Tag: space opera

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (10/21/25) – Failure to Communicate

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I found out about this book earlier this year while looking for more sci-fi with queer and/or disabled rep (as I always am). This book seemed to have nearly the perfect premise—I just can’t get over how genius it is to have an autistic protagonist who’s had to study human behavior her whole life study alien behavior as well in order to initiate First Contact. I ended up buying it for Bookshop.org’s recent Anti-Prime Sale, and I ate it up in a handful of days. Though not without its flaws, Failure to Communicate delivers almost completely on its remarkable premise, full of political intrigue, aliens, and heart.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Failure to Communicate (Xandri Corelel, #1) – Kaia Sønderby

Xandri Corelel has spent her life studying everyone around her, be they people or aliens. She’s been forced to, after centuries of eugenics has made her one of the few autistic humans left in the universe. She uses these skills as a Xeno-Liaison, negotiating with all sorts of aliens on behalf of the Starsystems Alliance. But when presented with a potentially hostile species possessing one of the most powerful weapons in the universe, Xandri faces the most difficult negotiation of her career—one that may chance the face of interspecies relations forever.

TW/CW: ableism, xenophobia (fictional), violence, blood, genocide themes, slavery, animal death

“Autistic person spends entire life trying to understand human behavior, doesn’t fully understand it, then spends her entire career understanding alien behavior instead” has to win the gold medal for the best sci-fi premise I’ve heard in years. (Also, felt.) And though not all of it delivered on said premise, Failure to Communicate is a hidden gem for sure.

Now, I’m reviewing a space opera book which features a whole host of alien species, which means it’s time for my obligatory creature design rant. The aliens in Failure to Communicate are…a complicated case, for sure. The majority of them are basically larger, intelligent versions of real-world animals (with some brief exceptions), but Sønderby is self-aware of the fact; for instance, the Psittacans (a name that Xandri gave the species and didn’t develop on its own, thankfully) basically look like giant parrots, but Xandri explains that in-universe, all of their parrot-like features aren’t anything like what we would call, say, feathers, but evolved in such a way that they looked exactly like Earth parrots independently of Earth. This same explanation is given to pretty much all of the other species in the book, which is a bit too convenient to apply to 90% of the aliens in the novel. As for the Anmerilli, though I’m not disparaging the cover artist in any way, I feel like the cover didn’t do justice to their more alien features—and man, was I relieved that these aliens weren’t just humans with extra steps. Well…if you boiled it down, they kind of were, but there were enough traits that they at least got to the level of a decently compelling Star Wars humanoid. (Also, Sønderby’s descriptions of the Zechak also made me picture them as genocidal Piglins, which was…uh, interesting, for sure.)

But what almost made up with that for me was the in-depth explanations of their respective cultures. In the end, Failure to Communicate wasn’t necessarily a book about biology—it was a book about politics, anthropology, culture, and communication. That, at least, was incredibly fleshed out and much more thoroughly thought-out—as it should’ve been. Dissecting some of the alien cultures was one of the best parts of the novel. These cultures and the conflicts between them formed the backbone of the novel. Though until the end, Failure to Communicate is somewhat light on action, Xandri’s experiences with navigating the intricacies of dozens of alien cultures was nothing short of compelling—Sønderby has the mind of an anthropologist, and there was truly no stone left unturned. I loved that she didn’t shy away from depicting the discomfort that comes with interacting with other cultures for the first time and having one’s own values brush up against theirs—it’s bound to happen with First Contact, and it’s bound to happen in a lot of novel, multicultural interactions. There were some places where I felt there needed to be more nuance (ex. the whole situation with the Zechak; yes, they’re genocidal, but it verged too close to “this entire species consists of genocidal, cold-blooded killers,” which Xandri tries to self-correct, but isn’t emphasized enough. I’d find that hard to believe), but overall, I loved Sønderby’s cultural explorations.

Sønderby’s commitment to not shying away from discomfort was one of the best parts of the novel, and that was made manifest in her main character, Xandri. There was a ton about her that I loved—her keen eye for cultural quirks, her inner monologues about the idiosyncrasies of the neurodivergent world, and her unflappable sense of justice. However, she was far from a perfect character—even being in a world populated with aliens, she harbored her own unconscious biases and prejudices, which she frequently had to come to terms with throughout her mission. She lashed out, she made rash decisions—she was imperfect. And though she was easy to root for, she had plenty of flaws, a balance that is difficult for any author to strike.

Failure to Communicate isn’t an action-heavy book, which I’m all for—waiter! More cozy sci-fi, please! However, I hesitate to call this novel “cozy,” especially considering the moment when shit hits the fan during the last third of it. Everything that happens then swiftly merits the “cozy” title being unceremoniously ripped off. Nonetheless, Sønderby takes some cues from cozy sci-fi’s best; I loved how she let the plot meander in the more interpersonal conflicts as opposed to the big and showy ones, and let the often messy character dynamics take the lead. The ending was also messy and bittersweet, but not in a way that lacks resolution—it is a resolution, just a very complicated one with quite a lot of uncomfortable implications for Xandri. Another example of Sønderby not shying away from making things complex. I do like that it ended on a very hopeful note, as much of a wreck as some things ended up being.

Being neurodivergent, the subject of disability was part of what drew me into Failure to Communicate. I’ve mentioned on here that I have SPD, which shares some similarities with autism, and I related to Xandri’s lifelong mission to study and understand the neurotypical people around her in order to try and piece together how their world worked. She deals with a hefty dose of ableism (both from well-intentioned and malicious people) throughout the book, which was quite rough, but I loved that she never compromised her pride in being autistic. Sønderby takes the trope of futuristic societies erasing disability as a sign of progress to task, which amplifies Xandri’s struggles as an autistic woman into the struggles of possibly being the only autistic person in the entire galaxy. Which…yeah. The ableism is inevitable at that point. The only disability aspect that I’m not so sure about was having the twist that Marco was also disabled (specifically, he has bipolar disorder); I do appreciate that Sønderby uses it as an opportunity to show that almost identical conditions can produce a hero as well as a villain and that the pressures of ableism drove him to betray the team, but I really don’t think the latter had enough nuance to it. Not that disabled characters can’t be evil, obviously, but it felt too much like making a mentally ill character automatically a villain simply because they’re mentally ill. I’m willing to give Sønderby the benefit of the doubt because she handled all of the other disability-related topics so wonderfully, but it still didn’t sit completely right with me.

Also, I just have to mention that this book is so, so queer. BLESS. First off, I loved that Xandri was bisexual, but I appreciated that she was polyamorous too—there’s hardly any depictions of polyamory out there that don’t make their characters the butt of a joke or a fetish, so this was a breath of fresh air, for sure.

All in all, a wholly unique space opera about communication, culture, and collision. 4 stars!

