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A bold adventure into realms unknown
In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep.
Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice—save the woman he loves, or everyone else?—while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the muse of nightmares, has not yet discovered what she’s capable of.
As humans and godspawn reel in the aftermath of the citadel’s near fall, a new foe shatters their fragile hopes, and the mysteries of the Mesarthim are resurrected: Where did the gods come from, and why? What was done with thousands of children born in the citadel nursery? And most important of all, as forgotten doors are opened and new worlds revealed: Must heroes always slay monsters, or is it possible to save them instead?
Love and hate, revenge and redemption, destruction and salvation all clash in this gorgeous sequel to the New York Timesbestseller, Strange the Dreamer.
This review is going to be a spewing of feelings while trying not to be spoilery. Which. Is. Hard. So. Hard! I needed to read this to find closure from the long wait, and I’m glad that I started and finished so quickly. The story was definitely worth the wait.
I want to quickly touch on the one aspect that I did not enjoy. I can’t tell you why because that would be a super spoiler! But I just did not enjoy one of the new characters and had to force myself to read through those sections once I hit the midway point of the story.
As a fun aside, if you’ve read Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, you might find some fun easter eggs throughout this book that build a little on the hints in book 1, Strange the Dreamer.
I’m pretty sure that this book hit every single emotion a human can feel at least once. And some of the harsher ones, both good and bad, were visited several times. Don’t read this in public if you don’t want unwanted attention. Or be prepared by bundling under a blanket with a stuffed animal or significant other nearby for cuddling.
You might think I’m exaggerating.
I’m not.
No really. I found myself setting this book down several times so that I could compose myself. Just saying, prepare yourself.
And maybe make sure to reread Strange the Dreamer in order to catch all the hints and lead-ups again.
Stop the Magician. Steal the book. Save the future.
In modern-day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.
Esta is a talented thief, and she’s been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta’s training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.
But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.
I enjoyed and appreciated the amount of work that the author infused her characters and their relationships with. It came across the page quite well and worked to make the story more compelling and engaging. I did have a little bit of a problem with the amount of words used to convey story and personalities. Some condensing would have helped polish this story to read more fluidly.
I combated this with the speed option on Audible to speed up the narrator as I listened to the audiobook. However, if I had been reading the printed words, I would have been free to skip around to absorb only the “necessary” bits. To be honest, this is how I normally read a book the first time through anyway, and I get more out of re-reads when I slow down 🙂
Having recently gone to see Oceans 8 in theaters, I was very happy with the heist aspects in this novel. Although some of it does rely on magic, all the various bits and pieces and planning made a lot of sense in context and didn’t make me scrunch my face up in disbelief. I think that readers who enjoy heists, mysteries, time travel, fantasy, twisty turns, and a little thrill will definitely find this book on their favorites list. There is a bit of romance, but it’s not over-the-top nor does it feel forced or engage in tropes that promote male aggression. The concept of consent does get explored and adds to the story without detracting from the social narrative happening around us.
I don’t believe there are any troublesome topics or trigger warnings here, but I must confess that I’m not as sensitive to taking notes on this yet. Feel free to comment with any you think might apply.
With book 2 coming out very soon, I would recommend starting book 1 quickly as to be ready! You’ll be ready for the sequel as soon as you turn the last page.
Humanity has just been discovered by aliens. As part of the deal, they must send a representative to participate in the Megagalactic Grand Prix, a galaxy-wide singing competition. The Grand Prix is more than just a celebration of questionable musical choices, though. Ever since the Sentience Wars almost destroyed all civilizations in the galaxy a hundred years ago the Grand Prix has brought everyone together in a a battle for resources and survival though the medium of song. Humanity has one chance to sing for their lives and prove their sentience to the galaxy, or lose and be wiped out completely. Washed up glam-rocker Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeros now have to convince the universe that humanity deserves to survive.
Sometimes you just need to revel in sheer ridiculousness. Catherynne M. Valente has written a big chewy novel where every sentence smacks you in the face with a glitter bomb of fabulousness and absurdity and a smidge of total planetary annihilation. This book aims the comedic stylings of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy squarely at the improbable global phenomenon that is Eurovision and extrapolates it into a galaxy full of horrifyingly (and hilarious) alien cultures. Her writing is surprisingly dense and addictive. Once you commit to a paragraph the writing style just keeps dragging you along, throwing jokes and absurd situations at you until you almost miss some of the darker undertones that flesh out the world she has created. It is a hilarious read – full of space flamingos, gendersplat singers, time-traveling pandas, galactic genocides, giddy spectacle, and some stealth topicality that is all the more powerful for being almost hidden by a shiny veneer.
If you like Douglas Adams, Red Dwarf, Terry Pratchett, or Tom Holt, Space Opera will be right in your wheelhouse.
This Savage Song and Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab is a dark future dystopian urban fantasy described by the author as “Sin City PLUS Romeo and Juliet MINUS romance PLUS monsters.” Together they make up the Monsters of Verity duology.
Kate Harker is the daughter of the crime lord in control of the northern portion of Verity and August Flynn is the son of the man holding the south against him. What begins as a standard teen trope of boy meets girl at school quickly escalates and morphs. Kate, who has always wanted and expected to follow in her father’s criminal and brutal footsteps, begins to find out things that shake her confidence in the world around her. August so desperately wants to be a real boy but is forced to embrace the monstrous. Because this is a world where murder and violence births monsters, quite literally. There are heart eaters and blood drinkers and rarest and most dangerous of all are the soul stealers.Kate’s father has harnessed these monsters to create a reign of terror. And now these two teenagers find themselves uniting to save their city.
