Reviews: Trail of Lightning, Roanhorse; Witch Week, Jones; Witchmark, Polk; The Changeling, LaValle

Title: Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World Book 1)
Author: Rebecca Roanhorse
Published: Saga Press, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 150 of 295
Total Page Count: 268,135
Text Number: 869
Read Because: reading more Native authors, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Maggie, with a remarkable aptitude for killing, hunts a monster and its creator through the Native territories of post-apocalyptic America. DNF at 50%—which isn't to say that this is bad. There's significant potential in it, particularly in the world: Native culture & mythology combine beautifully with the climate change post-apocalypse; it's bitter, vindicating, but not entirely without hope. The mythology creates an interesting magic system. But the dystopia grinds on me, likewise the protagonist's self-doubting inner monologue, likewise the pacing. A better book for a different reader, but it's not what I'm looking for right now.


Title: Witch Week (Chrestomanci Book 3)
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Narrator: Gerard Doyle
Published: Recorded Books, 2005 (1982)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 268,425
Text Number: 870
Read Because: continuing the series, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A boarding school class falls into chaos when a student is accused of being a witch. Wynne has a great eye for small details and large consequences. The characterization is humane, critical, and innately humorous; the interaction between magics and the mundane is creative and, again, quite funny—a necessary balance against the darker setting and social dynamics. It's the end with which I argue. The meta-narrative concept remains compelling, and the climax has good logic and scale, but the trend away from magic isn't emotionally satisfying to an audience that 1) is probably here for the magic and 2) may be of the age or mindframe to project onto characters who are discovering and forgiving their own magical tendencies. I liked this a lot; I still didn't love it as much as Charmed Life, but it came closer. I think I'd enjoy it more upon reread.


Title: Witchmark (Witchmark Book 1)
Author: C.L. Polk
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 270
Total Page Count: 268,695
Text Number: 871
Read Because: reviewed by mrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A doctor is petitioned by a murder victim to investigate crimes being committed against witches. The first half of this frankly did not sell me; it is, and feels like, a debut, particularly in the pacing and unremarkable first person narrative. But it won me in the second half. Nothing is surprising, but the tropyness and steady build of investment pay off, particularly in the charming secondary world setting and the central romance. The social commentary can be heavy handed, but it's also cathartic; there's something satisfying about an exploration of the way that societies depend on and reinforce discrimination and exploitation which manages to offer a not complicated but wish-fulfilling solution.


Title: The Changeling
Author: Victor LaValle
Narrator: Victor LaValle
Published: Books on Tape, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 440
Total Page Count: 269,135
Text Number: 872
Read Because: reading more by the author, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A young father's world is turned upside down by the death of his son. That’s somewhat a spoiler, given it comes so late in the book, but it's also the central premise—which speaks to the pacing. The slow drift from the normal anxieties of early parenthood into the nightmare landscape of tragedy and supernatural elements requires a gradual build in order to be effective, but these aren't anxieties that interest me, and the pacing, exacerbated by the transparent and terse narrative voice, is tedious. The racial and economic tensions I find more effective, and the book's second half is significantly less mundane—bizarre, almost incoherent, a little pedantic, but more interesting. I'm the wrong audience for this, and my disinterest in the themes turns erstwhile strengths into weaknesses; I'm not sure how to appraise its more objective merit.

Reviews: The Serpent Sea, Wells; The Devotion of Suspect X, Higashino; The Alleluia Files, Shinn

Title: The Serpent Sea (The Books of the Raksura Book 2)
Author: Martha Wells
Published: Night Shade Books, 2012
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 340
Total Page Count: 269,475
Text Number: 873
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The Indigo Cloud court returns to their ancestral home, only to find it in danger. This feels remarkably like a D&D campaign in structure: a quest for a MacGuffin with predictable adventure pacing and an emphasis on problem-solving and fraught social encounters. This works best in the later acts, and does a particularly good job of conveying the exhaustion of the protracted final conflict; there's also some great setpieces like the massive tree village and the organic underbelly of the leviathan city. But the social elements are more interesting, and benefit from a series; Moon's and the reader's longterm investment in Raksura society, the domestic intimacy of the court, is compelling and nuanced; I wish it got more of the spotlight. This is an adequate adventure novel with more interesting things going on under the surface—still not quite my thing, but it's enough to keep me reading.


Title: The Devotion of Suspect X (Detective Galileo Book 3)
Author: Keigo Higashino
Translator: Alexander O. Smith
Narrator: David Pittu
Published: Macmillan Audio, 2011
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 355
Total Page Count: 269,830
Text Number: 874
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After a woman kills her ex-husband, a neighbor steps in to help her conceal the crime. This premise, building a crime novel around an established murder, is engaging; the emphasizes the aftermath, which creates a unique tension and upsets much of the genre's predictable pacing. The narrative plays a coy but relatively fair game regarding what it does or doesn't show the reader; the final reveals make sense and have an effective weight. The tone can be hit or miss—the internal vs. external view of Ishigami is well-rendered, but the intellectual, sometimes-distant narrative doesn't quite hold up to the heightened emotion of the final scenes. This is competent and compelling; I normally don't go in for novel-length mysteries, but enjoyed this one.