Failure to Communicate is the first novel in the Xandri Corelel series, followed by Tone of Voice and preceded by Testing Pandora, a prequel novella. Kaia Sønderby is also the author of the YA fantasy novel Damsel to the Rescue.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/29/25) – Redsight

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

As Disability Pride Month comes to a close, here’s one last book to finish off the month. This one has been on my TBR for at least a year, and it’s evaded me in the library thus far—thankfully, Barnes & Noble finally brought my chase to an end. Even though I’m growing a little weary of every new sci-fi that hinges on the promise of “incomprehensible space religion, woooooo,” Redsight provided a fascinating twist in the subgenre.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Redsight – Meredith Mooring

Korinna knows that she is doomed to a life of obscurity. Even though her being a Redseer gives her the power to manipulate space-time itself, she is the weakest of her order, and little mercy is shown to the weak. Resigning herself to a position navigating a warship for the treacherous Imperium, Korinna is at war with herself. But when the warship is boarded by strange pirates, Korinna learns that she has power beyond comprehension—all deliberately hidden. With her newfound abilities and a desire to uncover the secrets of the Goddesses that once ruled the galaxy, Korinna searches for answers, but what she finds may be more dangerous than she could have ever bargained for.

TW/CW: violence, gore, blood, death of children (off-page)

In the last six or seven years, I’ve seen a major trend in science fiction where the plot centers around an ancient, ominous Space Religion™️ (see: Gideon the Ninth, The First Sister, The Genesis of Misery). It’s a Thing. The usual suspects include an AI/vague cosmic entity deity, some form of cult, vague to overt references to Catholicism, and repression. I’m honestly fine with all of these things—in fact, having a cultish religion on an intergalactic scale is often a fascinating way to set up a story, and can be used to many ends, whether it’s deepening worldbuilding or critiquing organized religion in the real world, as it often does. My problem was that it’s everywhere. I feel like every other space opera I find is some kind of retelling of Joan of Arc or “what if God was real and it was a robot and the robot wanted to kill you?” Again, interesting once or twice, but after a point, they all start to blend together. On a personal level, I guess it’s partly because I don’t often connect as deeply to stories about religion/religious trauma, but I swear every other adult sci-fi book out there is like this.

Redsight is one of those books. However, it had enough different aspects that it was separated from the rest for me. It honestly veers into space fantasy at times, toeing the line between that and space opera expertly. Even though the redseers and all of the other witches in the universe had a slightly similar structure to some other books I’d read (spooky magic, incomprehensible goddesses trapped in tombs for thousands of years, etc.), it was Mooring’s exploration of how this insular cult of witches affected the outside world that stood out to me. The space-time manipulation is awesome, first off, but there’s also a host of space pirates, sprawling libraries, and transformative magic that goes…wrong. Snakes are involved. Also, Korinna and the others don’t exist in a vacuum—they’re a small part of a massive galaxy and are entangled in all manner of messy, manipulative politics throughout the universe. (There’s a strong Bene Gesserit vibe going on…I guess Dune might be to blame for the big spooky space religion trend?) They are outwardly very strange to others, and they don’t feel self-contained, as some other similar books are—they felt like a small part of a much more expansive world, which is what set it apart. Plus, I loved how it served as a critique of both that can come from organized religion AND the corruption that spreads into imperial politics—it’s all a great examination of systemic corruption, which I enjoyed thoroughly.

One of the more unique aspects of Redsight was how disability was handled. Up until we leave the Navitas, where all of the redseers are trained, pretty much all of the characters you meet are blind. All of the priests and priestesses of Vermicula are blind, and the way that Mooring shows us how it’s accommodated in the universe is fascinating. Through the power of redsight, they can sense most everything they need to sense through…well, manipulating the fabric of time and space, which is pretty badass in and of itself. But beyond that, I love how many intricacies to Korinna’s life are detailed. We see how she senses space around her with her blindness, how the Order of Vermicula produces special tactile books so that everyone can read the holy texts, and how she navigates the universe without being accommodated like she was within the Order. Knowing that Mooring herself is blind, I’m sure that she thought of everything when it came to how Korinna would navigate the universe, accommodations or not, and it showed through in her writing.

If you’re looking for a twisty book, then Redsight is the book for you! Even though I feel like I’m iffy when it comes to predicting twists, the ones in this novel had me constantly guessing. Mooring nails a critical combination of a very slow-burn first third of the novel, gradually building tension, while also throwing out a red herring where you think you know what the big mid-book reveal is, but…oh boy, I did not. (Red herrings, Redsight, red witches…lots of red in this book! Say, what’s that pooling on the floor?) In all seriousness, Mooring did an excellent job of creating tension and putting up all manner of red flags and misleading clues, and they came up organically: they were both the result of Korinna not knowing any better and the propaganda and narrative control that both the Order of Vermicula and the Imperium had over the knowledge that was passed onto her. It deepened the worldbuilding and the pacing of Redsight…for the most part.

All that being said, the ending was quite rushed. With as much buildup as this novel had, it was kind of bound to happen. All things considered, Redsight is Mooring’s debut novel, so I can let some of it go, because I enjoyed the majority of it. But there was just far too much crammed into the last 100 or so pages of the novel. Even with the theme of undoing systemic corruption, the speed at which it happened was truly just bonkers. For the truly mind-boggling, cosmic scale that everything in Redsight happened in, it seemed illogical that everything that happened in the novel would’ve been able to happen so quickly. After all of that, it was wrapped up strangely tightly—the loose ends were tied up basically because…the Goddesses can just do whatever, and it’s fine. I guess if you’re dealing with universe-creating Goddesses, by that logic, they can also clean up messy endings? It felt cheap. For the amount of time spent just on the buildup in the first third of the novel, everything was resolved far too quickly than seemed plausible, even with my suspension of disbelief.

All in all, a gripping and captivating—if a little messy—story of corruption and history, all set within the bounds of a boundless, magic-filled universe. 4 stars!

Redsight is a standalone, and Meredith Mooring’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (4/8/25) – You Sexy Thing

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ll skip the prologue about how predictable it is that I picked up another queer space opera, and one with a ’70s music reference in the title at that. (SING IT WITH ME!! 🎶I BE-LIEVE IN MIRACLES—🎶) Nonetheless, I kept my expectations low, and I’m glad I did. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and heartwarming all at once, You Sexy Thing is the start of a true joy of a space opera trilogy!

Enjoy this week’s review!

You Sexy Thing – Cat Rambo

It’s been decades since Niko Larson and her fellow soldiers were able to break free of the Grand Military of the Hive Mind, where they were voiceless pawns in a never-ending war. Now, they run the Last Chance, a humble restaurant at the edge of TwiceFar Station, serving customers from all over the galaxy and from all walks of life. But when a mysterious, sentient ship destroys their livelihood before giving them a mysterious mission that they can’t refuse, Niko and her fellow chefs and restaurateurs must return to the fray they tried so desperately to escape—all with the heir to the Paxian Empire in tow.

TW/CW: sexual content, violence, blood, torture, kidnapping/imprisonment, war themes, abuse, genocide themes, death

The entire time I was reading this book, I’d click on the Kindle cover and I’d immediately start hearing “You Sexy Thing.” It just kept coming back, like I was trapped in a sitcom gag with a signature musical cue. Probably the intended effect. Not complaining, though. Absolute banger.

