY far, above the level of a 1960's Disney movie.

"Operation Flash, Episode 2: Hinges of Fate," Nitay Arbel. One of the MANY attempts on Hitler's life succeeds in this timeline, and Germans are given the chance to redeem Germany before the Allies do it for them. I was stationed in Germany from March of 1973 to September of 1975, and visited some of the places discussed in the book. The book does two things for me: it refreshes the horror I experienced when touring the museum located at the site of the concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich, reminding me of the evil of the murder factories put in place as a policy matter; it also reminds me that there were a significant fraction of decent Germans who resisted. I personally served with a former Wehrmacht soldier, Herr Gerhard Schroff, and a former Luftwaffe clerk, Frau Elsie Geist. Neither had been Nazis.

Small rant, by me. I also spent time in East Berlin, administered by our former allies in that conflict. In 1975, it was VERY easy to see the iron fist, because the velvet glove was awfully threadbare.  Yes, evil exists, and it must be resisted by people of conscience.
It's too easy to think "I never would have supported such an obviously wicked government!" Before we get TOO self-righteous, though, remember, among others, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney. They died, because they were working to make it possible that babies like my new great-grandson would be able to vote one day.

June, 1964

This was not NATIONAL policy; it was, however, an act supported by local policy.

Just something to keep in mind.

Okay, those seven books are those I have read, but not been able to review, from authors who have entrusted me with their works. In addition to those, I've also re-read some Heinlein, who I tend to go to when I need inspiration, and so on. Besides these, there are at least that many which are in the queue to be read, that I haven't gotten to yet. I will.

Peace be on your household.

Hymn to Physical Pain: Rudyard Kipling, 1932

Greetings to all my internet friends and neighbors,  and welcome to my attempt to get SOMETHING, ANYTHING, in print.  And for any of my family checking in, this is a story you have not heard, although the subject will be familiar to you.

I've just finished Laura Montgomery's excellent book "Simple Service: Martha's Sons, Book One." I'd like to review it for you, but alas, I have found that attempting to review ANY of the several books I've read immediately results in a bad outcome for me. It seems that an even greater burden comes upon me at the moment I open the word processor, trivializing the writing of reviews, and I can't proceed. It's just writer's block, I know, and it will pass. It has always done so in the past.

But: here's the progression I followed: the series Montgomery has started is called "Martha's Sons." This Martha is a person of literature, living on a planet that was not what they were looking for, and thus designated as NWWWLF. She has multiple sons and daughters, and two of them in particular are the main characters of this compelling book, addressing themes of family loyalty and conflict, the difficulty of living on a planet which requires extensive terraforming, the tendency of oligarchies to resort to ever-more repressive measures to keep in power, all giving us a lovely, lovely back-story to her "Waking Late" series.

The story is quite engaging, but it was the sub-title that kept center-stage in my mind as I finished the read this morning. In fact, I had quite convinced myself that the name of the book was "The Sons of Martha," enough so that I had a moment of difficulty locating the right file to open, as I shifted from one Kindle platform to another. And that lead me to Kipling.

Not that Montgomery references Kipling in the book; the only identifiable reference is to one James Shirley, who wrote "Death the Leveller," presumably some time before his own death in 1666; I feel certain that a post-mortem poet would find it difficult to get published at that time, leveled or not.

I had actually conflated two of Kipling's poems in my memory. For some reason, I had remembered the SUBJECT of "The Sons of Martha," but had assigned to it the title "The Hymn of Breaking Strain." So, it was to that second poem I went first, quickly to disabuse myself of the mis-attribution. However, once there, I discovered the poem which constitutes the title of this blog post, "Hymn to Physical Pain."

I was interested. I am familiar intimately with physical pain, and slightly knowledgeable about the sad fact that Kipling suffered terribly from abdominal pain for the last 20 years of his life. In fact, four years after this poem was published, Kipling died after surgery to repair an intestinal hemorrhage. So, why does he write a hymn to it?

My first, quick reading lead me astray. I thought he was praising the remission of physical pain, which I can absolutely understand.

Subsequent, more careful review set me straight. Here's what Kipling is saying:
Physical pain is good, because it takes our mind off mental/emotional pain, which is far worse.

Hmmmm. I'm going to have to think about that one. As it happens, my current age matches that of Kipling when he wrote this poem; he was only 70 when he died. (ONLY 70? When did 70 become too young to die in my mind?)

My last bout with the intense, captivating pain that is referenced here was a few months ago, and I can absolutely testify to the fact that it drives every other thought from your mind. Surgery brought an end to my pain (want to see a picture of the incision?) but that wasn't available for Kipling. Frankly, I can't imagine enduring the intense degree of torment he must have felt for any length of time; I was only hospitalized for a week or so before they finally opened my belly, and until then I was watching the clock like a monomaniac, and ringing the bell for the nurse to come put the stuff in my IV IMMEDIATELY.

