Avatars Dance #3: Burning the Ice

Fire and ice. You come on like a flame, then you turn a cold shoulder. Fire and ice. I want to give you my love, but you’ll just take a little piece of my heart, you’ll just tear it apart. Let’s move in for the kill tonight with Burning the Ice, by Laura J. Mixon.

Synopsis:

More than a hundred years after a small band of humans stole an antimatter-fueled starship and headed away at near-lightspeed, a colony of those renegades’ descendants are now struggling to survive on Brimstone, a barely-habitable world of ice and bitter cold four dozen light-years from Earth.

In the long run, they hope to slowly terraform Brimstone, making it, if not Earthlike, at least bearable. In the short run-well, life is hard, and everyone lives in everyone else’s laps. Not easy for anyone. Particularly hard if, like Manda, you just aren’t cut out to get along with others in conditions of constant crowding and zero privacy.

Most people wouldn’t be eager to get away from the main colony and work on a scientific project in the howling frozen wastes. For Manda, it’s a deliverance. But news of the intelligent life she discovers in Brimstone’s depths will change everything-if she can bring the news back to her fellows alive. For, it turns out, there are political plots and counterplots still active in the colony, dangerous twists tracing back to Earth itself…and outward to the stars.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

The final book of the Avatars Dance trilogy, Burning the Ice is actually the first of the three books I read, without realizing at the time that it was supposed to be part of a series. Secretly a sequel! Once again, we get a large time skip and a new main character. Our protagonist this time is Manda, a member of a colony of clones on the inhospitable ice world of Brimstone. The colonists are working on a project to terraform the planet, but their plans are upended when Manda makes two important discoveries: first, that there is intelligent alien life deep in the oceans; and second, that the clones’ creators, the creche-born, are planning to invade and enslave them. Manda is considered unpopular, abrasive, and difficult to work with by her fellow colonists, but she may be their world’s only hope.

Rereading Burning the Ice all these years later, my opinion of it remains unchanged: it’s decent, but not spectacular. There’s some really interesting stuff in it, like the scene of Manda working out how to communicate with the alien, but it’s also very slowly paced: it takes about half the book for the plot with the alien and the creche-born to actually materialize, with the first half being focused on the far less interesting day-to-day business of the colony. Manda’s an interesting character, and the oddities of the clone-centric Brimstone society are worth explaining, but the slow start really bogs the story down.

Burning the Ice is averagely enjoyable science fiction.

Final Rating: 3/5

Chaos #2: The Chaos Weapon

No one can save you. The chaos awaits you. I can’t see tomorrow ‘cause I might die today. I sing this sorrow with a smile on my face. I can’t see tomorrow. Are we dead or alive when the blind lead the blind in the chaos. Let’s deploy The Chaos Weapon, by Colin Kapp.

Synopsis:

Classic Sci-Fi novel based around the attempt to find and destroy The Chaos Weapon, a device that distorts probability and thus threatens our entire galaxy.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

The Chaos Weapon is a distant sequel to The Patterns of Chaos, not that it bothers informing the reader of that fact unless they happen to check Goodreads. Secretly a sequel! The plot this time involves humanity coming under attack by the Ra, invaders from another universe, who are using a device called the Chaos Weapon to manipulate probability and cause improbable catastrophes to befall our greatest leaders and scientists. Our protagonist is Space Marshall Jym Wildheit, who is teamed up with Roamer, a young girl who can psychically sense the patterns of Chaos, and Coul, a time-manipulating god who rides on his shoulder, to find and destroy the Weapon before it’s too late.

When I read The Patterns of Chaos, I noted that, perhaps due to having been written in the 70s, it had some uncomfortably racist content. In that case, I was willing to overlook it due to it being confined to just one chapter; and when I picked up The Chaos Weapon, I fervently hoped that the author had expanded his worldview in the intervening years or would at least just not touch on the topic this time. Unfortunately, my prayers went unanswered: from the moment I saw the words “space gypsies” on the page, I knew I was in for a bad time. Sure enough, the Rhaqui hit every horrible stereotypical note you can imagine: they’re liars and swindlers and drunkards and rapists and dear God why are they even in this story? If you needed some disreputable and ultimately disposable characters for Wildheit and his party to temporarily hitch a ride with, you could have just had some generic space pirates; there was no need to bring race into it. Eugggh.

