CBR18 Book 53: "Monster, Monarch, Maiden by Rae Carson

Page count: 480 pages

Audiobook length: 12 hrs 55 mins

Rating: 4 stars

This was an ARC; thank you to NetGalley, Harper Audio and Greenwillow Books. My opinions are my own. This book is on sale now.

Bria Angarsold is an innkeeper's daughter (she mentions this at seven different points in the story, in case you were likely to forget) who was kidnapped by raiders, along with her sister and several other people who were at her family's inn at the time. Bria is one of the last surviving captives when the raiders' caravan is attacked by a mysterious young man. Seriously injured, but patched up by her rescuer, Bria knows that she won't survive in the wilderness by herself. Her sister is dead, and her family's inn was burned by the raiders. She has no home to return to, so she swears herself to the service of Titus, her brooding companion, vowing to help him on his dangerous journey.

It's obvious that Titus comes from wealth, from the expensive boots he wears to the impressive war horse he rides. He is on a perilous quest, assigned by the gods themselves, chased by assassins, and while he is initially reluctant to have Bria accompany him, her magical gift (which she had always seen as rather useless) proves to be a valuable aid in the challenges they face along the way.

As far as I can tell, this is a standalone fantasy novel by Rae Carson, and I was granted ARCs of both the audiobook and e-book versions of the story. I have to admit, I was glad when I got the e-book version, as I didn't entirely like the way Bailey Carr was narrating the story. So being able to read the story with my eyeballs was preferable. 

In this fantasy world, everyone is born with a magical gift of some sort. There are powerful and impressive gifts, like healing, shapeshifting or being able to take control over and manipulate everyone around you, but also small, seemingly harmless gifts like being able to change the colour of your nails, lighting small fires, or making things cold (Bria's gift). In a family of innkeepers, being able to make sure the food stays cold is very useful, but out in the world, kidnapped by raiders, it feels rather useless to her. As it turns out, once she starts experimenting with Titus' encouragement, her freezing powers can be a powerful weapon. It also makes her a lot more resistant to cold than most others, which is great when they have to traverse an icy lake to get into a cave to retrieve an object necessary for the quest.

Bria is resilient, pragmatic, and tries very hard not to dwell on the miseries she's gone through. She mourns her sister and her home, but tries to stay focused on Titus and his god-given quest to give her life a new purpose. He needs to retrieve several magical items in order to call down a dragon on a specific date, which will take him to where he needs to be in order to represent the goddess who selected him in a trial to determine who will become a new god. Each god in this world's pantheon has a chosen representative, and some are a lot more murderous than others, determined to take out their competitors before the divine trial. So Titus and Bria have to get to a specific destination on a specific date, or Titus fails. They also have to dodge assassins and various supernatural obstacles on the way.

It is obvious that any romance between them is doomed before it begins, as Titus is not only betrothed to someone (it's not a love match), but is also possibly going to become a new god if he survives long enough to summon the dragon and complete his quest. He is never going to be able to settle down and live a quiet life with a former innkeeper's daughter who might have a promising future as an ice merchant. Nevertheless, Bria can't help but fall for the handsome, stubborn and brave Titus, and he seems to return her feelings. 

"Breathtaking adventure and swoon-worthy romance for fans of Sarah J. Maas" is one of the promises in the official blurb, and while I can absolutely vouch for the adventure part of that statement, anyone who is expecting romantasy along the lines of ACOTAR or any of Sarah J. Maas' other books will be deeply disappointed. This is a fantasy quest with two interesting young protagonists, but the romantic subplot is extremely secondary, possibly even tertiary, and it is mostly longing glances and wistful sighs, all extremely chaste. Anyone expecting a steamy romantasy is going to be very disappointed by this. Stop it with the false advertising, publishers!

Standalone fantasy is rare these days, so I hope this isn't the start of a series. I wouldn't mind reading more books set in this world, though, which proved to be fascinating as it was revealed through Bria and Titus' journey. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR18 Book 34: "Shrunkation" by Janine Amesta

Page count: 235 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

This was an ARC I received from the author, Janine Amesta. My opinions are my own. 

Catalina and Trey's marriage is in trouble. Catalina is exhausted from her demanding work, nearing burnout, and incapable of forgetting some foolish and hurtful things Trey said to her months ago. She's feeling unappreciated and ignored, not to mention misunderstood. Trey knows that he screwed up, but he thinks all they need is some quality time together. He won a weekend stay at a luxury resort in Cancun, and hopes that in this new and exciting place, he will be able to persuade Catalina to fall in love with him again.

Things take a turn when the arguing couple find themselves shrunk to a quarter-inch size by the whims of an arrogant tech billionaire. Now, as well as trying to figure out a way to reconcile, the couple need to dodge enormous obstacles like crabs, sand fleas, and hungry gulls, as well. They have very little food and water, and have to make their way back to the hotel, hoping they can attract the attention of someone who might be able to help.

As well as Catalina and Trey's POVs, we also get to follow Sasha, a minion of the evil tech billionaire. Even when she's had misgivings about the company, she still stayed in the job to make enough to help pay for her dad's hospital bills. She's the only one who figures out what happened to Catalina and Trey, and she goes against the advice of the company to stay behind at the resort to look for the teeny-tiny missing couple.

This is a fun book, clearly inspired by Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. However, that was not a movie that made much of an impact on me. I know I watched it a very long time ago, when I was little, and while I know many have fond memories about it, it never made much of an impact on me. On the other hand, if there was such a thing as shrinking technology, I find it terrifyingly plausible, in today's political and financial landscape, that some moronic tech bro would callously use it for fun, never bothering to think about the dangers or wider consequences.

When they get to the resort, the rift between Catalina and Trey is getting wider, made worse by their failure to communicate clearly with one another. Catalina is overworked and exhausted, and Trey, for all that he clearly adores his wife, has not been shouldering as much emotional labour as she. Once they end up in an unusual and perilous situation, they are forced to work together to survive, but even that starts out as fraught because of the tensions between them. After being exposed to repeated danger and starting to communicate more honestly with one another, it turns out that a lot of their problems have been made worse by their own unspoken insecurities that they've been projecting onto the other person.

This book was entertaining, and the concept is very novel. I liked it well enough, and Amesta writes engaging characters. I just don't see myself wanting to pick it up for repeated re-reads, which is what characterises my favourite romances. 

Judging a book by its cover: Apparently, when Ms. Amesta tried to post images of this cover on Threads, her posts were flagged as inappropriate, and she was in danger of having her account shut down. I genuinely don't see why. There is no more nudity than you see on a lot of romance covers, and this one is cute and clever and funny as well. Go home, algorithm, you're drunk!

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 32: "Bromantasy" by Máire Rocha

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 3 stars

Thanks to G.B Putnam's Sons and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 26th. 

Juniper O'Reilly shares a house with his totally platonic best friend, Mo Elthorn, and they run a farm together. Juniper has a tendency to get into bar brawls, while Mo holds him back and takes him home afterwards. One memorable evening, however, Juniper gets into a fight with the wrong guy and incapacitates a henchman enough that he is forced to take said henchman's place on an epic quest (opting out means death). Mo is obviously not going to let his extremely platonic BFF go off on a monster-hunting quest by himself. Especially since Juniper has absolutely no idea how to survive in the wild, hates sleeping outside, away from his comfortable bed and cosy house, and wouldn't be able to light a campfire if his life depended on it.

The quest Juniper and Mo have to try to complete (because they'll be killed if they quit) is locating a dragon who has been terrorising the nearby villages. They are not the only ones looking for this wicked creature. Among their rivals are Bill Bronson, whom Juniper hates (I'm not sure it was ever specified why) and also the dashing Prince Edward. Juniper gets quite star-struck by the prince, but Mo is less impressed. 