But Kipling says the other pain, that of his soul, was worse. I know he lost a daughter to pneumonia in 1899, and his son was killed in 1915 in WWI, after Kipling had used his influence to get him a commission in the Irish Guards. For the rest, I can recommend to you The History Guy's YouTube presentation.

I guess this will, ultimately, be my takeaway: I am EVER so glad that all I have is physical pain. I'm not denying or trying to minimize it; people who are close to me can verify that there are times when it is all I can do to drag myself out of bed. (Fortunately, those times are rare!) But, it IS just pain, after all. It's not suffering, it's not misery. Those are additives, which I can choose or not.

And today, I choose not.

Peace be on your household.

Sword and Blood: Vampire Musketeer #1, Sarah A Hoyt

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And a link !

This review is also found on Goodreads, and on Amazon.

“To me, musketeers! To me, of the king! TO ME, MUSKETEERS! TO ME, OF THE KING! "

Why in the HECK do they call them Musketeers? There is not a musket in evidence, EVER, in any of the literature or the movies. It's all swords and swordplay, and dashing to and fro.

Here's what I think: I think this is all elitist propaganda, designed to convince us that the ferocity and training of heroes is supreme. That's crap. If you want to triumph, ask the guys who are 5'6" and 130 pounds to get the job done, and the moderately sized sized non-heroic people will use muskets (or the modern equivalent) to win yer war for you and save civilization. Average guys, not some privileged small- brained aristocracy with feathers in their hats, flouncy capes, waving around sharp pointy things.

Anyway.

France, the jewel of the world (HA!) is overrun with vampires. Since this is before America, they have no one to turn to for rescue, and so they make a truce with the enemy.

Wow. Couldn't see THAT one coming, could ya? The French making a treaty with the enemy? Oh. My.

And of course, Athos, one of the Famous Guys With Sharp Pointy Things gets bitten, and then we are off to the races.

Secret truth, here: there is a good reason he became a Famous Guy instead of living out his life as a Fabulous Aristocrat. It seems he killed his wife by hanging her, and has since then been filled with remorse. Seems he had spotted the sign of the COLLABORATORS (this is before the treaty) on her neck, and strung her up.

The incompetent Fabulous Aristocrat can't allow himself to do a competent job of his impulsive act, though, and carelessly leaves her body intact, instead of whacking off her head, driving a stake through her heart, burning her body to a crisp on the barby, etc. He's a Fabulous Aristocrat, and can't be bothered with doing things correctly, so, picking the absolutely worst choice available due to a combination of fear, shame, and the grinding edges of a broken heart, he runs away from her inviolate corpse to Paris. where he allows himself to marinate in guilt, brandy, self-hatred and doubt, while becoming a Famous Guy With A Sharp Pointy Thing.

Because there are no other options. It's a planned economy.

Meanwhile, D'Artagnan, a brave and talented, though unschooled, member of the country gentry arrives in Paris in the nick of time to hook up with Famous Guys With Sharp Pointy Things. They are killing vampires, and that's what he wants to do, since the vampires have killed his parents, among others.

Lots of running around and hiding secrets from friends and enemies, and some fighting.

Turns out that having yer blud sucked out is a lot like sex, at least for some people in some circumstances.

Wow. Never saw THAT coming, either!
(Okay, I jest, I jest. I know that there are certain tropes that are essential to the story, and that one is key. If you don't include the sensual aspect, you are betraying every writer in the genre since Bram Stoker, and also eliminating a lot of the reasons the vamps aren't all killed in about 15 minutes after discovery. Everybody wants good sex, it seems, and in a country formerly ruled/heavily influenced by a celibate clergy, vampires mean you can dance around the issue in confession. A bit. Until you die, or turn. )

BUT! Where do the vampires come from? What's the origin myth? It's been a LONG time since I read "Dracula," and I don't follow the genre, but I recall nothing about the origin of the monsters in Bram Stoker's . The Sparkly Vampire literature, of which I know nothing at all, may give a back story, but the letters of Jonathan Harker don't mention it. (I could be wrong about this. It has been some years since I read the original.)

I LOVE a good back story, and TA-DA!!! "Sword and Blood" provides it, quite nicely, thank you very much. AND that's one of my two favorite things about the book. Well, three, if you include 'it gives me an opportunity to mock the French.'

My favorite thing? Read the BIG WORDS at the top of the page.
( In my opinion, it's quite as well done as "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!")

We Dare: An Anthology of Augmented Humanity, Chris Kennedy, Jamie Ibson, eds.

And, for those of you running an ad blocker, here's the cover image:

And here's the link!

A condensed version of this blog post may be found on Goodreads, and it has been/ will be submitted to Amazon as well. And,  HERE'S THE LINK to THAT!

Greetings to all my internet friends and neighbors, and for those of you who are counting down with me to the Dragon Awards, YOU ARE TOO LATE!!! HAHA AHHHAHA!!!!! And to any of my family checking in, you might want to check out two oldies but goodies : one for “Leader of the Pack,” by the Shangi-Las, and the other “Leader of the Laundromat,” by the Detergents. 
Aw, shucks, watch the entire “I’ve Got A Secret” episode from 1964. We watched it back then, after all!

