Dream with Our Eyes Open

A being called Kai wakes up to find himself in a glass box, feeling terrible. His mental powers confirm that a dear friend is somewhere near, but she's feeling equally out of it. Then a gang of unsavory characters show up, dragging with them a dead body and a struggling prisoner. With an ease that shows he's done this many times before, Kai transfers himself into the dead body.

Wait, what?

In less than five minutes, the little band of evildoers discover that they are facing not the helpless ensorcelled person that they had expected, but a fully functioning and extremely pissed off major demon:

"Now," Kai said, grinning, as he shoved the veil aside. "Which one of you wants to go first?"

This is not the Wells of Murderbot, with relatively straightforward plots and a narrator with a limited interest in the worldbuilding around it, but instead the Wells of the Fall of Ile-Rien and Books of the Raksura, with rich, multi-layered histories and landscapes. Some readers may be disappointed; I was enthralled.

After a series of brief action-filled set pieces in which Kai, his friend Ziede, and the former prisoner (who turns out to be a street urchin named Sanja) escape the islet tomb/tower in which the two adults were imprisoned, the book starts to alternate the current timeline plot, in which Kai and Ziede start to unravel the mystery of who imprisoned them and why, with sections set in Kai's past, where we find out more about what he is and what he cares about.

I really liked this book, but then, I trust Wells to tell a story that I will enjoy, and she seems to be as addicted to the Family of Choice trope as I am.

Witch King has drawn an extremely mixed bag of reviews. Part of it is likely due to the fact that readers are thrown into the deep end and expected to figure out this swimming thing themselves. Not everyone likes this approach. What info dumps we do get are brief, basic, and simply told because they are most often directed in-story at young Sanja, who seems to be nine or ten years old.

Another complaint is that except for Kai, we don't get inside anyone's head. This is actually a common Wells characteristic: the sole narrator of Books of the Raksura is Moon, and the sole narrator of the Murderbot Diaries is, of course, Murderbot/SecUnit. (The Fall of Ile-Rien is a little different: we definitely get sections from both Tremaine and Ilias' viewpoints, and I think we get some from Florian in the second and third books.) Again, this isn't something that bothers me.

On the positive side, people have noted with pleasure the fact that much of the story is agendered. Kai's only concerns about the bodies he has inhabited are how useful they are: some bodies require more rest, some need more food to function well, and so on. Gender isn't an issue. Ziede and her wife Tahren are both women, and various members of the supporting cast use they pronouns.

The ending is fairly open: some of the mysteries are solved, but there is plenty of "Yes, but what about …?" to feed into a sequel or sequels. And when I went to move the ebook from my actual Kindle device to the app on my iPad for another re-read (this will be re-read number 3) , I noticed that the current title info says Witch King (The Rising World Book 1). 😃

The novel begins: “Today he would become a god. His mother had told him so.” But after the smashing opening chapter, the book settles down into an outline I seem to have read or heard about a number of times recently: characters from different backgrounds experience adventures and growth as their journeys bring them together for a magical crisis.

In this case, the characters are in general older than such protagonists usually are, and their background cultures are more expertly fleshed out and varied, as one might expect from Rebecca Roanhorse.

At the end of February, I had told my management I was going to retire at the end of March, and. I realized that Hugo nominations were due mid-March. So I rather frantically obtained a bunch of novels that were on the Locus and other lists

I hadn't finished them when time came to put in my nominations, but nothing could stop me now! I was a reading machine! So I finished everything I'd downloaded, and then realized that I had books I had downloaded earlier but never read. So I read those. And then I realized that sequels had dropped for a couple of series I was following. So I obtained and read those.

When the dust settled, and I switched to a re-read of something for a writing exchange, I had 11 unreviewed books. If I did one per week (which would be a vast improvement over what I've managed recently), that would still take me into the summer.

Help me prioritize. Which books do people actually want to read about? You can vote for more than one.

Thanks!!

I've been reading a lot, but a fair amount of it was re-reads for Yuletide and for comfort reading.

