More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik – Mystery, Terror, Magic in the Cold North

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Spinning Silver is not a sequel to Novik’s wonderful Uprooted.  The two novels have no characters, setting or magic in common, and, although Novik says both books are set in the same world, the stories and countries are far apart.  Spinning Silver is also not as good as Uprooted.

Spinning Silver gives us three heroines, and Miryem, daughter of an improvident, hapless Jewish moneylender, Irina, daughter of an ambitious duke and Magreta, the poor daughter of an selfish, cruel man has two brothers to protect.  The three ladies live in a country similar to Old Russia, where Jews are kept in their ghetto and in their place, always at risk for pograms and perfect scapegoats for a too-long winter.

Miryem realizes her father would rather let his family freeze and nearly starve than to demand repayment.  She takes over his job, demands her father’s debtors pay on their loans and discovers she has merchant talent and can turn silver into gold.  The Staryek king hears her boast that she can turn silver into gold and leaves a bit of silver on her doorstep.  Miryem is smart and takes the silver to her cousin’s suitor, a jeweler, who turns the silver into a bewitching ring that catches all eyes.  The jeweler sells the ring to Irina’s father.  Next the Staryek leaves a larger pile of silver, which Miryem and the suitor turn into a necklace.  The third time Miryem asks the Staryek king what he will give her in return; he will make her his queen – whether she wants it or not.

So far we have the outline of a Rumplestiltskin fairy tale, but the novel has far more depth than the tale.  The Staryek king terrifies Miryem, and she calls upon the backbone she found when demanding loan payments and stands up to him.  She forces him to see her as an individual instead of as a despised mortal.

Meanwhile, the demon-possessed tsar marries Irina because his demon wants to consume her.  The demon loans the tsar magic and in return, the tsar must provide the demon with victims.  The tsar is cursed with the demon because his mother bargained for her power in exchange for her infant son.  He doesn’t know how to rid himself of this unwanted monster and is terrified that his nobles will discover he is possessed and burn him as they did his mother.

Magreta comes into the tale because her drunken, worthless father owes Miryem’s family; since he cannot repay the loan Margreta works for Miryem’s family, eventually taking over some of Miryem’s collecting tasks.

All three ladies live in fear.  Miryem first fears her neighbors, then the Staryek king.  Irina fears her husband’s demon and knows that if the nobles kill him that they will kill her or imprison her in a convent.  Magreta fears her father and fears for her brothers.

The novel’s story is how all three overcome their fears by winning against terrible odds and tyrants.  This is the best part of the book.

The romances are weak.  Novik gives us reasons that the Staryek king will want and admire Miryem, but we don’t really see why Miryem would want to marry him.  Irina of course has no choice because she already is married to the tsar and we see hints that the two will be happy together, but there is no compelling love story here.  Neither the Staryek king nor the tsar are fascinating people, nothing like Sarkan, the dragon in Uprooted.  All the men feel like blank slates, only there for the girls to be strong against.

The other weak point is that the dangers feel muted, distant.  The characters tell us they are in danger and we can certainly see it, but the threats don’t feel as immediate as they should.  Even when Miryem fears her king will kill her for not completing a task the story focuses on her determination more than on the danger, and the same is true for Irina and Margreta.  All three girls either have or develop spines of steel and spend most of their emotional energy on remaining adamant.  I certainly appreciate that in a character – far better than moaning and groaning – the side effect is we lose the sense of deadly peril.

Overall the writing, pacing, world building are excellent.  I was a little disappointed because Spinning Silver is not as good as Uprooted, lacking its overall emotional punch.

4 Stars

Stuck in Manistique by Dennis Cuesta – Gentle Comedy in a Small Michigan Town

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How could I pass up a novel set in Manistique, a small town along a beautiful stretch of Lake Michigan beach in the Upper Peninsula?  Stuck in Manistique is unusual, a bit of romance with a touch of screwball comedy, and meant-to-be-quirky characters.