When Juniper and Mo discover that at least one of the creatures flying about, setting fire to nearby forests and outbuildings, is just a child, things get even more complicated. Mo is not about to let anyone, royalty or not, hunt or hurt an innocent (if rather inadvertently destructive) creature, and he's determined to get the baby dragon to safety. Even if it means breaking the terms of their mandatory quest.

According to the blurb: "Bromantasy is a cozy, queer fantasy about the mortifying ordeal of being known by your totally platonic best friend and the epic quest that might force you to confront the truth."  Juniper and Mo spend most of the book totally pining and lusting for one another, while also very studiously not talking about said attraction, or the misunderstandings that have arisen in their relationship since Mo took off for a couple of months about ten years ago, leaving Juniper absolutely bereft. 

Juniper is truly terrible at trekking and camping, and also seems to have the common sense of a puppy that's been knocked over the head a bit too often. He has his utterly bull-headed dislike of Bill Bronson, but otherwise seems to be taken in by anyone, no matter how scheming they obviously are. He keeps wanting to do the right thing, and more often than not makes things worse instead. 

I didn't find this book particularly cosy, and the fact that Juniper has the POV throughout, a character I found exasperating at best and downright stupid at worst, did not help. I think it's supposed to be a literary romp; I cared very little for the plot, and the stakes never felt all that serious. 

There's a lot of hijinks throughout, and as previously mentioned, if Juniper can blunder in and make a situation worse than it was before, that's what's going to happen. By about 35% in, it became clear that this book was never going to be more than a 3-star read for me, and I debated whether I should DNF it or not. Instead, I skim-read the rest of the story, mainly to check if the plot gets any more engaging later on. 

This is probably a perfectly fun and entertaining book for some readers, but it just didn't work for me. 

Judging a book by its cover: Don't be fooled by the cat in the lower right corner of the cover. While there is a cat in the book, it stays behind on Mo and Juniper's farm when they go off questing. So it's not like it plays a prominent part in the story. The baby dragon needs to be instructed that cats are "friends, not food", though, which was pretty cute. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 31: "This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 480 pages

Audio book length: 21 hrs 34 mins

Rating: 5 stars

Buzzwords Challenge 26: This/that/these/those

Maggie wakes up one day, cold, naked and soaked to the skin in the gutter of Kair Toren, the sprawling capital city of Rellas, where her favourite fantasy novels are set. For the past decade, Maggie has read and re-read the two books in the unfinished series enough times that she knows the setting, prominent characters and the plot intimately. It's what makes it possible for her to lie in wait, trying to rob a shady minor character just so she'll have enough money to get some clothes and shelter. While she's correct about when and where the character will show up, her robbery attempt ends with her being stabbed in the gut, which leads to her next discovery. She's stuck in the world of her favourite books, and while she can be killed, she doesn't stay dead.

Maggie is well-read and knows she's in an isekai fantasy. She knows the rules of such stories, and unfortunately, she's not as lucky as most characters in those kinds of stories. Unfortunately, unlike a lot of characters in such stories, Maggie is penniless, homeless and has no connections to anyone in the story. She does, however, have an encyclopedic knowledge of the plot of the world she's been transported into, so she knows which characters may prove useful allies, and which are best avoided at all costs. She knows how major events will play out and which characters will live, or die. She also discovers that she can read, understand and speak all the various languages of Rellas. In addition, she may be immortal.

She uses her knowledge to gain some useful allies, and in a remarkably short space of time, has acquired not only a safe place to stay, but has also become responsible for two young persons whom she rescued from enslavement. She knows at what point in time she has come into the story, and as a result, knows what is going to happen to the world and several characters she cares deeply about. Maggie decides she cannot, in good conscience, let the events as they are written come to pass. She wants to try to alter the events of the books, and as a result, possibly avoid the deaths of several of her favourite characters, not to mention stop a harrowing civil war and untold bloodshed. She just needs to convince her new friends that she can be trusted, and hope that her plans don't somehow make things worse. 

I read my first Ilona Andrews novel in 2009, early enough that they'd only published three books in the Kate Daniels series. I don't actually remember at what point they became not only auto-buy for me, but pre-order as soon as possible, possibly in more than one format (I have most of their books in e-book, dead tree, Graphic Audio audio dramas and/or audiobooks, even some in fancy signed special editions). I've read everything they've ever written, usually at least two or three times, sometimes five or six. Anyone who has been reading my reviews for a while knows that I am a proud card-carrying member of the BDH (Book Devouring Horde). I only have one tattoo (so far), and one element of it is a quote from one of their books ("If the sky could dream, it would dream of dragons" from Fate's Edge, if you're curious).

So it makes me immensely happy to see them reaching a lot of new readers with this rebrand (as my friend Christian, who works at the Oslo fantasy/sci-fi/comics/nerd shop Outland, calls it). A chonky epic fantasy novel, the first in a trilogy, which was acquired by Tor in a bidding war and has been promoted widely for months before its release. While it's their biggest book to date, both in size and scope, to me, as a loyal long-time reader, it was incredibly fun to see how many of the elements from their other books were clearly found in the pages of this one. It's basically their entire writing career, fine-tuned and distilled into a new series. 

You have the clever heroine, who, in contrast to all of Andrews' other heroines, doesn't have any advanced skills or magical powers. With the exception of Audrey from Fate's Edge, I think all of their female protagonists have both extensive fighting abilities and/or powerful magic at their disposal, while Maggie mostly has her mind. In addition to her near-perfect recall of everything that happens in the books, she also proves herself to be good at planning and strategic thinking.

Family, biological or found, also plays a major part in the Andrews' books. Since Maggie has been transported from our world into a fantasy one, she starts out alone and helpless, but before long, she has a loyal band of people surrounding her, willing to risk their lives to help her when she's in trouble (and she does get into trouble). 

There is also a very slow-burn romantic subplot, but anyone expecting romantasy or high spice will be disappointed (there's literally one kiss in the whole book - but what a kiss). Maggie believes herself to be wholly unremarkable, and the authors actually deliberately avoid describing her in too much detail (although the officially commissioned fan art on their website gives the readers a pretty clear idea of what all the major players look like), but she's clearly very pretty and constantly underestimates her allure to others. By the end of the story, she has multiple men who are smitten with her, and this is just the first book of the trilogy; there may be more to come. 

As I mentioned, there are several potential love interests, but I think it's rather clear from the story who the most likely HEA for Maggie is. Some really very unpleasant villains need to be defeated, or thousands of lives, including those of many of Maggie's favourite characters, are at stake. Because this is a long book, there are multiple mini-quests along the way, and Maggie ends up in mortal peril more than once (at one point, I was saying to my husband, "She may be undying, but can she regrow body parts? She can, by the way). 

As with a lot of epic fantasy, it's clear that Maggie has more thorough knowledge of some characters than others, because she's read their POV chapters in the books. Other characters, however, are much more of a mystery to her, because she's only read ABOUT them and hence doesn't know all their thoughts, wants and motivations. This means even Maggie, with her vast knowledge of Rellas and its inhabitants, can be surprised, and we readers along with her. 

As part of their promotional campaign, Tor had two chapters a week posted on their website in advance of the publication. I resisted the urge to read them until the evening before the book was out, which was good, because the final preview chapter ends on a heck of a cliffhanger. I was lucky enough that the Tuesday the book was released was during my Easter break from school, allowing me to devote the whole day to devouring the book on my e-reader, so I would know how everything turned out. While most of Andrews' stories tend to be mostly self-contained, this has the closest to a cliffhanger ending that I think they've ever had. Then I immediately started my re-read, this time in audio, and was able to savour the story more. Kristen Sieh is an amazing narrator and really captures the voices of the various characters excellently. Re-reading the book also allowed me to see how cleverly the authors had sprinkled hints and clues throughout the story, so that while there were several excellent plot twists along the way (the biggest one, about halfway through, literally made me do whatever the reading equivalent of a double-take is), they are, in fact, honestly foreshadowed along the way. You just don't know what is foreshadowing, and what isn't. 

