Disability – Marked for Plot

Novella Readathon #19: Cabaret in Flames

Last year one of my favorite reads was Pueyo’s debut novel But Not Too Bold, which was a delightfully gothic monster romance – with an emphasis on monster. Cabaret in Flames was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and I’m mostly disappointed in it. As with some of my other three star novella reviews, I still think it’s worth a look for readers who are excited about the specific premise and tone of Cabaret in Flames, but not for a more general audience.

Elevator Pitch:
Ariadne is a doctor, and her patients are Guls, creatures with unnaturally long lives who can feed only on human flesh and blood. When a strang Gul comes looking for her 5-years vanished mentor, she is forced to confront her dark past that Erik saved her from. This Gul, Quaint, wants to find Erik and asks for Ariadne’s help as they travel to a Rio De Janerio club that serves Guls almost exclusively.

Read If Looking For: characters processing intense childhood sexual trauma, monster romance, stories unable to be separated from their setting (Brazil, in this case)

Avoid If You Dislike: why the fuck won’t you two just talk to each other!, uninspired prose

Novella Readathon #14: Werecockroach

This book has been sitting on my TBR mostly because I was curious what a book with this title would be about. I’ve seen lots of odd shapeshifter characters, but this one really takes the cake. I knew a few things about the book (such as this having aromantic and asexual representation), but not much else. I certainly did not expect this book to feature an alien’s arriving on Earth. I’m glad I read this book, but I don’t think I enjoyed it enough to pick up the sequel, which is coming out later this year.

The Premise:
After a fire at his old place, Rin is hunting down a new apartment. He’s broke, meaning his new spot is as cramped as you can get while still having your own room. His new roommates are unorthodox, and it later revealed that both can turn into cockroaches. Mix all of this in with an alien ship that has appeared over London, and Rin is in for a very unusual week.

Read If Looking For: cutesy cockroaches, found family, characters representing multiple marginalized groups

Avoid If Looking For: serious explorations of first contact stories, creative use of the werecockroach idea

Novella Readathon #13: Cinder House

I have a soft spot for Cinderella. I wouldn’t describe it as my favorite Fairy Tale, but somehow pieces of it keep capturing my imagination. As a child, I watched the VHS for Ever After so much we had to buy a new copy – I still love it, corny dialogue and all. My teenage self enjoyed the goriness of the Grimm Fairy Tale. As an adult, The Magic Fish became my all-time favorite graphic novel (though that goes far beyond Cinderella). Cinder House enters in the long line of Cinderella tales I adore. In classic Marske fashion, it weaves together the fantastic and romantic elements to find a really excellent balance

The Premise:
Ella died shortly after her father, killed by a combination of poison from her stepmother and falling down the stairs (but really it was the poison). Now a ghost posessing the house owned by the woman who killed her, Ella cleans and cooks for her stepfamily, unable to live a life apart from the building that has become her body. Cue some classic Cinderella elements, such as the Prince holding a ball to find a wife, which has a lot of the traditional trappings of Cinderella. For the most part, this book is Cinderella + the main character is a ghost who feels the house as her new body.

Read If Looking For: chronic illness coding, the sensuality of bare feet on carpet, a friendly bit of correspondence, your body is a temple

Avoid If Looking For: fairy tales that invert the original, Cinderella that eschews insta-love, criticisms of monarchies

Works of Vermin – When Bugs Go to the Opera

I have been dying to read this book for ages. Eldritch bugs + magic perfume + creepy operas = one hell of an idea for a book, and every review I’ve seen has said it lives up to its premise. I got lost wandering the streets of Hiron Ennes’ imagination. It is a decadent new entry in the New Weird genre, and it feels extremely apt for a world that sees the potential for the first human being to become a trillionaire. This book is a masterpiece, and I really wish I hadn’t read it near the end of the school year as my brain is struggling to remember which hallway the copy room is in.

The Premise:
Guy is a vermin exterminator in the undercity, struggling to support himself and his younger sister. Aster is the chief perfumer for the violent Grand Marshal, who wears the skulls of those who would kill him as helmets. An insect with a taste for fine art has begun feeding in the city, and political unrest has begun to stir.

