The Fifth Season

N. K. Jemisin

 The Fifth Season is post-apocalyptic fantasy. Well. Post-post-post-post-apocalyptic. The world of the Fifth Season has undergone so many apocalypses that most of the people who are there are used to it by now. They have plans for it, rules to follow, storage caches, roles within communities, everything a society needs to survive apocalypse number fifty-three.

But that's not what the book is about. Not really. The book is, in a way, about you. That's right folks. About half of the book is written in the second-person.

When I first heard that from my brother, I was skeptical to say the least. After having read the book... meh. After the first chapter or so, it sort of fades into the background. It stopped bothering me pretty quickly, but I can't really say it added anything to the book. So, meh.

That said, the Fifth Season is great. Apocalypse, earthquake mages, mad feels in a few places, and great characters. And as expected of Jemisin, a subtle and beautiful handling of discrimination, identity, race in a way that means something but isn't in your face at all. Speaking as a white male, I read the book through to the end and then when thinking about the characters noticed "Huh. She was transgender. He was gay. These people are the discriminated against race of this world. Those people are black." And all of them felt like real people. Not caricatures, not tokens, not facades defined solely by their minority status. Just people who mattered. To me, that was just a moment of notice. To people who can actually relate to those depictions, I can imagine it would be even more impactful. And we need more of that in fantasy.

Simply, if you've enjoyed any of Jemisin's other work, you're probably gonna like this one. If you haven't, I'd suggest you start with the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms instead.

When the sequel comes out, you can bet I'm gonna grab it. See if the book interests you.

Later folks
-Leo

Traitor's Blade

Sebastien de Castell

I'm gonna start off with a minor rant. I'll get to the book soon enough, don't worry.

There's a trend in fantasy that I hate. It's become very popular over the past five or so years, especially with the rise in popularity of Game of Thrones. More and more books have been released which are described, and often self-described as "grimdark". Basically, in a grimdark novel, everything sucks, the world sucks, the main character is usually an asshole because everyone's an asshole, the world is a shitty grim, dark place.

It might seem like I have a certain degree of vitriol towards grimdark books. That's... not exactly true. I have read and enjoyed a number of them, and I'll be writing about my experience a number of books by Joe Abercrombie, the self-described LordGrimdark, which has been by and large positive. I do profoundly dislike the trend that most popular new fantasy fiction that I have run into is grimdark.

Mostly, my problem lies in the fact that everyone is bad, including the main character. The most common reason I see justifying this is that people are generally assholes, why should fictional characters be any different? Now, I'm as cynical as the next man (probably moreso), but damnit, if I'm committing to a five hundred page novel, much less a series, I need some people to root for. I need someone who, even if they aren't the nicest individual, is generally likeable by at least me if not the people around him, and pursues good goals that I feel okay about cheering for. Maybe I'm weird that way. Who knows.

Finally, we get to the book. Sebastien De Castell gave me everything I wanted. In Traitor's Blade, the world is definitely shit. The King is dead, the Greatcoats are disbanded and treated as scum, people are getting killed and tortured all over the place, and the main character has had some serious tragic shit happen to him, as revealed in a number of short flashbacks.

But damn if Falcio val Mond isn't the most goddamn righteous character I've ever read. Not self-righteous, mind you. This is a man who despite all of the horrible things in the world and in his life never stops fighting for justice. Does he have flaws? Absolutely. Of course. But his flaws don't turn him from a hero to an asshole. They just add dimension.

Also, the Greatcoats are a band of traveling warrior judges who sing their verdicts. And there's some fantastic speeches, which I will quote a blurb on the back jacket of the book as being "Aaron Sorkin-esque". It's great. It's a great book. After I finished it I was sad because things were sad, but I enjoyed every minute of reading it.

If you enjoy "gritty" books but wish that you had some people to root for instead of Asshole v Asshole, this is your book. Read it. There's a sequel too. I'm waiting on a library hold, but I'll write about that one too once I'm down.

Disagree with me about grimdark shit? Have any more recommendations of new fantasy that buck the trend? Lemme know in the comments or something. 