“We Dare” is one of the books I was reading when the Dragon dropped in, and disrupted all the plans that were in place. Now, that ended a week ago, and I haven’t been QUITE idle since then. In fact, almost as soon as the last review was filed, I grabbed up some Heinlein I keep for just such occasions, and lost myself in the tales of The Man Who Sold The Moon, and so on. Quite lovely. In fact, I doubt that I have reviewed those oldies, since I only started doing this a little over five years ago, and I really don’t know when I read some of his works. But, that’s for another time.

There ARE some others that were high on my list of TBR&R, and they will come in as rapid a fashion as I can honorably do so. So, Jennie, Mackey, Laura, Doug, Peter, Jerry, Chris, Nitay, Robert, and all of the others: YES, I have your books, and I am champing at the bit to get them into my brain and the results out of the ends of my fingers. Everybody else, all of you who have been patient,  have been patient, and have been patient, I’ll put out a request for new materials as I clear up space.

“We Dare: An Anthology of Augmented Humanity,” is a collection of fifteen stories from fifteen authors, and MOSTLY, the only thing they have in common is that they deal with implications of a world in which human beings are able to receive machine enhancements. Not a new concept, it received popular attention with the 1970’s series “The Six Million Dollar Man.” Good thing, or bad thing? It depends on who you ask, it depends on what you read.

“A handsome young cyborg named Ace
Wooed women at every base.
But when ladies glanced at
His special enhancement
They vanished with nary a trace.”
("Alpha Centauri," Firaxis Games)

Some who read this may be old enough to remember purchasing vinyl LP record albums. One of the marketing approaches was to take two hit songs by a group, add 10 mediocre songs, and form a playlist: the first song on side A was a hit, the last song on side B was a hit, and all the stuff in between was mediocre filler. That’s not the way these books are put together. ALL of the stories are good stuff.

KADE by Christopher Woods. The protagonist of “This Fallen World” has, somehow, managed to live to a ripe old age. He’s still a rapscallion, as much as his 90 year-old, much-abused body permits him to be. Rather than augmentation in the form of repairs and enhancements, he is offered a chance to start as a new adult, with additional features. However, this world is run by corporations, and they don’t like competitors to get advantages.

TAMING THE BEAST by Kevin Steverson. Sadly, I am not familiar with the universe this story is drawn from. I hope that changes sometime in the future. Here we have Gunny Harper, who has been given prosthetic legs to replaced the destroyed originals. The problem: while they are good for some activities, there is no way that he can operate with the pain which remains. The Beast referred to in the title is an obstacle course. If the Gunny can’t beat it, he is going to retire.

TANK by J.F. Holmes. The tank is a former cyborg soldier in the Army, now a NYC cop. The question is: are you still a human? He doesn’t really know the answer to that, but an encounter with a similarly enhanced criminal, and an astoundingly nasty criminal, and some criminals with suits and nice jobs, all conspire to force him to discover the answer.

CRADLE AND ALL by Quincy J. Allen. The corporation, no matter where it’s located, is always concerned about the bottom line. Who decides about the ethics of the situation? Usually, that’s someone else’s job. However, when we are referring to our own children, that answer isn’t good enough.

DO OR DIE by Jamie Ibson. “All problems can be solved with the proper application of C-4.” Or, Deton-8, in this future. Except, not really. Some jobs require a proper application of heart, In fact, without the heart, the jobs aren’t really worth doing. In this universe, people born with neurological conditions that are debilitating and ultimately lethal are, shall we say, re-purposed. But, the heart comes over, regardless of whether the pump is included.

YELLOW IN THE NIGHT by Philip Wohlrab. “The King In Yellow” is one of the creepiest, multi-level stories, ever, so why NOT add to it? These enhanced warriors KNOW they are being lied to from the beginning, but they also know the mission orders are valid. They hope the lies aren’t going to mean they don’t have a chance,

THE CHAOS OF WELL-SEEMING FORMS by Rob Howell. The Hatfields and the McCoys, or the Montagues and Capulets, on Mars. Howell can take a bizarre set-up like that, and ALMOST make you cry. Probably WILL make you cry, if you read it when you are alone, instead of in the car while waiting on teen-age girls to buy their school supplies.

FORTY ACRES AND A MULE by Luke R. J. Maynard. There is such sadness associated with this term; it comes from an attempt by the victorious North to provide the former slaves in the defeated South with property, that would have ended much of the economic disparity that prevented access to inherited wealth. In this story, we see the retirement longed for by a man given the strength of the mule by his enhancements.

IMPERFECT MIND by Jason Cordova. In a hard, cold, distant future, children born with imperfections are dumped into people warehouses until they age out. Then, they get dumped anywhere else. However, some of them get picked for other things, other uses that the elite might have for them. That could be anything, really; sex slave, dog food, whatever. One young girl gets picked to test-drive a cyborg-soldier package. It gives her the chance to experience love, for the very first time. And that’s what makes this story particularly nasty. I wish I could not draw a line between this fictional piece, and the brutal reality of the child soldiers; I really, really wish I could not do that.

