Librarything Member Giveaway Review: Gaslight Grimoire

Author: K. C. Finn
Genre: Steampunk
Pagecount: 176
Warnings: Death, Enslavement, Violence, Racism, Sexism
Rating: 3/5

"Gaslight Grimoire" by K.C. Finn is a collection of short stories that effortlessly combine elements of steampunk and dark fantasy in a wide variety of settings and circumstances throughout the late 19th century. The premise of each story is unique while maintaining a misty, clanking atmosphere.

There are a total of twelve stories, and while I enjoyed all of them, there were two that stood out as my favorites, "Master Mind" and "Mira and the Maw". The thread that links them is what links almost all of these stories: a fantastic premise and a good atmosphere. "Master Mind" is centered around a historical machine called the Turk, with an ending that I refuse to ruin but fit perfectly. "Mira and the Maw" on the other hand centers around Mira, a 'steampunk zombie hunter' as referenced in the foreword, who is basically Girl Genius (and also an actual girl genius). It's one of the slower builds in the collection, which gives us time to look past the flashy aspects of the story and take in the characters, so when the tale concludes you're invested in Mira surviving and possibly outshining Buffy.

As far as a general opinion of the collection I'm of two minds. As I said, I think the strongest aspect of the anthology is it's atmosphere. All of the stories have a similar feel, which does a great job using the outlandish premises and varied locales of steampunk and combining them with the equally fantastic premises and bleak morality of dark fantasy. It can be a bit much for someone who doesn't like one of these genres a great deal, but if you're willing to go along on some truly weird adventures it's a wonderful read. Settle down on a rainy day and gobble these twisted fairy tails up!

However be warned, the characterization in these stories is definitely a weaker aspect. I liked a few characters, like Mira from "Mira and the Maw" and Galileo from "Galileo's Mistake", but during most stories I wasn't attached to anyone. That's hardly surprising, it's damned difficult to get invested in a character when you have maybe 10 pages with total. In any individual short story I don't mind that much either, as they don't last long. But for me it was a consistent problem, that when I peered behind the flashy scenes I found... one dimensional people.

Now for the a more general nit-pick: I try not to do this with every book because it's exhausting, but while I was reading I started noticing the cast list was a looking a bit sausage-y. How sausage-y you ask? By my count 23% of the narrators and 25% of the speaking characters are women, which can't be good for a species that pair-bonds. In addition about 10% of the speaking characters are POC, which would be reasonable for the UK in 1900, but not for 2016. I don't mean to notice it, but once I know a book's cast skews that white and dudely for no reason it takes away from my enjoyment of a book a bit. I start wondering what happened to Victorian steampunk world that they have such a shortage of women. How will the human race repopulate? Why is no one talking about the obvious racial apocalypse? And if this was just oversight on the author's part, why are fairies and steam-powered hearts okay but altering the racial and gender politics of the 1900's isn't?

LibraryThing Review: Seer's Blood

Author: Doranna Durgin
Genre: YA
Pages: 310
Warnings: Death, torture
Rating: 3/5

Doranna Durgin's novel "Seer's Blood" follows feisty mountaineering outcast Blaine who follows enigmatic newcomer Dacey on a daring coming of age journey to save her family and her home. Blaine has been haunted by troubling dreams when she sees a large group of strangers camping out near her family's homestead. Not too long after a curious man, Dacey, brings warning of an ancient enemy. Blaine, armed with the incomplete knowledge of the long-lost seers, eventually allies with Dacey and his frankly awesome dogs, they learn, grow, rally their strength and lead an epic ass-kicking charge.

I wanted to love this book, I really did. It had a shadowy, possibly novel magic system, a straight up awesome villain, a solid heroine and a good dynamic between the two main characters. It had dogs, written well! So much potential, and instead of doing anything revolutionary Durgin meandered through the plot. Which is to say the climax was well done, but I was a little upset because it could have been so much more expansive in scope.

Like I said, there were things I liked a lot. The most fantastic part for me was the realistic portrayal of the rural setting. Durgin wrote about collecting greens several times in this story and the attention to detail (use of an herb garden, references to the greens wilting in less than a day, etc) was excellent. I felt confident that she either knows exactly what she's talking about or has a fine eye for detail. I felt the same way about the characterization of the dogs throughout the book, and especially the mutual affection between Dacey and his pack. It's realistic and adorable. I also liked how the main characters, Dacey and Blaine, built a richer relationship organically over the course of their adventures. I personally struggled a little with the local dialect all the characters spoke in, but I think that worked effectively to make the setting in the story distinct and believable. In fact, most of the character interactions in "Seer's Blood" both felt real and effective in moving forward the plot.

My biggest frustrations with this book were what I saw as missed opportunties. This book has several elements of solid storytelling, and a premise ripe with mystery. There's an extremely non-standard villain type with a novel form of consciousness, for cripe's sake! So, here we have the makings for a truly epic showdown between two ancient powers, like "Return of the Kings" epic. However the finale for this story was (no spoilers provided herein) good, but commensurate with "The Fellowship of the Ring". I read the ending and was so convinced that it was part of a series I googled "Seer's ring trilogy", and only after about the third website confirmed this book was stand-alone did I accept it was true.

