Review

Quick Review: GOOD COMPANY by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (Ecco)

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SweeneyCD-GoodCompanyUSA novel about friendship, marriage, and managing the challenges life presents

Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than twenty years. But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage, and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband’s wedding ring — the one he claimed he lost one summer when their daughter, Ruby, was five.

Flora and Julian struggled for years, scraping together just enough acting work to raise Ruby in Manhattan and keep Julian’s small theater company — Good Company — afloat. A move to Los Angeles brought their first real career successes, a chance to breathe easier, and a reunion with Margot, now a bona fide television star. But has their new life been built on lies? What happened that summer all those years ago? And what happens now?

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s The Nest was one of the best novels I read in 2016, so I’ve been looking forward to reading the author’s follow-up ever since. I was lucky enough to get a DRC of Good Company, and I’m very pleased to report that it lived up to my high expectations. A novel about family, friendship, secrets, and life in general. I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Quick Review: THE ALBUM OF DR. MOREAU by Daryl Gregory (Tor.com)

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GregoryD-AlbumOfDrMoreauA fantastic science fictional twist on detective fiction and pop culture

It’s 2001, and the WyldBoyZ are the world’s hottest boy band, and definitely the world’s only genetically engineered human-animal hybrid vocal group. When their producer, Dr. M, is found murdered in his hotel room, the “boyz” become the prime suspects. Was it Bobby the ocelot (“the cute one”), Matt the megabat (“the funny one”), Tim the Pangolin (“the shy one”), Devin the bonobo (“the romantic one”), or Tusk the elephant (“the smart one”)?

Las Vegas Detective Luce Delgado has only twenty-four hours to solve a case that goes all the way back to the secret science barge where the WyldBoyZ’ journey first began — a place they used to call home.

It feels like a long time since I last read something by Gregory. I’ve enjoyed his work ever since I read Afterparty. He has a great writing and storytelling style. This new novella is a fantastic read: an intriguing, inventive science-fiction twist on detective fiction and pop culture. I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Quick Review: THE NOWHERE MAN by Gregg Hurwitz (St. Martin’s Press)

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hurwitzg-2-nowheremanusEvan Smoak returns, but this time he’s the one who needs help…

Who is THE NOWHERE MAN?

He is spoken about only in whispers. He comes to those in greatest need of his protection. There is no enemy he cannot fight. He lives by his own code. He takes no prisoners. His name is Evan Smoak.

Taken from a group home when he was young, Evan was raised and trained as an Orphan, an off-the-books black box program designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence asset: An assassin. Evan was Orphan X — until he used everything he’d learned to disappear and reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man.

But now, his new life has been interrupted by a surprise attack from an unlikely source. Captured, drugged, and spirited off to a remote location, Evan finds himself heavily guarded from everything he knows. His captors think they have him trapped and helpless in a virtual cage, but they do not know that they’re dealing with one of the deadliest, most resourceful men on earth.

Introduced in Orphan X, noble avenger of the downtrodden and persecuted Evan Smoak returns in The Nowhere Man. This time, he’s forced to employ all of his skills and wits to escape from the grips of a psychopathic thief. A gripping action/thriller, I enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Quick Review: CITY OF LIGHT by Darius Hinks (Black Library)

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HinksD-Mephiston3-CityOfLightThe concluding volume in Hinks’s Mephiston trilogy

Deep in Imperium Nihilus, Blood Angels Chief Librarian Mephiston and his comrades are drawn into battle with a cabal of Thousand Sons sorcerers – with worlds at stake and hidden truths threatening to overwhelm him, this is Mephiston’s darkest hour…

Having fought during the devastation of Baal, Mephiston and a cohort of Blood Angels are drawn by cryptic visions to a war-torn world on the cusp of the Great Rift. Here, the sorcerers of the Thousand Sons seek to unite nine Silver Towers and bring about a ritual that will empower their master, the daemon-primarch Magnus. The ritual must be prevented, lest the entire sub-sector be cast into Chaos. Mephiston faces a challenge like no other, of his strength and his will, confronting a hidden truth that threatens to expose him to his darkest fears.