What an excellent space opera this was! You Sexy Thing scratched so many of my favorite sci-fi itches, and one of the biggest ones was the aliens and creatures! CREATURES! CREATURES! I’d place You Sexy Thing as bordering on space fantasy, though I won’t go into a whole digression on what counts/doesn’t count as sci-fi or SF; that was mainly because of the ghosts, some magic use, and were-creatures. However, Rambo did an excellent job with all of the alien denizens of this galaxy! There was a fantastic balance of humanoid and more unfamiliar creatures, all of whom were delightful. Skidoo was a personal favorite, as I’m particularly fond of any kind of cephalopod-inspired aliens, but Petalia, even if their name was rather on-the-nose (in line with a lot of the humor of the book), had some fascinating details about their culture and plant-based physiology. Also, there’s a chimp. Gotta have a chimp to round out the crew, amirite? Thankfully, this one doesn’t go the way of Nope, and Gio is a perfectly reasonable individual. There’s also lots of casual queerness abound, which is always a plus.

Another thing I love in space opera is a good motley crew, and You Sexy Thing had a stellar one! Rambo’s choice (apparently a challenge from fellow sci-fi author Ann Leckie, if the epigraph is anything to go by) to have You Sexy Thing in an omniscient, third-person POV was a great solution for covering the thoughts of all of the characters, discarding the need for separate chapters for everyone. All of them had distinct and lovable (mostly) personalities that made them butt heads with some characters and mesh with others, while still retaining a sense of familial bonding. Even outside of the restaurant setting, they retained a hilarious rapport that was a joy to read. Dabry’s musings on cooking were a delight, Atlanta’s trouble fitting in with the crew made for some lovely interactions, and Niko’s continuous struggles to face her past made for some of the novel’s most emotional points. You Sexy Thing balanced levity with emotional weight to great effect, and had a fantastic cast of characters to split the difference.

Amidst all of the humor, You Sexy Thing explores some quite complex, nuanced emotion, which I appreciated. I don’t think Rambo fully explored the implications of everything that had been done to Petalia, and how returning to Niko’s company affected them, but what we got was appropriately complicated, messy, and painful to read—exactly how it should have been, given the circumstances. This story never strays away from the cross-cultural complications of relationships, grief, and more, which added to how fleshed-out and unique all of the characters felt. By the end, all of the betrayals were appropriately punches to the gut, but ones that were cushioned by the found family dynamic that had been built up by the end.

Like the characters, the worldbuilding was an absolute treat! I will say, some of it was rather scattershot—we frequently get references to alien species and places that don’t even show up after they’re mentioned, but since this is a trilogy, I might be able to get past that, assuming that they come up later. I’m mostly accepting it, knowing that a) this is a huge galaxy, and b) that the world will presumably be expanded upon. It only really peeved me when they failed to explain much about what said alien races looked like. Other than that, Rambo’s worldbuilding was fascinating to pick apart! Sometimes, individual concepts are more interesting than the whole, and that aspect was made manifest by many of Rambo’s concepts, from married couples (or friends) being able to meld into a single being to the biotechnology that made You Sexy Thing (the sentient ship) possible. Through it all, I got the sense that Rambo’s galaxy was a distinctly lived-in one, which made my reading experience all the better.

My only real complaint, if any, was Tubal Last. You Sexy Thing had moments of being purposely cheesy, from the in-your-face ’70s music references to the on-the-nose character names; the latter felt like a nice, tongue-in-cheek reference to some of the characteristics of older sci-fi. That quality extended to the villain, who was cartoonishly evil. I don’t necessarily mind a comically evil villain every now and then, but in contrast to the complexity and nuance of many of the characters, Tubal Last felt out of place, just another obstacle (a formidable one, but a very one-note one) for the crew to overcome. He was over-the-top, but not in a way that necessarily served the story, other than some slightly unique motivations.

Overall, You Sexy Thing was a blast from start to finish, with a lively, energetic galaxy and a cast of lovable characters and daring hijinks to fill it with. 4.5 stars!

You Sexy Thing is the first book in Cat Rambo’s Disco Space Opera series, followed by Devil’s Gun and Rumor Has It. They are also the author of Neither Here Nor There, the Tabat Quartet (Beasts of Tabat, Hearts of Tabat, and Exiles of Tabat), And the Last Trump Shall Sound (with Harry Turtledove and James Morrow), and many other full-length works and short stories. Rambo is also the former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Today’s song:

it’s taken me this long to finally listen to Jimmy’s Show all the way through…preparing for Jimmy’s Show 2? either way, it’s an absolute delight.

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (11/19/24) – Loka (The Alloy Era, #2)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

…so. Elephant in the room here, quite literally. I’ll venture to say that last Tuesday was one of the worst Tuesdays in American history. Hence, no activity. (Also, I had a whole cocktail of midterms to study for and papers and annotated bibliographies to write.) I needed the time to grieve. Let me tell you the truth: I’m so scared. I’m betrayed. Being in my formative years under a president who systematically mocked the identities of everyone who isn’t him—not just the ones that comprise my family—forced me to confront the fact that America had no regard for me. If there was change to be made, I had to do it myself, and with the help of the communities around me. So I started writing. I started educating myself. The process is never over, and will continue until my dying day; even with the sort of beef that I have with Sara Ahmed (yeah, killjoy etc. etc. etc., I’m on board with 50% of it, but can’t feminism be gleeful sometimes?), I look back to her words: “To become a feminist is to stay a student.” I am always learning. I am far from perfect, but I am trying. The key here is motion: we can’t afford to stay static, not in our ideas or in our actions. Resistance comes in many forms (and don’t let anybody tell you that there’s one right way to fight), but the key is that we must always keep moving. Donate. Protest. Pay someone a compliment. Make art. Write with hope in your heart. Trump and his ilk win when we’re too far into the quicksand of hopelessness.

Never lose hope and never lose love, because that is what the Trump administration lacks. Grieve, and grieve on your terms. I certainly did. The last thing I wanted was a repeat of that November morning when, at the age of 13, I woke up to my dad hanging his head over the kitchen counter as he made lunches for my brother and I. I remember clinging to him tighter than I ever had, frightened of every horrid possibility. Some of them came true. Some of them didn’t. I called both of my parents. I cried the same tears to them that I cried when I was young. Cry the same tears, but remember that they are the same tears. I’m frightened. But if we can resist Trump once, we can do it again. We can fight the same good fight. I love you.

…

All this is to say that, even though my output has been lessened lately (college!), this won’t change a thing. I’ll still be reviewing queer books aplenty, and no election will change that. Gather ’round.

After a solid two weeks of reading nothing but fluff to keep my mind off of everything, I remembered that Meru, one of the more innovative new sci-fi novels I read last year, had a sequel that was finally out! I was eager to re-immerse myself into S.B. Divya’s endlessly creative futuristic landscape, and Loka found itself on my Kindle in no time. Loka turned out to be contrary to my expectations and a very different book to Meru—it was a mixed bag at first, but by the final third, I’m happy to say that it stuck the landing in a deeply moving way.

Now, TREAD LIGHTLY! This review contains spoilers for Meru, book one in The Alloy Era series. If you haven’t read Meru and intend to do so, read at your own risk!