The Mr. and I are hooked on two new (to us) manga. I like Witch Hat Atelier better than Delicious in Dungeon (although I may cover that one later). Both are seinen fantasy series.

The setting of Witch Hat Atelier is a medieval Euro-type land where magic works but was turned to evil ends not that long ago. As a result, magicians who wish to operate openly have to follow strict rules of behavior and limits on what thei magic can do. For example, performing magic on living bodies is forbidden - even for healing! Coco, a young girl living alone with her mother, glimpses a magician's spell one day (virtually all the spellcasting shown so far depends on written sigils). She innocently tries her had at it herself ...(SPOILER) ...and inadvertently turns her mother into a statue.

The magician, Quifrey, realizing that the child has great raw magical talent and takes her with him to his "atelier," a business specializing in magic works of all kinds for pay. There he already has three young female apprentices, as well as a gruff overseer, Olruggio, who is supposed to ensure that everything in the atelier is done legally.

If you're getting a little skeeved out at the idea of four young girls under the supervision of two young-ish men, all I can do is note that this is actually not that odd a set-up for seinen manga of the "moe" (innocent and cute) type. The girls' Kendo team series Bamboo Blade was another example. Although I can't prove that things will remain innocent, I'm guessing that they will. We did have the girls in "bath wraps" (basically draped and tied bathing dresses) in vol. 6, everything was more modest than a typical U.S. beach of the 21st century.

Quifrey's other students - Agott, Richeh, and Tetia - have varying reactions to the newcomer, who has none of the educational background that they do. Intense, ambitious Agott, in particular, is pretty hostile to her. As one might expect, friendly, naive Coco eventually wins them over, but her acceptance by Agott is definitely well-earned. Along the way are all sorts of wonders and some fairly serious philosophical discussions about the history, use, and misuse of magic in this world.

The art? The art is frickin' gorgeous -

My understand is that the mangaka was inspired by childrens' book illustrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It shows, but I am familiar with some of those (the art for E. Nesbit's fantasy classics, for example), and this is even better.

Vol. 7 is due out in paperback in just a few weeks. I can hardly wait!

Some SFF/pop/media website had a yearly tournament bracket feature where they pitted characters against each other and had someone (sometimes someone pretty good) narrate how it would have played out, at least for like the final four. Readers vote to advance their preferred opponent to the next round. The tournament featured all kinds of characters: I know Ged from Earthsea showed up one year, for example.

I cannot for the life of me recall where it was, and it's making me nuts. I *think* I saw Gideon Nav in it last year, and I'm re-reading Gideon the Ninth, which I had not read at the time. I have a vision of the little stylized image of her with her cropped red hair, shades, and big honkin' sword, from the site. So now I want to see who she was slated to fight and how it worked out.

Anybody recognize what I'm talking about? If so, can you point me to the site? I usually can find this stuff for myself, but I'm getting NOWHERE.

This was part of my Hugo reading; also, people were raving about it.

The Ninth House, charged with guarding an infamous tomb, inhabits a gloomy world barely capable of growing food to support its human inhabitants -- and that's saying something, because there aren't that many mortal beings around the place. The residents are necromancer priests and nuns, and most of the servants are animated skeletons. And then there's Gideon.

Gideon is a smart-mouthed, tough young woman with something of a talent for swordwork and a head full of lusty fantasies about pretty girls. In between martial arts training with the Ninth House's aging swords-master and reluctant bouts of menial work, Gideon reads naughty comic books, lobs dirty and sacrilegious quips at her betters, and plots to escape off-world to become a soldier. The main reason she doesn't get worse punishments for her sins is (at a guess) that she is the only young person left in the Ninth House except for the high priestess in waiting, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, and someone will have to serve Harrow in the years to come, besides the skeletons. Gideon and Harrow have a mutual enmity fest going that dates back to infancy.

As the story opens, Gideon's latest escape attempt is foiled, and a message arrives from the Emperor God. The necromancer heirs of all nine Houses are commanded to come to the first House and prove themselves worthy of becoming his Lyctor. And because the challenges will be of both mind and body, each competitor must also bring their cavalier. And who will be Harrow's cavalier? Take a wild guess!