That completely gratuitous sequence was the most notable flaw in The Chaos Weapon, but hardly the only one. Chapter five gives the fumbled sentence “The few people they passed among the random houses appeared surprised to see the pair run run by, but made no attempt to interfere”, which is the kind of minor typographical editorial oversight that I normally ignore but take vindictive glee in pointing out when I really have it in for a book. There’s a whole running thing throughout the book of people demeaning and infantilizing Roamer by calling her “chicken”, which got increasingly annoying the longer it went on. Something that particularly stuck out to me was Kasdeya saying in chapter twelve “I owe the chicken an apology” – if he were sincere in that sentiment, a good first step would be to start using her proper name! And of course because every book just has to have a romance subplot, no matter how ill-shoehorned, the ending has Wildheit marrying Roamer, which immediately made me sit up and ask: just what was the age difference between them again? Because while I’m not sure it was ever explicitly stated, you’ve just spend the whole book having every single character emphasize Roamer’s youth and immaturity by referring to her with pet nicknames, and I definitely recall Wildheit reacting to Hover’s first implication that Wildheit was into Roamer with “She’s just a child”… ick. The romance in The Patterns of Chaos was also arguably messed up, but both of the characters there were definitely adults, and part of the framing of that story was Bron’s amnesia being used to disguise from the reader just how morally grey of a character he actually was. I ultimately bought that relationship in all its caliginous kismesissitude. With Wildheit, I only saw someone who was presented as a conventional square-jawed manly hero and who treated Roamer like the child she was, complete with cute pet nicknames (“frog” instead of “chicken”, in his case)… right up until it was time to get busy on the marriage bed, at which point she was suddenly woman enough for him. I repeat: ick.

The Patterns of Chaos slapped me across the face with some bad stuff at one point; but given that it only happened just the once, and there was plenty of genuinely good and interesting material surrounding the one bad spot, I was willing to avert my eyes and give that not-insignificant flaw a pass when delivering my final rating. The Chaos Weapon, by contrast, not only insists on repeatedly slapping me across the face with one bad point after another, but it doesn’t even have any particularly good content that I might be able to point to as something worth enduring the bad stuff for. In the end, I’m left with something that’s just offensively bad and has no counterbalancing merits.

The Chaos Weapon felt terrible to read. Unlike The Patterns of Chaos, I don’t recommend this one.

Final Rating: 1/5

Of Man and Manta #3: Ox

Be honest, it’s not as if you’re happy about it. It’s not as if you’re animatronic. It’s not as if you couldn’t cry out any time you wanted. Let’s call out olly olly oxen free for Ox, by Piers Anthony.

Synopsis:

Of Man and Manta is an sf trilogy written by Piers Anthony. It consists of Omnivore (1968), Orn (1970), and 0x (1975).
Omnivore has as its frame the investigation of the deaths of eighteen travelers from Earth to the planet Nacre. We see Nacre through the eyes of three surviving scientist-explorers: Cal, a blood-drinker, Veg, a vegetarian, & Aquilon, an omnivore.
Orn involves travel by the scientists & mantas into a parallel dimension they dub Paleo, resembling the distant past of Earth, where they encounter dinosaurs & an intelligent flightless bird called Orn.
0X involves the three scientists attempting to return to Earth from another dimension inhabited by hostile machines. Interlopers from other realities (using technology similar to that of the scientists’ government) guide & hamper the explorers. A secondary story tells of a multidimensional cellular automaton energy being named 0X & its attempts to share living space with an infant human male, a fledgling creature of Orn’s species, & one of the manta-carnivores; their developing relationship leads to attempts to learn the reasons for their strange isolation from others of their kind, which eventually ties in to the story of Cal, Veg & Aquilon.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

After reading the first two books of the Of Man and Manta series, I’ve finally arrived at the volume I first acquired, Ox… or maybe it’s supposed to be OX (allcaps), or 0x (with the number zero, not the letter “O”), or 0X… Hell if I can tell. Hell if I care, either, so I’m just going with Ox for convenience’s sake. Whatever it is, it certainly doesn’t mention that it’s the third book of a trilogy, thereby getting the “secretly a sequel” tag. Shame, shame.