Because Ilona Andrews are now reaching new readers, I have also been able to fangirl out in person with more than one member of my book club about this book (and I've been able to recommend other books in their back catalogue, which is always a very happy thing for a superfan to do). The authors have assured their readers that they are hard at work writing book 2 (it's at over 180 000 words and counting), and unlike in the fictional series Maggie so adores, there WILL be a book 3. Which brings me to yet another point: this is by far their most complex book project. The authors had to, in effect, write TWO stories while they were working on this. Rellas is a fictional world in Maggie's reality, but Ilona and Gordon had to sit down and plot out all the details and world-building of Maggie's favourite books, as well as the story about Maggie that we get to read. 

From my social media algorithms, it seems like some people have such a book hangover from this book that they just keep re-reading it again and again. I should probably be thankful that I currently have so many ARCs needing my attention that I have to take a break from it. I'm confident that I will re-read it at least once more before the end of the year, though, just to tide me over until Maggie's next book comes along. 

Judging a book by its cover: I have mentioned many times that Ilona Andrews seems cursed with terrible covers. At least Tor gave them an interesting-looking one for their epic fantasy. I promise that the weird bird creature on the cover is actually relevant to the plot, although it takes a while for it to enter the story. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 10: "The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook" by Matt Dinniman

Page count: 534 pages

Audio book length: 16 hrs 54 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Carl, Donut and Mongo have made it to the fourth level of the dungeon. This time, there are trains. So many trains. The game appears to have constructed a labyrinthine tangle of all of the world's underground railway systems, and there are new and strange rules to get used to. There are bounties awarded to anyone who kills any of the players in the top ten, which now include both Carl and Donut. 

There are all manner of strange monsters on the various trains and platforms, and while the stairways are apparently on clearly announced stations, most of the crawlers are on trains going to much higher stations, and no one seems to know how to get to the end stations and back to the start of the loop. Carl gets an unexpected advantage from a seemingly useless reward box, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, where countless previous crawlers have noted down their tips and tricks and useful modifications about the dungeons. He just can't let anyone know where he's suddenly getting all of his new and clever ideas.

Just as determined that he won't allow the system to break him as before, Carl manages to get more of the crawlers to cooperate and work together on this level. Of course, it also means pulling off some truly insane plans in an attempt to help as many crawlers as possible make it out alive and down to the next level. 

This book was long and dragged in places, but I still very much enjoyed it because by now I adore Carl, Donut, Mongo and poor Katia, who is really put through the wringer in this one. Let's just say her character ended up developing in all sorts of ways I was not expecting. I think she should put her foot down and refuse to wear a Mohawk, no matter what Donut suggests. 

I keep being amazed at the narration, and while I am still happy I have all the audios, I will probably be able to re-read the books on paper, since I now have the voices from the audio so completely internalised. With some books, that might be a problem. Here, it is not. 

Judging a book by its cover: I love the new cover design, and will quite possibly buy the whole series in hardback if it keeps being as good as it is now, partially because I like the design so much. However, it was also fun to see a depiction of the Mantaur that Carl and the others had to fight on the old cover, as well. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 67: "Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow" by Jessica Townsend

Page count: 480 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Nowhere Bingo 25: A middle-grade book

CBR17 Bingo: N (a book starting with the letter N)

Morrigan Crow is a cursed child, born on Eventide (think New Year's Eve, but unlucky) and as such, is due to die at midnight on her 11th birthday. She keeps being blamed for everything bad that happens in her surroundings and spends a lot of time writing apology notes. 

However, before she can meet her doom, a mysterious stranger called Jupiter North appears and takes her away, chased by shadowy monsters hunting them, to a different world (or alternate dimension) and a city called Nevermoor. Now, Morrigan gets to live in the magical hotel that Jupiter runs, and starts making friends for the first time in her life. Jupiter intends for Morrigan to join the Wundrous Society, where he is also a prominent member. But to be accepted, she has to compete in four different and very challenging trials over the course of the year, and the final one consists of showing off one's extraordinary talent. Everyone keeps telling her that her talent will be revealed in due course, but Morrigan is pretty sure that being cursed is not what the leaders of the Society are looking for. 

To complicate matters further, it turns out that Jupiter has illegally smuggled Morrigan into Nevermoor, and if she doesn't pass the trials and get accepted into the Wundrous Society, she'll be returned to her own world, just in time for her previously scheduled midnight death. 

This is the sort of book that I'm pretty sure my son will really enjoy in a few years, when I either read it to him or he picks it up for himself (he currently loves reading comics, like the Dogman books or Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur). Morrigan, who is pale and constantly wears black, even when everyone else is in riotous colours around her, feels very inspired by Wednesday Addams, but she has a more cheerful disposition, and doesn't seem to actively resent making friends. 

Nevermoor is a very intriguing fantasy world, and there are lots of strange, magical things, including sentient talking animals and chandeliers that grow from the ceilings. For a child who has never really known any kind of warmth or affection, it's a big adjustment for Morrigan to live in a place where people seem to care about what her wants and wishes are and treat her with kindness and curiosity. Jupiter is very nice to her, but he is secretive, and also extremely busy, and has to be away a lot. He has a nephew, Jack, who stays at the hotel during the holidays, and he and Morrigan do not get along. There are hundreds of children taking part in the first trial for the Wundrous Society, but about half get eliminated with each new challenge. While Morrigan makes a very good friend, there are also some mean girls who would like nothing more than to see her fail and be forcibly evicted back to her own world. 

Since the series has been out for quite a few years now, I think I've acquired at least the first three in e-book sales, so they're just waiting for me on my TBR. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that by the end of the book, Morrigan discovers that there are good reasons why Jupiter decided to rescue her from certain death, and she has an interesting future ahead of her. I'm looking forward to seeing where the series goes next. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 48: "The Goose Girl" by Shannon Hale

Page count: 383 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

StoryGraph Easy Read Challenge: A book with flowers, plants or leaves on the cover

Buzzword Title Challenge 25: Animals (Birds are animals, right?)

Nowhere Book Bingo 2025: A YA book

CBR17 Bingo: TBR (I bought this back in 2009, it's been on my TBR for 16 years)

Anidora-Kiladra, the Crown Princess of Kildenree is taught the language of animals by her aunt while she is still a girl, but she has to hide this from people around her. Unfortunately, she's unconventional enough that as she gets older, her younger brother proves to be a more suitable royal heir and her mother the Queen announces that she's being sent to the neighbouring kingdom of Bayern to be married off to their Crown Prince. Ani, having been brought up believing she would be Queen of Kildenree at some point, doesn't really have any other choice but to obey her mother.

She is sent with a large retinue, including her beautiful and dangerously ambitious attendant Selia. About halfway through the journey, Selia has charmed enough of the guards to enact a coup, and Ani is shocked and devastated to see many loyal soldiers slaughtered around her. She manages to escape into the woods and finds refuge on a secluded farm in Bayern, where her wounds are treated and she's nursed back to health. She discovers that Selia has assumed her identity and is pretending to be the real princess. Once Ani is healthy enough, she makes her way to the capital and gets a job as a goose herder in the king's stables. She hopes to be able to make enough money to eventually make it home to her mother, to warn her of the dastardly deeds of Celia and the rogue guards.

Thanks to her secret skills, Ani is able to charm the geese enough that they will listen to her. She works hard and makes several friends among the other labourers, tending the king's livestock. She befriends the handsome and charming Geric and is, in general, quite happy to have avoided having to marry the prince, whom she's seen from a distance. He appears to be about thirteen, much younger than her. But then Ani discovers that Celia isn't just content to lie herself into a royal marriage; she is also trying to get the king of Bayern to declare war on Kildenree. Ani has to enlist the help of her friends to get to the king before the wedding is finalised.