Once the candidates come together at the First House, the story becomes a crazed ride of a locked-room mystery combined with a haunted house Gothic. In fact, this is the first time since Marta Randall's The Sword of Winter (anyone else remember this?), with its murderer run amok on a storm-isolated island castle, that I have come across anything that scratches this particular itch for me. Gideon is encountering other people (and green vegetables) for the first time in her life, even as the body count mounts, and it's in many ways a wonderful experience for her. But she and Harrow come to realize that surviving will mean depending on each other, and the ultimate result of this growing trust is, as one critic pointed out, deeply dysfunctional (but also beautiful, in a sick sort of way).

Gideon has a wonderful narrative voice, rather as though Sha Gojyo (Saiyuki) had been reincarnated as a buff young gay woman: the story is told pretty much entirely from her tight third-person viewpoint.The world-building is sheer crack, with all the good and the bad that implies: are the Houses on separate planets? In separate dimensions? Who cares! But if you do care about this kind of information, you may find this book both slight and frustrating.

I enjoyed this an awful lot, maybe more than it deserves. The sequel, Harrow the Ninth, is due out this August.

Three years ago, the Saint of Steel had died. The god left behind his paladins, men and women sworn to the righteous fight, terrifying in battle against evil when they would run berserk. Empty of their god's spirit and bereft of purpose, the paladins have died, one by one, leaving hardly more than a handful.

Stephen is one, attempting to bury himself in purpose by serving the White Rat, god of the downtrodden, alongside the healers, lawyers, and diplomats who strove to make life better in their kingdom. Every day he gets up and does whatever he's ordered: mostly serving as a bodyguard to healers working the poor and desperate parts of the city. In his spare time, he knits socks and tries not to wish he were dead.

And then one day, while he's on duty in the slums, a woman fleeing from the grim priests of the Hanged Motherhood throws herself into his arms and whispers "Hide me!"

The woman is Grace, a skilled perfumer with an unhappy past, and she and Stephen each find themselves unable to forget the other after their brief (and hilariously dirty) encounter in the alley. Meanwhile, a maniac is leaving headless corpses around the poorer quarters of the city and foreign envoys seem to be weaving political schemes.

What's up with the corpses? Why does the foreign prince want to see Grace in person? Why is Grace being arrested? Will Stephen and Grace ever stop tripping over themselves in each other's presence, despite their non-youthful years? And will Grace ever figure out why Stephen smells like gingerbread?

Readers of "The Clocktaur War" will recognize the setting, and those who have read Swordheart will also recognize the Rat God and its servant, the lawyer Zale. The romance seems almost recycled from Swordheart as well, but Kingfisher says in her notes (in the Acknowledgments at the end) that although she meant to write a sequel to Swordheart, she got sidetracked by a podcast on perfumery: "I thought, 'Man, that could be a great profession for a heroine ... '." And indeed, a great deal of this book is a couple of mysteries that Grace helps solve with her highly trained sense of smell.

I wasn't super-impressed with the book, but I enjoyed it. It's not on par with Swordheart, in my opinion (it's missing the dramatic tension of Sarkis' history), but it's fun. And those who found Halla, the heroine of Swordheart, too passive (I didn't, but I heard there are those who did) may find Grace more to their taste. I found Stephen more fun than Sarkis too, knitting and all.

I found myself in the mood to re-read this series (five volumes plus two books of shorter fiction). I don't think I have re-read the entire work since the final book, Harbors of the Sun, came out in 2017. I've just finished re-reading the third book.

The rough outline is that a young male being, a shapeshifter, finally finds his people after being on his own since childhood. He then has to fit himself into their culture and community, and then help them face a threat not only to their species but to dozens of other types of intelligent beings with whom they share their world.

There are spoilers here, y'all.

After I blogged Kingfisher's Clockwork Boys, lydy recommmended Swordheart enthusiastically. Thanks, because I really enjoyed this.