BAG MAN by Jack Clemons. This one takes place in my semi-adoptive home town, and I recognize the place names, have visited a number of them, and I would prefer that we could find a path so that things will not work out this way. Humans with vastly modified brains and bodies do rough justice(?) for money. The choice of a theme park for some of the action clearly has nothing to do with the fact that it was the setting for gang activity in real life. It’s a sheer coincidence. But things won’t work out this way.

COME UP SCREAMING by Kevin Ikenberry. Captain Mairin Shields commands an armor unit used as a screening force for an assault team trying to re-take a formerly human city. In addition to her conventionally-acquired skills, she also has access to the memories of an ancestor who also drove a tank. This reminds me of a comic-book series from my youth; the tank was haunted by the ghost of Jeb Stuart, I believe.

ANGEL by Robert E. Hampson. I did my medic training at places found in this story. Some of my cadre could very well have been the models for medic sergeant Martin. He was given experimental nano-bots to save his life, and they do that, repeatedly. Not sure it really works to his benefit, in the end, but it sure does allow him the opportunity to pay it forward.

TO DUST by Marisa Wolf. Ignored and abandoned, and going insane. Who HASN’T had that experience? Well, hopefully, none of us. But even if that’s the case, you don’t just up and quit. After all, there are your comrades, and they are depending on you.

If you recall, at the beginning of this review, I said that anthologies no longer use the recording industry practice of placing the hits at the beginning and at the ending of the book. However, if I were to be persuaded otherwise, the next two stories would be the best evidence. Each one is excessively wonderful. Taken together (they are a pair), they are almost unbearably great.

NOW YOU SEE ME by Kacey Ezell. Ezell cheats, and it’s not fair. This is a collection of stories about enhanced humans, people who are given special powers, sometimes contained in their own skin, sometimes by being coupled to machinery. There IS such a thing, you know, and I have experienced it:

 I’m a biker. 

The physical limitations I feel in the flesh seem to vanish, when I throw a leg over the V65 Sabre in my garage, crank the engine, and move on down the road at the speed of heat. I am AUGMENTED, baby! And although I don’t know that Ezell has ever been a biker, I DO happen to know that she has strapped a big honken jet turbine to her spine, and danced the sky on laughter-silvered wings. So, when she tells you the story of Cary, who pilots a shell, and inhabits a body of a MOST powerful force, she is drawing from her own experience. It isn’t fair! It’s a lovely, lovely story, though, particularly because it’s half of a Rashomon.

NOW YOU DON’T by Josh Hayes. This is the other half of the Rashomon, and I THINK Hayes is a cheater as well. He’s got the perspective of Gage, the other POV in the story of techno-thieves, and his recounting of the sequence rewiring a crashing aircraft while waiting for an explosion are just a little bit too vivid to be completely selected from YouTube videos. Shucks, y’all, this is an excellent pairing of stories, and I would surely love to see more like it, ‘deed I would.

Conclusions: Do not, under any circumstances, plan on missing this book. Also, do not plan on starting it one month, and finishing it the next month, and then think you are going to dash off a quick review.

I’m a die-hard fan of Human Wave fiction, in which people find a way to survive, and technology is our friend. Most of these stories would not fit into that category; there is too much forced on individuals. However, I didn’t find anything here that really felt off; they are all possibilities. While I would hope that the possibility of augmented humanity will mean that those of us who are physically limited will have a shot at turning cart-wheels again, I also know that it’s not likely to be a technology available to everyone with a need. So, we will just take it as it comes.

Peace be on your household.

2019 Dragon Award Finalist, Best Fantasy: "Spinning Silver"

There are MUCH better reviews of this book out there! I do not believe that there are any BETTER books in this category. Just as good? Sure. But, not better.

And, for those of you running an ad blocker, here's the GORGEOUS cover image:

Is that not a GORGEOUS cover image?

And here's the link!

For the condensed version of this review, go to Goodreads. It's also posted on Amazon.

Greetings to all my internet friends and neighbors, and for those of you who are counting down with me to the Dragon Awards, IT’S THE LAST REVIEW! (even if it is a bit of a cheat...sorry.) And to any of my family checking in, okay, NOW you can ask. Please, though: one at a time?

First: what an absolutely GORGEOUS cover!

I suppose there have been others as aware, maybe even MORE aware, of the ticking clock than I have been over the past 25 days. There are people who have had some REALLY important things going on in their lives, and I think it’s worth remembering. While I have been gnawing my leg off to get out of the trap of having to read works nominated for an award (O, woe is me!), other people have awaited the results of medical tests, legal decisions, college admissions, bank loans; all KINDS of things. Right now, in fact, my oldest grandson and his beloved are wondering if they are going to have this baby today, or next week, or what.

So, put in perspective, this has been zip.

Still, it HAS been the defining feature of my August. And, at this very moment, it’s 4:25 PM Eastern, and the voting closes in 7 hours and 34 minutes, and: I’m done.

