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Tag: fantasy

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

I figured out nonrepresentational art in the spring of 2009 at the Tate Modern. I was there with my mother and a close friend, and the friend asked my mother– (Bear with me; I will get to Time War in a minute.) –what a particular piece of art meant. My mother said, “You don’t have to worry about that. You just have to look at what the artist made, and see if it resonates anything in you. And if not, maybe you weren’t the audience for it.” This advice was not directed at me, a person too proud to admit…

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YA Round-Up

It’s June and I have been reading some YA and I will be so honest with you: A lot of it has let me down a little bit. I’m going to start with the one that I thought unequivocally was terrific, and then I’ll work forward and we will get through this together. Genesis Begins Again was an impulse grab at the library, and I’m so glad I picked it up. It’s a YA book that feels written for young teenagers, and specifically for black girls. Debut author Alicia D. Williams is dealing with difficult topics, and she never talks down…

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Review: For a Muse of Fire, Heidi Heilig

Some of you may recall Heidi Heilig from her previous duology, TIME TRAVELING PIRATES (also known as The Girl from Everywhere and The Ship Beyond Time), and she has returned with a whole new series that won my heart before I ever began it by including music and script pages and letters as well as the straightforward narrative. For a Muse of Fire is about a girl called Jetta whose family is the most renowned troupe of shadow players in Chakrana. She and her parents hope to use their art to gain passage on a boat to Aquitan, where it…

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Review: In the Vanishers’ Palace, Aliette de Bodard

Friends, I am very, very choosy about my “Beauty and the Beast” retellings. To the best of my recollection, the only one that I have ever loved is Robin McKinley’s Beauty.1 I liked Uprooted, but I loved it best when it was doing things other than retelling “Beauty and the Beast.” I hear good things about W. R. Gingell’s Masque, but I am not pinning my hopes on it. So when I tell you that I was blown away by Aliette de Bodard’s novella In the Vanishers’ Palace, a queer retelling of “Beauty and the Beast,” I want you to…

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The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, Theodora Goss

The blogger is prepared to stipulate that she bought a certain number of books at WorldCon. The actual number is not important. What we should focus on is that despite temptation, I did not purchase both The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter and its sequel, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, in hardback editions. In fact I purchased neither! I confined myself mainly to small, portable books. You may leave your accolades for my restraint in the comments. The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is the story of Mary Jekyll, who discovers hints among her father’s papers that…

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Review: Arcanos Unraveled, Jonna Gjevre

What an absolute doll of a book Arcanos Unraveled is! My lovely friend Jeanne gave it to my mother earlier in the summer, and because I’m a disaster of a person, I read it before I read the book Jeanne actually gave me. (I’m saving that one for a rainy day. It looks delightful too. You will hear from me again re: that book.) Anya Winter is a hedge witch who works at a magical university, teaching the textile arts. Hedge witches don’t get nearly the same respect as proper (read: wealthy) wizards, but Anya believes in the work she’s…

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Review: Armistice, Lara Elena Donnelly

I’ll eat my hat if Lara Elena Donnelly hasn’t written a damn lot of fanfic, and I mean that as a very high compliment. Armistice is the sequel to last year’s book Amberlough, which was sold to me as a gayer secondary world Cabaret, an extremely accurate description of its contents. Armistice is, frankly, even awesomer, and I am delighted as hell that it exists in the world. Armistice picks up three years from the close of Amberlough. Cordelia has spent the last three years working for a fragile resistance against the Ospies, whose hold over Unified Gedda has only…

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Review: Borderline, Mishell Baker

What’s that you say? Somebody wrote a book about creepy fairies and mental health treatments? YES THANK YOU, I DON’T MIND IF I DO. Borderline has been garnering all the accolades this past year in SFF circles, most recently a well-deserved Nebula nomination. It’s about a filmmaker called Millie who has borderline personality disorder (BPD hereafter) and is a double amputee following a suicide attempt the year before. A mysterious woman named Caryl shows up at her mental hospital and offers her a job with the equally mysterious Arcadia Project. Work with us for a year, says Caryl, and at…

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Review: Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Would anyone here be interested in a compendium of books about mythic beasts by authors of color? Would that be a resource people would enjoy? Or does it already exist somewhere else and I should consult it myself to get All the Book Recs? Any case, Certain Dark Things is a vampire story set in Mexico City by a Mexican-Canadian writer. In this world, there exist ten known species of vampires, of which we encounter three. The vampire girl Atl and her Doberman Cualli1 are on the run from the Necros vampires who killed her mother and sister. She doesn’t…

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Review: Iron Cast, Destiny Soria

Oh friends, I needed this book so much. Iron Cast is a YA alternate history novel about two best friends who can do illegal magic and have fallen in with a gangster club on the eve of Prohibition. I liked it a ton, and it cheered me right the hell up in a week where I was feeling hopeless. Ada and Corinne are hemopaths: Corinne can create completely believable illusions by reciting poetry, while Ada can induce strong emotions with her music. They work for the gangster Johnny Dervish of the Cast Iron club, where they perform for crowds of…

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