For my review of book one, Meru, click here!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Loka (The Alloy Era, #2) – S.B. Divya

Akshana is a child that defies all existence. Her mother is human, and her maker is an Alloy—a post-human being with godlike powers. The ruling Alloy government condemns her very existence. For years, she has lived a sheltered existence on the planet Meru, raised by her human mother. But once Akshana turns 16, she heeds the call of Earth, the ancient homeworld of humankind. With the help of her friends, she takes up the rigorous Anthro Challenge: a trek to circumnavigate the habitable zone of Earth. As she navigates foreign terrain, Akshana comes to terms with how she was born and created—and where her destiny lies.

TW/CW: near-death situations, medical emergencies (related to sickle-cell anemia), xenophobia/discrimination (fictional), life-threatening storms

I thought that Meru had scared off all of the people who thought that S.B. Divya invented neopronouns, but apparently people are still complaining about it in the reviews for Loka? Did you just…miss book one in its entirety, or what?

I’ll get my main gripe about Loka out of the way first. The more I think about it, the more that I realize that my issue with Loka is that to some extent, it has the exact same stakes as Meru: a young girl/woman has to take a daring trek onto a foreign landscape, all the while facing prejudice from the outside world and alien, terrestrial dangers from the ground beneath her feet. S.B. Divya remains an excellent writer and crafter of worlds, but in terms of plot, in this case, lightning couldn’t strike twice. Aside from Akshana’s differing personality and the novelty of Earth 1,000 years in the future, there wasn’t as much to distinguish the two plots once I broke them down.

I wasn’t crazy about the main plot of the Anthro Challenge. In the future landscape of Loka, this challenge is designed for humans and Alloys to circumnavigate the landscape of Earth as humans did millennia ago. Only a few strips of Earth remain habitable (forming ringed borders around the world), but the brave adventurer must cross swaths of the Southern hemisphere and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in order to complete the challenge. In concept, it’s a great bit of worldbuilding, but it didn’t make for a very compelling of a plot. For the first half of the novel, it felt like the same regurgitation of 1) reach new landscape, 2) inter or intra-personal conflict within the friend group, and 3) make a harrowing trek to the next stop on the Challenge. This was rinsed and repeated with less change than I wanted; even with the new landscapes, none of the side characters had much time to develop, and they seemed to encounter almost the exact same problems for a solid 100 pages. It bordered on feeling cheap, given how innovative Meru was.

That being said, even though the plot faltered, Divya’s writing never did. You’ve just got to trust in her abilities at this point, because she can write some fantastic sci-fi, even if the foundation of the plot is flimsy. Her voice for Akshana perfectly captured that teenage urge to explore beyond your parents’ backyard and prove everyone wrong. Divya’s descriptions of future Earth, from the raging seas to the lush greenery to the plains of a futuristic America, immersed me instantly in a vibrantly crafted vision of the future. I’ll get to the specifics of the emotional core of Loka later, but that was perhaps the best part of the novel—S.B. Divya’s brand of space opera borders on hard sci-fi for me, but it keeps the emotional center that so many other hard sci-fi novels forget to consider.

The subject of disability was one of the more compelling aspects of Meru; in a genre rife with eugenic practices that get dismissed as signs of a “progressive” society, Divya changed the game by creating Jayanthi, who, in a future when most disabilities were edited out of the gene pool, was specifically engineered to have sickle-cell anemia. More than that, her sickle-cell anemia was advantageous for surviving the landscape of Meru. Fast-forward 16 years, and Akshana is experiencing, as I said before, the same plot, but her sickle-cell anemia presents unique challenges on Earth, leading to many a close scrape when she exhausts herself to near-fatal levels. She has thoughts of resentment towards her mother, who made a conscious decision to pass this gene down to her. S.B. Divya said that Loka was inspired by their experience being a disabled parent, and that shone through in Loka; eugenicists would have you believe that this would constitute cruelty on the highest level, but Akshana comes to reconcile with—and understand—her mother’s logic. By erasing this gene and others from the gene pool, the Alloys past erased entire cultures, as well as the ways in which they moved about in the world. Being disabled is challenging, to say the least, and in my experience, bothersome and at times taxing to deal with on a daily basis. Yet it has shaped my life in ways that I will never regret. Akshana comes to realize that her mother, even though the road to this decision was rocky, merely wanted her to know that individuality, adversity, and culture cannot be erased by a purging of the gene pool.

Which brings me to the ending. The buildup of Loka concerns the mounting pressure and prejudice surrounding daring Akshana and her friends as they complete the challenge and return to a world that wants to erase their bravery and ban the Anthro Challenge altogether. Not only has she come to terms with her disability, she has come to reckon with her status as a half-human, half-Alloy being in a galaxy where neither party wants her to exist. Yes, there was the physical challenge, but the real Anthro Challenge is the identity crisis you have along the way, amirite? All jokes aside, that was the real hurdle to overcome. I know how corny I sound, but the real journey was Akshana’s journey to self-acceptance in all of the facets of her identity. At the end of the treacherous paved with prejudice and hatred, Akshana learns that the only way to survive is to be yourself, unapologetically so. As she says, in Loka’s stunning final lines:

“Our bodies don’t have a true end. Subatomic particles bounced between skin and air continually. So what did that make me, or any person? If I coexisted with everything and everyone, then part of me was also part of them, and vice versa. To some people, I would never be human enough. To others, I would always be too human. In the end, I had no choice by to be myself.”

And if anything could save Loka from being a letdown, it would be this, and the character arc it coincides with. Excuse me for a moment…no, I’m not crying, it’s just raining on my face.

All in all, a sequel with a plot that nearly dragged the novel down, but just like Akshana completing the Anthro Challenge, beautifully stuck the landing after a rocky journey. 4 stars!

Loka is the second book in The Alloy Era series, preceded by Meru. S.B. Divya is also the author of Machinehood, Runtime, and several other science fiction short stories.

Today’s song:

NEW HORSEGIRL IN FEBRUARY? ON VALENTINE’S DAY? PRODUCED BY CATE LE BON? today is a GOOD day

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (8/6/24) – The Stardust Grail

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Here I was thinking that I hadn’t had a 5-star read in so long, and bam…two in a row! I was expecting to enjoy The Stardust Grail because I loved The Deep Sky, Yume Kitasei’s debut. To my delight, it turned in a much more space opera direction, but not only that—it had one of the most heartwarming sci-fi universes that I’ve had the privilege of experiencing!

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Stardust Grail – Yume Kitasei

Maya Hoshimoto is a grad student, pouring her life into her studies on an Earth university far from her colony home. But what her university doesn’t know is that her extensive background in alien cultures comes from a history of art theft, stealing alien artifacts and returning them to their rightful owners. When a friend from her past offers her one last job, Maya is ready to refuse—until she learns that the artifact in question could mean that her friend’s species could be brought back from the brink of extinction. Plunged back into her old life, Maya now faces her hardest job yet—putting an entire alien species on the line.

