Author: Taking One Step at a Time

I am a 55-year-old woman, married for 30 years, with a 23-year-old son.  I am a liberal who disagrees with many people in my town, state, country and world, and I am using the forum of this blog to express my own views and, with luck, gain some support for them.  And, I review books I read and discuss other things that aren't nearly as serious. I've been extraordinarily blessed in my life, in so many different ways, and I want to extend those blessings to other people. God Bless and Blessed Be!

Review – Legends & Lattes

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Legends & Lattes is described as a “high fantasy with low stakes.” I would describe it as a coffee shop AU set in a D&D world. It has been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel of 2023.

Viv is an orc adventurer who has a dream: to quit fighting and open her own coffee shop. She, and her party, had fought a monster called a Scalvert Queen; the only part of the treasure she wanted was the stone from its head; she left the rest of the treasure (quite a rich haul) to her party. She then took the scalvert stone, which is supposed to attract good luck, and the research to find the best place to use it, and quits to open her coffee shop.

This, incidentally, is all set up in the prologue. The rest of the book follows her quest to open, run, and keep running the coffee shop, which is eventually named Legends & Lattes. The “low stakes” of the description is that this isn’t a story about sword fights and battle magics; it’s a story about owning a small business. “Low stakes” to everyone but the small business owner. Throughout the story, Viv meets a diverse cast of characters, most of whom want her to succeed.

The villains of the book are those who are trying to prevent Viv from succeeding in her dream: the organized crime group who wants protection money, the former party member who feels he should have been given a piece of the action, and the complete lack of knowledge of coffee.

This is a delightful book that I enjoyed reading and, although I would call it a little slight to be “worthy” of both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, I’d not be unhappy if it won either. (It hasn’t won the Nebula; the Hugo is still in the future.)

Baldree, Travis. Legends & Lattes. New York, New York: Tor Books, 2022. 61,349 words. 5 stars.

Review – Magic for Nothing

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Magic for Nothing is the sixth book in Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series. The series follows a family of cryptozoologists; each one follows one specific member of the family. The first two, and the fifth, follow middle child Verity Price, and the third and fourth follow oldest child, and only son, Alex Price. This follows youngest child, Antimony “Annie” Price.

I will admit right here that, so far, Annie is my least favorite of the Price siblings. This may be because, as an eldest child myself, I sympathize more with the older siblings than with Annie. I find her whiny and complaining because her older sister wants to have a live in addition to the cryptozoology. I really like Verity, so Annie’s antipathy grates on me.

After Verity outs herself as a Price, and defies the Covenant of St. George, the Price family’s nemesis, on national television, Annie is asked to go to London, infiltrate the Covenant, and find out what’s going on. Complaining about Verity’s actions the whole way, she does so. I don’t want to spoil the plot, so I won’t go further into it, except to say that undercover and spy tropes abound.

This is my least favorite of the series so far, in large part because Annie annoys me, but it’s a solid entry in the series and well-worth the read.

McGuire, Seanan. Magic for Nothing. New York, New York: DAW Books, 2017. 117,367 words. 4 stars.

Review – The Kaiju Preservation Society

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The Kaiju Preservation Society is a stand-alone science fiction novel that is a Hugo finalist for 2023. This is not the “serious” novel in that list; Scalzi himself describes it as a “pop song” of a novel. Which it is, a delightful one, that has some serious things to say about capitalism and a look at how the COVID-19 pandemic had many of us feeling while we were under lockdown. The novel is set in 2020 into 2021.

The novel is science fiction in the loosest of terms: it uses science to “explain” how the biosystem on the alternate Earth they are on works, and the science is genuine, but I suspect that an actual biologist would disagree with the explanations given. It doesn’t actually matter; the science is there to explain how a kaiju, or Godzilla-like creature, would exist. The fun of the story is not the science, it’s the situation and the people.

As is typical for a Scalzi novel, the cast of characters is diverse: The characters come from all different backgrounds, multiple genders (yes, at least one is non-binary), and probably sexual orientation. As is not uncommon with a Scalzi novel, sex isn’t a high priority of the story, and I don’t remember any pairings being mentioned, so sexual orientation isn’t important. The main character, Jamie Gray, is probably male, but I don’t actually remember it ever being specifically mentioned; this is another common Scalzi feature. The villain of the story is at the apex of privilege: a rich, cis het WASP male dudebro, and every bit as unpleasant as that sounds.

This was likely nominated for the Hugo since it is a lot of fun and very much a pandemic novel; it isn’t a work of “artistic merit”. It has also been nominated for the Dragon Award for best SF novel and won the Locus Award for best SF novel. However, in looking over the nominees, most of the ones I’ve already read fit into this category, and most of the others likely do as well. This isn’t my top choice, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it won, and it wouldn’t bother me one bit. I highly recommend it.