We back boyz

A Brief Update

Hey ya'll. Summer and shit. Here's the books I've read (so far as I can remember them). I'll get to these as I can.

In no particular order:

Peter V. Brett's Demon Cycle
K.J. Parker's The Hammer
Ken Liu's Grace of Kings
Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni
James Cambias' Corsair
Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore
Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself
N.K. Jemisin's Killing Moon
Megan Whalen Turner's Thief, Queen of Attolia, King of Attolia
Samantha Shannon's Bone Season
Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief
 

There's probably a few that I've missed. That's all that come to mind. I'll try and get those reviewed up over the next week, and I'll post links in this blog once they're done.

-Leo

Annihilation

Jeff VanderMeer

In a word, this book is spooky. A giant spooky trip fest. Tracking an expedition made up of members referred to only by their various occupations into an unknown and unfathomable landscape known only as Area X. Yeah the name's kinda corny.

Irrelevant sidenote, I don't think there's a single personal name used in this entire book. I mean, it's only 200ish pages, but still. Huh.

Anyways. Area X is some spooky ass shit. There's hypnotism, and weird ecologies, and everyone is batshit crazy.

The book is written as a journal by the biologist of the expedition, who *spoilers* gets crazier and crazier as the book goes on. This makes it really fucking fascinating, but it can be kind of hard to follow at times.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It was not in fact 3spook5me, it was the exact amount of spook that I wanted. In daylight. I picked this up off a recommendation without knowing anything about it, and read it for the first time at 3am. That was a mistake. Don't do that.

As for who I would recommend it to. Um. People who like sci-fi, and who came up to me and said "I want a trippy ass sci-fi crazy spookfest". That's who. If that sounds like fun to you, pick up Annihilation at your local library/bookstore! There's two more books in the series which I plan to read as soon as my library gets them in.

And that's all for Annihilation. Have at it.

The Fifth Elephant

Terry Pratchett

This book is about fat mines, werewolves, and a petrified scone. It also happens to contain an enlightened discussion on gender identity and racial tensions. Also, it's really fucking funny.

This is Terry Pratchett to the core. If you've read any Pratchett, you don't need me to explain him to you. If you haven't, read some goddamn Pratchett. As a side note, I wouldn't recommend starting with this book. Instead, go with Going Postal, or The Wee Free Men.

There's really not much else I can say about this. In the words of Neil Gaiman, "any Terry Pratchett book is a small miracle". Get some of that in your life.

I would recommend this book to fantasy readers. People who aren't at least a little experienced in fantasy could very easily be put off by the fantastical elements and miss the core experience. And that would be a tragedy.

The Just City

Jo Walton

Sooooo, this book is about time traveling greek gods who pick up philosophers across time and send them back to atlantis so they can start Plato's Republic for real.

It's a weird book.

That said, it's handled fairly well. Socrates is really well written for the most part, although I have some issues with his final debate. Regardless.

It reads like a weird YA romance cum philosophical dialogue cum dystopic fantasy novel. That's not to say it's bad. It certainly isn't.  It's a good book for what it is. It just happens to be exceedingly odd.

I picked this up mostly because it was in the new section of the library, and because I'd read and enjoyed Jo Walton's exceedingly detailed reread/speculation collection on Patrick Rothfuss. 

That said, it was intriguing. I enjoyed reading it.  I have no idea who to recommend it to. If a philosophy major came up to me and said "What's a good fantasy book that might interest me?", I'd point them this way. But you really do have to be interested in philosophy to enjoy this book.

I will probably pick up another Jo Walton book if I see it and need something to read, based on my experience with this book. That's the best portrayal of my feelings on it that I can give.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

N.K. Jemisin

This book is great. It starts out as your classic "Hick from the country is suddenly heir to the kingdom what do", and becomes so much more. A story of captive gods, beautifully characterized. Honestly, Jemisin's gods are one of the book's huge strengths. They are utterly godlike, and utterly flawed, and honestly brilliant.

