The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander

Title: The Only Harmless Great Thing
Series: n/a
Author: Brooke Bolander
Source/Format: Tor.com ebook club; eBook
More Details: Alternative History; Science Fiction
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; January 23, 2018 

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

In the early years of the 20th century, a group of female factory workers in Newark, New Jersey slowly died of radiation poisoning. Around the same time, an Indian elephant was deliberately put to death by electricity in Coney Island.

These are the facts.

Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternate history of rage, radioactivity, and injustice crying out to be righted. Prepare yourself for a wrenching journey that crosses eras, chronicling histories of cruelty both grand and petty in search of meaning and justice.

I’m steadily making my way through all of the old Tor.com ebook club freebie titles that I haven’t read. The next one I wanted to mark off my TBR list this year was this one.

If, like me, you’ve read a book called The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women—Kate Moore’s eye-opening historical nonfiction about the women who worked at radium-dial factories—then you can already guess the exact kind of tragedies that take place in Brooke Bolander’s 2018 novella, The Only Harmless Great Thing.

I was hooked, and I quickly got invested in some of the cast of characters. But that was because I found the side of the story that took place in the past particularly riveting—including the perspective of Topsy, and the other elephant related passages. I wanted to root for them, and I wanted it to work out. But, going into the novella, I knew it wasn’t going to be that kind of story. This one, through its tragedy, was about the message, but that’s exactly what made The Only Harmless Great Thing memorable for me. And, as I was reading it, I was strongly reminded of my experience with The Radium Girls. The story was very good in a lot of respects, as a work of fiction. But it also captured the same infuriating tone and behavior—just like the actual history it was partially based on—with the injustice of the situation and the open callousness of the people in charge.

At the end of the day, The Only Harmless Great Thing was meaningful and poignant, and I'm glad I finally read it. 

 

The Border Keeper by Kerstin Hall

Title: The Border Keeper
Series: Mkalis Cycle #1
Author:  Kerstin Hall
Source/Format: Tor.com ebook club; ebook
More Details: Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; July 16, 2019

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

She lived where the railway tracks met the saltpan, on the Ahri side of the shadowline. In the old days, when people still talked about her, she was known as the end-of-the-line woman.

Vasethe, a man with a troubled past, comes to seek a favor from a woman who is not what she seems, and must enter the nine hundred and ninety-nine realms of Mkalis, the world of spirits, where gods and demons wage endless war.

The Border Keeper spins wonders both epic—the Byzantine bureaucracy of hundreds of demon realms, impossible oceans, hidden fortresses—and devastatingly personal—a spear flung straight, the profound terror and power of motherhood. What Vasethe discovers in Mkalis threatens to bring his own secrets into light and throw both worlds into chaos.

The second Tor.com ebook club title that I tackled at the end of April was Kerstin Hall’s The Border Keeper. It was another quick read, and I was drawn in by how the world was introduced. There was plenty of lore basically from the first page, and I was intrigued by the titular border keeper as well as the various worlds and people that inhabited them. The other main character, Vasethe, had his secrets/reasons for seeking out the border keeper. It served as the catalyst for the subsequent events. The questions I had about his motivations was one of the main reasons I kept reading.

 
If I have to describe this novella as anything, it would be the kind of story that has the characters traveling to various places for the majority of the time. These locations were interesting, detailed, and unique from one another. The rest of the story was explained in scattered pieces, while the ending was just kind of abrupt. And I closed the novella feeling as if I had missed half of the action. So, the story was just fine this time.

Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell

Title: Witches of Lychford
Series: Lychford #1
Author: Paul Cornell
Source/Format: Tor eBook Club; ebook
More Details: Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; September 8, 2015

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

Traveler, Cleric, Witch.

The villagers in the sleepy hamlet of Lychford are divided. A supermarket wants to build a major branch on their border. Some welcome the employment opportunities, while some object to the modernization of the local environment. Judith Mawson (local crank) knows the truth -- that Lychford lies on the boundary between two worlds, and that the destruction of the border will open wide the gateways to malevolent beings beyond imagination. But if she is to have her voice heard, she's going to need the assistance of some unlikely allies...