TW/CW (from Yume Kitasei): themes of colonialism/imperialism, genocide, chronic illness (migraines), torture, suicidal ideation (brief), violence/gore, torture/confinement, war themes, pandemic

I loved The Deep Sky, but it was more literary than my usual tastes in sci-fi. I went into The Stardust Grail expecting more of the same, knowing I’d enjoy it, but I did not anticipate it being the perfect book for my constant space opera hankering! Heartwarming friendships, intergalactic hijinks, and excellent creature design—I’m ecstatic to report that The Stardust Grail has it all!

You all knew I was going to go after the creature design first. THE CREATURE DESIGN!! THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE CREAM OF THE CROP HERE!! My only issue is that we didn’t get to see all of the alien species that Kitasei set up, but to be fair, with a story jam-packed with rival parties and factions, it would’ve been a chore to have to incorporate every single one of them. (Maybe what we need is a companion novel in this universe? WE NEED TO MAKE IT HAPPEN!) Back to my point—even in sci-fi, it’s a difficult task to make aliens feel truly alien, not just in looks, but in culture, lifespans, and general quirks. The Frenro, and Auncle in particular, felt bizarre in the best possible way. I love a good cephalopod-like creature, but Kitasei did an excellent job of portraying not just xer mannerisms and what made xem unique as a species, but having those in contact with Maya’s more human sensibilities—there’s a ton of cultural confusion, even though they’ve been friends for at least a decade, but both Kitasei and the characters themselves handle it with a humorous grace. I also loved the design of the Belzoar—again, arachnid-like aliens are also tons of fun, but like the Frenro, they had enough distinguishing qualities to separate them from just being giant spiders.

I could go on and on about how much I adored these characters! Even if I didn’t have a soft spot for alien characters in the first place (being marginalized and generally an outcast will do that), Auncle would be my favorite by far—xe was just so delightful in their joyous dialogue and relentless optimism, but xer deep history of tragedy, both personal and in the context of xer species, was handled with all of the respect that it deserved—xe was joyous in spite of it all, because joy is all you’ve got in some cases. (AMEN!!) Maya was a fantastic protagonist—like Auncle, Kitasei did an excellent job of giving the reader the full breadth of her motivations and past that led her to the place where she is now. Her devotion to a fair galaxy and to help the Frenro made for a beautiful quest, and her feeling of outsiderness amongst both humans and aliens resonated deeply with me. (Given the themes of mixed-race identity in The Deep Sky, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was another analog. YES!!!) Wil and Medix were charming and lovable as side characters, and all of the colorful denizens of the galaxy were equally so—not a single character felt flat or out of place.

In her personal review of the novel on Goodreads, Yume Kitasei cites Star Wars—A New Hope in particular—as her primary inspiration for writing The Stardust Grail and much of her other science fiction. The Deep Sky was much more on the literary side of sci-fi, and while I loved it, I’m hoping that Kitasei keeps in this direction for her next few books. (I’ll read anything she writes at this point, but my statement still stands.) As a fellow space opera girlie and an avid Star Wars fan, the passion of both Kitasei’s personal life and her love for those movies shines through in The Stardust Grail. Kitasei took all of the right lessons from George Lucas and company. Not only do we have a vibrant galaxy full of characters who are just as vibrant, this novel hits the right balance of emotional weight and campy, truly fun action. Speaking of George Lucas…another obvious inspiration in the latter third of the novel was the Indiana Jones franchise, and those action scenes were the best kind of fun amidst an otherwise deeply grounded and emotional novel. Never at any point do the emotion and serious themes contradict the aforementioned action, nor the other way around—all of it is earned, and all of it feels like a worthy tribute both Star Wars and other such space opera works.

Speaking of said serious and emotional themes…as I said earlier, The Stardust Grail has such grace in the way that it handles the myriad of themes that it explores. From Maya’s lasting effects of an alien illness that linger into her life to her experience as an outsider, being raised on a colony isolated from Earth, every topic is treated with the weight it deserves. Imperialism and the ownership of art is the primary theme of the novel, and it’s unabashedly anti-colonial, which I adored. However, it didn’t just say “colonialism bad” and leave it at that—just as in the real world, nothing in The Stardust Grail is without nuance. With dozens of alien species and factions amongst said species, everything is gray, even in the case of their main mission. Would it have been fine if all there was to The Stardust Grail is “colonialism bad?” Sure, I agree. But the fact that Kitasei chose to explore all of the layers to the various conflicts and perspectives made it so much more worthwhile.

All in all, a deeply emotional and heartwarming tale of resistance, friendship across cultural barriers, and retaining joy in spite of it all. 5 stars!

The Stardust Grail is a standalone, but Yume Kitasei is also the author of The Deep Sky.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/16/24) – The Vela

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

The Vela came on my radar again when I dredged my TBR for books to read during this year’s Disability Pride Month. Beyond the disability rep…what could possibly go wrong with Becky Chambers AND Rivers Solomon, right? I’m glad to say I was right—whether it was the work of new-to-me or longtime favorite authors, they all came together in stunning harmony in The Vela, a timely sci-fi epic that’s as observant as it is thrilling.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Vela: A Novel – Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, and S.L. Huang

Asala Sikou can’t afford to care about anybody but herself. Not when her star system is on the verge of collapse, and not when everyone she once knew is long dead. But when she receives a job to track down the Vela, a ship hauling thousands of refugees that mysteriously disappeared, Asala knows that there’s more than meets the eye to the incident. So does Niko, the smart but sheltered child of another planet’s president. The two unlikely companions will have to team up to track down the Vela—and all of its refugees—before they’re embroiled in a galaxy-wide war.

TW/CW: xenophobia, racism, themes of genocide, descriptions of death/corpses

The promise of Becky Chambers and Rivers Solomon in one novel was the main draw of The Vela for me, but by the time I finished the novel, I was fully invested in all four contributors. Their talents came together so seamlessly, making for a novel that wasn’t just coherent, but downright thrilling—The Vela is sure to satisfy whether or not you’re familiar with the authors.

Out of all of the authors who contributed to The Vela, I was the most hesitant about Yoon Ha Lee; the one book I’ve read of his was one that didn’t mesh with my style (but that was also his first attempt at middle grade, so that could have been my issue). I read a sample of Ninefox Gambit ages ago and liked it, but not enough to buy it. Consider me proven wrong about him! As the author who started off the novel, he was the perfect choice. His fast-paced prose made for an opening chapter that integrated the reader swiftly and effortlessly into the world of The Vela. Later on, his battle scenes were some of the highlights of the novel; every chase sequence and dogfight is so meticulous that I questioned whether or not he’d actually been in the thick of an intergalactic war. I’ll be seeking out more of his work after this!

Becky Chambers was, by far, the author I was most excited about seeing in The Vela. I’ve fallen head-over-heels in love with her cozy sci-fi, as many other readers had. What she contributed to The Vela, however, was a sense of complication. Like The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, where she piled a series of unlikely characters together and had them clash in terms of culture, politics, and personality, Chambers excelled at complicating the relationships between each character. Her cozy agenda made me forget how well she writes cold, fascist characters; the way she wrote General Cynwrig sent chills up my spine, conveying the dull distance she has from every other character. Every interaction with her is nothing but war room strategy, and that’s why she and Niko clashed so fundamentally. While toeing over making Cynwrig sympathetic, Chambers gave us a glimpse into her mind without justifying her actions. It’s a difficult dilemma to skirt around, but one that served to develop Niko incredibly; they had a very un-nuanced view of the galaxy, and although their views weren’t changed fundamentally, it allowed them to see different sides without excusing their horrific actions.