Protagonist Mark is a financial planner in suburban Chicago who inherits his aunt’s home in Manistique, not realizing it is a bed & breakfast.  He quickly learns when his first guest, young medical resident Emily shows up, fresh from deciding to walk away from her affair with her mentor doctor.  Emily has nowhere to go because the town’s hotel is full with a bus tour group and she hit a deer on US 2 and the town’s dealership cannot fix her Saab quickly.  Mark allows Emily to stay, followed by elderly George, then weird maybe couple Yvonne and Peter.  In between all this Mark must scatter his aunt’s ashes on Indian Lake with the help of Bear Foot, a local visionary friend of his aunt.

So far so good, we have the screwball elements in place with people coming and going, all while our hapless innkeeper is the victim of his own kindness.  Romance, death, revelation all ensue.

Stuck in Manistique is short; it won’t take more than a couple hours to read.  There isn’t much action beyond eating at the various pubs and pizza joints, running along the shoreline, paddle boating on Indian Lake and driving around the UP and the northern Lower Peninsula.  The main story is the people.

  • What is the connection between Mark and Emily?  They both feel something, but it isn’t romance.
  • Will Mark decide to stay in Manistique?
  • Will Emily finally cut the connection with her adulterous lover/boss?
  • Can Mark get over his fear of bridges?  (Believe me, you do not want to drive over the Mackinaw Bridge if you are afraid of bridges!  It’s huge.)
  • Can Emily come to peace with her guilt over Nicholas?
  • Will George ever catch up with his tour group?
  • Will Peter and Yvonne make it around Lake Michigan in his electric car?

Simple questions.  The author manages to bring these together in a gentle comedy that is engaging, and combines it with beautiful setting and an atmosphere of What Next Can Go Wrong?

There is almost enough meat to the characters to make Stuck in Manistique a winner.  The people tell us about themselves, and while we see Mark being kind in action, that kindness doesn’t quite align with his internal story about dumping his girlfriend when she wanted to get married.

Writing is good although don’t expect a lot of action or snappy dialogue.  The characters are the story here.

3 to 4 Stars

I received this via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

 

The Librarians and the Pot of Gold by Greg Cox – Television Show Spin Off

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The Librarians and the Pot of Gold by Greg Cox is based on a television show and some of it reminded me of James Bond movies:

  • The initial sequence is fast and dangerous and has nothing to do with the rest of the plot
  • The action and setting are vivid
  • Dialogue is short and snappy
  • People don’t always think before they act

Overall I enjoyed the book despite being completely unaware of the television show.  The Librarians and the Pot of Gold references past adventures over and over, which is a little annoying, but readers who follow the show or have read earlier novels will likely enjoy.

This is a very fast read, two to three hours at most.  The authors don’t explain the characters or back story, presumably we’re supposed to be familiar already, but it’s easy enough to pick up and follow.  The good guys are obvious and the bad guys even more obvious, and there are plenty of secondary characters to add interest.

I would like to read more novels, written with a bit more serious intent, that use the Library concept.

I’m not sure I’ll read any further books in the series but do recommend The Librarians and the Pot of Gold if you enjoy fantasy with lots of action and color.

3 Stars

I received an advance copy via NetGalley in expectation of an honest review.

Heirs of Grace by Tim Pratt – Magic and Family

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Heirs of Grace by Tim Pratt came up on BookBub, came up on Amazon recommendations, came up on Goodreads.  I’m not sure just why it comes up so much as the novel is OK but nothing great.

The plot is pretty basic.  Youngish woman inherits an old house complete with ancient magic (source never explained) along with a good-looking lawyer bound to server her and some creepy half-siblings.  Two of the siblings want to kill her, but she manages.  So far so good, not terribly original or compelling, but this type of novel can be a fun read if the characters are good.

Heirs of Grace just misses.  Main character Bekah is OK, her romantic interest is blah, her eldest sister is hung up on pleasing their dead father and her brother is a homicidal power-mad nasty piece of work.  None of them feel real and the action and conflicts also slide right past me.

I read Heirs of Grace on vacation and it was engaging enough to finish, but not so good that I will look for more by this author.  Thankfully this is a Kindle Unlimited, not a purchase.