This is a YA fantasy retelling of Grimm's The Goose Girl, and some pretty bleak stuff happens to Ani over the course of the story. For people who don't like harm to come to animals, be warned that Ani's beloved horse Falada meets a very unpleasant end. I also kept thinking of Anakin Skywalker because of Ani's shortened name, which isn't necessarily the best connotation to have to a protagonist. 

This was a nice young adult book with a plucky heroine and a more faithful retelling of the original fairy tale than T. Kingfisher's A Sorceress Comes to Call, which I read last year. Nevertheless, I much preferred that one, I think the darker, more grown-up themes were better done in that one. 

Judging a book by its cover: Cover design was different back in the early 2000s. I seem to recall that by the later books in this series, they did a complete redesign, leading anyone who owned the series to the cruel fate of owning mismatched books (we hates it). This book is remarkably cutesy-looking, considering the rather dark subject matter. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Books 35-41: "The Murderbot Diaries" by Martha Wells (all the novellas and short stories)

Total page count: 807 pages

My original reviews and ratings for the first four novellas can be found here.

CBR17 Bingo: Favourite (goes for the whole series, and the protagonist)

All Systems Red

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: First in a series

It's been five years since I first read The Murderbot Diaries, and it was interesting to revisit the original novella. This was selected as the January selection for my real-life book club (with the option to read the other three if people had time). While a lot of the members really enjoyed the story, it was agreed that this story is mostly set up and quite unsatisfying if you don't keep going with the series to discover more of Murderbot as a character. There were some who found Murderbot as a narrator quite annoying, while others (like me) found Murderbot's misanthropic attitude and desire to just be left alone to watch its stories deeply relatable. 

Even now, having read the whole series, I still find a lot of the supporting characters who are introduced in this story a bit confusing, and they mostly blend together for me. Doctor Mensah is an obvious exception since Murderbot respects her so much. 

The structure of the novella is also a bit wonky. It starts relatively slow, and then there's a series of dramatic events before the story ends very abruptly, possibly too quickly. 

I also feel like I should address the Apple TV adaptation of this novella, which manages to capture the tone and feel of the story while making some pretty massive changes. Quite a few of the supporting characters have been cut (the fact that it works as well as it does suggests that Wells probably didn't need the Pres Aux team to be as big as it is in the novella - no wonder I keep getting the characters confused). Skarsgård plays an excellent Murderbot, even though he's not Murderbot as I imagine it (the Murderbot in my head is female presenting, more like Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth rather than tall, handsome and Scandinavian), and I can't help but think that our favourite SecUnit's extreme social awkwardness is portrayed so well since Skarsgård is so familiar with Scandinavians and our weird introverted way of being. No one in Scandinavia likes being talked to by strangers or having FEELINGS shared all over them. 

One of my favourite things about the adaptation is the choice to have scenes from Murderbot's favourite media shown to the viewers. If I wasn't already pretty sure I'd be hooked on Sanctuary Moon, seeing the brief snippets of it on screen confirms it. There is still an episode left to go, but so far, I think the show may be dealing with the confusing end section of the story better than in the novella. Time will tell. 

Artificial Condition

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: A novella

I remembered this as one of my favourites of the novellas, and upon revisiting it, knowing how the relationship between Murderbot and ART (A**hole Research Transport) develops in later stories, it was extra satisfying to see how their friendship began. Considering Murderbot is usually the smartest individual in the room, and keeps being exasperated by the silly humans around it, it was fun to see it befriend someone who is certainly on the same level, and probably intellectually even more impressive. Reading about ART and Murderbot bonding through watching Murderbot's various shows might also have struck a particular chord with me, as that is how my husband and I met (watching shows in various friends' dorm rooms), and we still spend a lot of quality time enjoying shows together. 

Another thing I'd forgotten about this book was how quickly Murderbot, so intent on going off on adventures of its own, trying to avoid annoying emotional attachments, so quickly finds a new group of vulnerable, squishy humans it needs to protect. The humans in this story are, if possible, even more clueless in the big, ruthless corporate world than the Pres Aux team, and that is saying something. 

I'm also very relieved that Apple TV have announced that there will be a second season of Murderbot, so viewers get to watch the friendship of ART and Murderbot develop on screen. Hopefully, we'll also get glimpses of more of Murderbot's favourite shows. 

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy - 3.5 stars

This surprise story was announced by TOR only days before the first season of Murderbot aired, and it was launched online after the last episode aired. Considering it's chronologically set after Artificial Condition, it's not like it contains direct spoilers. 

Considering we don't actually get to meet ART again in the Murderbot universe until Network Effect, it was a really nice bonus given to the fans from Martha Wells, a story showing us ART/Perihelion with its own crew a short while after it and Murderbot part ways in the second novella. I'm a huge fan of ART/Peri, and seeing the scary transport interacting with its own crew in this story was an unexpected delight. 

Rogue Protocol

I remembered this story as the one I liked the least of the original four novellas when I first read the series. Upon a re-read, I was surprised to see how incredibly action-packed it was compared to the other novellas, and it's in this story that we really see why Murderbot may have chosen that name for itself.

Going back to the now-abandoned mining colony, where it suspected it had committed a massacre, proves to it that a large group of people got killed, but it also proves to Murderbot how right it was to disable its governor module, so it can never be made to do things like that ever again. Any murders it will be doing in the future will be to protect others, not just senseless violence at the orders of a greedy corporation. 

It's quite clear from some of the early Murderbot stories that our favourite SecUnit has some not always pleasant prejudices towards other robots, and in this story, Murderbot is forced to confront some of these. One of the reasons Murderbot felt it had to leave its favourite human, Doctor Mensah, and the Pres Aux team was because it didn't want to become someone's pet droid. Having been basically enslaved in its service with the Corporation, before it hacked its governor module and went rogue, Murderbot, even with the extremely progressive view of the members of the Pres Aux team, it just can't really believe that humans could feel towards robots as they do humans. So it's good for its personal development and continued journey towards some kind of personhood to have some of those notions disproved.

Mild spoiler warning - this is probably the novella with the most bummer ending of all of them. 

Exit Strategy

Having discovered during its wanderings, trying to find itself, that GreyCris, the evil corporation that tried to kill the Preservation Alliance crew in the first novella, has kidnapped Doctor Mensah, Murderbot (who really shouldn't have feelings for anything or anyone) feels compelled to return for a rescue mission. By now, Murderbot has met and interacted with a bunch of other human groups, and even experienced loss and something like grief, and since Doctor Mensah is its favourite human in the whole world, it can't stand by and see her endangered by GreyCris. It also becomes clear that Murderbot is ready and willing to die in the attempt to get Mensah safe.

I don't think it's a spoiler to anyone that Murderbot, the protagonist of the series, which is currently eight stories and counting (I recently heard that a new Murderbot book, Platform Decay, will be coming out in 2026 - much rejoicing) isn't actually killed here. In case anyone was worried.

Before I finally read Network Effect, this was probably my favourite Murderbot story. 

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory - 3 stars

While most of the stories in The Murderbot Diaries are obviously told from Murderbot/SecUnit's POV, this short story is set after the events of Exit Strategy. It gives us Doctor Mensah's perspective both on the events of that novella and shows us her dealing with the aftermath of what is clearly a very traumatising experience. 

Mensah is clearly a very intelligent and sensitive person, and her insights into Murderbot and the understanding she's clearly gained about it over the course of the novellas (she clearly thought a lot about everyone's favourite SecUnit even when it was away from her and busy finding its own purpose in the world). 

I didn't realise this existed when I first read the series, so I had to go back to it a bit out of continuity, but it's always nice to see the Murderbot world through some of the other characters' eyes, as well. 