Additionally, and I admit this is just me, I wanted to see more made of the villain. The Annektah are a multi-minded being that can exist without physical form, but prefer to override body's consciousness and experience it's host's emotions. I was really hoping that Durgin would take advantage of the opportunity to create a legitimately alien mind, kind of like the Oankali from "Liliths' Brood" (a good round-up of the themes and a description of the Oankali here). Instead the Annektah come off as incomprehensible to humans, not because they have a foreign ethical system, but because their cruelty reaches mustachioed kidnapper levels.

LibraryThing Member Giveaway Review: White Hart

Author: Sarah Dalton
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 220
Warnings: Violence/Character Death
Rating: 3/5

"White Hart" is the story of Mae Waylander, a mysterious young woman with the power to control nature and her faithful companion Anta. However her powers are in high demand, and when a local girl Ellen is kidnapped after pretending to wield Mae's powers, she reluctantly accepts the help of  Prince Casimir and they follow her into the Waerg Woods. Along the way they discover the woods just as dangerous as they've been warned, and there are more secrets hidden behind the trees than they could have suspected.

This is a good story with several emotionally complex, interesting characters. Mae, Casimir and Sasha are all a good blend of strong and able to depend on other people. All three of them are capable of some very badass action, but they also all have some internal struggles that makes it hard for them to respond to all threats. I appreciate the sense of realism that lends to the story, especially since despite everything else, they are all pretty young. In addition, there's a small amount of romance in the story, but it takes a major backseat to the action, which I was fine with.

In general I thought this was a solid YA fiction story. They plotline slows down a little in the middle of the story, but picks up again after Mae does some soul-searching. Most of the individual action scenes were well-written, and they carried the story well. It was a nice, easy read, but it kept me interested. However I don't think it would appeal much to someone who doesn't already enjoy YA fiction and magic.

What was especially interesting to me from a gender representation perspective is that even though women were overrepresented in the main characters (2:1), the overall gender breakdown was still slightly more in favor of dudes (11:15). There weren't a lot of characters in this story because most of the book is set in the middle of a forest. Therefore the disparity could be a coincidence, but I'm not entirely convinced. Maybe if I find a considerable amount of books that go the other way?

On another note, several of the characters were significant to the plot but weren't given names, so I kept track of all characters, regardless of how well they were named. I also kept track of any character that had a name even if they didn't appear in the story, like Mae's mother, who while dead during the book played a significant role in the main character's upbringing. Either way the ratio was quite similar, so I'm going to try and follow my previous standard, characters that are named (even if not with exact names, anything more complicated than "the woman"), alive or dead.

Graphs, motherfucker. Do you read them?

Member Giveaway Review: Tempest

Author: Holly Hook
Genre: YA Fiction
Pages: 190
Warnings: Ahoy Plot Holes, Spoilers
Rating: 3/5
Series: 1/?

"Tempest" by Holly Hook is a YA fiction book, the first in the "Destroyers" series. It follows the main character, Janelle, after she moves to Florida and strange stuff begins happening. Janelle and basically everyone she knows or is related to is a Tempest, a strange sub-group of humans that become hurricanes once in their lives, and can do that really cool thing with their eyes that's shown on the book cover.

Before I say anything else, I want to make it clear that the premise of this book is freaking awesome. I cannot stress that enough. I don't pretend to understand that people who can turn into hurricanes any time they fall in salt water only do so once in their lives, because if I could turn into a hurricane, look out coastal cities! I did some research, and was a little annoyed to discover the named hurricanes that the WMO picks repeat every six years, but I stick like the concept that Tempests have a government mandated role call. If you've already read the book, feel free to follow the same wikipedia/google trail I did and be disappointed there is no Hurricane Adriana (although there have been several Adrians) or Hurricane Janelle in the real world. I am not against fiction books that borrow part of their information from reality, but I guess I was a little surprised by how easy it would have been to incorporate real hurricanes and give the book more of a "hidden world within a world" feel. Even though the ability to become some of the scariest, most powerful tropical storms is just fantastically cool, I would have preferred Hook had either completely veered off into a fantasy setting or maintained a more accurate representation of where the Tempests could have fit into our world.

I also really appreciated the characterization of Jenelle, Lucas and Greg in this book. I am crushed when I read books where the teenage characters sound and act more like some adults ridiculous caricature of teens, or characters that jump right from being pre-pubescent to being adults. Hook breathes life into Janelle, and into that awkward place where teenagers reside, which I loved. The developing relationship between Greg and Janelle was especially believable, not to mention cute. I am a suspicious person by nature, but their stolen  moments warm my heart. I got very caught up in those scenes, and the transparency of Janelle's reactions. In general I think Hook has strong talents when it comes to portraying teenagers, and teen interactions.

However I didn't feel the depth of characters extended to some of the the adults (ex: Adriana, Mr Deville). I can't tell if the lack of well developed personalities because they weren't main characters, their actions were more plot than personality driven or if it was a conscious effort to help illustrate Janelle's snap judgments. It would be really cool if they were a result of some method writing, but I'm not comfortable assuming that. Sometimes this bothered me, but certainly wasn't a deal-breaker.