The story kicks off with our protagonist Cal, Veg, and Aquilon getting sent on another mission to explore a parallel world. This is a puzzling choice on behalf of their handlers, given that they deliberately and openly sabotaged the last parallel world exploration mission they were sent on. Even if the Agents aren’t going to punish them in any way due to having been designed to be perfectly rational beings without any spite or vindictiveness, it seems rather foolhardy to entrust them with another such mission. I can only chalk it up to the Agents having realized that this trio are clearly the protagonists of the story and thus required by the narrative to be at the center of it, regardless of how little sense it makes.

Just as Orn intercut the sections from the POV of our protagonists with the perspective of a new character named Orn, a sentient bird with a genetic memory, Ox gives us sections from the perspective of a new character named Ox, a sentient pattern which exists across multiple parallel universes simultaneously. It’s kind of an interesting character concept, to think about how such a being would view the world, but I was kept from getting too invested by the suspicion that it would turn out to be completely pointless. You see, after spending half the previous book focusing on Orn, the egg he gave Aquilon gets smashed almost immediately at the beginning of this one. Well, that was a waste of a subplot! And sure enough, Ox ends up not having any impact on the resolution of this book’s plot – not that our trio of heroes do, either. No, it’s a straight-up deus ex machina ending, where the Machine intelligences suddenly decide that all this foolishness has gone on for long enough and they’re going to step in to instantly and effortlessly sort everything out. That’s a wrap, thanks for coming folks, remember: there are no small parts, only small actors.

Not only is the ending a cop-out, but the entire plot leading up to it is an indecipherable mess. The entire last chapter is dedicated to the Machines simply explaining to all the other characters just what the hell was happening, since even those who lived through the events of this book couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The entire thing smacks of an author far too enamored with showing off his own cleverness by filling his plot with explorations of hexaflexagons and Conway’s Game of Life, to the point of forgetting to include an actual narrative.

In the beginning, the Of Man and Manta series was strange but interesting; gradually, the interesting part vanished, leaving only a bizarre and incomprehensible mess. Ox is an utter failure.

Final Rating: 1/5

Giants #5: Mission to Minerva

Everyone loves Magical Trevor, ’cause the tricks that he does are ever so clever. Look at him now, disappearin’ the cow. Where is the cow hidden right now? Taking a bow, it’s Magical Trevor. Everybody’s seen that the trick is clever. Look at him there with his leathery, leathery whip. It’s made of magic, and with a little flick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the cow is back. Back, back, back from his magical journey, yeah. What did he see in the parallel dimension? Let’s find out on Mission to Minerva, by James P. Hogan.

Synopsis:

TRANSPORTED ACROSS THE MUILTIVERSE.

Over light-years of space and 50,000 years back in time, to create a new history…. Only to find there was no way back.

Earth is adapting to a future of amicable coexistence with the advanced aliens from Thurien, descended from ancestors who once inhabited Minerva, a vanished planet of the Solar System. The plans of the distantly related humans on the rogue world Jevlen to eliminate their ancient Terran rivals and take over the Thurien system of worlds have been thwarted, but the mystery remains of how it was possible for the fleeing Jevlenese leaders to have been flung back across space and time to reappear at Minerva before the time of its destruction.

Victor Hunt and a group of his colleagues travel to Thurien to conduct a joint investigation with the alien scientists into the strange physics of interconnectedness between the countless alternate universes that constitute ultimate reality. When their discoveries lead first to bizarre communication with bewildered counterparts in other universes, and thence to the possibility of physical travel, the notion is conceived of sending a mission back to the former world of Minerva with the startling objective of creating a new family of realities in which its destruction is avoided. But Imares Broghuilio, the deposed Jevlenese leader, along with several thousand dedicated followers with five heavily armed starships, are already there. And they have a score to settle.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

Mission to Minerva is the fifth and thus far final installment in the Giants series – not that you’d know this from looking at the cover or synopsis, which don’t see fit to mention the fact that there are four other books preceding it. Secretly a sequel!

The plot sees the protagonists discovering technology which allows them to travel to different parallel dimensions within the multiverse. The existence of a multiverse may come as a surprise to you, given that Giants’ Star seemed to establish that time travel worked on stable time loop rules. But, despite heavily referencing the events of that book, Mission to Minerva is just going to casually change the fundamental metaphysical underpinnings of the universe: now time travel actually creates a different parallel universe instead of affecting your own history. Don’t let the fact that this isn’t consistent with Giants’ Star bother you; this book isn’t even consistent with itself. The protagonists decide that it would be somehow beneficial to prevent the destruction of Minerva in a parallel universe, despite the fact that there must already be parallel universes in which Minerva was never destroyed – an infinite number of them, even. Leave your logic at the door, people.