Fugitive Telemetry - 4.5 stars

Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Technology

While Murderbot isn't anyone's pet at Preservation Station, it's not entirely clear what its duties are supposed to be. Because of the rather harrowing events in Exit Strategy, Murderbot is obviously extremely protective of Doctor Mensah. Protective to the point where it's not surprising when the woman is almost relieved when a dead body shows up, so she can volunteer her SecUnit to assist in the investigation. 

Murderbot is worried that the dead body may have something to do with GreyCris, so it agrees to help determine the identity of the deceased, find out where the body was killed and how, and most importantly, why this happened. Of course, in order to do so, it needs to persuade the rather cautious members of station security to trust it (not everyone knows that Murderbot, while a rogue SecUnit, isn't a BAD SecUnit) and speak to a number of humans and other robots, not exactly something it's super well-equipped to handle. 

To my delight, Murderbot seeks the advice of Ratthi and Gurathin, some of my favourite supporting characters (the show did SO much to expand on the character of Gurathin - I liked him before, now I love him). 

Because this novella was published as the sixth in the series, but chronologically takes place as number five, I skipped it on my first read-through, because I didn't want to read it out of order. So, with the exception of Rapport, which came as a surprise to everyone, this was my last existing Murderbot story to discover. Having now read it, I'm sorry I waited so long. It was great. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR17 Book 29: "My Name is Emilia del Valle" by Isabel Allende

Page count: 289 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for this ARC. My opinions are my own. 

Emilia del Valle Claro grows up in San Francisco in the latter half of the 19th Century. Her mother, Molly, is of Irish descent and was a nun before she was seduced by an unscrupulous young Chilean aristocrat, who left her pregnant and entirely without support (she obviously had to leave the convent). She married Francisco Claro, the intelligent and kind-hearted teacher at the Aztec Pride School, and he's the only father Emilia knows growing up. 

Emilia is a sponge for learning, encouraged by her stepfather, and as she gets older, she helps support the family by writing and selling melodramatic and gory pulp novels. Her dream is to become a journalist, which is almost impossible for a young woman in the 1890s. She manages to persuade an editor to publish some of her work under the pseudonym she's been using for her pulpy novels. Once the Chilean Civil War breaks out in 1891, she is able to use her Chilean paternity to her advantage. The newspaper agrees to send her to Chile to report, along with her friend and co-worker, Eric Whelan, and now, they'll even let her publish under her own name.

In Chile, Emilia is able to eventually reconnect with her biological father, who by this point is destitute and near death's door. She and Eric are separated for the first part of the war, covering different aspects of the fight, and when they finally reunite, they realise that their friendship has developed into stronger feelings. They share a short interlude of passion before Eric goes off to follow one of the upcoming battles in closer detail. While they are separated, Emilia volunteers at one of the local hospitals until she is arrested, suspected of being a foreign spy. She suffers enough to give her serious emotional scars before Eric returns from the battlefield to get her out. He wants to take her back to her family in San Francisco, but Emilia isn't ready to go home until she's explored the mysterious plot of land her biological father left her in his will. 

Isabel Allende wrote on of my favourite novels of all time, The House of the Spirits, and I've enjoyed so many of her other novels as well. She tends to write engaging stories featuring interesting women, who live lives that often challenge the gender and societal norms of the day. Emilia is a very ambitious and confident woman, who even at a time when most women ended up housewives and homemakers insists on going out and making a career for herself. She doesn't allow anyone to fob her off with frivolous pieces of society gossip, she wants to write about things that matter, and isn't afraid to put herself in danger to get a good story.

This book was a nice read, but the only character who really seemed to be fully realised was Emilia herself. Everyone else, including her love interest, is just loosely sketched out, like stock characters who exist in the story to show up another facet and aspect of Emilia's character. As such, it didn't feel quite as rich and complex as some of the other Allende novels I've read. If you've enjoyed her books in the past, though, you're likely to like this one as well. 

Judging a book by its cover: This is a pretty cover, and I like the colour choices on it. I am, however, slightly confused about the scale of certain things. Is the sailing ship a toy behind Emilia? If not, why not have it in the background so it could look like it was closer to the horizon? Are the clouds metaphorical in some way? 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 18: "Tress of the Emerald Sea" by Brandon Sanderson

Page count: 479 pages

Audio book length: 12 hrs 27 mins

Rating: 4.5 stars

Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Celestial (there is a big moon and several stars on the cover)

What if in The Princess Bride, Buttercup didn't sit at home and mourn for Westley when he was captured by pirates, but instead went off to try to rescue him? Of course, that would mean Buttercup had any agency at all in either the novel or the film, and she really doesn't. But if Buttercup was a young woman named Tress, from a barren and fairly desolate island, who washes windows at the duke's mansion and collects cups, with the only thing making her life worthwhile being her friendship with the duke's son (who pretends to be a gardener), and one day, Charlie, her best friend (who she's only recently discovered that she's also in love with) is taken away by his father to be married off (a poor window washer girl is not a suitable match for him)? Charlie promises to be so dreadfully boring to every suitable bride he meets that no one will want to marry him, and every time is rejected by another bride, he will write to her and send her another cup from his travels. 

However, after some months, the letters stop coming. Then the duke returns, but Charlie isn't with him. Charlie has been kidnapped by the Sorceress, and it doesn't seem like anyone cares except Tress. First, she needs to figure out how to get off the island (no one but the duke's family is ever allowed to leave). On the first ship she travels on, she meets a talking rat, who she takes with her when the ship is attacked by pirates. It's important to note that in this world, while there are ships and long voyages, the oceans are made up of spores that react very violently to the presence of any liquids. Very occasionally, the spore currents still for a time, and it's possible for brave, or exceedingly foolish, individuals to walk along on top of the spores. This is how Tress gets from the attacked ship onto the pirate vessel, where she gradually befriends more of the crew and works her way up in rank, despite the misgivings of the blood-thirsty pirate captain. 

Tress isn't entirely sure how she's going to help the motley crew of pirates from becoming exploited by their captain, and persuade them that they really want to assist her in travelling across the Crimson Sea to the Midnight Sea (the two most dangerous areas on the planet), and face the terrifying Socreress to rescue the boy she loves. But she knows that if she gives up, Charlie has no one coming for him, and that is unacceptable to her.

This is an adventure story with a plucky heroine, who keeps succeeding against all odds, sometimes because she just won't quit.While Tress has had a sheltered and rather uneventful life until she decides to leave the safety of her home to go off and rescue Charlie, she's not stupid, and her determination to get to him makes her face challenges that would make others quake. Occasionally, her lack of experience also makes her less afraid of dangers than she probably should be, since she just doesn't realise what the consequences of the potential threats. She's also kind-hearted and determined to help those who show her kindness along the way, even if it might delay her ultimate goal of getting to the Sorceress.

This is the first of the four secret projects that Brandon Sanderson announced that he wrote when he suddenly had a lot of extra downtime during the Pandemic. While most of us binged TV shows and perfected our sourdough loaves, Sanderson apparently wrote four entire novels, in addition to all the work he was already contracted for. The man is a machine! This led to probably the biggest Kickstarter campaign in history. Sanderson started writing this story for his wife, after wondering what The Princess Bride could have been like if the heroine wasn't just a passive player, having the plot happen to her. 

I didn't have the finances to get all four secret projects in hardback (not only did the books themselves cost quite a lot, but the shipping to Norway was incredibly expensive), so I only got Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, because these two books were the ones that looked the prettiest and most interesting to me. I did get digital and audio copies of all the other books, though, which allowed me to listen to parts of this in audiobook as well. 