Sort of.

You see, I’ve got my grandson Tre sitting next to me, and we are eating peanuts so we can spoil our appetites. And, my daughters Carmen and Jennifer just came into town from Washington, D.C., and my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, have MISSED them.

In other words, I have other reasons, beside the deadline, to want this review posted.

And so, I resorted to an ANCIENT reading trick I used last WELL more than a half century ago: after reading enough of the book to find out what the story was going to be, I, um, well, you see…

I skipped to the end, and read the last chapters so I could see how it was going to come out.

There, I said it.

I really just needed to know if the beauty and skill of the first quarter of the book was going to be sustained. I was hoping that would be the case, that the promise of a good story would be delivered on. And it WAS!! I’m not going to spoil it for you, but in this case, what begins well, ends well.

I also grabbed up my resource lists, and I ripped through them to see what Respected Others, and Disrespected Others, had to say about the book. I needed confirmation, you see. And, what I found was that the people who have a good head on their shoulders consistently raved about how lovely this was; the idiots foamed at the mouth. And both of those are ringing endorsements.

So, here we go:

Miryem’s father is a moneylender, and he’s not very good at it. You could call it soft-hearted, if you wanted to, I suppose. However, I spent a LOT of time in sales and marketing, and I’d have to say the guy just isn’t a very good closer. You HAVE to be able to ask for your money.

Particularly when you are a Jew, and most professions are closed off to you; and there is a need for cash, and the Gentiles are prohibited by church law from loaning money at interest.

But, whether soft-hearted, soft-headed, or just not cut out for the job, he can’t get it done. So, Miryem, seeing her mother sick from too much cold and no food, gets the job done. And, it turns out that she’s good at it.

Wanda’s farmer is a drunkard. He borrowed money from the moneylender to get medicine for his sick wife, drank and gambled most of it up, and what he had left wasn’t enough to help. So, she died, along with the newborn babe, and was buried under the white tree. This did NOT improve things for Wanda and her two little brothers; they were just BARELY scraping by, until Miryem shows up to demand repayment of the loan. When she sees they really have no means to repay, she instructs Wanda’s father that she’ll accept a half-day of labor from Wanda in exchange for a half-penny reduction of the amount he owes. Although it is not readily apparent, this deal DELIGHTS Wanda, who will escape beatings from her drunken father, as well as get fed at least one good meal per day, as well as what she can forage from the stale bread for the chickens. As time goes by, Wanda makes a way to earn money for herself, and for her brother as well.

Irinuska’s father is a nobleman. Having married once for love, and then lost her in childbirth, he is resolved not to love again, so Irinushka has a permanent last place, after the step-mother with the huge dowry, and the two tiny step-brothers. She can benefit him in no way, until he is presented with a chance to marry her off to the insane tsar.

I read enough to know that this is an EXCELLENT story, and well-told. I read enough to know that the author has the skill to make a situation look like one thing, only to discover that it’s something else entirely. I read enough to know that this book will NOT be a DNF (Did Not Finish), but a NFY (Not Finished Yet).

Alas, I DO have this deadline. And, in the faint hope that this last review will be of a benefit, I submit it to you, as is.

As for The Question: Is “Spinning Silver” a worthy choice for the 2019 Dragon Award in the category of Best Fantasy Novel?

My opinion: Oh, heck yeah. In fact, the fairy-tale aspect (the story is, I believe, derived from the Rumplestiltskin story) makes this the most charming of the lot. I don’t know if that’s what YOU are looking for in a fantasy; in fact, I don’t know if that makes it a better contender for the award. However, it really is a strong contender.

Peace be on your household.

2019 Dragon Award Finalist, Best Fantasy Novel: "Foundryside"

And, for those of you running an ad blocker, here's the cover image:

And here's the link!

An abbreviated review can be found on Goodreads, which has already posted. I’ll also submit the review to Amazon, and will include that link when it posts.

Greetings to all my internet friends and neighbors, and for those of you who are counting down with me to the Dragon Awards, TODAY’S THE LAST DAY TO VOTE! I’d give you the voting link, but if you didn’t register, it’s too late. Sorry.   And to any of my family checking in, I know you are inclined to party like it’s 1999 on Labor Day. Write my phone number on your arm in something that doesn’t dissolve in BBQ sauce, in case you need me to go your bail.

This is the third of four books I’m reading in the dead tree version. Wow, am I having to make some adjustments! I DO like to read in bed, but my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, doesn’t like the light on while she is sleeping. So, I’m using this headlight I picked up at Harbor Freight. Amazon has one very much like it, but if you get one, be sure it has a LOW setting for reading, as well as the super high beam for hunting rabid raccoons at midnight. A strobe setting can be useful, too. My preferences is for one that runs off batteries, but they have rechargeable lights as well.