Rivers Solomon, the other author I was looking forward to reading in The Vela, gave us the novel’s best glimpse into the mind of the protagonist, Asala. Their prose here, which combines rough-edged anger with exceptional metaphor, fleshed out Asala in ways that the other chapters did not; Solomon had the weight of sculpting all of the events that made Asala as cool and calculated as she was, and by the end, I had a vision of her that was as clear as a map, with every mountain range and river of her life writ out. Her cold disillusionment was palpable, but by the time Asala begins to move more towards purpose and determination, we can see, with incredible clarity, every step that led up to it.

S.L. Huang was the only author featured in The Vela who I was completely unfamiliar with. Now that I’ve finished the novel, I’m keen on checking out her other works, because I can’t think of many other authors who are able to write war so poetically, but never romanticize it at any point. Nothing is ever glorified (as it should be, both in general and considering the themes of The Vela), but there’s something so silk-smooth and beautiful in the way she described battalions of ships on the horizon and the chaos of war as all of the parties scramble for a handhold. For a novel with a prominently anti-war sentiment, Huang’s prose served a valuable purpose—humanizing the consequences of war that many of the characters were unable to grasp, and writing it with such tact and heart that it bordered on poetry.

As a whole…what a timely novel, isn’t it? Surely, we couldn’t learn a thing or two from this world, where star systems and planets are being physically torn apart and destroyed because nobody considered that their enemies are also human…surely that’s not applicable to [checks notes] practically every issue we’re dealing with at the moment, no?

All in all, a seamless and cohesive sci-fi thriller that wonderfully harmonizes the unique talents of the authors that it displays. 4 stars!

The Vela is the first in an anthology series, followed by The Vela: Salvation, which features Nicole Givens Kurtz, Sangu Mandanna, Maura Milan, and Ashley Poston.

Today’s song:

my friend and I were discussing our favorite album intros last night, and they showed me this…they’re right on the money with this one (thanks!!)

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (11/28/23) – Hunger Makes the Wolf

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Hunger Makes the Wolf came on my radar when I was looking for more books with disability rep (as always), but I ended up buying it on my Kindle after my dad notified me that I had some unused Kindle points (thank you for reminding me!)—it was free with the points added on, so how could I resist? And while Hunger Makes the Wolf wasn’t perfect, it’s a ton of gunslinging, space-fantasy fun.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Hunger Makes the Wolf (The Ghost Wolves, #1) – Alex Wells

Hob Ravani ekes out a living in the deserts of Tanegawa’s World, a planet owned by TransRifts—the corporation who controls the market on interstellar travel in the whole galaxy. For 10 years, Hob has gotten by with the help of the Ghost Wolves, a group of bandits roaming the desert and finding money where they can. But when Hob discovers the body of Nick, the man who recruited her to join the Wolves, abandoned in the desert, she knows that she has to act before TransRifts discovers their operation—and discovers the powers that she’s kept hidden from sight.

TW/CW: murder, descriptions of injuries, descriptions of corpses, violence, loss of loved ones, human experimentation

Writing accents phonetically is a slippery slope that I’m not going to get fully into in this review. In this case, though, Alex Wells had decent success with making everyone who was meant to sound like they had a Southern accent actually sound like they had a Southern accent, which worked—this novel was a space Western, after all. That being said, the unintended consequence was that Wells’ spelling of Hob’s accent was that I imagined her voice more like Holly Hunter in Raising Arizona than the badass, hardened gunslinger that she was made out to be. It sort of worked, though.

As far as sci-fi subgenres go, I’m not usually huge on space Westerns; I’ve rarely seen them done exceedingly well (even The Mandalorian got more than a little repetitive eventually), but the best are at least fun. And that was what Hunger Makes the Wolf was—incredibly fun. It had all of the trappings of a debut novel, but what Wells did get right on the first time was that pacing. Although the action sequences were what made Hunger such a blast to read in the best parts, Wells also knew how to balance them out with quiet, more emotional moments, and also moments to slip in worldbuilding without absolutely walloping you with it. Wells’ action was really the star of the show here; their fight scenes had just the right amount of tension, levity, and butt-kicking to make for more than one delightful scene.

Recently, I’ve read several sci-fi books that were marketed as “space fantasy,” and none of them have really fit the bill. And yet, Hunger Makes the Wolf wasn’t necessarily marketed as such, but it does what the other novels lacked. Even amidst the classic sci-fi backdrop of corporate greed, massive spaceships, and gruesome human experimentation, there’s the element of the characters’ strange hidden powers. Naming said powers “witchiness” was already a win in my book, the charm of it really fits the Western atmosphere that Wells was going for—it hits that sweet spot of not sounding overly jargon-y or formal, but not too hokey, either. Every time one of the characters mentioned it, I couldn’t help but smile—especially in Hob’s aforementioned Holly Hunter voice.

Hunger Makes the Wolf is an incredibly ambitious novel, and the ambition is accentuated when you remember that this is Alex Wells’ debut. In some ways, it worked; Wells managed to juggle a safe amount of the worldbuilding without leaving the reader without context, but also without dumping it excessively. However, what Wells did not juggle as well was the sheer amount of characters that we jump between. Hunger was clearly meant to have a found family theme to it, which I’m normally a sucker for, but Wells just had so many extraneous characters on their hands that none of the character relationships felt fleshed out. If we had gotten more scenes with Hob and the rest of the Wolves, for instance, I would have believed that they really were as thick as thieves. Adding onto this, the perspective switches may not have been necessary; Mags, although she plays a prominent role, doesn’t have a perspective or voice that added anything substantial to the narrative. It’s a classic debut author case: Alex Wells had some spot-on ideas, but they bit off far more than they could chew.

All in all, a rollicking space fantasy with action aplenty, but with characters that left me wanting more. 3.5 stars!

Hunger Makes the Wolf is the first book in the Ghost Wolves duology, followed by Blood Binds the Pack. Hunger was Alex Wells’ debut novel; they are also the author of the short story Angel of the Blockade.

Today’s song:

FARGO IS BACK I AM FOAMING AT THE MOUTH OH MY GOOOOOOOD

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Uncategorized

Book Review Tuesday (7/25/23) – A Song of Salvation

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles! Everybody say happy birthday to Hobbes, who turns 7 today:

I’ve been following Alechia Dow ever since The Sound of Stars was a 5-star read for me way back in 2020; I’ve loved reading her brand of hopeful, queer YA sci-fi with Black characters at the forefront, and so I was so excited to hear that A Song of Salvation was set in the same universe as her first two books! Unfortunately, I found it to be more lackluster than her first two books, but that doesn’t mean that I still enjoyed it.

Enjoy this week’s review!