Scalzi, John. The Kaiju Preservation Society. New York, New York: Tor Books, 2022. 79,821 words. 5 stars.

Review – Provenance

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Provenance is a stand-alone novel, set in the same universe as Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy. The first time I read it, I hadn’t read the original trilogy and I had no problem following the story. Reading it after reading the trilogy does give some richness to the interstellar politics.

The novel follows Ingray Aughskold’s (limited third-person) viewpoint as she works to advance her goals, the most important of which is gaining her mother’s approval and remaining within her family. The novel’s plot is fast-moving and keeps the pages turning; I never felt the need to put it down, although I didn’t read it in one sitting. The characters each have their own motives and frequently surprise while never becoming out of character.

Although the plot is of political intrigue, and there is a significant discussion of how politics can affect criminal justice, the novel isn’t really about politics. It is about a young person’s discovery and decision about who they are and how that affects who they are within their family. Throughout the book, there are multiple parent/child relationships with this dynamic playing out, to both positive and negative effects.

This was a reread for me; I read it the first time about five years ago, when it first came out. I didn’t remember much of the plot, although I did remember one of the main plot “twists”. What I did remember is that I enjoyed it the first time I read it, and I may have enjoyed it more the second time around. I highly recommend it.

Provenance was nominated for a Hugo award, a British SF Association award, and a Locus SF award, although it didn’t win any of them.

Leckie, Ann. Provenance. New York, New York: Orbit, 2017. 108,438 words. 5 stars.

April Bibliography

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We moved this month, so I haven’t had the mental bandwidth to read anything that actually requires thought for much of this month. Mostly, it’s been short stories and articles. However, I strongly recommend that you read the latest Murderbot novella (after you read the earlier entries in this series, of course.) I love Murderbot, and the latest outing has it in full form and acting as the primary detective in a murder mystery. (Expect to see more on next month’s list as I’ll be rereading them.)

Aguda, ‘Pemi. “Masquerade Season,” Tor.com, March 24, 2021, https://www.tor.com/2021/03/24/masquerade-season-pemi-aguda/. 3 stars

Headley, Maria Dahvana. The Girlfriend’s Guide to the Gods. Tor.com, February 19, 2020. 5 stars

Kowal, Mary Robinette. “We Interrupt This Broadcast,” Mary Robinette Kowal, February 8, 2014, http://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/45th-birthday-short-story-party-favour/. 4 stars

Kritzer, Naomi. Little Free Library. Tor.com, April 8, 2020. 4 stars

Scalzi, John. “The Origin of the Flow,” Whatever, November 2, 2019, https://whatever.scalzi.com/2019/11/02/and-now-a-new-short-story-the-origin-of-the-flow/. 3 stars

scifigrl47. “A Grand Day Out,” Archive of Our Own, April 17, 2021, https://archiveofourown.org/works/30725519. 4 stars

Swanwick, Michael. “Annie Without Crow,” Tor.com, April 7, 2021, https://www.tor.com/2021/04/07/annie-without-crow-michael-swanwick/. 5 stars

TheResurrectionist. “hit ‘em up style,” Archive of Our Own, January 2, 2021, https://archiveofourown.org/works/28510488. 5 stars

Wells, Martha. “Compulsory,” Wired, December 17, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/future-of-work-compulsory-martha-wells/. 4 stars

Wells, Martha. Fugitive Telemetry. Tor.com, April 27, 2021. 5 stars

Wilde, Fran. An Explorer’s Cartography of Already Settled Lands. Tor.com, April 22, 2020. 3 stars

Wrenwood, Claire. “Flight,” Tor.com, August 19, 2020, https://www.tor.com/2020/08/19/flight-claire-wrenwood/. 3 stars

Review: Carpe Glitter by Cat Rambo

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Cat Rambo won the Nebula award in 2020 for her novelette Carpe Glitter, and it deserves the award.

It’s a look at the granddaughter of a stage magician, going through her grandmother’s home after her death, and dealing with all the detritus that is saved through a life.  This isn’t a fun process; I’ve done it now twice, and at least I didn’t have to do it alone.  What to keep, what to sell, what to donate, and what to throw away is a wrenching ordeal.  Although she has to do it on her own, the protagonist does have to handle her mother’s opinions on her decisions.

In the process of going through everything, the protagonist discovers the answers to multiple family mysteries.  She gains some family, loses some more, discovers a ghost and a mechanical man.

The novelette is closer to horror than I usually read and enjoy, but I did enjoy this story and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a quick, spooky read.

Rambo, Cat. Carpe Glitter. (Meerkat Press, October 29, 2019.) 62 pages. 4 stars.