Title: The Alleluia Files (Samaria Book 3)
Author: Sharon Shinn
Published: Ace, 1999 (1998)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 460
Total Page Count: 270,290
Text Number: 875
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The persecution of a small group who believes Jovah is not a god but a machine may finally expose the truth of Samaria's origin. This runs a risk in rehashing so much of the previous book's revelations—it's difficult to be invested in the protagonists's discoveries and doubts when they're not only obvious to the reader (as they've been throughout the series) but also when they're so familiar. The social implications of these revelations is more interesting, and can fill a book—but would benefit from less hammy antagonist, to compliment the ambiguity of the larger world. And yet, despite caveats, I still find this & the series compelling. The part of me that hoped for a queer romance (the first "spark" is between two women—sisters, of course) is forever unsurprised but disappointed; still, while I don't especially care for the romances, the speculative-cum-romance combination creates an emotive personal focus within an engaging wider world; it's consumable stuff.

Book Reviews: Ringworld, Niven; Captive Prince, Pacat; The Siren Depths, Wells; Cyteen, Cherryh

Title: Ringworld (Ringworld Book 1)
Author: Larry Niven
Narrator: Tom Parker
Published: Blackstone Audio, 2005 (1970)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 270,610
Text Number: 876
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A human man is invited on an alien expedition to explore a distant superstructure. I love me a good superstructure, and was prepared to put up with a lot for a good one, going in with knowledge of the limitations of older sci-fi. And this is an engaging premise, and moderately well-realized; the hard sci-fi infodumps are graceless, but convey a large, creative world. But the rest is awful: a clutter of less successful speculative concepts, particularly the ridiculous concept of a luck gene, upon which too much of the plot rests; Niven's persistent and tedious misogyny which destroys all characterization beyond salvage. This wasn't worth my time.


Title: Captive Prince (Captive Prince Book 1)
Author: C.S. Pacat
Published: Berkley, 2015 (2013)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 265
Total Page Count: 270,875
Text Number: 877
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After his brother's coup, a prince is exiled into sexual slavery in a neighboring kingdom. This reads very much like fanfic, which isn't a surprise or criticism—but it's bizarre to inhabit both sets of expectations: fanfic's explorations of consent through a veil of idealization combined with the more critical lens of traditional publishing. The subject matter needs to be engaging, challenging, but not miserable, which is a balance this largely strikes, but with no particular grace. The politics that drive the plot are a productive counterbalance; the twists are profoundly predictable and the worldbuilding is just okay (Veretian society is particularly one-note), but it grounds the central romance, providing a sincere, compelling justification for the slow burn, enemies-to-lovers dynamic. I've read a few fanfic/self-published-turned-traditional-publishing novels; I like this least of the bunch—for various reasons, it was the hardest to take seriously. But it's not bad.


Title: The Siren Depths (Books of the Raksura Book 3)
Author: Martha Wells
Published: Night Shade Books, 2012
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 275
Total Page Count: 271,150
Text Number: 878
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Moon is reunited with his birth colony and discovers its unusually close ties to the Fell. This is the first book in the series which I've sincerely enjoyed, as opposed to picking favorite parts from a just-okay whole. By now I've grown invested in the cast, particularly in the intimacies that surround Moon. Raksuran social dynamics can still be tedious, like the bickering among queens and the realistic but still frustrating tendency towards poor communication—but this feels increasingly like a convincing non-human culture, particularly in its sexual politics, with its own prejudices and unwritten rules. This book also does much to complicate the Fell, and Raksuran/Fell relations and history; it's a necessary antidote to the limitations of the first book, more ambiguous, more nuanced. The plot still is just okay—Wells has a great mind for setpieces and as always depicts exhaustion particularly well, but the end is unbalanced and underexplored. But perhaps my central complaint is that I wanted to keep reading—I'm settled into the world and series, now, and didn't want the book to end.

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Title: Cyteen
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Published: 1988
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 775
Total Page Count: 271,925
Text Number: 879
Read Because: continuing the series
Review: The murder of a Union politician and scientist has lasting repercussions—particularly on her heir, a genetic and social clone. This is the most accessible Cherryh novel I've read. The length is deceptive, ostensibly allowing for a long view—and it is long—but primarily providing room for Cherryh to untangle her trademark density. I miss her terseness, but the emotional intensity is still there and the themes of sexuality and consent benefit from more text and less subtext; it's an unsettling book with an engaging speculative premise, and Cherryh is unafraid to inhabit ambiguities—necessarily, given the content. This is something of a magnum opus, and it makes sense that it's her most awarded work; I prefer her usual style, but found this solidly enjoyable.