Of course, I must mention that, despite these events occupying the whole of synopsis, they in fact only comprise about the last third of the book. The first two-thirds are just painfully long, slow, and boring; whereas the earlier books had scientific mysteries to solve, here there’s just a bunch of navel-gazing amateur philosophy. I would have given up on it long before the end if I didn’t already know this was the last book and wasn’t determined to see this series though to the bitter end.

Books should be pleasant to read, not painful to struggle through. This book was painful. It’s a pitiful ending for the once-interesting Giants series.

Final Rating: 1/5

Of Man and Manta #2: Orn

It was a night like this forty million years ago. I lit a cigarette, picked up a monkey skull to go. The sun was spitting fire, the sky was blue as ice. I felt a little tired, so I watched Miami Vice. Let’s walk the dinosaur with Orn, by Piers Anthony.

Synopsis:

The trio of scientists had been ordered to survey the planet’s flora, fauna and mineral resources, and from the very beginning of their mission everything they observed led to one startling conclusion-the mysterious world was virtually identical with the Earth of the Paleocene period, 70,000,000 years ago at the very dawn of the age of mammals! Their names were Cal, Veg, and Aquilon, the most resourceful-and rebellious-of Earth’s explorers, and with them came four alien companions, the mantas. Strange flying beings, half-animal, half-fungus, the mantas possessed the keenest senses of any creatures in the universe, a gift which immediately saved the mission from complete disaster. Detecting strong vibrations coming from a great distance, the mantas warned the humans, and Cal realized that it could mean only one thing: an earthquake-one large enough to produce a tidal wave that would totally inundate the small island where they had set up camp. Veg, the strongest member of the team, constructed a crude sailing raft, and the party put out to sea to escape the doomed island. It was the beginning of an incredible series of adventures which would lead them to discoveries as momentous as they were deadly. Sailing for weeks, the raft took them to a region vastly different from the island they had left behind. And when a brachiosaurus, supposedly extinct in the Paleocene period, nearly swamped the raft, they knew they had reached an area of priceless scientific value-an isolated enclave of the Cretaceous period where the full spectrum of the golden age of reptiles was present! But just as incredible as the dinosaurs was another creature they were soon to meet-Orn, a man-sized bird who belonged to the most advanced species ever to develop on this world. Unsurpassed racial memory enabled Orn’s mind to reach millions of years into the past, and it was his presence that led the three humans and the mantas to open revolt. Determined to prevent man’s destructive exploitation of this world, they must pit themselves not only against the creatures they wish to save from extinction, but also against the all-consuming greed of Earth’s powerful authorities. As rich in scientific detail as it is in breathtaking excitement, Orn is a masterwork of the imagination and a tribute to the creative genius of Piers Anthony.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

Wow, that certainly is a long synopsis for a rather short book. And yet, nowhere dos it find space to mention that this is the second book of a series. Therefore, like its successor Ox, Orn will be getting a “secretly a sequel” tag.

The plot this time sees Veg, Aquilon, and Cal recruited by the government to explore a parallel world which resembles Paleocene Earth, dubbed Paleo for convenience. Why these three in particular? *Shrug*, I dunno. Their association with the alien mantas, which the government views as a security threat, should logically result in them being kept away from sensitive projects like this; but I guess everyone can just naturally sense that they’re the protagonists of this trilogy and so succumb to the irresistible force of narrative causality – it has to happen that way in order to there to be a story, so that’s the way it happens. Meanwhile, other chapters follow Orn, a member of an intelligent species of flightless bird native to Paleo, as he… wanders around aimlessly? Our heroes also spend a lot of time wandering around aimlessly. For a short book, Orn sure manages to feel long.

Yes, this book marks a significant step down from Omnivore. That book had the framing story of Subble’s investigation to hold its events together, whereas this one seems to meander directionlessly by comparison. There’s a whole subplot where they for some reason start to think that they were actually sent back in time on our Earth rather than sent to a parallel, then act surprised when they learn that it really is a parallel just like they were originally told – what was the point of that? Not to mention a particularly tired old sexist trope popping up:

“You’re being emotional rather than rational.”
“I’m a woman!”