Most of Sanderson's many many novels fit into a larger fictional universe called the Cosmere. That means that a lot of his books are vaguely interconnected. Since this book fits into the Cosmere, but there are more than twenty other works that come before it, I had this grand plan last year, to do a re-read of the Sanderson novels I had read (most of them a very long time ago now) and catch up on all the ones I hadn't read, so I'd be able to properly enjoy the various secret projects, and not be confused by the references. Sadly, this failed almost at the first hurdle, when I had finished the brilliant Mistborn, and then just couldn't get past the opening chapters of The Well of Ascencion, the next book in the series. Then this got selected as the February read in The Dark Corner, my real life book club, and it became clear that I was just going to have to ignore references to events or characters from other Cosmere books. 

One such character is Hoid, who narrates the story of Tress and Charlie to us readers. He has apparently appeared in a bunch of Sanderson's novels (some of which I have read, if the wiki article I read is correct - and I don't see why it wouldn't be) in various different guises. In this book, he's a cabin boy who has been cursed by The Sorceress (who is also a character from the wider Cosmere universe) becaue of a bet. He speaks and behaves nonsensically for much of the story because of this curse. Some of the members in my bookclub found the way the story was told (Hoid frequently breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the reader) incredibly annoying. The 2-3 people who didn't like the book cited Hoid's storytelling style and all three felt it wanted to be Pratchett, but didn't succeed. 

Most people, however, really liked the book, and since this was our February choice, we had a very interesting discussion about whether this could be classed as a romance, or whether it was more accurately a love story. The general consensus was that Tress' love for Charlie is completely central to the plot, it's the force that drives her to change her life and leave the island, it's what keeps her going even when things seem almost impossible, and that the book wouldn't work without the love story at its centre. We also agreed that if the book had been sold to us as a great romance, we would probably have been disappointed. 

Personally, I didn't find Hoid all that annoying, and very much like when I was reading To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, I decided to just enjoy the story on its own terms, and ignore any references that went over my head. Knowing that this was at least in part inspired by The Princess Bride (one of my favourite films, and books, I had fun seeing the many ways in which the story resembled, or subverted the plot of that story. 

As always, Sanderson's world building and approach to magic systems is fantastic, and even the ones who didn't like the book that much had to admit that the oceans of spores idea was great. If anything, there was quite a bit of grumbling because the book claimed there were twelve different kinds of spores, and we only got to learn about five of them in-story. The characters were interesting, and even the Pirate Captain, who by some could be seen as villainous, had very clear motivations and it was made obvious why she might have chosen to act as she did. Some of the bookclub members highlighted her as one of their favourite characters,

Reading Sanderson again did remind me that his writing has always worked for me, and gave me further motivation to actually continue my "Reading the Cosmere" project this year. I'm not going to try to give myself a set time limit this time, that clearly did NOT work, and he has such a big back catalogue of mostly very long books, but I do want to revisit some of the ones I read in the past, and continue the various series. The people who love Sanderson, love him SO much. I'm trying to focus on quality over quantity in my reading now, and not get freaked out if I don't get to read a set number of books per year, but rather focus on the things I read being enjoyable.

Finally, I wanted to end this review by mentioning how utterly gorgeous my Kickstarter-funded hardback is. It is illustrated throughout, with some beatiful drawings, and, as I discovered as I got further through the book, colour coded to which of the seas Tress finds herself at the time. When she travels the Emerald sea, the chapter headings and page numbers are in a beautiful green, when she travels into the Crimson sea, the colours change to red, and then to inky black when she crosses into the dreaded Midnight sea. Having such a pretty edition of the book makes the exorbitant cost of shipping sting slightly less. 

Judging a book by its cover: My hardback is a lovely, clothbound book with different textures for the patterns of the various elements of the cover. As far as I can tell, most of the editions of this book feature Tress and some varation on a giant moon on the cover, but I think this is one of the prettiest versions. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR17 Book 10: "Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales" by Heather Fawcett

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Books Bingo 2025: A fantasy book by a female author

Buzzword Cover Challenge 2025: Contains books

Spoiler warning! This is book 3 in the series and not the best place to start reading. This book will contain spoilers for the previous books in the series. Start at the beginning, with Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries. 

Intrepid professor of dryadology (faerie scholar) Emily Wilde is facing her most challenging adventure yet - reclaiming the rather terrifying faerie kingdom of Silva Lupi, where her former academic rival, now impending husband, Wendell Bambleby (not his faerie name) is the rightful king. Emily loves Wendell, and doesn't regret her decision to marry him, but isn't entirely sure about becoming queen of a merciless and dangerous faerie realm. Nevertheless, the project offers up unique opportunities to further her research and writing, and Wendell has worked for so long to get back to his home. 

His wicked stepmother, who killed most of Wendell's family and stole the throne, has vanished. Emily successfully poisoned her towards the end of the previous book, but the lady isn't entirely dead yet, and has in addition managed to use her magical connection to the land to place a deadly curse on Silva Lupi, which keeps poisoning larger and larger areas. Emily's research suggests that the only way to break the curse is either to find and kill the former queen or for Wendell to sacrifice his life for the realm. Obviously, the latter option isn't very appealing to either of them. 

I'm not going to lie, I have been waiting for this book pretty much since I closed the covers to Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands, the previous book in the series. Our Emily has come such a long way since she was trying (and failing) to communicate with the sceptical villagers in Ljosland. Now she has a number of friends, family members and allies to assist her in her quest to free Wendell and his kingdom from the quest left by his stepmother. While she loves Wendell, seeing him fully embrace his faerie powers and the changes that brings takes some adjustments. She also struggles with the idea of herself as queen, a role she feels wholly unfit for. 

Did this book live up to my expectations? Not entirely, but after finishing the book, I see that my expectations of the story were unlikely to ever be satisfied. I had been hoping for more romance between Wendell and Emily, but the romantic subplot of these books has always been light, and I'm not sure why I didn't expect Wendell to be sidelined in the plot for much of the book, while Emily did what she's best at, researching and investigating folklore and faerie stories, and then of course, throwing herself into ridiculously dangerous situations to save the people she cares about. This was a very fitting and adventurous chapter in Emily's story, I shouldn't have suddenly expected the series to go down paths with more romance. Not to say there isn't romance here - some of Wendell's romantic gestures towards Emily are absolutely lovely (and show how very well he knows his grumpy intended). Emily, on her side, literally challenges death for his sake. 

As far as I'm aware, this is the third and final book in the Emily Wilde trilogy, and it's a very fitting end for Emily and Wendell. Fawcett nevertheless leaves the ending open-ended enough that she will be able to return to this imaginative world at some point in the future, should she choose to do so. 

Judging a book by its cover: Yet again, I think the UK cover is much prettier than the US one, although I wish it wasn't quite so pink. It also looks deceptively cute and quirky, considering how dark some of the themes explored in the book are. I'm not sure this cover entirely sells the story. Then again, I also hope people don't start a series with book 3, so even with the pastel pink cover, most readers know that Emily's adventures can go dark places. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 3: "Bookshops & Bonedust" by Travis Baldree

Page count: 356 pages

Audiobook length: 8 hrs, 1 min

Rating: 3.5 stars

Buzzwords 2025 Title Challenge: Contains punctuation

Twenty years before the events in Legends & Lattes, Viv is a young and relatively inexperienced mercenary, who gets badly injured fighting undead monsters while hunting for a powerful necromancer. Her mercenary band leave her in the quiet and mostly empty seaside town of Murk to heal up and recuperate. She worries that the group are going to leave her there, but thankfully, to take her mind off her fears, she encounters the local bookshop owner, who manages to persuade her (Viv has never exactly been a big reader) to buy a book, which she is surprised that she can barely put down. 

Soon a beautiful friendship is born. Viv spends most of her days hanging out in Fern the Ratkin's rather run-down store, trying to help her come up with ways to make the place a bit less dilapidated and more inviting to customers. Fern keeps giving Viv new books, and after having eagerly completed a few, Viv stops trying to pretend that reading isn't for her. There are some added complications involving a fierce gnome fishing for an invitation to Rackham, Viv's employer; a suspicious city guard captain, and the discovery of the corpse of the sinister fellow who Viv got into a very public fight with after he was rude to Fern's pet. 