A Song of Salvation – Alechia Dow

Zaira Citlali knows her purpose. As the reincarnation of the goddess Indigo, she has been granted with their powers—but cannot seem to harness them. What’s worse, her mortal enemy, the destruction god Ozvios, remains at large, and as he creates war all across the galaxy, he’s eyeing Zaira as a prime sacrifice. But Zaira won’t go down without a fight, even if it means rushing to control her powers. With the help of Wesley, a disgruntled smuggler who just wants to get the job done, and Rubin, a celebrity podcaster that Wesley definitely doesn’t find ridiculously attractive, she must find her way to Terra, the center of intergalactic conflict, to ensure that the song of the universe remains intact.

TW/CW: themes of war, genocide, colonialism/imperialism, murder

I liked this book. But I wanted to like it so much more. Ever since The Sound of Stars, I’ve been trying to get my hands on every Alechia Dow that comes out—normally, I love her special brand of sweet, vibrant sci-fi with Black, queer characters at the forefront. But putting this book next to The Kindred has made me realize that I’m liking her books less and less with each one that comes out. And that makes me really sad. It almost makes me scared to re-read The Sound of Stars, which was a 5-star read for me, just out of fear that it won’t be as impactful for me now as it was back in 2020. All that is to say that A Song of Salvation was still a solid read, but a visible downgrade from both The Sound of Stars and The Kindred. It doesn’t feel like her best work at all.

I’ll start with the positives: if anything, A Song of Salvation was still fun and well-crafted. Dow’s space opera universe where queer characters of color are in charge of their own destinies and get to star in their own star-crossed romances is always a treat to step inside of. The new context and worldbuilding that Song adds to this already vibrant world made it even more fleshed out and real, and Dow was adept at handling all of the intergalactic politics as war descended upon the universe. It’s all richly layered and detailed, with no stone left unturned in terms of the eccentricities of everything going on. And of course, sci-fi with high(ish) stakes but with ultimately hopeful and happy resolutions are always a win. Before I get into my main gripes, I should clarify that I did enjoy the book—it was still a fun read, and better than a fair portion of YA sci-fi—but having read Dow’s other novels, it left me wanting more.

What was endearing to me about The Sound of Stars and The Kindred (the latter to a lesser extent) were the characters—Ellie and Morris felt so resonant, and Felix and Joy, even if they were slightly less so, were still a joy (no pun intended) to be around. Given that Dow’s books have leaned more on the side of character-driven, I expected Song to have the same kind of characters and character development, but unfortunately, I found it lacking. Zaira, Wesley, and Rubin were all fun characters, in the abstract, but it felt like Dow didn’t give them the same love and care that she did for her other characters. They all seemed to have a baseline personality trait each: Wesley is grumpy, Rubin is flamboyant, etc. There wasn’t a whole lot to Zaira, either—it genuinely saddens me to say this, but she feels like every single “reincarnated god/goddess/has the power of a deity” kind of character, whose only traits seem to be that they’re overpowered. And for all of the “I can’t control my powers :(” talk, she seemed to miraculously save the day most every time? That’s not to say that they weren’t all at least entertaining, though; they had a good group dynamic, and Wesley and Rubin were cute together. (Did anybody else feel like Rubin was a toned-down, YA version of Ruby from The Fifth Element? The name and everything…I can’t be the only one to see that…)

Plot-wise, A Song of Salvation struggled to remain relevant for at least half of the book; it felt like a lot of running about with no consequence to the story (and, y’know, the looming intergalactic war?). The second half more or less suffered from the same problem, but it hinged so much on the cameos from the previous books. Don’t get me wrong—it was really sweet to see Ellie, Morris, Joy, Felix, and all of the others, but the more that they showed up, the more it felt like they were being used as crutches to keep longtime readers interested in the story. And for such endearing, well-developed characters, having them used like this was such a shame. They were too well-written to just be cameos. It really felt like such a shame.

All in all, a fun addition to Alechia Dow’s sci-fi universe, but one that relied too much on the wondrousness of its predecessors to stand on its own. 3.5 stars.

A Song of Salvation is the companion to Alechia Dow’s other YA sci-fi novels, The Sound of Stars and The Kindred; they are not a concrete trilogy, but they are all set in the same universe, and can be (and probably should be, just to understand everything) read as such. Dow is also the author of the forthcoming middle grade novel Just A Pinch of Magic (slated for release this October) and All’s Fair(y) in Love & War (slated for release in 2025).

Today’s song:

haven’t been able to stop listening to this gaaaaah

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Uncategorized

Book Review Tuesday (6/20/23) – Meru

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve been eyeing this book for a while—I remember it being heavily advertised on Goodreads when it was first released, and normally, I don’t pay much attention to Goodreads ads or sponsored books, but all you had to say was “space opera” and I was hooked. I’m a woman of simple tastes. It was cheap on the Kindle library, so I bought it to read on vacation. To my excitement, it ended up being my favorite book that I read on vacation—so detailed and gripping!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Meru (The Alloy Era, #1) – S.B. Divya

Jayanthi, like all other humans in her day and age, are confined to Earth. Kept there by the Alloys, evolved human descendants with advanced capabilities, she has been raised by Alloy parents on her homeworld, but has always dreamed of seeing the wider galaxy. But when an opportunity arises for Jayanthi to explore the newly discovered planet Meru with the aid of an Alloy pilot, she jumps at the chance—what better way to show the galaxy that humans are more than their violent past?

With the help of Vaya, her Alloy pilot, Jayanthi touches down on Meru. Soon, they find themselves embroiled in a human-alloy conflict, seemingly engineered to separate the two of them. Will Jayanthi and Vaya beat the odds—and restore faith in the human race?

TW/CW: ableism, xenophobia (fictional), sexual content/pregnancy, descriptions of injury, sci-fi violence

I got carsick while reading this book, but I don’t hold it against it at all. That was on me and my hubris of thinking that I wouldn’t get nauseous on a long car trip just this once. Whoops.

Reading some of the lower-rated reviews of Meru is kind of cracking me up…listen. I get that zie/zir pronouns (and neopronouns in general) are somewhat obscure, but of all the absolutely wild, dense, and out-there concepts that this book throws at you, that’s what makes you jump ship? Not the exceedingly complicated…well, everything else?

That being said, Meru lived up to the hype I’ve seen it getting for the past few months! It hit a sweet spot for me that a lot of sci-fi and fantasy books rarely do—creating a complex and multilayered universe, but very delicately balancing when and where to deliver all of this information. Divya came very close to going over the edge, but she navigated the worldbuilding delivery with aplomb.

So, about said worldbuilding. I’d say that Meru isn’t for the faint of heart, even for longtime sci-fi fans—as I mentioned in the beginning of the review, there’s a lot to take in, from the post-human history of the Alloys to all of the machinations surrounding new genetic modification laws in the future. But even though we do get some of this information in larger chunks, Divya excels at navigating which information is actually relevant to the scene it’s informing, and not sledgehammering you with extra information that only becomes relevant elsewhere in the book. It also helps that every inch of said worldbuilding is truly fascinating—it’s clear to see how much care was put into the creation of this universe.