– Orn, Chapter 12

Those darned womenfolk, always so irrational and emotional; hysterical dames, amirite? Gack. Finally, it surprised me when this book devoted an entire postscript to the matter of the extinction of the dinosaurs in which it goes over a number of different hypotheses that various scientists put forth over the years, yet somehow fails to mention the most famous and widely accepted one of asteroid impact. The asteroid impact was only officially endorsed by an international panel of scientists in 2010, but the Chicxulub crater was determined to be an asteroid impact crater in the 1980s, having been suspected of such since the late 1970s, and the Alvarez hypothesis was officially proposed in 1970. When did this book come out, again? It says… published 1971, after first appearing as a magazine serial in 1970. So I guess it is legitimately possible that, at time of writing, an asteroid killing the dinosaurs was not common knowledge but some new cringe crackpot theory that Anthony deemed unworthy of inclusion in his discussion of serious scholarship about the extinction of the dinosaurs. Gosh dang, I never realized just for quite how long Piers Anthony had been writing. (But dinosaurs being killed by an asteroid impact had already been suggested even earlier by Allan O. Kelly and Frank Dachille in 1953, so the basic idea was definitely out there and had been for a while – Anthony just chose to ignore it in preference of his pet hypothesis of continental drift.)

In any case, Orn is far inferior to Omnivore, and I do not recommend it.

Final Rating: 2/5

Giants #3: Giants’ Star

Everything that’s right is wrong again. You’re a weasel overcome with dinge. Weasel overcome but not before the damage done. The healing doesn’t stop the feeling. Let’s hear the voice that makes the silent noise with Giants’ Star, by James P. Hogan.

Synopsis:

ONE:
Eons ago, a gentle race of giant aliens fled the planet Minerva, leaving the ancestors of Man to fend for themselves.

TWO:
50 thousand years ago, Minerva exploded, hurling its moon into an orbit about the Earth.

THREE:
In the 21st century, scientists Victor Hunt and Chris Danchekker, doing research on Ganymede, attract a small band of friendly aliens lost in time, who begin to reveal something of the origin of Mankind.

Finally, Man thought he comprehended his place in the Universe…until he learned of the Watchers in the stars!

Source: Goodreads [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776485.Giants_Star]

SPOILERS BELOW

Giants’ Star, the third book in the Giants series, is actually the first book of that series that I acquired, picking it up cheap at a used book sale based on the title and synopsis. That’s because, of the five books in the Giants series, Giants’ Star is the only one that doesn’t say somewhere on the cover that it’s part of a series. That’s right: we have our next lucky winner of the “secretly a sequel” tag. Ah well; at least the first two books ended up being decent, so it wasn’t a waste.

The plot this time picks up from the end of the last book, when humanity directed the time-lost Ganymean ship Shaperion to a star that they suspected might be the current home of the Ganymeans, then received a message from the star confirming the existence of a Ganymean civilization there. Now, as a dialogue opens between the two worlds, it becomes clear that – despite having been monitoring Earth for a long time – the Ganymeans have a very incorrect picture of it. It seems like there’s a conspiracy which has been deliberately distorting their observational data for some sinister purpose. Yes, that’s right – after two books that were purely intellectual scientific mysteries with no real antagonists, we’ve finally got ourselves some villains!

This proves to be a mixed bag. On the one hand, it lets the series liven up its formula by finally including some scenes of action and espionage. On the other hand, though, the book seem to feel the need to make up for lost time by making the Jevelenese responsible for every bad thing to ever have happened in human history. Making their sinister influence extending over tens of thousands of years be what’s behind every evil to ever have occurred on Earth is a bit… much. Also, I think the thing at the end with the closed time loop was a bit too contrived.

Ultimately, though, the book still made for an enjoyable read, so it gets my approval.

Final Rating: 3/5

Pendergast #3: The Cabinet of Curiosities

I know, I know, I know you’ve got the key. And you know, you know, you know that it’s for me. It’s not up to you, you know, it’s up to me, but curiosity will never let me go. Let’s open The Cabinet of Curiosities, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

Synopsis:

In downtown Manhattan, a gruesome discovery has just been made-an underground charnel house containing the bones of dozens of murder victims. Research reveals that a serial killer was at work in New York’s notorious Five Points neighborhood in the 1880s, bent on prolonging his lifespan by any means. When a newspaper story on the old murders appears to ignite a new series of horrifyingly similar killings, panic overtakes New York City. Now, FBI agent Pendergast, journalist Bill Smithback, and archaeologist Nora Kelly join forces to protect themselves from a vicious killer…before they become the next victims.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