“Foundryside” is an amazingly smooth read. I’ve noticed an uncomfortable tendency to dump bizarre place and people names at the beginning of some fantasy books; it seems the author must IMMEDIATELY establish that this isn’t taking place in mundane land, and they don’t quite trust the “FANTASY” tags on the cover to get the point across. If they also toss in an info dump about how magic works, it makes it worse; and, if they haven’t gotten all of the tendencies to purple prose yet hammered out of their system, it can be just as close to unreadable as you can get.

None of that here. Bennett does an excellent job of showing, not telling. It’s only after he has established that protagonist Sancia feels the walls, and gets a complete understanding of their environment from that, and that use of that power makes the scar on her head burn, that he tells us why that’s the case. It works well.

Sancia is an approximately teen-age guttersnipe thief girl, who is proficient in the use of her ability to ‘hear’ and understand physical structures, small enough to fit in tiny places/openings, and strong enough to handle the necessary acrobatics to climb roofs, etc. She is NO Mary Sue, though. Her ability to hear the floors, walls, etc, talking to her also means that she can’t tolerate much touching her skin; it produces a sensory overload. She can’t even eat meat, or drink water, because she identifies so strongly with what it is and where it’s been. Plain rice, some beans from time to time, and weak cane wine is all she can tolerate. She even hates to have to put on new clothing, because she has to adapt to what the new cloth has experienced.

She has a plan, though: she has heard that there are criminal-element docs, who can free her of the gift/curse via an expensive surgery. So, she partners with former upper-class fixer Sark. He identifies worthy objects; she steals them; they split the take.

And the take on this last job is an unbelievable amount, enough to get repaired, and to escape the wicked city of Tevanne.

Actually, the city isn’t THAT wicked. It’s just horribly constructed around the use of magic. From the scraps of a prior civilization, a few magical concepts have been recovered or rediscovered. By means of scriving cryptic symbols on an object, it can be made to perform simple acts, or to have certain characteristics. Until fairly recently, though, it was to cumbersome for most uses; if you tried to scrive all the desired characteristics on the head of an axe, you’d run out of room. However, a discovery in some ancient ruins showed how all the needed traits could be linked into a single scriving, which would be small enough to fit. That condensation of instructions can be compounded further, and via a series of links and instructions, entire construction industries can be built.

If you have ever done any programming, this will sound VERY familiar to you.

It’s not the magic itself that is horrible; it’s the uses it’s been put to. All of the power is concentrated into a very few merchant houses, and they seem to spend as much time protecting their privilege and limiting access to their processes as they spend making shoes, or building boats, or whatever. Industrial espionage is a significant part of their business practice, and while they HAVE managed to come together and ban certain extremely dangerous magical uses, there is no thought of establishing anything that looks like an authority over their individual practices.

And that leaves no one with the authority, and perhaps not the inclination, to look out for the welfare of those who don’t fit into the institutional structure of the merchant houses. As a result, you have lovely, clean, well-lighted dwellings for the merchants and agents of each house, all enclosed in impenetrable walls with gates and guards to keep other merchants of other houses out. And as for the refuse, nobody cares. They can live or die as they see fit, as long as they don’t intrude on the business and well-being of the merchants. If that happens, doom comes, in the form of well-armed and armored troops with magical weapons and some pretty lethal non-magical weapons as well. They kill or capture the offenders, and those who die may be the most favored. Convicted offenders (and they are ALWAYS convicted) are punished by having magical wire loops placed around various appendages; the loops then contract, slowly, until the appendage is amputated. Sometimes, this results in death; other times, in crippling. The merchants don’t really care, except for the value of the punishment as a source of entertainment.

In the midst of this lawless depravity, Captain Gregor Dandolo cuts a solitary figure. A war veteran who has seen horrible things, he resolves to bring order to the city, and he starts by cleaning up the waterfront. He hires guards to watch over the area, and they eliminate the theft and trafficking taking place, until thuggery departs.

Which makes the waterfront a safe place to store things. And one particular thing, from this safe location, is what Sancia must steal in order to earn her monster, life-changing paycheck.

And, she steals it!

The object she steals is contained inside a simple wooden box; she has to preserve it for three days, before she can meet up with Sark, and make the transfer. However, her escape plan got a little too enthusiastic, and instead of just causing a distraction, she burns the whole waterfront. She fears that the enraged Captain Dandolo will be hot on her trail, and she needs to have some way to stay safe, yet retain possession of whatever is in the box. So, she opens the box, and finds a gold key.

And discovers the key can talk to her, and hear her thoughts. It’s a unique key, that can open any lock, and detect scrived objects from a distance. In the hands of a merchant house, they could have immediate access to the secrets of all the other houses; nothing would be safe.

And, THEN, it gets weird.

This is a very well-written book, with lots of flashy, bang bang boom boom bits of violent conflict tossed in to keep the characters motivated. The villains are boo-hiss dastardly. The heroes are sufficiently flawed to make them lovable. The logic behind the magic only requires the SLIGHTEST bit of suspension of belief, because it’s clear that it takes a good bit of organization and skill to make the devices work as intended. If a world is posed in which any dope can do any magic, it just doesn’t play, because there’s no realistic conflict possible. Here, magic is a resource, and access to it can be controlled similarly to access to energy, food, and so on.