City of Light brings Darius Hinks’s excellent Mephiston trilogy to a close. The series has been woven around the ongoing events in the WH40k story, pairing nicely with Guy Haley’s Blood Angels novels, which feature some of the same characters. Picking up the story shortly after the events of Haley’s Darkness in the Blood, the titular hero sets out to thwart a dire threat looming over Imperium Nihilus. It’s an enjoyable, action-packed novel. Continue reading →

Quick Review: ONE DAY ALL THIS WILL BE YOURS by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Solaris)

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Tchaikovsky-OneDayAllThisWillBeYoursA fantastic, amusing and original take on the time travel paradox

Welcome to the end of time. It’s a perfect day.

Nobody remembers how the Causality War started. Really, there’s no-one to remember, and nothing for them to remember if there were; that’s sort of the point. We were time warriors, and we broke time.

I was the one who ended it. Ended the fighting, tidied up the damage as much as I could.

Then I came here, to the end of it all, and gave myself a mission: to never let it happen again.

This is the third of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s novellas that Solaris will publish, and I think it’s easily the best so far. An original and often amusing take on time travel and humanity’s tendency to inevitably ruin everything, I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Very Quick Review: CREATIVE TYPES AND OTHER STORIES by Tom Bissell (Pantheon)

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BissellT-CreativeTypesUSAn intriguing, varied collection of short fiction

A young and ingratiating assistant to a movie star makes a blunder that puts his boss and a major studio at grave risk. A long-married couple hires an escort for a threesome in order to rejuvenate their relationship. An assistant at a prestigious literary journal reconnects with a middle school frenemy and finds that his carefully constructed world of refinement cannot protect him from his past. A Bush administration lawyer wakes up on an abandoned airplane, trapped in a nightmare of his own making.

In these and other stories, Tom Bissell vividly renders the complex worlds of characters on the brink of artistic and personal crises — writers, video-game developers, actors, and other creative types who see things slightly differently from the rest of us. With its surreal, poignant, and sometimes squirm-inducing stories, Creative Types is a brilliant new offering from one the most versatile and talented writers working in America today.

I’d only read Bissell’s non-fiction before I gave Creative Types and Other Stories a try — specifically, The Disaster Artist and Magic Hours. With hindsight, the latter should have given me an idea of what to expect from this very good collection of stories (there’s some subject overlap). Each story is a snapshot in a character’s life, as they are forced to confront their current situations and question what they want, and even who they are. Continue reading →

Quick Review: THE BIG THREE by Michael Holley (Hachette)

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HolleyM-BigThreeUSHow three of the NBA’s best players dominated the league and lead the Boston Celtics to their first championship in more than two decades

The first of “The Big Three” was Paul Pierce. As Boston Celtics fans watched the team retire Pierce’s jersey in a ceremony on February 11, 2018, they remembered again the incredible performances Pierce put on in the city for fifteen years, helping the Celtics escape the bottom of their conference to become champions and perennial championship contenders. But Pierce’s time in the city wasn’t always so smooth. In 2000, he was stabbed in a downtown nightclub eleven times in a seemingly random attack. Six years later, remaining the sole star on a struggling team, he asked to be traded and briefly became a lightning rod among fans.

Then, in 2007, the Boston Celtics General Manager made two monumental trades, bringing Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to Boston. A press conference on July 31, 2007 was a sight to behold: Pierce, KG, and Ray Allen holding up Celtics jerseys for the flood of media. Coach Doc Rivers made sure the team bonded over the thought of winning a title and living by a Bantu term called Ubuntu, which translates as “I am because we are.” Rivers wanted to make it clear that togetherness and brotherhood would help them maximize their talent and win. What came next — the synthesis of the Celtics’ “Big Three” and their dominant championship run — cemented their standing as one of great teams in NBA history, a rival to Kobe Bryant’s Lakers and LeBron James’s Cavaliers.