I still have some Tor.com ebook club titles that I never read, and toward the end of April I finally read two of them. One such novella was Paul Cornell’s Witches of Lychford. It was a one-sitting kind of read, and it was a story I had a lot of fun with.

The basic premise of the story is a big supermarket chain wanted to come to a hamlet, Lychford, and that provided all the drama and bickering that those sorts of decisions entail. But, even from the very beginning, there was a clear sense of something otherworldly going on. Right away, I was charmed by the characters. Lizzie with her doubts, Autumn with her troubles and magic shop, and Judith with her ghosts and reputation for eccentricity. Though introduced separately, some of the best parts of the novella were when the crew got together, all doubts were settled, and the magical aspects were fully explored. The ending happened quite quickly, but, overall the resolution provided for the troubles affecting Lychford were satisfying enough that I’m interested in the sequels.

 

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

Title: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain
Series: The Singing Hills Cycle #2
Author: Nghi Vo
Source/Format: Tor.com eBook Club; eBook
More Details: Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; December 8, 2020

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history.... Nghi Vo returns to the empire of Ahn and The Singing Hills Cycle in this mesmerizing, lush standalone follow-up to The Empress of Salt and Fortune...

I enjoyed The Empress of Salt and Fortune so much, and I was eager to dive into its sequel, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain. I also already had a copy of it, because it was a Tor.com eBook Club title a while ago, so there was basically no delay between when I finished the first and started the next.

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain was just as engrossing and excellent as its predecessor. I really enjoy what Nghi Vo does with an embedded narrative, though the dynamics were shifted by the stark change in setting and the noticeable absence of Almost Brilliant. (I missed the neixin’s witty remarks!) But I didn’t mind it. The story was interesting not only because Chih doing most of the storytelling, but also for the addition of new characters, mammoths, and how great the story within the story was.

The tigers, in particular were fascinating. They were true to their nature and sufficiently terrifying in something of an antagonistic role—but also they were the catalyst that propelled the story in the direction it ultimately took. I genuinely enjoyed how Vo characterized them.

Overall, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain was the perfect weekend read, and I look forward to eventually reading the third book in the series.      

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Title: The Empress of Salt and Fortune
Series: The Singing Hills Cycle #1
Author: Nghi Vo
Source/Format: Tor.com eBook club; eBook
More Details: Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; May 24, 2020

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully. Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for. At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

I finally caved and read The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. It’s been sitting on my tablet since I got it when it was one of Tor.com’s eBook club titles. And one night, I read the first sentence and was hooked.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune was an engrossing tale about how the life of a girl from humble beginnings got tangled with that of an empress. It recounted their time in exile and everything that entails. It was a beautiful story. And the majority of it is an embedded narrative, with a character (Rabbit) telling another character (Chih, a cleric, and Almost Brilliant, a neixin) their story.

This is one of my favorite storytelling conventions, and when it’s done well it can have an excellent effect. Each part of the story within the story in The Empress of Salt and Fortune was contained in respective chapters. I really enjoyed the format because of how much space it gave the present characters to interact, while also correlating their conversations—and the clues within the setting—to the history being imparted by Rabbit. The characters were, after all, what helped make the story so interesting. Chih and Almost Brilliant were favorites from the start, and Rabbit’s voice easily stole half the stage. All three propelled the story forward.

The point of The Empress of Salt and Fortune can be summed up by one of its earlier passages:

“Accuracy above all things. You will never remember the great if you do not remember the small.”—page 11.

And what a marvelous story it was!

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

Title: Middlegame
Series: Alchemical Journeys #1
Author: Seanan Mcguire
Source/Format: Tor ebook club; eBook
More Details: Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com Publishing; May 7, 2019

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

New York Times bestselling and Alex, Nebula, and Hugo-Award-winning author Seanan McGuire introduces readers to a world of amoral alchemy, shadowy organizations, and impossible cities in this standalone fantasy.