Review: Give the Family My Love by A. T. Greenblatt

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I don’t usually review short stories because I don’t generally have much to say about them beyond, “I liked this!”, “Eh,” or “Yuck!” Which doesn’t tell you much about the story except whether or not I enjoyed it. However, I set myself the task this year of reviewing all award-winners (except those that I won’t read because they’re YA, or horror, or just “can’t push myself through it”.)

“Give the Family My Love” won the Nebula for Best Short Story of 2019 and it is a worthy example of a science fiction short story. Set in the not-too-distant future, the story is several letters written by Hazel to her brother Sam. The current ecological issues have escalated to actual disasters, but the alien race that has recently showed up have given us the ability to go through their archives to try to correct those issues. They will transport a representative, but that representative has to make it through a kilometer of unforgiving, unlivable landscape to get there.

The story isn’t really about the search for solutions, though. It’s about family, the decision and problems with deciding to become a parent, the relationship between siblings, and what people will do to support their families. The title is repeated throughout the story, meaning something a little different every time, but always centering around family and love.

Go read it. It’s delightful.

Greenblatt, A. T. “Give the Family My Love.” (Clarkesworld, February 2019.) 28 pages. 5 stars.

Review: Lent by Jo Walton

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For the first (almost) half of the book, this is a slightly fantastical biography of the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola from 1492 to 1498, including the Bonfire of Vanities. The first thing to address in discussing this book is Savonarola himself. Knowing about the man only from superficial study of the Italian Renaissance, and fictional portrayals of him as an antagonist in The Palace by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, I had a very negative image of the man. In making him her main character, Walton makes him both much more sympathetic and more complex: arrogant but not narcissistic, devout but not rigid. I found myself surprised to be rooting for him to create his City of God, and to fall forward at his death.

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WARNING: From here on, there will be spoilers. I know no other way of discussing this wonderful, complicated book, and the best part starts in Part Two, about halfway through. However, please read the book before the spoilers, because it’s delightful and what Walton is doing is wonderful and you should experience it properly the first time through.

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Through Part One, this book reads like a fictional biography with fantastical elements. Savonarola performs multiple exorcisms throughout the book and we see the demons that he casts out, and he and other characters are able to prophesy about the future. In both cases, talent and training make a difference in the outcomes, but that they exist and are real are unquestioned. As Part Two begins, we discover that Savonarola, a demonstrably good man, at least as depicted by Walton, is actually a demon, one of God’s fallen angels, who now is in Hell. This, needless to say, was quite a shock, but Walton did a good job of explaining any apparent contradictions. At first, it seemed that the rest of the book would be set in Hell, with a quest toward God for Savonarola to undergo.

And then, Part Three begins, and Walton surprises the reader yet again. We discover that Savonarola is caught in a time loop. It’s alluded to in Part Two, but this is the real setting of the book: a time loop that runs from April 3, 1492 to May 23, 1498, over and over again. There is a green stone that Savonarola and his companions believe is the Holy Grail; after the first go-round, as soon as he touches it, he remembers everything. At this point, Savonarola understands that he’s stuck in a loop, he wants to break the loop, and he hopes to wind up in Purgatory or Heaven, but he has no idea how to break it. So, just as Phil Connors does in Groundhog Day, he tries different things on every loop. Unlike Connors, he rejects any option that is clearly evil or even overindulgent, but the second half of the book describes his attempts to break free, from living as a simple man, with a print shop and a wife and children, to becoming Pope. In some lives he travels, in others he stays in Florence, but after every death, he is slammed back into Hell.

He has friends who do their best to help him, but it is spiritually tiring for Girolamo to explain what happened every time to them. There is a mercenary captain, Crookback (probably Richard III of England), who Savonarola meets in the second loop and recognizes as another demon. Crookback also recognizes the stone and demands that Savonarola give it to him. Although Crookback takes it in one life, in most Savonarola resists giving it to him. At the end of the book, realizing that cooperating with each other is so impossible in Hell that it can’t even be discussed, he decides to take a chance and gives the stone to Crookback. That understanding, that we need others to harrow Hell and truly seek Heaven, appears to work. The book ends with Savonarola finally dying falling forward like a good person, not on his back like an evil one.

I decided to reread this book, and write this review, in Lent this year, largely because of the title, but also because of its themes of sin, reconciliation, and redemption, its insistence that we can’t succeed in being good people alone, but only in community. It speaks to me especially now, as I am beginning a journey of confirmation into a new church, and living in the current political environment. Truly, a wonderful book!

Walton, Jo. Lent. New York, New York: Tor Books, 2019 (May 28). 369 pages. 5 stars.