The story of the 2007-9 Celtics has popped up in a couple of NBA books that I’ve read recently, and thought I wanted to learn some more — more than I could learn from the internet, certainly. I saw that this book was on the way, and was lucky to receive a review copy. It’s a well-written and balanced story, told with authority and also affection — for the team, the players, and the sport. I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Quick Review: SMOKE by Joe Ide (Mulholland/W&N)

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IdeJ-IQ5-SmokeUSIsaiah Quintabe & Co. return, with more personal challenges and some sinister characters circling their lives…

Both Isaiah Quintabe – an unlicensed detective for all seasons – and his best friend and masterful sidekick, Juanell Dodson, are at a crossroads. This time, their lives may never be the same.

Isaiah is no longer IQ, the genius of East Long Beach; instead he’s a man on the road and on the run, hiding in a small Northern California town when his room is broken into by a desperate young man on the trail of the state’s most prolific serial killer.

Dodson must go straight or lose his wife and child. His devil’s bargain is an internship at an LA advertising agency, where it turns out the rules of the street have simply been dressed in business casual, but where the aging company’s fortunes may well rest on their ability to attract a younger demographic. Dodson – “the hustler’s hustler” – just may be the right man for the job.

Isaiah Quintabe returns! Smoke is the fifth novel in the series, and sees our protagonist and his growing supporting cast going through a number of changes and overcoming a series of challenges. A slightly different novel to the previous books in the series, I enjoyed it. Continue reading →

Quick Review: DARKNESS IN THE BLOOD by Guy Haley (Black Library)

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HaleyG-WH40k-BA3-DarknessInTheBloodDante settles into his role as Imperial Regent, while Mephiston’s powers threaten to overtake him… and everyone else

The galaxy is in flames. Chaos is in the ascendant across the stars. The Great Rift has split the holdings of the Imperium in twain, isolating entire sectors from the light of Holy Terra.

But all hope is not lost. The Primarch Roboute Guilliman has returned from deathless sleep, and appointed Commander Dante, lord of the Blood Angels, as Regent and Warden of the newly dubbed Imperium Nihilus.

In the Baal system, the shattered holding of the Chapter is being rebuilt, and Dante plans the greatest campaign of his long life, to retake half an empire. And yet at this moment of rebirth there are dangers close to home that could overwhelm all those who carry the blood of Sanguinius in their veins, stopping Dante’s noble endeavour before it has even begun.

The Flaw in Sanguinius’ sons is growing. As the twin curses of the Red Thirst and the Black Rage threaten everything, the hardest ordeal will fall upon Mephiston, twice-born Lord of Death and Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels. Among the mighty lords of Baal, perhaps only he can save them all, by mastering the darkness in the blood…

First released as a special edition, I’ve been looking forward to Darkness in the Blood for some time. Continuing the story of the Blood Angels begun in The Devastation of Baal and in Darius Hinks’s Mephiston trilogy, it presents an important piece in the puzzle that is the Angels’ place in the changed universe. With new allies, technology, and challenges, it has plenty of action as well as quieter moments that really add to our understanding of the Blood Angels and their heroes. I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Quick Review: FIREHEART TIGER by Aliette de Bodard (Tor.com)

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deBodard-FireheartTigersmEmpire, love, betrayal, and duty…

Fire burns bright and has a long memory….

Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she’s returned to her mother’s imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria’s royal palace.

Thanh’s new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh’s home. Eldris won’t take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions.

Can Thanh find the freedom to shape her country’s fate — and her own?

This latest novella by Aliette de Bodard is a moving, engaging tale of politics, love, divided loyalties, and betrayal. It has many of the hallmarks of a great de Bodard story, and I enjoyed it. Continue reading →