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story. Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math. Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet. Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own. Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.

I’ve read some (but not all) of the current Wayward Children books, but the one story by Seanan McGuire that I had my eye on lately was Middlegame. Earlier this year, it was a Tor.com eBook Club title, and I finally got around to reading it.

The synopsis literally states what kind of story this is going to be—one that is magical and dangerous—particularly with the line: “Godhood is attainable.” The story is spread out across a lot of years, and there wasn’t too much of a mystery here, because the reader knows far more than the characters initially do.

Roger and Dodger are essentially thought of as pawns. The story hinged on them, on what they could do—and the theory about who they should be and how they should behave—but they were individuals with emotions, wants, and needs.

Middlegame played around with the limits of the conventions established within its world. It’s a strange but engaging kind of story that leaned hard into alchemy—as its fantastical elements—and into its sometimes nonlinear timeline, utilizing both in a way that was effective at building a sense of tension. It was something along the lines of: they found out about this, this, and this, now what are they going to do with and about it? Half the fun of Middlegame is seeing how the whole scenario is going to playout in the end. Will they succeed or won’t they? It was up in the air for much of the novel, and even when the characters got a renewed sense of determination, I wasn’t certain of what would happen.

Middlegame was a page-turner. The sequel, Seasonal Fears, recently came out, so I have more of this world to look forward to.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Title: A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Series: Monk & Robot #1
Author: Becky Chambers
Source/Format: Tor ebook club; ebook
More Details: Speculative fiction
Publisher/Publication Date: TorDotCom; July 13, 2021

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend. Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

It’s been years since I’ve read one of Becky Chambers’ stories. A while ago, Tor.com ebook club had a free copy of A Psalm for the Wild-Built included in a bundle, and I thought I would give it a try.

This one was just fine for me. It’s a really slow and contemplative tale about a tea monk, Sibling Dex, who eventually crosses paths with a robot. The synopsis is true to form, and much of what happens is about questions and answers. It’s basically like one long conversation once the two characters get through their introduction to each other.

Even though A Psalm for the Wild-Built had all the hallmarks of the kinds of books I’ve been into lately, I never clicked with the story as much as I thought I would (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is one of my favorite books). I did like the commentary about environmental issues, as well as the robot and the part of the plot specific to the history of Panga.

Review: Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

Title: Exit Strategy

Series: The Murderbot Diaries #4

Author: Martha Wells
Source/Format: Tor eBook Club; ebook
More Details: Science Fiction
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; October 2, 2018

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

Murderbot wasn’t programmed to care. So, its decision to help the only human who ever showed it respect must be a system glitch, right? Having traveled the width of the galaxy to unearth details of its own murderous transgressions, as well as those of the GrayCris Corporation, Murderbot is heading home to help Dr. Mensah—its former owner (protector? friend?)—submit evidence that could prevent GrayCris from destroying more colonists in its never-ending quest for profit. But who’s going to believe a SecUnit gone rogue? And what will become of it when it’s caught?

Note: there may be some minor spoilers for books 1-3. You’ve been warned.

Exit Strategy was the story I’ve been waiting for. It was everything the past two books in the series have been building toward, and the confrontation with GrayCris Corporation was as explosive as I expected it would be, to say the least. It was so good.

Martha Wells excels at building characters and the connections between them. After all, one of the great aspects about Exit Strategy was seeing characters from the first book in the series. It was great to have the Preservation Aux team back again, as I really enjoyed their characters in All Systems Red.

SecUnit is a fantastic character, and the growth it went through was done so well. Part of this series has always been about SecUnit’s journey of personal discovery—plus its extensive collection of media—it’s all part of the character’s charm.