Review: The Ultimate Quest: A Geek’s Guide to (The Episcopal) Church by Jordan Haynie Ware

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I am currently going through the process of becoming confirmed in the Episcopal Church, so I’m reading a lot about it. This won’t be the only “Introduction to the Episcopal Church” I’ll be reading over the next year and a half, but it may be the funniest, the most entertaining, and, quite frankly, the easiest to read and find things in. Part of that, of course, is because I identify as both a geek and a nerd, so I got most of the author’s jokes and asides.

I’m about forty years older than the core audience for this book, but I’ll be keeping it just for the vocabulary. What’s the white thing that goes over the robes? What do they call the censor thingie? When am I supposed to cross myself? (That’s the one I probably have the most trouble with; since I’m not a cradle Episcopalian, I have no idea.) I enjoyed thinking of the vestments as cosplay and the General Convention as ComicCon. I went to the Diocesan Annual Convention for the first time this year. I think it’s easier to find your way around there than I’ve ever had any luck with at a sci-fi convention, and I went with old-timers who could show me around. Yay!!

From what I can tell, and I’ll be mentioning it to my priest at our next confirmation class, the doctrine it teaches is sound. Overall, this is a gentle introduction and welcome to a church that is ready to welcome you.

Ware, Jordan Haynie. The Ultimate Quest: A Geek’s Guide to (The Episcopal) Church. New York, New York: Church Publishing, 2017 (February 1). 176 pages. 5 stars.

Review: Sooner or Later Everything Falls Down to the Sea by Sarah Pinsker

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Reviewing a collection of short stories has been a hard thing to wrap my head around. Do I review each individual story? Do I just review the collection as a whole? Or do I do something in between? To those who know me, it won’t be surprising that my answer falls in the last group: something in between.

To begin with, this is a lovely collection to read through. I needed to take a bit of a break in the middle of it, but I enjoyed reading all of the stories. There are thirteen of them, including one that is published here for the first time, and there’s not a bad one in the bunch. There are several themes that she comes back to again and again, but I suspect from her biography that they are also the themes of her life. Music, both the writing and performing of it and traveling are two of the main ones, but the most important theme through her stories is that of the choices we make, the roads we have, and haven’t taken, and how to reconcile ourselves with all of those roads.

As for the stories themselves, I discovered that the two I enjoyed most were ones I’d already read: “Wind Will Rove,” and “And Then There Were (N-One).” This wasn’t a disappointment, since they were placed toward the end of the collection, so I read through the others first. In addition, both of her award-winning stories are present as well.

And so, the stories that made the most impression on me.

I enjoyed “Talking with Dead People,” mostly because I want to hear the What You Missed in History Class podcast about the concept, or about specific houses, or what have you. I was fascinated by the Nutshell Studies houses, which Pinsker references. In both cases, what stands out to me is the craft involved in making the houses, rather than the unsolved events.

Pinsker won the Theodore Sturgeon Award in 2014 for “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind.” It’s my third favorite in the book, and a lovely story of a long-time marriage. Here again, the story of an architect with his buildings and the magnificent treehouse he built with and for his children appeals to my crafty side. Also the way the craft and the art fit together with their marriage is a lovely image that I can see in my own.

I read “Wind Will Rove” when I was reading all of the nominees for the 2018 Hugo and Nebula Awards. This is my favorite of her stories, that I’ve read to date, and I was delighted to read it again. This one is about the choices artists make when they create art in all of its forms, the choices we make when we experience art, and the choices we make when we curate art. The conjunction of folk music, especially fiddle music, with a generation space ship, is one that speaks to my heart, and I can hear the wind calling me.

“Our Lady of the Open Road” won the Nebula Award for the Best Novelette in 2016. It’s gritty and grungy and true, even if the main character did leave me frustrated. But I’m not punk.

“The Narwhal” is published first in this collection and it was the main supporting character that I was frustrated with in this one. (For Heaven’s sake, Dahlia, everyone will be better off if you take time to stop, smell the roses, and let Lynette collect a couple of souvenirs.) The odd stop along the way, and what you learn about history, evokes a chill or two along the spine.

“And Then There Were (N-One)” is a story of a woman who has been invited to a convention all about her. Another her, from another universe (or timeline) has discovered how to travel between them and, as a proof of concept, set up this convention, this exploration into different choices, not necessarily her choices, and what happens later. The narrator is an insurance investigator, but there are scientists, musicians, writers, horse trainers, men, women, and other choices available. All to set up a lovely murder mystery with a Heinleinian feel.

All in all, I enjoyed this collection and I will be keeping an eye out for Pinsker’s subsequent works. Pick up this collection and enjoy.

Pinsker, Sarah. Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea. Easthampton, Massachusetts: Small Beer Press, 2019 (March 19). 288 pages. 4 stars. Buy here.