Not a lot actually happens in this book. If you're looking for Epic Fantasy, look elsewhere, although the fate of the world does happen to be at stake. This is about one person, one family, and the actions in one palace.

There is a lot of "intrigue", but it is by no means a political intrigue book. I'm honestly not sure what category to put it in.

The concept is great, the writing is mostly good. There are occasional moments of brilliance, and even more occasional mild burrs in the writing that pop me out of the story for a second, but the bad ones are minor, and the brilliant ones are truly great. But it's really the character's that make this the story it is. The characters, and the gods.

Also, I hate that this is significant enough that I feel obliged to mention this, but the protagonist is a black woman. If you're looking for diversity in fantasy protagonists (which is kind of abysmal I'll be the first to admit), this is a great place to look.

I would recommend this book to fantasy readers, or those who are interested in exploring what the genre has to offer. I'm trying to think of what books are like this, and it's certainly not easy. If I come up with something, I'll edit it in.

This is a complete trilogy, and the second and third books are both excellent. I'll write them up at some point. There is an accompanying novella which is also quite good.

And that's all for the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms ladies and gents.

-Leo

Gardens of the Moon

 Steven Erikson

This book is confusing as all shit. All books, especially fantasy books, have a certain number of chapters or pages where they just throw you into the mess, and explain things later. I have heard that this explanation begins to occur a little bit around the third book in this series.

That said, I'm enjoying being confused so far. It's well written, and Erikson can do an incredible brutal scene. There's some cool ideas that I think I'm picking up on, and some interesting characters, although those supposedly change every book as well.

This book sorta follows a group of soldiers, who used to be the elite guard under the previous emperor, and what they do when the new empress turns against them. But really, that's probably less than a third of the book. There's all sorts of stuff with meddling gods, wizard fighting, Totallynotdarkelves who live on a moon, and worldbuilding out the ass. It's hard to give a summary.

Erikson does a good job of compensating for the confusion. There's some lovely maps, as well as a glossary, and a Dramatis Personae section listing the names of all the characters, what category they belong to (Bridgeburners, regulars at the Phoenix Inn, etc.), without which I would be totally lost.

It has the added benefit of being the first book in a completed epic fantasy series. I personally plan on continuing with the series, at least until I cease to enjoy being totally lost.

I would recommend this book to hardcore fantasy fans. If you enjoyed Game of Thrones but thought it could use more unexplained magic and about three times the characters, odds are good you'll like this book. This is not for the light reader. Amazon tells me the kindle edition is about 500 pages long, but it feels longer because of the dense writing style Erikson uses, as well as the amount of time you'll spend looking up names of characters.

If you do enjoy, there's nine sequels after it, as well as a host of accompanying novels. I'll review the books as I finish them, and if I manage to make it to the end without losing interest, I'll do a series retrospective.

That's it for Gardens of the Moon ladies and gentlemen.

-Leo

A Beginning

I often get people asking me for book recommendations. This is my way of handling this. I'll review books as I read them, tagging them with things like the below, as well as with other books I think are similar/fans of the first would like the second.

Some tags explained:
Hardcore: For those who love the fantasy genre, and have read many books in the genre. Do not make this your first fantasy book for god's sake
Fantasy Reader: Anyone who's liked a fantasy book will probably enjoy this book. If you hate fantasy on principle, you'll still probably dislike this book
Good Start: A great way for people to get into the fantasy genre. This'll be a good first book, and will leave you wanting more. Odds are good I'll also consider this good for those who already read fantasy as well, since for the most part I'm not in favor of introducing people to a genre with less than great books.
Must Read: You must read this book. I don't care if you hate fantasy. You must read this book
Eccentric: I do not anticipate finding another book similar enough to this one that I'll actually label it the same way. If that changes, I will make up a new tag for this.

Obviously these won't be comprehensive, and they certainly won't always be accurate. Treat this more as who I would recommend this too without knowing much more about them than how much fantasy they've read. I do not expect all people who read fantasy to like all books tagged as Fantasy Reader. That'd be silly.

And that's it boys and girls. Read some damn books.

-Leo