Review: The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publication Date: October 8, 2019


In an unknown country, in an unknown time period, there sits an isolated, pre-industrial village known only as 'the county', where the name of the game is "Patriarchy, Patriarchy, Dear God What The Hell Is This Maddening Super-Ultra-Mega-Patriarchy?". Women are either wives, servants, or whores---but more often than anything they're corpses, seized and dismembered for the 'magic' that supposedly resides within their flesh, or sent to the gallows on paper-thin pretexts by the men closest to them. Before being forced into marriage or servitude, the village girls are sent off to spend a year---the titular "grace year"---in some unknown place in the wilderness. Not all of them will return. And those that do return, likely won't return whole.

THE GRACE YEAR is one of those books that hooks you on the first page, then drags you, kicking and screaming, through an obstacle course made of flensing knives and over a finish line set atop a briar patch. It's ostensibly YA, but vicious enough to get bumped up into the adult category. (Like many YA books, in my experience.)

What I loved: the writing, the psychological drama, the author's beautifully-done analysis of institutional sexism and her refusal to fall into the "all men are evil and all women are brainwashed" tropes I feared when I started reading. One thing I really liked is how a certain plot twist that I fully expected to occur (trying not to spoil too badly here) with the 'poachers' ended up never occurring; the control system the 'county' has instituted reaches far and reaches deep, and sometimes stories told to frighten people end up not being exaggerations at all.

What I didn't love: our heroine is oddly subservient to a particular character (as are other characters) despite there being certain reasons this makes no sense. Also, a romance occurs that I thought needed a bit more time to develop than it actually got (though overall I thought it was well-done).

Overall, I thought this was beautifully done.

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

Review: Turning Darkness Into Light by Marie Brennan

Turning Darkness Into Light by Marie Brennan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publication Date: August 20, 2019


A standalone sequel to the MEMOIRS OF LADY TRENT quintet, TURNING DARKNESS INTO LIGHT is reliant on its predecessors to, if not make sense---I think there's enough info for even a newbie to understand the gist of what's going on, if not necessarily care about it too deeply---then to give the reader some reason to read on. The first half was oddly dry, and though the story picked up in the second half, I didn't think it did so well enough to bump this up any higher than three stars.

The plot follows Isabella's twentysomething granddaughter Audrey`as she translates an ancient Draconean epic amidst much Scirland-based skullduggery. The story lacks the globe-trotting adventurism of its predecessors, but never really manages to replace that with anything equally interesting. (I almost wrote that the author squelched the mannerpunk elements, except that isn't strictly true; they're probably stronger here than in any book since A NATURAL HISTORY OF DRAGONS, it's just that Audrey cares so much less---and is bound so much less---than Isabella that they just feel absent.)

The author's choice to construct this as an epistolary novel just added to the dryness, I thought, as did her choice to write out *the entire Draconean epic*, along with the translators' notes, neither of which were really interesting enough (even to a devoted reader of the previous novels!) that I thought they really needed to be written out in full. Yes, there is a mystery involved . . . but at some point, it all started feeling like bloat.

I really, really enjoyed the characters, though I think I would've preferred to see them interacting with and in some different plot. (Also, this book made me wish for Jacob's seafaring adventures to get their time in the sun.) Cora, especially, was well-done, and the complexities of the Audrey/Mornett situation had a great deal of potential. But again, I felt the epistolary format sapped the character interactions of much of their vigor.

This is one of those novels that I think would've worked much better as a novella. Readers who haven't yet read the Lady Trent novels should absolutely start there, especially as this book contains a number of huge spoilers. Readers who haven't read the earlier works will, I think, have some difficulty getting through this one.