As I said above, Exit Strategy had the confrontation I was waiting on. There was action everywhere, because this was a pretty fast moving and straight forward story. The full scope of GrayCris’s greed and willingness to subvert any rules it found unfavorable to its goals, went deeper than I thought it would. There was a palpable sense of urgency to the story, and it definitely felt like a race against time. There were some twists here, and overall it was an extremely exciting read—I basically read it in one sitting.

Exit Strategy is one of my top favorite reads from the Murderbot Diaries so far, and I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Review: Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Title: Rogue Protocol 
Series: Murderbot Diaries #3
Author: Martha Wells
Source/Format: Tor Ebook Club; Ebook
More Details: Science Fiction
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; August 7, 2018

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

SciFi’s favorite antisocial A.I. is again on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah’s SecUnit is. And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.

Rogue Protocol was the first book I picked up in 2021, and it was a fantastic read and the perfect way to start the New Year. There is always something so fun and satisfying about the Murderbot Diaries series, which keeps me coming back again and again for another adventure. Rogue Protocol was no different, and once I started reading it I couldn’t put it down—I ended up staying up past midnight to finish it.

Rogue Protocol picks up sometime after Artificial Condition, and it put a spotlight on some of the lingering questions pertaining to the consequences resulting from the ending of All Systems Red. I liked how the events of the first book directly impacted Rogue Protocol, with the semi-return of GrayCris Corporation. If you’ve read the first book, you already know about some of the crimes the company was responsible for. Rogue Protocol expanded on that, and took a deeper look at other parts of the corporate based world Wells has created—as well as GrayCris Corporation’s shadowy influence (and that laundry list of underhanded actions just keeps getting longer).

At times, Rogue Protocol almost felt like it could have been a ghost story set in space. The setting certainly qualified for it, with it being as abandoned and eerie as it was.

By now SecUnit’s media consumption habit is an endearing character quirk I look forward to. It had been previously shown on numerous occasions that it also doesn’t enjoy interacting with people and does so begrudgingly to meet its goals. However, its character underwent some gradual development throughout Rogue Protocol, and with the introduction of new key characters, it was put in a situation that forced it to acknowledge the emotions it was feeling. I found that side of the story to be one of my favorite parts, and Wells excelled at creating quick emotional bonds between the characters. So as the story unfolded, the delivery of the twists and the revelations about the characters stuck the landing and then some.

Rogue Protocol ended in a good place, and I’m exceedingly excited about the implications for what’s going to go on in the next book in the series, Exit Strategy.

Review: Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Title: Artificial Condition

Series: Murderbot Diaries #2

Author: Martha Wells
Source/Format: Tor ebook club; ebook
More Details: Science Fiction
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; May 8, 2018

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

It has a dark past – one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot”. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more. Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue. What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…

**This review may contain mild spoilers for All Systems Red.**

It’s been a while since I last read any stories from the Murderbot Diaries, and recently I was in the mood for it. After the end of All System’s Red, I was curious to see where our favorite media obsessed SecUnit would go after its split-second and pivotal decision to go off on its own. Artificial Condition is the direct continuation, and the story starts a short time after the end of All Systems Red. I had a lot of fun reading this book. It was a fantastic sequel in so many ways, primarily for the main character. It was on a mission, a personal one, to discover the truth behind the incident that caused its memory to be purged. I enjoyed the way Wells handled the mystery aspects of the story. The lessons learned by the SecUnit were tough, and it highlighted the intricacies that often take place in complicated occurrences. It also showed that answers might not bring closure and may in fact present more questions. Along the way, it met some new characters. One of them, ART, is by far one of my favorites yet. The scenes with ART were filled with snarky sarcasm and plenty of commentary about media, which made the “Research Transport vessel” all that more endearing of a character. I hope to see it again in later stories. Artificial Condition is, so far, one of my favorite stories from this series, and I hope to read Rogue Protocol soon. 