The Cabinet of Curiosities is the third book in the Pendergast series – at least, that’s what I thought when I picked it up. But suddenly Smithback is dating this Nora lady and everybody’s making oblique references to something having happened in Utah like we’re supposed to understand what’s going on? What is this? Well, turns out this book isn’t just part of the Pendergast series; it’s also book #0.5 of the Nora Kelly series, following up on the events of book #0, Thunderhead. Oh, obviously! Now, you might be wondering why Thunderhead is numbered zero instead of one, given that it was written and published first instead of being retroactively added as a prequel; and for that matter why The Cabinet of Curiosities is numbered 0.5 instead of two, when it is the second book in the series. Perhaps there is some perfectly understandable reason for this numbering; but if so, it clearly resides beyond the grasp of mere mortal intellects such as my own. So, have a “secretly a sequel” tag.

The plot this time has FBI Special Agent Pendergast teaming up with Smithback and Nora to crack the cold case of a serial killer who, over a hundred years ago, murdered dozens of people in the pursuit of a formula that would give eternal life. But no sooner has their investigation begun than do people start getting murdered in a manner that precisely mimics the old crimes. Is it the work of a copycat, or did the killer truly unlock the secret of extended life?

The Cabinet of Curiosities didn’t quite work for me. Putting aside Thunderhead, it felt like a big step down from Reliquary in terms of scale: a single human serial killer when the previous book had a whole army of Mbwun beasts in the catacombs under New York. I also felt like an inordinate amount of time was spent on the relationship woes of Nora and Smithback; we’re trying to catch a killer here, not bring a lovelorn couple to the hymnal altar. Maybe I’d feel differently if I’d read Thunderhead first and thus knew the first thing about how they ended up dating; but somehow, I doubt it. Romance subplots are not a particular favorite of mine.

So, overall, The Cabinet of Curiosities is a disappointment compared to its predecessor.

Final Rating: 2/5

Spell/Sword #3: Asteroid Made of Dragons

I’m a ball of fire. Fire from heaven. Terror from nowhere. You’ll never shoot me down. Let’s orbit Asteroid Made of Dragons, by G. Derek Adams.

Synopsis:

Official Sword & Laser Selection!

When a lone goblin researcher stumbles across an artifact containing a terrifying message—that the world is in grave and immediate peril—she scrambles to find help. A very unusual asteroid (one constructed as a cage for dragons) is headed straight for the planet, and Xenon is the only person in the world who knows. As she clambers across hill and dale with her quill, journal, and dwindling coin purse to untangle the mystery, she’ll need plenty of luck to find the right clues and the right sort of help.

Meanwhile, our heroes have their own problems. They have a bank to rob, a sea to cross, and a kingdom to infiltrate. Luckily, Rime is a wild mage—the laws of reality quiver when she gives them a stern look—and her guardian, Jonas, wields a reasonably sharp sword. But Rime is slipping ever closer to the abyss of madness, and Jonas is wanted for murder at their final port of call. To make matters worse, the mage-killing Hunt and its commander, Linus, follow the duo like a patient shadow, bent on Rime’s destruction.

When the wise are underfunded, the brave are overbooked, and the cruel are unconcerned, can the world be saved from destruction?

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

Sometimes, a title alone is enough to make me take notice of a book, and Asteroid Made of Dragons is an example. Now there’s a title which is poetic enough to imply that there’s a story to be told, and enigmatic enough to make me want to know what it is. And when I looked at the synopsis, the description seemed like it might be something I’d like, so I went right ahead and picked it up. Let us therefore dive into Asteroid Made of Dragons, book number three in the Spell/Sword series…

…Wait, number three in the Spell/Sword series? What do you mean, number three? I didn’t see anything about it being part of a series on the front or back cover. Oh, goddamit, it’s secretly a sequel. Now I’ve gone and messed up and started this series completely out of order. Why do authors do this to me!?

In any case, the plot itself follows three groups of protagonists. The first, Rime, is a wild mage who wields powerful magic which will eventually claim her sanity. Along with her companion Jonas, a failed squire on the run for murdering his master, she seeks to find a cure for her condition. The second, Linus, is a mage-hunter willing to go to any vicious extreme to bring down his quarry. He and his assassin companion Sideways carve a bloody path across the land in pursuit of Rime. Finally, the third is Xenon, a goblin archeologist researcher investigating ruins left by the ancient precursor race the Lost, who makes an alarming discovery: long ago, a prison full of rebellious dragons was launched into space, and now it’s on a collision course back down to the planet. In the face of this impending threat, the motley groups of unlikely heroes are forced to temporarily set aside their differences to save the world.