As for The Question: Is “Foundryside” a worthy choice for the 2019 Dragon Award in the category of  Best Fantasy Novel?

My opinion: Out of the five books I’ve reviewed in this category, two of them are non-starters. One, “Deep Roots” by Ruthanna Emrys, I exclude because it appropriately belongs in the horror category. And I exclude “The Raven Tower” by Ann Leckie because of the virulent attacks on the entire Dragon Award process, and the community, by the community she has chosen to affiliate with. If it were not for that, exemplified by the specious inclusion of a shibboleth, I’d consider it. But I think it’s a horse race between “House of Assassins,”  by Larry Correia, “Lies Sleeping” by Ben Aaronovitch, and “Foundryside.” I think it’s going to come down to the size of individual fan bases, and personal preferences.

So, yes, this one is a worthy contender.

Peace be on your household.

2019 Dragon Award Finalist, Best Fantasy Novel: "The Raven Tower"

And, for those of you running an ad blocker, here's the cover image:

And here's the link

For an abbreviated review, please check out my post on Goodreads. It will also be on Amazon.

Greetings to all my internet friends and neighbors, and for those of you who are counting down with me to the Dragon Awards, it is GOING to be a horse race! After this, I have but TWO (2) books to read and review! And to any of my family checking in, remember today is RED Friday. RED: Remember Everyone Deployed. So, wear something red today.

I'm going to tackle a subject in this blog post that has been bothering me. I'll keep it off the two condensed book reviews that I do, but THIS is my blog, and I get to say stuff. I'll also put it toward the END of this blog post, because I think for some, it's going to be off-putting.

Maybe not most who read my blog posts, though. Who knows? I certainly don't know who reads my blog posts, unless they leave a comment, and not always then.

This is my 21st book review in the series, and the second in the dead tree version. This one actually is the hard back, with dust jacket. See my comments from yesterday about dead trees costing less than electrons.

I've not read this author, Ann Leckie, before. I am aware that she hit the science fiction field big time not too long ago: she was awarded the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Arthur C. Clarke awards for her first novel “Ancillary Justice.” The cover of the version I saw has a picture that's probably little space-ships shooting a big spaceship, so that's good; exploding spaceships and/or pirates improve just about ant story. I read that part of the book's impact had something to do with the use of pronouns. Why pronouns should be an issue, I'm not sure, but there you have it.

I'm pretty sure I have never read a book with this POV before. It's that of a (seemingly) objective observer, who happens to be focused on one particular character, by the name of Eolo, a riding companion of Mawat, who is a person of importance.

Over the course of some flash-back reveals, we learn that the POV character is, most likely, a rock. Furthermore, the rock is sentient; and, eventually, we discover that the rock is a god. However, it's rather hard at the beginning to determine exactly what that means, other than 'sentient rock who can observe things.' The reveal progresses, and we learn that people have taught the rock language, and that their offerings provide the rock with power.

Without exception, the following applies to all gods, although it's mostly the rock who is used to introduce us to the rules.

Power and language are, evidently, two facets of the same item for a sentient rock, and THAT is a really interesting concept to dwell on. Deny a person the ability to communicate; how much power can they be said to have?

I love it when the boundary rules of a story are spelled out, and Leckie does a great job of doing that via the rock's self-examination. The CORE rule is that all utterances must be the truth. That happens to have a significance in this universe that the same statement does not have in ours; in THIS universe, if the rock says it, then it HAS to be true, even if the universe itself has to change to make it so. If one of the gods voices an impossibility, then they have to pay the price. Therefore, the rock has to be very careful what it says; there is no such thing as a word spoken without consequence.

A permutation of the rule: the rock can report what someone else told it without being responsible for the truthfulness of the statement. In such cases, the expected form is to say “ Here is a story someone told me,” or words to that effect. Also an implied result: it's better for the rock to speak generally, rather than specifically.

That last is a particularly elegant rule, as it covers all of the cryptic prophecies given in stories about magic, ever.

The rules for the rock are essential for the plot development. Also essential for the plot development is the otherwise merely-very-interesting memories the rock discloses. The time it sat on the floor of the ocean; trilobites and bony fish; glaciers, which recede, leaving it on top of the hill; dinosaurs; meteorites; people, who brought it offerings, and taught it language. Fortunately for the rock, it experiences the passage of time differently than we puny people do, else I fear it would have experienced some huge amounts of boredom along the way.

It would be POSSIBLE, perhaps, to strip out all of the plot pertaining to the gods, and still have a reasonably interesting story. It wouldn't be nearly as interesting, though, as it would just deal with humans striving for power. Removing the gods, here's what it looks like: Mawat's father was the Human-in-Charge, and his term and life were at an end. We encounter him in the first scene about to enter the city, expecting to have to take over. Instead, he finds his uncle on the throne. Power struggles ensue.