Review: The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark

Title: The Haunting of Tram Car 015

Series: n/a

Author: P. Djèlí Clark
Source/Format: Tor ebook club (freebie); eBook
More Details: Science Fiction; Fantasy; Alternative History
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; February 19, 2019

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 returns to the alternate Cairo of Clark's short fiction, where humans live and work alongside otherworldly beings; the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities handles the issues that can arise between the magical and the mundane. Senior Agent Hamed al-Nasr shows his new partner Agent Onsi the ropes of investigation when they are called to subdue a dangerous, possessed tram car. What starts off as a simple matter of exorcism, however, becomes more complicated as the origins of the demon inside are revealed.

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 has been on my TBR list for way too long. I’ve been into ghost stories lately, and it seemed like there was no better time to finally read it than now. I enjoyed a lot about The Haunting of Tram Car 015. Clark painted a story with a setting that was rich with vivid detail and history. From the beginning, it was easy to picture every scene as it was happening—such was the degree to which the descriptions brought the story to life—and it really set the tone of the story. I enjoyed all of the historical details, as well as how the advances of technology and the emergence of more fantastical elements was evident throughout this alternative version of Cairo. The actual ghost end of the story presented a bit of a mystery to the characters, and I enjoyed reading about the process they undertook to identify just what was haunting Tram Car 015. Overall, I’m glad I can finally take this one off my TBR list. 

Review: Silver In The Wood by Emily Tesh

Title: Silver In The Wood
Series: The Greenhollow Duology #1
Author: Emily Tesh
Source/Format: Tor E-book club; eBook
More Details: Fantasy; Novella
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; June 18, 2019

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads. When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.

Recently, I’ve been reading a few articles about Emily Tesh’s writing, and they renewed my interest enough for Silver In The Wood that I finally gave it a read. I liked this story a lot. It had the kind of fairy-tale atmosphere and deftly spun folklore that I’ve enjoyed in the past—in books like Spinning Silver and The Bear and the Nightingale. Tobias Finch’s story was well-done, and I was quickly engrossed in the mysterious nature of his prolonged stay in the woods around Greenhollow Hall. His care for the wood spoke volumes about his character, despite his sometimes gruff demeanor. I also liked Henry Silver, for the nature of his characteristics—sometimes inquisitive, charming, and determined—and his time with Tobias. Separately, they were great characters, but their interactions were some of the best parts of Silver In The Wood. What I also liked was how the past clashed with the present, and the themes of age and reconstruction, the cycle of a forest—and the play on the story of the Green Man. As such, the magical elements of the story had a very lush and earthy feel to them—as did the writing, which I consider to be atmospheric—and all around it was pretty great.

I could keep going, but I don’t want to spoil this story for anyone who hasn’t read it. What I will say—and leave off at—is that there was much that I enjoyed about Silver in the Wood. I know there is a sequel for it, and it’s on my TBR list.   

Review: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Title: All Systems Red
Series: The Murderbot Diaries #1
Author: Martha Wells
Source/Format: Tor ebook club freebie; ebook
More Details: Science Fiction
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; May 2, 2017

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth...

All Systems Red is a novella I’ve been hearing about for a while, and it’s been on my TBR list for just as long. I finally decided to pick it up again. All Systems Red is the first book I’ve read by Martha Wells, and in general I enjoyed my initial introduction to the Murderbot Diaries. The story was good, and due to its length it was very fast paced with plenty of action and even a hint of mystery. The Murderbot’s perspective was fun to read from, due in part to its personality quirks—such as its habit of preferring entertainment to doing its job. Considering that it was a SecUnit—and thus a standard part of planetary missions in All Systems Red—its commentary about itself and the corporate-domination of exploration was one of my favorite aspects about the story. The setting was also interesting. Given that Murderbot plus its clients were on a remote planet to study it, the different environments—and the flora and fauna found there—were described in detail. Wells has created a highly entertaining story and world in All Systems Red. The ending left off in a place that was satisfying. However, it also left room for more stories. So I’m going to eventually get around to the next books in the series.