So, this ended up actually being a really enjoyable read. The setting, while in many ways derivative of the standard Dungeons & Dragons fantasy milieu, still had its own unique feel, with high-tech magipunk devices based on Precursor tech existing alongside the more traditional knights, wizards, and magic swords. And the characters were all exceptionally well realized, with well-developed goals, personalities, and character arcs. This is a good story told in an interesting world, and I’m definitely interested in seeing more of it; my only regret is that I’ve accidentally started at the end instead of experiencing it in the its proper order.

Asteroid Made of Dragons is an excellent fantasy story, and I recommend it.

Final Rating: 4/5

Finishing School #1: Etiquette & Espionage

We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom, teachers leave them kids alone. Hey, teachers, leave them kids alone. Let’s learn Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger.

Synopsis:

It’s one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It’s quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners–and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, young ladies learn to finish…everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage–in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year’s education.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

After a long hiatus, the “secretly a sequel” tag returns; for despite being numbered as its own series, Finishing School is actually a spinoff of The Parasol Protectorate. You may recall that I first came to The Parasol Protectorate by way of its other spinoff, The Custard Protocol, thus giving it the dubious distinction of being the first and thus far only work I’ve reviewed on this blog to spawn two different “secretly a sequel” works. Any bets how long it holds that position? (Savvy readers will remember the times I’ve mentioned wanting to eventually review Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere works and Barb & J.C. Hendee’s Saga of the Noble Dead universe).

Anyways, the story follows Sophronia, a rambunctious young lady who gets sent off to a finishing school which actually trains its students in the art of espionage as well as etiquette, preparing them for future careers are intelligencers or assassins. Sophronia soon finds herself wrapped up in an intrigue revolving around a mysterious stolen “prototype” being sought by several factions. Hijinks ensure.

To its credit, Etiquette & Espionage did not have an agonizing romance subplot of the type that poisoned the first series of Parasol Protectorate books for me. However, it didn’t have much that I was actually interested in, either: none of the globe-trotting adventure that made me warm to the later Custard Protocol books, and no characters that stood out enough for me to get seriously invested in them. Even when I recognized their names from the other books in the series I’ve read, and thus figured them as theoretically important to the overarching story, they came off as kind of bland and dull. This is the infamous Preshea who was spoken of with such fear and reverence in Reticence? When exactly is she going to get around to actually doing anything to earn that reputation?

Etiquette & Espionage isn’t the worst of the Parasol Protectorate universe of books I’ve read, but it doesn’t really have enough good qualities for me to recommend it, either.

Final Rating: 2/5

Broken Magic #1: Hell Bent

Craaaaaaawling in my skin! These wounds, they will not heal! …Yes, I have finally found a book emo and angsty enough to warrant the use of those hallowed lyrics. Let’s pack for purgatory with Hell Bent, by Devon Monk.

Synopsis:

Instead of the deadly force it once was, magic is now a useless novelty. But not for Shame Flynn and Terric Conley, “breakers” who have the gift for reverting magic back to its full-throttle power. In the magic-dense city of Portland, Oregon, keeping a low profile means keeping their gifts quiet. After three years of dealing with disgruntled magic users, Shame and Terric have had enough of politics, petty magic, and, frankly, each other. It’s time to call it quits.

When the government discovers the breakers’ secret—and its potential as a weapon—Shame and Terric suddenly become wanted men, the only ones who can stop the deadly gift from landing in the wrong hands. If only a pair of those wrong hands didn’t belong to a drop-dead-gorgeous assassin Shame is falling for as if it were the end of the world. And if he gets too close to her, it very well could be….