Note:  There is some cursing and bad language and Bekah is above the petty concerns of normal morality.

3 Stars

City of Broken Magic by Marah Bolender – Great Premise, So-So Characters

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Marah Bolender’s debut novel City of Broken Magic is built on an unusual magic system and world.  The city Amicae is built to contain and ward off infestations of magic monsters that spontaneously form in broken amulets.  The city designers did too good of a job and now the civic leaders and almost all citizens do not believe that monsters exist, and that’s a problem because amulets do wear out and break.  Sweepers are responsible to remove any monsters that form, a terribly dangerous job.

Our heroine Laura is a Sweeper training under the only other surviving Sweeper, Clae.  I kept expecting some romantic sparks between Laura and Clae, or between Laura and the new apprentice Okane but neither happened.  Laura is determined to learn as much as possible and develop her skills just to survive, while she dissembles about her job to her aunt and cousin to avoid worrying them.

The plot felt contrived and had a few holes.  Clae takes Laura to another city to present her to the sweepers from other cities, yet when they arrive they and their hosts are the only ones there, no one from the other cities, and many of their hosts are too busy insulting Clae to take more than a glance at Laura.

I’m not sure why City of Broken Magic feels flat, bland to me.  The action felt 3rd hand, almost impersonal.  The two main characters are decent, with Laura a strong-willed determined young lady who wasn’t going to die fighting monsters if she could help it.  Somehow the book just doesn’t connect with me.

I think the biggest problem is the secondary characters seem taken right out of central casting:  The greedy, foolish businessman, downtrodden almost-enslaved native, chauvinistic wanna-be boyfriend, matchmaking aunt.  These characters never read like real people, they are 2-dimensional.  There is also no true villain.  A few characters get in Clae’s and Laura’s way, but they are minor problems, not over-the-top threats.  Overall the poor secondary characters weaken the rest of the novel.

Several reviewers were not happy with how Bolender introduced terms that one had to infer from context, but I didn’t find this a problem.  We learn about the world the say way a visitor would, in bits and pieces.  I thought the author left several trails unexplored, ideas and situations that she could build upon in future novels, such as the intriguing city of tiers.  The novel felt as though the author had a start and an end and took the shortest path from one to the other without looking at the scenery.

Overall City of Broken Magic was a decent read, not one I can rate as high as I would like to given the imaginative world building, but certainly worth reading if one enjoys fantasy.

3 Stars

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance reader copy given in expectation of an honest review.

Duty Honor Planet – Intriguing Twist on Interstellar Invasion

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Duty, Honor, Planet is the first novel in the 3-book series by Rick Partlow and takes a different twist on the alien invasion theme and is a pretty entertaining read.  Officers Jason McKay and Shannon Stark are assigned to the new Intelligence arm of the Republic space navy, with the intention to form a special forces unit.  Their first assignment is not glamorous, to guard a high profile Senator’s daughter on a tour of various colony hot spots.

They run into some very odd alien invaders:    Blue, large humanoids who are looting the colony planet of all its resources.  Oddly, the humanoids have human DNA and appear to be sub-sentient creatures created soldiers.  The attack on the colony doesn’t make much sense – until McKay figures out that the attack is likely a dry run for an invasion of Earth.  Further, they determine the attackers are from a Russian force rumored to have survived the last war and escaped somewhere.

The rest of the novel proceeds much as we expect with plenty of action and good dialogue and even reasonable character development.  The characters never quite come alive for me, but it’s close.  There is romance which is also a near miss; our main character sleeps with two ladies and has intense relationships with both – within a day of each other.

Overall this is well-written and well-edited.  Pacing is good and the author doesn’t skimp on creating interesting settings and conversational dialogue.  I’m not sure I’ll read the sequels.

3 Stars

Trust A Few: Haruspex Trilogy: Part One by E.M. Swift-Hook Space Opera

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Trust A Few: Haruspex Trilogy: Part One by E.M. Swift-Hook is a good book, with well-drawn characters, action and plenty of moral dilemmas.  So why did I keep leaving it to play a game on my tablet?  I’m not sure, but the story became less compelling about two thirds of the way through.  It may have been me or maybe it was the fact that all the characters enmeshed themselves in the criminal underworld – not appealing – or that the true villain in the story appeared only a few times.