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

Review: Howling Dark by Christopher Ruocchio

Howling Dark (Sun Eater #2) by Christopher Ruocchio
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publication Date: July 16, 2019


When EMPIRE OF SILENCE was first released, I read many reviews comparing it (favorably and unfavorably) to THE NAME OF THE WIND. And it occurred to me, after I sat down and actually read through it, what a hideously unfair comparison that was. How that sets the reader up for disappointment, and what a disservice that does to the author. Because a major reason THE NAME OF THE WIND is so popular is that it allows readers to live vicariously through Kvothe, to experience his many victories as if they were our own. Kvothe wins, you see; many battles, if not necessarily (or does he?) the war. And he racks up wins immediately, or near enough to make no difference. The story overflows with tidbits showing him outwitting his enemies, manipulating the world to his benefit, and such and sundry. And since Kvothe is a born genius/polymath, it's like that from the very beginning.

EMPIRE OF SILENCE, in contrast, was not a book dedicated to watching Hadrian outwit, outplay, or outfight the universe; it was a book, I thought, dedicated to dragging him through the mud. And every time you thought he was going to pull himself out of the mud, he just got hammered further and further down. It got to the point where I was forcing myself to keep reading, not because it was bad---it's an excellent book---but just because I as a reader was feeling Hadrian's pain, and it was hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel when Hadrian himself was constantly prophesying even greater failures to come. (It didn't help that this book is extremely lengthy, so the reader spends a lot of time watching Hadrian get kicked around. Yes, there's the idea of dragging someone down so you can build them back up . . . but Hadrian spends A LOT of time being dragged down. And the "picking himself up" part(s) seem much shorter than the others, and less frequent.)

Much of that dynamic continues into THE HOWLING DARK, if not always at the same . . . intensity? In the sense that Hadrian's "I am the hero in a fairy tale and Reality's just gonna have to deal with it" mentality continues, and though he wins out over Reality rather more here than he did in EMPIRE OF SILENCE, he's still not at Kvothe/Harry Dresden/Paul Atreides/etc. levels. (Though the ending gives reason to believe Book 3 will upend that, at least partially, in Hadrian's favor.)

We open with a time jump, passing over the early years of the Meidua Red Company's time as mercenaries and picking up after they overthrow a dictator and pick up some new recruits (an incident that seems important enough in-story that I actually looked to see if there was a bridging novella I'd missed). The quest for Vorgossos, and a peace we know will never come, monopolizes THE HOWLING DARK; I'll say little about how it plays out, but know that while it is definitely a slow burn, it is never, ever a boring one. By the end, we get a clearer sense of the board our game is played upon, and (possibly?) more about what sort of game is actually being played. To say nothing of what pieces are really in play.

One thing I love about this series is how deeply it plays with the notion of the devil and all accompanying facets. Hadrian's prose style is melodic---but never forget that, as Milton showed us, Satan is Creation's most eloquent child. Hadrian Marlowe's Lucifer connotations were clear to see in EMPIRE OF SILENCE, if somewhat underplayed thematically, but the comparison really gets jacked up to eleven in THE HOWLING DARK, and looks to go further still in future books. Free will is the name of the game, as are treachery and temptation, and Hadrian's role in all of these is crystal-clear as muck. (As an aside, I think the series would've been better served if it had played up the Lucifer/Devil themes of the narrative, marketing-wise, rather than comparing this to DUNE or THE NAME OF THE WIND or some other book that hits completely different character and story rhythms.)

One aspect I really adored, worldbuilding-wise, was the Luciferian tie-in with America. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to mention that the "Mericanii" play a role here (though I won't specify how), which makes sense: of all the nations of Earth, who has more in common with the beautiful, charming, tempting, "better to rule in hell than serve in heaven" Bringer of Light than America herself? There's something so delicious about how Ruocchio transmits the common elements of my culture into Luciferian horror, and even beyond, to something explicitly eldritch. (To say nothing of certain . . . other . . . cosmic horror elements. I just love cosmic horror. Space opera without cosmic horror is like tea without sugar.)

If books were food, THE HOWLING DARK would be Death By Chocolate: rich, decadent, inviting . . . but something it takes rather a long time to consume. I expected to have this review up a month ago at the latest, but I'd spend hours absorbed in the story, only to look up and find I'd only made it fifty pages. So pick this up, but be prepared to sink into the quicksand of the story; don't expect a quick race to the end.

Highly recommended, and I'm really looking forward to Book 3.

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