Viv also befriends the local bakery owner, a cheerful dwarf who keeps bribing Viv with delicious baked goods. They develop the chastest of romances, which basically amounts to them talking walks, feeding the fish and holding hands occasionally. Both know that Viv isn't going to be staying in Murk for very long, so their flirtation has a definite end date. 

While Viv is worried that her time in Murk is going to be too uneventful and boring, some strange artefacts left behind by the dead fellow on the beach, turn out to be rather exciting and may have links to the necromancer that Viv's mercenary band were hunting. 

This was the December pick for my IRL book club, and we met in early January to discuss it. While most people liked it, a few people disliked it because they felt it was just too bland and uneventful to really hold their attention. Most of the readers agreed that the book was not without its flaws, but you don't read a book like this when you want to be overly critical and therefore they weren't too bothered. This, like Legends & Lattes is like candy for your brain, and the occasional plot inconsistency or lack of consistent world-building shouldn't distract from the silly cosiness of the read. The majority of us were in agreement that we liked Legends & Lattes more, and a few of the flaws with this book came from the fact that it was a prequel and therefore hampered by a few things already established in Baldree's first book. 

One of the readers pointed out that the way the book depicts what a great experience reading can be, and the way it opens Viv's eyes to adventures and new perspectives through reading is very pedagogical, and that a book where so much of the plot centres around books, how great hanging out in a bookshop, and reading can be, it will hopefully get more reluctant readers to try more books. Which can only be a good thing. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover of my paperback copy of this is in the same style as that of the first book, with more seaside elements and the mysterious book Viv finds very much the focal point. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR16 Book 61: "System Collapse" by Martha Wells

Page count: 256 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR16 Bingo: Rage (The Murderbot Diaries are all the rage all over the bookish internet, in addition, there's a lot of rage-inducing behaviour from the evil corporation in the book)

Spoiler warning! This is book 7 in the series, and absolutely not the place to start reading. This book will not make as much sense if it's your first encounter with Murderbot. You should have read at least All Systems Red, Artificial Condition and the previous novel, Network Effect to have the requisite backstory for this book. It's actually impossible for me to review this without mentioning what happened in Network Effect.

Murderbot is not OK. Murderbot cannot entirely trust its own instincts and reflexes anymore. That makes it very difficult for Murderbot to do its job, which is to provide security for its crew, who are currently working together with the crew of the Perihelion (better known as ART to its friends) to protect the rights of the colonists already living on planet they discovered in the last book. Unfortunately, the Barish-Estranza corporation wants the planet and its resources and has sent additional ships and SecUnits to try to persuade the colonists to sign contracts for "rescue and protection", which would in effect mean they would be signing away their lives to Barish-Estranza, being stuck labouring for them for the rest of their natural lives to pay for said "rescue and protection".

The fact that there are multiple groups of colonists living on the planet, spread out in different factions, further complicates the job of our intrepid good guys. Murderbot has to accompany some of its and ARTs crews to a remote location on the planet to inform a separate faction of colonists about the sinister motives of the Barish-Estranza representatives, who seem like they come offering safety, relocation and transportation to a new home. Because of [redacted] Murderbot is worried it might lose control, but in the end, it turns out that Murderbot's previous work to disconnect itself from its Control Module, not to mention its tremendous knowledge of entertainment and media is what might sway the colonists away from the tempting, but duplicitous offers of the Barish-Estranza corporation. 

None of the instalments of the Murderbot Diaries are bad, but after all the action and emotional developments of Network Effect this book felt a lot more like a filler episode before more significant plot hopefully happens in future stories. It was nice to see Murderbot's people and ARTs crew interacting and getting along, and I was especially impressed with the solution our ragtag crew came up with to thwart the nefarious corporation. I had a good time reading this, but I doubt it's one I'm going to be re-reading a lot.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 50: "The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love" by India Holton

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: Only one bed (and horse)

CBR16 Bingo: And also... (Repeat of the Bananas square, because this book fits the bill)

Beth Pickering is the youngest professor of ornithology at Oxford, and she needs to really impress the faculty if she is to get tenure. She works with wealthy widow Hippolyta Quirm to try to locate and capture rare (and usually dangerous) birds. Just as they are about to capture the coveted deathwhistler, a rival ornithologist, the dashing young Professor Devon Lockley from Cambridge, swoops in and steals the bird away from them. Not only that, he has the temerity to flirt with Beth!

Beth is determined to keep her distance from such an obvious villain as Devon, but that becomes a lot harder to do once a competition to win not only "Birder of the Year", but a large cash prize and tenure for the winning ornithologist is announced. Ornithology is a discipline full of ruthless individuals who are willing to do almost anything to catch their prey, and Beth and Devon discover that they are probably more likely to succeed if they join forces trying to track down the elusive bird in question. Of course, there can only be ONE winner, so sooner or later, one of them is going to have to betray the other. 

What Beth and Devon (and all the other unscrupulous competitors) are unaware of is that the contest is in part to drum up publicity for and increase recruitment to the ornithology departments of British universities, not to mention encourage international tourists to visit Britain. Both Beth and Devon are young, intelligent, and attractive, and publicity agents soon have newspaper reporters trailing them and emphasising just how dashing and compatible they are, spinning a fictional romance in the press long before Beth and Devon can actually act on the growing attraction between them. Constantly finding themselves in locations where there is only one room (with or without the one bed) available, or one horse that they must use to escape pursuers doesn't exactly make them less aware of one another.

Will Beth and Devon succeed in locating the rare bird needed to win "Birder of the Year"? Will they survive the various devious traps and vicious birds thrown at them by competitors (or publicists wanting to secure exciting news coverage of the competition)? Will they actually ever find privacy and peace enough to possibly act on their growing feelings for one another, or will inconvenient interruptions keep occurring? Which of them will actually win the contest (and the coveted tenured position)?

India Holton already wrote three witty and adventurous novels set in an alternate Victorian England with witches, pirates, domestic staff who were also spies, and a bunch of flying houses. In her new series, Love's Academic, there are lots magical birds all over the world, most of them in varying degrees of viciousness, and the academic discipline of ornithology is full of manipulative scoundrels, all working to one-up each other for fame and glory. I'm not going to lie, I care very little for birds, and all the actual ornithology stuff, while wildly fantastical, did very little for me.

This book is an adventure novel, through and through, taking inspiration from films like Indiana Jones, The Mummy, and Romancing the Stone. Our protagonists might seem very different at first, but it turns out that always being smarter than everyone else around them, and having to prove their brilliance in academia at a very young age, hasn't exactly made them popular growing up. While Beth has dealt with years of rejection by becoming a very proper, polite, and unfailingly kind young lady, Devon has hidden his insecurities behind a charming exterior, seemingly careless about what anyone might say or think about him. He's utterly smitten with Beth from the start, constantly in awe of both her beauty and academic achievements. Beth keeps trying to deny just how handsome and dashing she finds Devon, wanting to keep him at arm's length and calling him a villain, but she comes to discover that he's not just a charming rogue, but an equally skilled and intelligent scholar, and obviously her perfect match. 

I'm eager to see where Ms. Holton takes the series next. The next book in the series involves Devon's cousin Gabriel (he seems grumpy and deeply unimpressed with Devon's antics, but nevertheless helps him several times throughout this novel) and magical geography. The Geographer's Map to Romance isn't out until 2025, but after the teaser chapter included at the end of this book, I'm already very excited to see what happens to Gabriel and his estranged wife.