We have four main characters with a few others adding conflicts and challenges.  Durban Chola sees Jaz as little more than a thug, a hard mercenary, a man who survived the worst military setting imaginable, but I see Jaz as the central character, the glue that holds everyone together.  Jaz would say Avilon is the keystone, and the action revolves around Avilon, but it is Jaz who has the most complex character and is the engine.  I kept hoping Jaz would find a way back to Vel’s cousin and her little girl, the two people he planned to make his permanent family until Durban yanked him away.

The setting is the underworld of an enormous city, in a world ruled by the Coalition and its CSF security forces.  We know from the beginning that the security force wants something from Avilon but we haven’t seen what it is yet.

In fact it isn’t at all clear why the group doesn’t just leave.  Jaz claims to be working on setting himself up to do just that, and Avilon will stay as long as Jaz, but it’s hard to believe they are both willing to kill people and do other evil just to build a stash.  Durban will stay close to Avilon, but Charity has little reason to do so.

Trust A Few is hard to rate.  I liked it enough to finish, but it did bog down for me and I’m not likely to seek out the sequels because I don’t care enough about any of the characters to see how they play out.

3 Stars

Vesta Exiled: Vesta Colony Book One by Sterling R. Walker – Science Fiction

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Vesta Exiled: Vesta Colony Book One by Sterling R. Walker takes us to the space colony Vesta, where some of the third and now their children display new mental talents.  The people affected, called Strays, had their DNA modified when treated as infants for a deadly plague.

Earth cut off the colony when they reported the plague, and now the 12,000 or so people on Vesta must develop their own way to survive and thrive in a world with threatening animals and incredible storms.  We would expect the colony would value people who communicate telepathically now that the communication devices have worn out, but such is not the case.  Some fear or despise the Strays, and the leader of this faction decides it’s time to intern all Strays in a separate prison.

This is the backdrop for the human story of five young adults, 4 Strays and 1 Normal, who find out about the plot and decide to fight back.  The novel is pleasantly matter-of-fact about the reaction of most Normals:  Most think it wrong or silly to intern the Strays but enough go along with it that the corrupt mayor is able to imprison almost everyone.  The Strays themselves cooperate after the mayor shoots one Stray with Downs Syndrome.

Sterling Walker gives us a story about people, with enough detail in the setting that we can appreciate the struggle the colony has now and will have even more in the future.  The colony is at a crisis point and I can foresee three broad paths:  1)  Treat the Strays as low caste workers, slaves, 2) Abandon the segregation effort and live together as they have until now or 3) Strays leave and form their own community which would eventually conflict with the rest.

Walker tells the story through the five young adults, yet I wouldn’t consider this a YA novel.  The author fleshes out events and people are realistic about feelings and each other and the romance is understated.  Overall Vesta Exiled is an excellent story, well presented with engaging characters and realistic conflicts.

Vesta Exiled ends on a cliffhanger.

4 Stars

The Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams – Space Opera or One Fight Scene Too Many

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Publisher Tor graciously provided a review copy through NetGalley for The Stars Now Unclaimed by new author Drew Williams.  The book blurb describes it as space opera with a strong female lead, Jane.

The novel has potential as Williams creates a far future galaxy devastated first by endless war among tens of thousands of sects comprised of 17 space-faring races including humans, followed by the Pulse, radiation that reduced most planets to pre-technological levels.  The Pulse effects were random, leaving some worlds almost untouched, others back to steam and others back to horse, spears and clubs.  This backdrop has excellent story potential but it needs strong characters to engross us readers.

Williams brings us Jane, the narrator (we don’t learn her name until about 80% through), who works for the Justified, the group who created the Pulse and now seeks to minimize its damage the next time it flows through.  Jane is responsible to collect kids with unique mental talents but her primary skill is fighting.

