Finished (Dead Tree Books):
I bet this guy was WILD in college.
The Inquisition War Trilogy, Ian Watson. An oldie (1990) but goodie, this trilogy concerns the efforts of a Warhammer inquisitor to investigate and then put down a plot to subvert humanity’s free will in the name of saving it--and possibly unleash Chaos in the process. The novels are Draco, Harlequin, and Chaos Child. The series are a little like the Peter Fehervari pieces, focusing on big issues while the action is a backdrop. I got the feeling there was an allegorical aspect to these that I wasn’t quite getting, and Watson’s writing is fervid and occasionally hard to follow—almost like a tribute to Samuel R. Delaney’s Dahlgren, just set in the grim darkness. Read-again factor: I’d have to be better-rested.
Black Hearts: One Platoon’s Descent Into Madness In Iraq’s Triangle of Death, Jim Frederick. A very interesting book from about ten years ago, this explores the events leading up to and immediately after an atrocity committed by US forces in Iraq. The focus is less on the crime as such as the breakdown of leadership and the other systemic failures which allowed one small unit to disintegrate into chaos. Worth a longer examination. Read-again factor: certainty.
Finished (eBook):
Baneblade and Shadowsword, Guy Haley. This pair of epic novels--700+ pages in paperback--follow the commander and crew of a ‘supertank’ in combat across two very different but equally awful theatres of war. Although set in a super-machine, the human factor--for better and worse--is very much front and center, and the people here are test to, and sometimes beyond, their limits. Read-again factor: Nearly completely certain.
Welcome to Management, Ryan Hawk. Very interesting tour d’horizon for individual contributors newly promoted to management. Hawk comes from a sales background and refers back to this fairly frequently without making the material inaccessible to those in other areas. He covers pretty much the entire waterfront with this, and does it reasonably well. Will be subject of a longer piece. Read-again factor: yes, and strong recommend.
Incoming! An Angry Robot 2019 Sampler, Various. Ok, it took me a little while to get around to this, it being the 2019 sampler and whatnot. Strong out of the gate with a Wesley Chu Io story. Loved Chu from the Lives of Tao series, and this didn’t disappoint. Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade had a great human touch for a story about interstellar war, while I was little lost by Shadowblade--I’m not much for epic fantasy in any case. The rest were solid but didn’t stand out either way. Read-again factor: year 2 on a desert island.
Somewhere, a war called. It would like its propaganda poster back. Also, 90% of the Astra Militarum novel covers ever.
Masters of Space Opera, Jay Allan. I went on a bit of a binge with this series in August-September. This was the first in three volumes, seven long-form stories altogether. Legionnaire, the first story, starts with the sentence “The galaxy is a dumpster fire.” (Glad to see nothing changes in the future, eh?) The next six stories try to live up to that promise, with various results. The most interesting was also the last, Into the Unknown, which is about what the title says. Read-again factor: Legionnaire, maybe. The rest, unlikely to very unlikely.
Pulped Fiction: An Angry Robot Sampler, Various. Some good stuff here: Daughters of Forgotten Light is a dark and brooding, From The Tomb has a bad movie vibe, and Drake and Necrotech bring more darkness of the supernatural and technical variety. The downside is that these are all teasers rather than self-contained stories; the upsell may be worth it, though. Read-again factor: Unlikely.
Glory Imperialis, Various. Third of six Warhammer sets or collections from this month or so. All six stories were solid. I particularly liked the surprisingly touching treatment of humanity in the midst of horror in Imperial Glory, and Commissar almost makes the Imperium’s political officers seem human. Almost. Read-again factor: Does the Emperor protect? Of course.
Masters of Space Opera III, Jay Allan. Allan has edited three books in this series, in addition to being a prolific producer in his own right. This was a strong collection, Allan’s own Gehenna Dawn the excellently-done chronicle of an augmented soldier sentenced to fight to the death on a hellish world, who develops some ideas of his own. The combat’s good, the inner development even better. The other star is Titanborn by Rhett C. Bruno--I’ll revisit this. The other stories were generally competent, but nothing really stood out with them. Read-again factor: Bits and pieces.
Honor Imperialis, Various. I overdosed a little on Astra Militarum reading in August and September. Entertaining if not uplifting reading. Cadian Blood is a horrifying story of plague and Chaos that gives “unbroken” a new meaning. Regicide is a tightly-written and stylish tale of revenge. Down Among the Dead Men and Dead Men Walking bring in disturbing stories of the Death Korps of Krieg--just in case the name wasn’t enough. Altogether a solid collection with some original and thoughtful plots. Read-again factor: Waaagh! Yes!
Planet Hell: Alien Legacy Book 1, Joshua James. I was conflicted about this. A convoluted plot wraps around convoluted characters to produce...a reasonably well-done and solidly-written story. It stayed just inside Jefferson Smith’s rule about breaking immersion in the story. Read-again factor: Meh.
Optional Retirement Plan, Chris Pourteau. Gritty and noirish, this features (like Titanfall) an aged, troubled enforcer/bounty hunter. This one has Alzheimers, untreated because he refused to be implanted with the tech that could have found it. His crime boss gives him a few days before he’s “retired” and things quickly go sideways. Entertaining and poignant story of a bad man looking to go out on his own terms. Read-again factor: Eh...maybe...or not.