Read If Looking For: violent revolutions, weird worldbuilding, the dangers of capitalism, so many operas, big ass bugs

Avoid If Looking For: windowpane prose, clear explanations of how things work, dramatic fight scenes

Comparable Media: Perdido Street Station, Ambergreis, The Divine Cities

The Spear Cuts Through Water – Epic Fantasy told Three Ways

Words are not enough to describe how nervous I was to suggest my in-person book club read The Spear Cuts Through Water. Was it everything I remembered, or are my memories clouded by the pink haze of nostalgia? Would my friends like it as much as I did? Was the brutality and violence of the book excessive? Would I still think about this as my favorite book of all time? That’s a lot of pressure to put on a book, and expectations are the mother of all disappointment.

Thankfully, it absolutely stood up to the book of my memories. I think I liked it more this time around, and I certainly noticed things that I had missed in my first readthrough. The jury is still out on whether or not my friends will love it like I do. My only regrets are starting this book a little too close to our book club meeting – it’s tomorrow! – which coincided with a bout of brain frog that left Jimenez’s gorgeous pose a bit more difficult than I was equipped to handle after a long day of work. However, I consider it the best book I’ve ever read, and it represents the direction that I wish epic fantasy would start to explore.

The Premise:
In the inverted theater, the child of Moon and Water performs for you a story of your people’s history. You’d heard this story before. It is the one your Lola told you and that you told your brothers in turn. It follows Keema and Jun, one an outcast with one arm and the other a monster of a man searching for a path towards redemption. They escort the Moon in her desperate bid to escape the empire freeing her from 8 generations of servitude and the people from 8 generations of tyranny. This is a tender story of the journey of two boys, a chronicle of the death of an empire, an exploration of guilt and shame and violence, and it is a story about how our past ripples into our future.

Read If Looking For: a simple story transformed by its format, an ode to the oral history of Fantasy, standalone epic fantasy, a very wise tortoise

Avoid If Looking For: straightforward storytelling, books free from graphic violence or sexual assault, rapid pacing

Comparable Media: Spear (by Nicola Griffith), Hyperion, Princess Mononoke

The Wolf and His King – Dripping with Intentionality

This book was a match made in heaven for me. Queer yearning? Check. Unconventional and bespoke prose? Check. Thematic depth without being preachy? Check. The Wolf and His King I’ve read in a long time. I didn’t love how they tackled writing the ending, but The Wolf and His King is a book I will be happily shoving into the hands of my friends.

As a note, those looking for a traditional Romantasy story will be disappointed. There are absolutely romantic elements to the tale, but you won’t find the story focusing on Bisclavret and the King’s developing relationship. The book is more interested in each of their personal journeys, despite their mutual affection for each other. Like other books that are sort-of-technically Romances that don’t read like most books in the genre, The Wolf and His King is best viewed as a book that happens to include some romance elements, which I think will help temper some misplaced expectations based on how the book has been pitched.

The Premise
Bisclavret lives in a self-imposed exile. He turns into a wolf against his will, and fears that venturing to court will put himself and others in danger. When the King dies and the new King returns from his own exile though, Bisclavret has no choice to but venture forth and swear fealty to the King. The King, meanwhile, is awash with self-doubt and a search for meaning about what type of King he’d like to be. He is taken immediately with Bisclavret, and the two form a close bond while each struggles to find a good path forward with their life. And the Wolf? The Wolf is always present, waiting to come out.

Read If Looking For: dreamlike prose, characters exploring their own self-doubt, a marriage of theme and structure

Avoid If Looking For: critical examinations of monarchies, fleshed out female characters, leads who are proactive

Comparable Media: Song of Achilles, This is How You Lose the Time War, Spear (by Nicola Griffith)

Hench – Revenge is Best Served With Excel Spreadsheets

I don’t do many rereads, but when I saw the audiobook for Hench was available without a wait time, I couldn’t resist checking it out. Villain, the sequel, releases later this year, and I will definitely be putting it on my reading list. I think I’m a little more hesitant about some of the thematic work in Hench than I was during my first read, but this is a rock solid revenge story that stands out in a cluttered Superhero landscape.