That brings us to the problem.  The novel is one fight scene after another, with very little time for character development and not much setting.  It is as though the author creates this great world, then figures it is good enough and we can fill in the blanks.

Even though Jane is in the entire novel we don’t really get to know her other than she likes to fight and she is a tenacious friend and worse enemy.  The other characters also have little personality and we see them primarily as foils for Jane.  The character with the most personality is her ship, Scheherazade.

Jane and friends swear a lot, mostly F-bombs as general purpose filler words, but there is no blasphemy.

Overall The Stars Now Unclaimed is a decent read.  I couldn’t get too involved with it given the lack of full-bodied people, but the author writes reasonably well and has created a complex world.  I wish him well in future novels in this series, although I’m not likely to seek the next books.

3 Stars

Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series – Great Fun by Terry Mancour

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Like all Mancour’s Spellmonger novels, Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series by Terry Mancour  is entertaining, engaging, lots of fun with a fast moving plot, complex villains and earnest heroes.  This time we join journeymen Tyndal and Rondal who decide to pursue their knightly quest to rid the world of the Rat Brotherhood thieves, extortionists, slavers, kidnappers, murderers, etc., etc., etc.  The Rats aren’t too keen on being done away with and are highly decentralized, making it difficult to do more than annoy them with any one assault.

Of course Tyndal and Rondal find a way, along with helping Alshar’s Orphan Duke Anguin, make lots of money and yes, kill a dragon.  The book ends with us once more reintroduced to the real villains in the Spellmonger’s world, the fanatical followers of Sheol and Korbol, the undead, necromantic folk who hate humans.

The two young knights are interesting characters who feel somewhat real – albeit a little too good to be true at surviving impossible odds – and we meet a couple new characters, noble sibling shadowmages Atopol and Gatina.  Gatina adds a sour note to the story.  She is 14 and looking for a husband.  Per her family’s rules she must find someone as perfect and as daring as possible and she settles on Rondal.  Rondal isn’t too sure he wants to be settled on and finds Gatina’s remorseless hunt a bit unsettling, but like most teenage boys he’s also not going to look too askew at a pretty girl.

Even allowing for the medieval backdrop of the story I found it jarring to read about a 14 year old seriously contemplating marriage.  Today we call someone like that jail bait and her father would have more than a warning!  I found her too obsessive to be real, plus far too good at sneaking around and stealing stuff and predict she will cause problems in the future for the Spellmonger gang, much like Isily.

Mancour creates an unusual world with plenty of magic, good guys and villains, political intrigue and interpersonal problems.  The world in Shadowmage was slightly less detailed and the action a little harder to follow.  Mancour includes maps but they are hard to read in the E format and I wasn’t able to ground myself in the territory.  His characters jump all over the place, which adds speed to their actions and to the plot – and avoids describing endless marches – and that jumping actually made it a little easier.  I just didn’t worry about where the different towns were.

I was wondering how well I’d recall the characters and plot of the prior novels because it’s been a couple of years.  It’s a tribute to Mancour’s vivid world and people that I had very little problem keeping people straight.  The novel runs in parallel with books seven and eight.

Spellmonger Minalan plays a small role in Shadowmage, which I missed.  He is by far my favorite character in the series, resourceful, smart, not overly greedy or too ambitious and wary as heck of the Castalan spy queen!  I hope he has a larger part in book 10.

Overall the story is very good.  The medieval-style drawings of cats and rats and nobles and dragons are charming and add a piquant note.  I enlarged each one to take a good look.  Unfortunately the copy editor needs to learn something about homonyms, spelling, grammar, copy/pasting.  The Amazon credits mention the editor, but all I can say is the book must have been a muddy mess originally if it is still this bad after editing.  Some of the other Spellmonger novels are so poorly edited they are hard to follow; Shadowmage is not that bad although a few places we readers have to assume the author simply forgot words “not” or “no”.

Shadowmage was one of the 500+ books I lost (along with the first eight Spellmonger novels) when I sold my business.  I was glad to use my Kindle Unlimited account to borrow instead of buy this time.

4 Stars