Yup, that is the making of a fairly good story, but not that distinctive. It's been done, at least in Hamlet form, many times. It's the addition of the actions, and inactions, of the rock and other gods that sets this apart.

Well, that, and the unusual point of view. I'm reminded of the “little did he know” interplay in the movie “Stranger Than Fiction,” with Emma Thompson, as the author, and Will Ferrell, as her character.  It's not so much a god perspective, as it is an author perspective. I do understand that some found it tiresome, but I thought it made for a nice change-up. I doubt I'd like a DIET of that, mind you, but it was rather fun.

Then again, I also enjoyed the trilobite story, and from what I've read, some people didn't, at all. I wonder about their commitment to science fiction; if you don't enjoy a good trilobite reference, how can you be claim to be a fan? Well, never mind. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

So, my opinion is : Mostly favorable, except for one troubling feature which will ONLY be dealt with in my blog post, at the VERY END, except for my sign-off, and not at all in my Goodreads and Amazon reviews.

As for The Question: Is  a worthy choice for the 2019 Dragon Award in the category of  Best Fantasy Novel?

My opinion: No. There is one troubling element that just reeks to me, which I will now explain to the best of my ability, and in the most accurate, least offensive language I can use.

IT IS, HOWEVER, A RANT. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE EXPOSED TO A RANT, STOP READING.

I have already commented on the strangeness I found with the finalists for 2019, compared to 2018. The preponderance of trad pub books, at the expense of indie and small house publishers, is a troubling development. The exultation from previously unknown-to-me sources that at last the Dragons were gone “mainstream,” I found to be deeply disturbing.

Now, with some of the books coming from the trad pub area, I had no problem with including them among the finalists; even those with only a few reviews might very well had some cult followers that championed their choice. Yay, freedom!

However, it was with the reading of “The Raven Tower” that I finally identified a theme that I'd noticed earlier, ad that had distorted some of the books: the determined focus on non-binary sexuality in humans.

In previous works, it was just an aggravation. The catastrophe that is “The Light Brigade” seemed to take great satisfaction in refusing to provide the gender of the POV character. However, with all else that is wrong with that book, no point in emphasizing any particular deficit. Similarly, “A Memory Called Empire” was so severely flawed by the purple prose and the excessive, dragging length that the intrusion of same-sex intimacy between the protagonist and her companions really didn't enter into the review at all. The real offense in “The Calculated Stars” was gender-based (men are exploitative/repressive), but not sexual in nature. And, in “Black Chamber,” it's the pan-sexuality, not the homosexuality, that is the turn-off.

But in “The Raven Tower?” The author can only wait until page four before she introduces non-binary sexuality. And, although it is briefly mentioned a few more times, IT NEVER MATTERS TO THE STORY. So, why include it?

I do not know. In this respect, I resemble the rock, in the book. I don't know what's going on inside people's heads; I can only know what I see, what they tell me. And what they are telling me is that they have a great deal to say about non-binary sexuality. More than I have ever heard, in fact, in any other context. Save one.

Starting in the eighth grade, and lasting for about a year, that seemed to be the only source of derision available to boys. According to the vile little creatures, everything was 'queer, queer, queer.' It was the sure way to isolate a target, to make them an object of contempt: tell a 'joke,' and make them the subject.

In retrospect, it's pretty clear that this was about power, and not about sexuality, per se.  There were a few boys with effeminate mannerisms, and for whatever reason, they never seemed to catch the abuse that was heaped on others. This was the form that bullying took; later, as a middle school counselor, we learned to call it by the name of sexual harassment, but that wasn't a term we had heard of in 1966.

And the behavior of the wannabe thugs in a tough all-boys school seems to be echoed in the behavior of writers of books I have reviewed over the course of the last month. The hostility between those writers and publishers previously OUTSIDE the works considered for the Dragons, and those who have been Dragon contenders since the beginning, is well documented. The DragonCon group have been called just about every name by the WorldCon group except Larry, Brad, Sarah, and Kate.  Instead: fascist, racist, sexist, patriarchist, cis-normative, white, Mormon, male.

And, in that context, it's very hard for me to attribute even neutral motives to what seems to be an artificial inclusion into the majority of the works I've reviewed. Instead, it sounds like this to my ears:

"We're going to speak of sexual deviance in an enlightened manner because it makes you uncomfortable, because you are all latent homosexuals, repressing your true feelings."

These are the tactics of bullies in all places, at all times.

Perhaps I am too sensitive about some things. It's just that I do not regard human sexuality as a spectator sport. I DO understand that there are some forms of literature that require, or rather, that audiences expect, to have sexual activity involved. Hooray for choices! I am accustomed to skip over certain passages in the works of some of my favorite authors; for example, in the “Ghost” series by John Ringo. But, in those cases, it's a matter of taste, and the explicit sexual scenes were part of the character arc of the protagonist.

But today, there was absolutely nothing contributed to the story by making a point that the character was a non-binary human. I can't read that as other than politicizing, or weaponizing, sexuality. And I find that despicable.

I warned you it was going to be a rant.

Peace be on your household.