Halla is a widow Of a Certain Age, well-endowed in the bosom department but otherwise not remarkable in appearance. She has been working as her late husband's great-uncle Silas' housekeeper and has learned to hide her intelligence under a mask of twitterpated idiocy, because (as she explains at one point), no one pays much attention to a stupid woman.

As the book opens, Silas has died, and he has left all his decent-sized fortune to Halla. Unfortunately, her late husband's aunt is quite sure that the house and the money should be hers instead: after all, Halla is not even a blood relation! The aunt's solution to this is that Halla should marry the aunt's moist-palmed mother's boy son, and the two barricade Halla in her room, to remain a prisoner until she submits to their plans.

One reviewer on Great Big South American River made a big deal of the fact that Halla should have simply escaped and called the law on her offensive in-laws. Clearly this person is not in touch with the lives of women in this sort of medieval setting, real or fantasy: Halla has no reason to think that such a course of action will put her anywhere but the madhouse. So she decides instead to kill herself by using the impressive sword that hangs on the wall of her room, which is overcrowded with part of Silas' collection of antiques.

After a horrifyingly funny planning session in how to use the sword on herself, Halla draws the weapon—and a scarred, heavily muscled man appears in a flash of light. This is Sarkis, the servant of the sword, and our second narrator.

Sarkis is magically bound to protect the wielder of the sword, but none of his former wielders had Halla's type of problems: Sarkis is far more used to having to make mince of dragons. Soon the two of them are off on a very strange road trip, and over time, they become more than a little fond of each other. And Halla's self-doubts and Sarkis' very dark past are every bit as much of a threat to the two of them as are the clerical inquisitors, legal entanglements, and greedy traitors they encounter along the way.

There is no getting around the fact that this is a romance, so if you are allergic to such, you have been warned.

Some context: when I was about 8 or 9, I would create lavishly illustrated stories about girls who wore "foofy" princess dresses (me and my younger sister's Term of Art for the kind of thing worn to the ball by Disney's Cinderella). Invariably there was a Mean Girl, almost always blonde, with maybe a couple of henchgirls. The star of these little costume dramas was sweet and brainy and less elaborately dressed, and always a brunette.

The Belles is pretty much the same story, only 100 times more lush and elaborate, with added torture and body horror.

In Camellia Beauregard's world, everyone is born red-eyed and grey-skinned. They would stay that way if it were not for the Belles, young women with the secret of Beauty. As far as Camellia knows, she and her sisters are the only Belles in existence: all six of them for everyone in the land of Orleans. Both the reader and Camellia should probably think about this a bit.

All the Belles want to be the royal Favorite. In the book's opening scenes, Camellia loses the competition for this coveted post to her sister Amber. They have an ugly little spat, and Camellia is sent off to a "teahouse" to minister to members of the public. She soon finds herself overworked and short on sleep, because nights at the teahouse are filled with unpleasant sounds, like sobbing. But before she can solve this mystery, she is surprised to be summoned back to the palace in place of Amber, who has been sent off in disgrace after badly messing up some of her beauty clients.

We soon meet our villain, Princess Sophia, who is the default heir because her sister is in a mysterious coma. By the time Camellia fully realizes what happened to Amber and why the true heir is in an everlasting slumber, a gay character has been tortured to death with beauty treatments. You have been warned.

Clayton has a compelling voice, and I kept turning those pages even as things got worse and worse, and despite some overly precious writing. Cute excessive hyphenation abounds: the Belles have their hair styled in "Belle-buns," which are often ornamented with "Belle-roses." People have tiny "teacup" animals as pets, ranging from monkeys to dragons. Everyone's coloring and other physical characteristics are compared to foods. Food itself is described in lavish detail, and 90% of it is sugary, from cakes to fruits. There is a passing mentioned of meat skewers with garlic, and I think someone eats a mouthful of salad at some point. The poor salad doesn't rate any additional description.

Camellia eventually starts to show some interest in using her powers for something other than beauty treatments, and I guess I'll have to read the sequel to find out how that goes. But my brain felt really sticky and sugar-comatose by the time I finished this.

This book is a finalist for the Lodestar Not-a-Hugo for Young Adult works. It is not my first choice.