Judging the book by its cover: I love both the colours and the design of this cover, featuring no people whatsoever, just a very formidable bird and a simple and elegant design. I had pre-ordered this book long before the cover design was revealed, but now I might have to buy a physical copy, just so I can have this pretty book on my shelf. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR16 Book 30: "Cordelia's Honor" by Lois McMaster Bujold

Page count: 641 pages (it is two books in one volume, after all)

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR16 Bingo: Détente (Cordelia and Aral start out as enemies and end up married)

Official book summary (read this in early May):

In her first trial by fire, Cordelia Naismith captained a throwaway ship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destroy an enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception, treachery within treachery, she was forced into a separate peace with her chief opponent, Lord Aral Vorkosigan - he who was called "The Butcher of Komarr" - and would consequently become an outcast on her own planet and the Lady Vorkosigan on his.

Sick of combat and betrayal, she was ready to settle down to a quiet life, interrupted only by the occasional ceremonial appearances required of the Lady Vorkosigan. But when the Emperor died, Aral suddenly became guardian of the infant heir to the imperial throne of Barrayar - and the target of high-tech assassins in a dynastic civil war that was reminiscent of earth's Middle Ages, but fought with up-to-the minute biowar technology. Neither Aral nor Cordelia guessed the part that their cell-damaged unborn son would play in Barrayar's bloody legacy. 

Cordelia's Honor is part of the rather long Vorkosigan saga, which mostly concerns itself with the dashing Miles Vorkosigan and his many adventures. Chronologically speaking, Shards of Honor (the first part of this book) is the very first book in the series, while Barrayar (the second part) is book 7. The reason these two books have been collected into one volume is because they tell the story of how Miles' parents first met, got married and how he was born. I keep hearing great things about these books, and after Sarah, a fellow Cannonballer, wrote an absolutely amazing review last year, I figured that it was really about time to see what all the fuss is about.

Cordelia Naismith is a scientist on what is supposed to be an exploratory mission, but most of her crew ends up murdered and she is left in the wilderness with a badly damaged crew mate and an enemy soldier, popularly nicknamed "the Butcher of Komarr". They spend several days forced to cooperate and navigate dangers on an alien planet, and Cordelia comes to understand that Aral Vorkosigan is a lot more complex and honourable than his reputation would have her believe. By the time they reach civilization and it's time for them to part, it's clear that warmer feelings have developed between them. 

Unfortunately, they are still on opposite sides of a war, and Cordelia's government aren't super enthusiastic about their connection. By the time Cordelia decides to choose love over her own home world, Vorkosigan has been used as a scapegoat for his side of the conflict and is drinking his sorrows away on his country estate. Cordelia's arrival snaps him out of his funk and they get married. 

Their idyllic life together is complicated when the emperor dies, leaving a toddler as the new ruler, and Lord Vorkosigan appointed as his regent. Unfortunately, Aral and a pregnant Cordelia soon find themselves fighting a civil war, against usurping forces who have the dowager princess as a hostage and who want control over the young emperor. Ruthless assassins are dispatched against them, and while they both survive, the poison used could have disastrous consequences for their unborn child (spoiler - the baby is Miles, and he survives thanks to fancy technology from Cordelia's homeworld.

Considering the plots of these two books follow each other pretty closely, I would think that reading the series entirely chronologically would be very strange. Now that I've finally read Cordelia's Honor, which is thankfully more fantasy in space than hard sci-fi (which I rarely enjoy), I can see why so many people rave about the awesomeness of Captain Cordelia Naismith, and Aral Vorkosigan is certainly a good match for her. Barrayar, his home planet, is very patriarchal. Cordelia is a strong-willed, independent woman who has piloted space crafts and fought in a war. She's not prepared to wear pretty dresses and be a passive ornament in her husband's home. Thankfully, while the nobility around him might be a bit old-fashioned, Aral adores his wife and understands how remarkable she is. They have a beautiful partnership which forms the core of especially the second book.

I'm not sure when I'm going to read the books about Miles, their son, but I'm absolutely curious to see how his adventures turn out. 

Judging a book by its cover: These books came out in the 1990s and as such, have covers that feel rather dated now. I'm also not entirely sure why a futuristic sci-fi society dresses as if they were all from early 19th-Century Earth. Also not sure why someone is holding that sword in a way that looks cure to cut palms open and presenting it to Cordelia. Does she want tribute in the form of slashed palms? 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 22: "Chilling Effect" by Valerie Valdes

Page count: 464 pages

Rating: 3 stars

From the official plot summary:

Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Negra cruise the galaxy delivering small cargo for even smaller profits. When her sister Mari is kidnapped by The Fridge, a shadowy syndicate that holds people hostage in cryostasis, Eva must undergo a series of unpleasant, dangerous missions to pay the ransom.But Eva may lose her mind before she can raise the money. 

The tagline for this book is "Kidnappers. Alien Emperors. Psychic cats. And she's out of coffee." Two of these things apply to the plot of this book, but only one of them is really central to the story. Like my book club's choice for January, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, this is a book that falsely promises cats and doesn't deliver. Eva also never seems to run out of coffee, so why this was even added is a mystery to me. 

This book was pretty much a hot mess. It's the author's debut novel, which I guess might explain the uneven story structure and the exhaustive amount of plot twists a bit. One of the main plotlines is indeed that Captain Innocente's sister has been kidnapped, which means she has to go on a variety of mini-quests in the first third of the book. Several of my book club members mentioned that this book may have started as Mass Effect fan fiction because so many of the elements are similar. The many many early side quests certainly feel like something out of a game. Unlike in Before the Coffee Gets Cold, there were at least cats in this book. A load of them, although only one seems to feature prominently. Sadly, however, these cats barely appear after the first chapter. There is also an intergalactic alien emperor who inexplicably gets obsessed with Captain Innocente, and stalks her across much of the universe, determined to capture her and add her to her harem (they literally meet for a brief moment in a bar - it's genuinely baffling what his obsession is based on). 

The many side quests do allow the author to show a lot of different alien locations, and it feels very realistic that not everything is uniform and samey in space. There are also many different kinds of aliens, not everyone is humanoid. Although it did make it harder to picture certain individuals (what the heck are palps?)

While I don't regret the time I spent reading the book, there are a lot of things that annoyed me. The story is very slow to start and the story structure is very uneven. Every time you think you know what's going on, the story suddenly takes a drastic turn, and it seems like the author has tried to cram three different books' worth of plot into one book. There's the kidnapping and attempted rescue plot, the subplot of the obsessive emperor stalking her and wreaking destruction wherever he shows up. Then things massively change and she has to find her missing ship and scattered crew, and when it feels like the main story has come to a natural end, they suddenly have to go off and recover alien artefacts. 

There also isn't really any characterisation for any character except Eva and Vakar (and even his came late enough in the book that I'm not sure it counts). It's fun with a crew of varied individuals, but since we found out very little about them, I didn't care all that much about what happened to them. Additionally, I'm all for flawed characters, but Eva was a trainwreck (and not in a fun way) and should have confided in her crew way before she did. I genuinely didn't see why anyone liked her, and she was so reluctant to trust anyone that I have no idea why her crew felt any friendship or loyalty towards her. , I didn't really care what happened to her either, and that's pretty bad when she's the main character.

On the other hand, it certainly wasn't predictable - jumping around and switching directions so many times. Since I've never played Mass Effect, I didn't get annoyed by all the blatant video game references. The general consensus in my book club is that the book was ok, but nothing great. No one really seemed very inclined to read the sequels, and the one member who had read them said that the writing style didn't get all that much better and the structure of the sequels continued to be a bit all over the place. 

Judging a book by its cover: OK, I'll give the cover designer points for the portal, which does in fact play an important part in the final part of the novel. Cute cats are also a plus, even though they sadly don't feature all that much in the plot. I like the blue and violet shades, it's an attractive cover, but having now finished the book, it doesn't really fit with the story we get inside. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.