Review: Walking To Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Walking to Adebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publication Date: May 28, 2019


Walking to Aldebaran is a stand-alone novella starring astronaut Gary Rendell, a member of an international expedition team sent to explore an alien artifact that suddenly appeared out beyond Pluto. We follow Gary as he wanders the halls and corridors of the artifact (which he calls the Crypts), intermixed with flashbacks to the strange events that led him there. To say any more about the plot . . . well, that'd be a pretty honking big spoiler.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of those incredibly prolific writers who somehow manages to be incapable of writing a bad book. I've long thought of him as the male Seanan McGuire, and this installment just reinforces that impression. His prose sucks you in, and when you're finished, you flip around to find the next installment (and get kind of cranky when there isn't one!) I really loved the overall aura of the setting: it comes across as this sort of bizarre hiking story---like being on some Lovecraftian version of the Appalachian Trail, with fellow hikers you do and definitely *don't* want to meet.

And let's just say, it's definitely the sort of book you'll want to re-read.

Highly recommended.

A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes

Seven Blades in Black (The Grave of Empires #1) by Sam Sykes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publication Date: April 9, 2019


Sal the Cacophony--bounty hunter, former mage, and wielder of the damned gun Cacophony--has been captured by the forces of the magic-less Revolution, scheduled to be executed before a cheering crowd. Playing Scheherazade to her executioner, she gives us the tale of how she came to be imprisoned: a hunt for seven rebel mages who did her a terrible wrong.

What that wrong is, she doesn't say until well past the halfway mark. Which is odd, because the story description straight-up announces it. (And because if Sal is a Vagrant, and Vagrants are rebel mages, and Sal doesn't seem to have any magic aside from the Cacophony, then it isn't hard to do the math.)

There's a really fun story in here, with some genuinely witty writing. The problem is that it's buried beneath at least a couple hundred pages of needless bloat. This leads to some pretty severe pacing problems, and a book that was far more of a slog than it should have been. Add in the plot twists that any reader who's paying attention should see coming from a mile away, and this was a pretty unsatisfying read.

A huge thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!