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

Well, I put it off for as long as I possibly could, but it’s finally time to return to the Allie Beckstrom series. Well, sort of: rather than being numbered as Allie Beckstrom #10, this one markets itself as Broken Magic #1. The front also proclaims it to be “first in a new series!” To be clear, this is not a completely separate story that just happens to be set in the same world; it features many characters from that series, commonly references events from that series, picks up dangling plotlines left over from that series, and is premised on dealing with the fallout from the climax of that series. So, I think that hits the qualifications for a “Secretly a Sequel” tag. But hey, to be fair: if I was related to the Allie Beckstrom books, I wouldn’t try to advertise that fact, either. That series, if you’ll recall, started out promising but went downhill real fast; and though it never did anything terribly offensive enough for me to hand out one of my rare and scathing one-star reviews, I did kind of hate it by the end. Still, I don’t think it would be fair to judge this series for the sins of the father; so I shall try to put aside my pre-existing baggage and look at it with eyes unclouded by hate of its predecessor.

The plot is that, due to the events of the previous book, which does not exist because this is a fresh start to a completely new series which can totally be picked up on its own without having to read nine other installments, magic has lost most of its former power. The only people who can still use magic at its former strength are soul complements, now called “breakers” for their ability to break magic. Shame and Terric – soul complements, Authority officers, and also living avatars of Dark and Light magic – learn of a government conspiracy to use breakers for some nefarious purpose, leading them to a confrontation with their old nemesis: Eli “the Cutter” Collins. (…Well, he was actually more like Allie’s nemesis. And “nemesis” is a bit strong; it was more like “guy who acted sort of creepy at times and she kind of suspected might be evil, but who never actually did anything overtly evil in front of her so she just shrugged and let it go”. But I’m sure at least one of Shame and/or Terric must have met him at least once in one of those books; and even though it wasn’t memorable enough for me to recall for certain if it even happened at all, it totally laid the groundwork for a long-lasting enmity that makes this case deeply personal).

I have to admit, Shame’s narration style took some adjusting to. I mean, I remember him being kind of a cynical slacker in the Allie Beckstrom books; but I was unprepared to be exposed to the full-force of his emo-goth internal monologue. Every chapter has him thinking at length about how he is a monster who brings nothing but death ad pain to all those around him, and how he struggles every moment to fight the dark urges inflicted upon him by his terrible accursed power and no-one understands, and how he fetishizes death and looks forward to his own demise. The book doesn’t explicitly say that he posts angsty poetry on a livejournal page, using a red font against a black background, but feel free to draw your own conclusions. In short…

By the end, though, I had stopped minding so much, because the tone of the story had actually darkened to the point where Shame’s attitude no longer felt entirely ridiculous. I mean, I have to give the book this much credit: it actually commits to telling a much darker and more disturbing story than the Allie Beckstrom books, and doesn’t pull any punches. Whereas Allie wouldn’t use a gun even when facing a psycho murderer who had an axe in one hand and a shotgun in the other, this book racks up a significant body count of protagonists, antagonists, and people who were just unfortunate enough to get in the way.

So, I’ll give Shame’s cliched monster angst a pass… just this once.

Seriously, though: if he starts listening to Linkin Park’s “Crawling”, I am out of here.

What actually bugged me more was the protagonists tunnel vision with regards to viewing Eli Collins as the bad guy. Yes, I get it, he’s evil. But he’s also going out of his way to drop clues to you that he’s not committing these crimes because he wants to, but because he is being forced to by an even bigger bad guy; that this bad guy is in fact holding him prisoner and forcing him to work on a nefarious plan he wants no part of; and that he is leaving these hints so that the heroes can unravel this greater villain’s plan. But, no matter how obvious he makes it, the heroes are always, “Well, let’s go hunt down and kill Eli; that’ll solve everything.” I’d be like if Luke Skywalker spent the whole Star Wars trilogy trying to hunt down the specific Stormtroopers who shot Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, while Darth Vader was standing around in the background awkwardly tapping his foot. So, when the climax has the protagonists try to attack Eli only for it to turn out they’ve run straight into a trap set for them by Krogher… well, frankly, I actually blame them for it more than Eli. He tried to warn you, dudes. I think Allie has rubbed off on you – she also had this thing where, if a villain told her “Please don’t punch yourself in the face”, she would do it just to spite him, because obviously if someone is evil then you should always do the opposite of whatever they say.

…But no, I’m trying to keep Allie out of this. I’m looking at this as its own series, on its own merits. So, overall, it was fine. Flawed, but not too badly to overlook. I always try to give the first book in a series the benefit of the doubt; and this is definitely the first in the brand-new Broken Magic series right? Not the latest in a long series of novels which have set the bar so low that I’m probably overcompensating and overrating this installment because it is merely mediocre rather than actively awful. So, like I said: fine.

Final Rating: 3/5