Bayonet Dawn: SMC Maruaders (sic), Scott Moon. This goes on the “did I really finish this?” list. The listing in my Kindle home screen really does misspell “Marauders,” although the actual cover is spelled right. Mildly entertaining, sort of pulp-quality military space opera, no real stand-out elements. Read-again factor: never, most likely.
By ‘optional’ they mean ‘not so much.’
In Our Own Words #2: Four LGBTQ+ Tor.com Novellas, Various. United by aspects of LGBTQ+ content or culture, this is an odd group. Miranda In Milan reimagines Shakespeare, but left me flat. Every Heart A Doorway had a sad sweetness, and Sisters of the Vast Black made me think back to Catholic school. The star, though, is Sorceror of the Wildeeps, which melds lively action with a touching story of love and loss. Read-again factor: medium-strong.
Killing Gravity, Corey J. White. This shows up twice in my collection, once from Tor and once as a Kindle single. Opening with the narrator adrift and awaiting death in her crippled ship, the story moves through rescue to redemption and revenge. Nicely-done character development, and a solid plot and writing. Read-again factor: solid maybe.
Aethon Books: Author Collection, Various. A collection of largely creative and entertaining shorts. The improbably-named Dachau Sunset stood out, seeming almost transgressive in creating a store of redemption, sacrifice and vampires in a concentration camp. The rest of the stories were generally good. Read-again factor: unlikely.
Riot Baby, Tochi Onyebuchi. Fascinating and challenging read from outside my normal range of authors and subjects. Onyebuchi crafts a tale of a Black sister and brother, ground down by casual systemic racism. The twist is that the sister has psychic gifts, and tries to help nudge her sibling towards ending the oppression. Read again factor: very high.
Invocations (Warhammer Horror Anthology), Various. A trip to the supernatural side of things. Most of the stories are close to being stand-alone and could be enjoyed without deep knowledge of ‘the lore.’ It opens on a great note with David Annandale’s The Hunt, whose last paragraph brings the horror alive. The selections are all pretty strong and there were none I particularly didn’t like. Maybe the weakest was Nick Kyme’s Stitches, which was well-crafted but let down by a predictable end. Lora Gray’s He Feasts Forever had an enjoyable twist I didn’t see coming. All good, a strong, varied and enjoyable collection. Read-again factor: This’ll be back from the beyond, for sure.
The Jacq of Spades, Patricia Loofbourrow. The first book in the author’s “Red Dog Conspiracy” series. This is how you do the first volume of a series. There is a long and complex background to both the city of Bridges and the protagonist, Jacq. Loofbourrow does a great job of bringing this blighted and frightening world to life, dripping out details at a good pace. Jacq’s critical thinking skills could use a top-up, but that’s a realistic flaw. The plot is a little over-the-top at moments, but not out of control. Worthwhile and very quick read. Read-again factor: Depends on the rest of the series, but not low.
Might Be, Might Not Be:
Fiction River: Visions of the Apocalypse, Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Not the collection’s fault per se, this seems to float into my line of sight reliably just as soon as I finish something dark or have been reading the news. Timing is just bad for fictional apocalypses (apocalypsii?) right now. We’ll see.
Abandoned In Place:
Cartwright’s Cavaliers, Mark Wandrey. The under performing scion of a family of interstellar mercenaries inherits what’s left of a once-glorious patrimony just in time to step into a growing interstellar crisis and redeem himself. I just couldn’t keep up my interest in the story. The writing was unpolished, characters flat, and the plot over-simplified where complexity might be useful and over-complicated where it should have been simple. The story went into receivership 17% through.
The Blind Spot: A Cyberpunk Thriller, Michael Robertson. A cybernetically-enhanced teenager comes of age in a world that seems like “V for Vendetta” crossed with an early draft of the Godfather series. Cyberpunk? Check. Thriller? Uh, so about that. Using that word in the title raised my expectations, which turned out to be a bad idea. Not a great advertisement for the other three books in the series. Rebooted the server at 33%.
Web of Eyes: Buried Goddess Saga Book 1, Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle. I read part of Bruno’s Titanborn this month (“Masters of Space Opera III”) and loved it. So it was disappointing that this one didn’t gel. The implausibly loud-mouth “greatest thief in the realm” slams into the queen’s brother’s magic-fuelled but tedious intervention in the kingdom’s succession. I think it was meant to be whimsical, but it didn’t work for me. Sent to the dungeon at 7%.
This made my head hurt…
Captive Embers: The Broken Singularity, Brian Mansur. First in a (so far) two-book series from Aethon. Professionally edited, which I appreciated. Mansur has to thread the needle by introducing a complex back story while moving the plot along. It doesn’t quite work. Decent enough but too long without a hook to keep me reading led to this being put aside 16% in.
Sons of the Hydra, Rob Sanders. I set this aside for a while, and tried to come back to it. All I found was I’d totally lost interest in the convoluted plot. Back to the Eye of Terror it went, half-read (51%).