This is an unrelentingly dark story. Sacrifices are made and blood is spilled (so much blood) and evil people do evil things. But ultimately it is a story of discovering and clinging to humanity. I was rooting for Kate and August not because they were shining beacons of goodness in a corrupt world but because they were flawed and broken and morally uncertain. They were trying so hard to be what was expected o them, to do the right thing. And sometimes they failed, and sometimes they won, and it’s the struggle that made them compelling.
I also enjoyed that there is no pretense of a romance in these books. These characters have bigger challenges than first love, and the hard fought bond that emerges is all the more satisfying for it.
The author of Let The Right One In (2004), has brought forth a lyrical horror novel focused on the the interplay of music, bullying, internet fame, and damaged children. Little Star, named for Sweden’s entry in the 1958 Euro-vision Song Contest, opens with the discovery of a baby in the wood’s by mid level Swedish Rock Musician/Producer Lennart. Lennart takes the child back to his house, names her Thers, and raises her in secret only exposing her to music to make her a perfect vessel for singing. It also focuses on Teresa Svenson, a young girl who is bullied by her classmates, writes poetry, and loves trolling people on online forums. When Teresa and Thers meet online, they combine lyrics and music and have a fair amount of success on the Swedish equivalent to American Idol. However, when a record producer abuses their trust Teresa and Thers who never really trusted the adult world, gather together a group of girls who have also been victimized by society. Their obsession and plotting leads to a violent act at a music concert, that will change how you regard ABBA’s Thank You For the Music forever.
I enjoyed this book, although I initially assumed that it we be about a cursed song or have supernatural element. It is instead a chilling portrait of how disaffection, bullying, and cruelty can lead to people rejecting societal norms and creating their own structures that make sense according to the way they view the world. It is worth reading if you like slow burn horror, and also if you have an interest in the Swedish music industry.
For a movie where a supernatural song curses those who hear it, I recommend White: Melody of Death. When the K-Pop group Pink Dolls finds themselves having little success, they move to a new studio and attempt to create a new image. Their producer finds a tape of a song hidden under the floorboards and decides it would be perfect for the band. When the song brings success but also death and destruction, Pink Dolls member En-Jun attempts trace the origin of the song and stop the curse.
There may not be a lot new in this film (if you have seen enough Asian horror films with cursed objects you can probably guess the plot points) but the world of K-Pop idol groups is a unique setting, and the movie has one shocking death that is worth the price of admission.
I decided to read this novel because I found a mention of it in an unrelated book as one of the best novels about first contact and colonization of another planet. However the reference actually was for the Legacy of Heorot (1987), this books prequel. All the big mysteries of the Legacy of Helot are revealed in the first couple of chapters of Beowulf’s Children, so if you were planning to read the prequel , I would recommend doing that first.
This book focuses on a human colony settlement on the planet Avalon. Years after a disastrous encounter with an alien species nearly destroyed the colony; the first generation of children has grown up feeling constrained by their parents’ rules. Confined to an island settlement, the youth of the colony wish to venture to the mainland of Avalon and continue with efforts to colonize the planet. They are left with little chance for adventure and reject their parents’ timidity. The elder generation, still cautious after nearly being wiped out is loath to let the youth explore, as it might attract the aliens, known as Grendels, attention and bring destruction to the colony. Additionally there is a split in the youth generation between natural born children, and those who were grown from embryos on the colony ship.
The youth finally win the chance to explore the mainland, but when the expedition is nearly killed by an unknown presence, the elder generation locks down the colony. A struggle then begins for the future of human settlement on Avalon.
I enjoyed this book, as a story of explorers building a colony on a new world. It also features a unique alien species in the Grendel’s (with an elaborate biology), and an engaging mystery over the fate of the mainland expedition. It raises interesting questions over should a society be guided by cautiousness of age or the fearlessness of youth. Both sides are shown as having sensible arguments for way their attitude is correct.
If you want to see youth politics run-amok and a vision of teenage delinquency designed to scare the squares of America, check out the satirical film Wild in the Streets. When a cynical politician attempts to manipulate the youth vote by running rock star Max Frost as a candidate, he creates a true generational conflict as the voting age is lowered to the age of 14, and adults are forced to tune in and drop out on LSD. Of course every revolution shows the seeds of its own destruction, and the 12 year-olds of America wonder why they can be part of the fun. It’s also the move that originates the stone cold classic rock song Shape of Things to Come (famously covered by the Ramones), and then selling in its old age as a marketing jingle for Target stores.
Kevin Hearne, Chuck Wendig, and Fran Wilde stopped by the Free Library of Philadelphia on July 14, 2017. You can watch the entire program here or listen to it here.
In conversation with Dena Heilik, Department Head of Philbrick Hall, the fiction department of the Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Kevin Hearne is the author of the New York Times bestselling Iron Druid Chronicles, the ancient-Celtic-meets-contemporary-mayhem action-adventure series featuring 2,000-year-old Atticus O’Sullivan. In his latest adventure, the immortal Irishman dodges traps in ancient Egypt and soul-stealing demons at a Kansas carnival.
Chuck Wendig’s many works include the YA Heartland series, Blackbirds, and the Atlanta Burns books; the Emmy-nominated digital narrative Collapsus; a popular blog, terribleminds.com; and several celebrated books about writing. Wendig’s New York Times bestselling Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy tells the canon story of the events that occurred between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
Fran Wilde’s Nebula Award-nominated debut novel, Updraft, won the 2016 Andre Norton Award and the Compton Crook Award. It’s follow-up in the Bone Universe saga is Cloudbound. The series explores a lofty society of towers populated by residents who strap on wings and soar the skies in search of their destinies.