I am a stickler for internal consistency in a story, so I take umbrage with a few of the plot points. I realize how silly this may seem to someone else, but it frustrates me that not all named tropical storms are Tempests. I don't understand why it was mentioned in the book. Additionally it makes little sense that there is a magical system that knows when when it's someone's turn to become a Tempest (and can halt all the other Tempest's ability to become hurricanes) down to the day but none of the actual Tempests seems to know even what month they should become a hurricane. It's also odd that there was very little about Tempest culture explained, but somehow Adriana knows how to brainwash the Tempest subconscious. I wouldn't normally bring up all of this, but the crux of the issue was that all of these plot devices could have been incorporated reasonably well, but at the time they all felt too convenient to me. Janelle would never kill people on purpose? Suddenly, Adriana can control her subconscious by playing only one tape while she's asleep for an hour (while back in reality brainwashing of an unwilling participant can take years under special conditions). That is just an example of the frustrating plot holes in this book. Said plot holes dragged me out of the book to complain, which is not an ideal reading experience.

It may look like I have a lot of complaints, but I really did like this book. I'm just kind of pushy. So while I have a few complaints about the deus ex machina style plot devices creeping into Hook's novel, they did not overshadow the excellent characterization and straight-up awesome premise. I was definitively entertained, even though I usually prefer to avoid YA. If you are a teen or just like reading teen fiction, I would strongly recommend this. Jump all over it!

Pop Review: The Birth of Venus

Author: Sarah Dunant
Genre: Historical Fiction
Warnings: Rape, Misogyny, Death, Asshole Priests
Pages: 416
Rating: 3/5

"The Birth of Venus" by Sarah Dunant is the coming of age story of Alessandra Cecchi, a young woman in 15th century Florence. Like many mainstream stories about young adults, this book is not for teenagers, or even written by teenagers. Do not ask me why, apparently everyone wants to keep reliving the same four hormone-ridden years in high school. Sadly for us Florentine isn't so hot on women having lives outside of gratefully raising children, so some parts of Alessandra's story are remarkably predictable: she doesn't know anything about sex expect for those tinglings in her britches until marriage, where regardless of her personal feelings or ambitions she settles down to have a kid. No matter how overdone I think coming of age stories are, this one has a few surprises up it's sleeve. For starters, her city is in turmoil and there is a rather scary priest rising to power during all of this.

For one, Durant's characterization was great. All of the characters were as fleshed out as their role required and their interactions were believable, especially the awkward teenage groping! I have my doubts that the idioms and slang are historically accurate, but luckily that's not what I was reading this book for. My absolute favorite character was Alessandra's husband. Since there is a theme of woman's lib running throughout this book, it would have been easy to make him a villain, nor was he some fumbling buffoon. Instead Durant creates a man who is poised, intelligent man who was also suffering under the pressures of Florentine society, with a very human set of blind spots. In my mind he remains the best example of Durant's ability to create complex and empathetic characters in this book.

I typically enjoy historical fiction but this particular period didn't come across as very interesting to me. I'm not sure if it's because I have about as much fascination for paintings as a cat does (which is to say, only if there's a bug on one) or if Durant presented the least appealing bits to me. I feel this way because the location and time period had very little affect on the story itself. Sure, sure she got married when she didn't want to. There are certainly no where else during that era and no other time period in history when women got married because it was expected instead of out of love. Her city fell at least partially under the sway of a radical man. The only obvious way in which this affected Alessandra's life was one or two scenes where she didn't go to church and where she got hassled for walking outside after dark. Hell, Florence getting invaded by an army had only one affect on the story that I could see: Alessandra's wedding date got moved up. This may have been a historical fiction, but the history functioned primarily as a background for the plot. This is not an inherently bad thing, but I do feel it's worth pointing out. It's also totally why I am not mentioning anything about painters.

My main complaint about the plot is that there was not nearly as much action as I was expecting. I respect a good story that doesn't have sweeping story arcs that encompass epic events, but only when I'm not promised them. Even the really dramatic twists were rather underplayed, and everything had a haze of normality to it. This could just be me, but I swear the prequel suggested the book contained a lot more sex (or at least sexual tension) which it failed to deliver on. I kept reading until the last chapter waiting for something more impressive than a few mildly vanilla sexual encounters and perhaps the least awesome explication for her tattoo. Seriously, I can not even imagine a less cool way for Alessandra to have gotten that tattoo.

There is a very reasonable argument to be made that stories full of real, not dramatic people trying to successfully navigate the challenges of their daily lives wouldn't come of as dramatic, to which I say: "Pah." I am reading a book about a teenager. I remember being a teenager, and let me tell you, every day was the Thor-damned end of the world. On the other hand, gentle reader, you may not feel the same. I suppose my final assessment would be: I've had better. If you really enjoy the romances of teenage girls (really?) or 15th century Florence, have I got a book for you. If you have a quiet afternoon or two and nothing to do, go for it. Otherwise find a different book. There are plenty other fish in the sea!