The Premise
Anna is a Hench, but really she just does data entry and analysis. When her first time working in the field goes wrong though, she finds herself with a terrible injury, a grudge against the world’s most powerful superhero, and a desire to start revealing the great harm that ‘heroes’ do to society. She tumbles down a rabbit hole that gives her with the resources to turn her from a minor supporter for villains into a person feared and despised by ever super in the world.

Read If: clever characters work for you, unreliable narrators are a plus, you think iguanas deserve only the best

Avoid If: you dislike critiques of policing, body horror makes you squeamish, you demand nuanced and thorough themes

Comparable Media: The Boys, Watchmen, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

Beyond Redemption – Addictive and Epic Grimdark

Historically, Grimdark hasn’t really been my speed. Plenty of books I’ve enjoyed, but the hopelessness and gore kept me from picking up the sequels. Beyond Redemption has convinced me that, as with my Horror journey – I might not dislike Grimdark as much as I thought. Certainly it’s reminded me that I need to read more by Fletcher, because I adored The Storm Beneath the World. Beyond Redemption is quick moving, intense, and dark without going too far. The mix won’t be right for everyone, but it worked for me.

The Premise:
Belief defines reality, which makes the delusional very dangerous indeed. This book follows two main groups within this world: a theocratic ruler with manipulation powers trying to build himself a god, and a trio of criminals who (eventually) get it into their head to kidnap the little boy being groomed to become god. You’ve got gruff veteran soldiers with more scarred skin than smooth, a man turning himself into the greatest swordsman in the world, scientists who try to bring about delusionists with torture, doppelganger trying to take the place of their creator, and a pyromaniac who can light a city ablaze with a thought.

Read If You: like an innovative premise executed to its fullest potential, don’t mind a little backstabbing or cannibalism, enjoy dry humor that doesn’t overdo itself

Avoid If You: want heroics, characters who have their shit together, positive representation of … pretty much anything.

Comparable Media: The Storm Beneath the World, First Law, Angels Before Man

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

As I continue exploring whether or not horror is the genre for me, Stephen Graham Jones has flitted in and out of my orbit. I had mixed feelings about Mapping the Interior, but Buffalo Hunter Hunter not only had glowing reviews, but also has one of my favorite covers of all time. There’s a lot to love here, but I found myself wishing it were a lot shorter than its actual length. Mixed feelings overall, but Stephen Graham Jones is definitely an author I want to read more of, because the parts of this book that worked really worked.

The Premise:
This is a story within a story within a story. A PHD student studies the journal of her great, great, great grandfather, hoping to convert its contents into a tenure track position (note: this gets the least screentime). Said man is a Lutheran priest in Montana in the 1900s who is visited by a mysterious Blackfoot stranger. This man tells his own life story over the course of several conversations. He is something akin to a vampire, telling the story of how he got his powers and how he began to use them. The tone shifts into something more and more sinister as the tale continues.

Read if: you like epistolary horror and framing narratives, enjoy framing narratives and/or epistolary formats, don’t care if the dog dies

Avoid if: you prefer books that get to the point right away, want traditional vampire representation, have an aversion to graphic depictions of violence – including historical events

Comparable Works: The Route of Ice and Salt, The Black Hunger, The Woods all Black

The War Arts Saga

This is a series that I find myself recommending a lot recently. Epic Fantasy meets Wuxia featuring steampunk Mongols is a really attention grabbing hook, and the series lives up to that promise admirably. I finally got around to finishing book 3 (somehow despite reading more than ever I find myself reading precious few sequels), so figured I’d do a write up for the entire trilogy. I left the series with mixed feelings, but definitely enjoyed the ride.

Read if Looking For: protagonists of many skill levels & ages, beautifully written fight scenes, chosen one subversions, grumpy mentors, sassy assassins

Avoid if Looking For: series that end as strong as they start, zero to hero storylines, clear good vs evil plotlines