If you’re talking about disability in sci-fi, you’re generally bound to open a particularly dicey can of worms. There’s quite a lot of eugenics narratives that a lot of readers have let slide for years, and the narrative of curing all disabilities is seen as positive, when a lot of the disabilities being described never needed curing in the first place. For the sake of this review, I’ll keep it short, but the bottom line is that it’s gross. But Meru takes a refreshing perspective on disability in sci-fi—not only was Jayanthi, the protagonist, specifically engineered to have sickle-cell anemia (now THAT’S a subversion I like), her disability is depicted in a far more advantageous and positive light. Anyone who’s ever touched a high school biology textbook probably remembers this example: despite its drawbacks, those with sickle-cell also have increased resistance to many tropical diseases. That’s exactly the case for Jayanthi, whose sickle-cell anemia makes her more suited to the environment of the planet Meru than those without it. Positive disability rep is good enough, but having it specifically depicted as something that gives the character the edge is something special. That, along with the wonderful discussions around disability and bodily autonomy (both allegorical and literal), made Meru a wonderful experience for me as a disabled reader.

In addition, Divya has created such a vibrant cast of characters in Meru! Jayanthi was such an endearing and powerful protagonist, and her relationship with the equally endearing Vaha was full of tenderness, despite its ups and downs. Almost all of the cast added to the book’s masterful suspense and tension, making you feel deeply for all of the relevant characters before things got (very) hairy. Plus, the integration of Sanskrit, several Indian-coded (and other POC characters), and loads of casual queerness was a breath of fresh air from all of the white, male, cishet sci-fi that still dominates the market. We need more books like Meru.

All in all, an intricately-crafted sci-fi novel that dazzled with its detailed worldbuilding, diversity, and refreshing discussions around disability. 4 stars!

Meru is the first book in S.B. Divya’s Alloy Era series, continued by the forthcoming Loka, slated for release in July of 2024. Divya is also the author of Machinehood and Run Time, as well as a contributor to several short story collections.

Today’s song:

NEW SMILE IT’S SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD (does this mean that we’re closer to hearing “Read the Room” too?????

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (3/14/23) – Nightwatch on the Hinterlands

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I was a huge fan of K. Eason’s Thorne Chronicles when I first read them, so you can imagine my excitement when I found out that she was starting a companion series set in the same universe! (I didn’t find out until a few weeks ago, but that’s beside the point.) I jumped on the chance to put it on hold at the library, and I finally got to read it recently; however, I found Nightwatch on the Hinterlands to be an entirely different type of story than Rory Thorne, which, in this case, was its downfall.

For my double review of How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse and How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge, click here!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Nightwatch on the Hinterlands – K. Eason

It’s been decades since any of the riev—battle-mechas designed for the war effort—have done any harm to civilians. For years, they’ve been decommissioned or redesigned for labor purposes. So when Lieutenant Iari arrives at the scene of a crime and realizes that a riev may have been the perpetrator, she knows that the mystery will lead down a trail that she never anticipated treading. Along with Gaer, an ambassador-turned-spy, Iari must play a dangerous game amongst her planet’s criminal underbelly, one that may lead to something greater than a simple murder.

TW/CW: murder, blood, descriptions of injury, xenophobia (fictional—cast is almost exclusively aliens)

I was a massive fan of the Thorne Chronicles, but after reading Nightwatch on the Hinterlands, I’m sorely disappointed in the direction that K. Eason decided to go with this series—my most common thought while reading this novel was why include this?

As a starting point: why these characters? I liked Iari well enough in How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge, and she does have the potential to have an interesting story, but I didn’t get enough information in Multiverse to really care about her. I didn’t remember much about Gaer either, and he was a well-written and likable character, at the very least, but there wasn’t much that carried over from the previous books to make me care enough about him. These characters were virtually all that carried over from the Thorne Chronicles into this new series (The Weep), and that was where my disinterest began.

In concept, I like Eason’s decision to set Nightwatch in the seedy, criminal underbelly of the world that was touched on in the Thorne Chronicles. It’s a classic sci-fi setting, and with how rich Eason’s established world already was, it would be easy to make something compelling out of it. However, the Thorne Chronicles were far more centered around the human characters, and the aliens were more of a sideplot, mostly just appearing in Multiverse. Nightwatch, however, was entirely centered around the alien characters; normally, this is something I’d be 100% on board with, but without the context that could’ve been given in either Multiverse or in…y’know, some part of this book, I was left in the dark for any of the conventions of this part of Eason’s established world. I somehow understand that not giving glimpses of the other characters (Rory, Messer Rupert, etc.) would’ve been easy fan service, but other than Iari, if I hadn’t known that this was a companion book, I wouldn’t have seen the connection at all.

And on the subject of context…we needed so much more of it. So much more. Even though 90% of these alien species weren’t even talked about in the Thorne Chronicles, Eason wrote Nightwatch in a way that automatically assumes that readers know every single cultural aspect of every single alien species (of which there are many), as well as the context of the various wars that have gone on before the events of Nightwatch, in a very short timespan. I’m all for science fiction novels that don’t dump every single bit of exposition and worldbuilding into the story in one, unceremonious pile at the beginning, but this felt like the other extreme—wanting to avoid that so much that the reader is left without a single clue of what’s going on. I understand the concern that this writing style grew out of, but there really could’ve been a much more comprehensible happy medium in terms of worldbuilding. Beyond that, it’s clear to see how much time Eason put into creating these alien races and cultures, and that’s something I’ll always admire, but the effect of that got dwarfed by the alienating (no pun intended) fashion that she (did not properly) integrated them.

Like the approach to worldbuilding, Eason’s writing style in this novel is a double-edged sword. It’s a wildly different style from the endearingly irreverent but simultaneously observant voice that she used in the Thorne Chronicles. In contrast, Nightwatch had the distant feel of a hardboiled noir in space, quick and to the point, except for when information was delivered. On the one hand, it’s proof that Eason can be very versatile in terms of voice across her novels. On the other, this didn’t feel quite as genuine as the Thorne Chronicles—it made sense for the story, but the characters less likable, and the plot felt rushed, like constant running in circles from A to B without much context as to why or how. It suited the style of Nightwatch to a point, but it ended up being a detriment to both the pacing and my general enjoyment.

While I was reading, I was debating whether or not I wanted to stick it out for the rest of the series; I really wanted to give K. Eason the benefit of the doubt after how much I adored the Thorne Chronicles, but I don’t think I’ll be continuing The Weep after how unpleasant my experience with Nightwatch was. Obvious points go to the extensive worldbuilding and the clear time and care put into crafting this aspect of the world, but most of the other elements—the writing style, the way we got (or didn’t get) pieces of worldbuilding, and not much to make me care for the characters—brought my enjoyment down immensely. 2 stars.

Nightwatch on the Hinterlands is the first book in the Weep series, succeeded by Nightwatch Over Windscar. This series is a companion to the Thorne Chronicles, which consists of How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse and How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge. K. Eason is also the author of several other novels, including the On the Bones of Gods series (Enemy, Outlaw, and Ally).

Today’s song:

BACK ON THE PETER GABRIEL TRAIN FELLAS CHOO CHOO

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!