Although “Howl’s Moving Castle” is a real favourite of mine (the inspiration for the Studio Ghibli adaptation), I haven’t read much of her other work. At the 2022 Conflux, I was browsing through a little secondhand book stall in the convention market and the author’s name caught my eye. When I was looking for books to add to my Short Stack Reading Challenge, this one looked as good as any.
Photo is of “The Time of the Ghost” by Diana Wynne Jones. The paperback book is resting among a jumbled collection of paintbrushes, sheet music, used dishes, a soft toy and an egg. The cover is of a transparent young girl with dark hair among trees holding a soft toy doll with a chicken and candles in the foreground.
“The Time of the Ghost” by Diana Wynne Jones is a young adult fantasy novel about four sisters whose parents work at a boys’ boarding school in the English countryside. When a ghost arrives one day, it soon becomes clear that it’s the ghost of one of the sisters that has come back from the future; but which one? All the ghost knows is that there has been a terrible accident, and that it has something to do with a game they play worshipping a little doll. However, the sisters must work it out quickly to prevent the accident and save their sister’s life.
Although published in the early 1980s, this is a fresh novel that explores a range of issues from neglectful parents to family violence. Wynne Jones has a real flair for capturing the nuance of sisterly relationships, and these four sisters seemed as real as the sisters in “Howl’s Moving Castle”. There is a messiness to their lives that feels utterly human, and I really enjoyed the dance between the realistic and the fantastic in this book.
However, I didn’t feel like it was Wynne Jones’ most readable work. While the effect of the book was to create a realistic, imperfect family, there was a certain disorderliness to the plot that at times made reading the book a bit of a muddy experience. Maybe the book was trying to achieve a little too much, or maybe the plot was a little convoluted, but it just wasn’t that easy to get through.
A creative, insightful novel that struggled at times with pace.
Epic fantasy and science fiction graphic novel series
After quite a long hiatus, this series is back! If you haven’t read it before, my review of Volume 1 is here. I was quite excited to read it for my Short Stack Reading Challenge and ordered myself a copy to arrive just in time.
Photo is of “Saga Volume Ten” by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan. The paperback book is resting on a black cymbal among other parts of an electronic drum kit. The backdrop is a colourful artwork with digital elements. The cover is of a brown-skinned woman with blonde hair, a white man with koala ears and a bionic arm holding an axe, and an olive-skinned girl in a blue suit with horns.
“Saga Volume Ten” by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples is a comic book that picks up some years after the events of the previous volume. Narrator Hazel is now ten years old and is living on the treehouse spaceship with her mother Alana, adopted brother Squire and newcomer Bombazine. Eking out a living on the fringes, Alana hopes to “go legit” but when they cross paths with a pirate ship with two kids who shouldn’t exist, things absolutely do not go to plan.
This series is back with a vengeance and the decision to place it on hiatus was an excellent one. This volume felt fresh and re-energised with familiar old characters, fun new characters and high stakes. The book continues on with the familiar themes of war and identity, while more deeply examining the complex ideas of family, home and grief. The artwork is as dynamic as ever and the story flowed really well from page to page.
I think the only thing that annoyed me a bit was that despite ten years having passed since the events of Volume 1, Alana just hasn’t seemed to have aged at all. There is one point where she bares her breasts at the beginning of the book in protest about patriarchy and breastfeeding, and there is nary a droop nor a stretch-mark to be seen. Sure Alana may have a “perfect” body as the mother of a ten year old, but I felt like as a series purporting to outrage and challenge stereotypes, it could have been a good opportunity to show a bit of vulnerability and reality rather than simply sexualising Alana further. Bizarrely, when Alana consults a wolf-woman later in the book about cosmetic surgery, the wolf-woman has much more realistic breasts (notwithstanding that there are six of them).
Anyway, a fun addition to a long-running series that maybe isn’t as radical as it is trying to be.
This is the third book in the “Long Price Quartet“, and I am still making a big effort to tackle my to-read piles (plural intended). Although the individual books of this series are out of print, I did manage to find a copy at the Lifeline Bookfair.
Photo is of “An Autumn War” by Daniel Abraham. The paperback book is resting among yellow autumn leaves. The cover is of a city full of soldiers in an autumn palette.
“An Autumn War” by Daniel Abraham is a fantasy novel and the third book in the “Long Price Quartet” series. If you haven’t read this series, I recommend you go to my review of the first book in the series. The story is set 14 years after the events of the second book. Otah is now the reluctant ruler of the city of Machi, and Maati, his friend and trained poet, serves him and the city as master of Machi’s library. Machi and the other cities of the Khaiem have enjoyed generations of prosperity due to the andat: ideas made corporeal that are controlled by poets. However, the enemy nation of Galt is determined to destroy the andat and wage war against the Khaiem. Otah and Maati must find a way to protect their city and the ones they love.
After the politics-heavy storyline of the previous book in the series, this one is faster paced with higher stakes. I’ve been enjoying how the characters are ageing and both developing and settling into their ways. Otah and Maati’s deep yet complex friendship is further complicated by people from their shared past. The book explores ideas of love and fatherhood, and the desire for connection and legacy that accompanies it. I also really enjoyed that it wasn’t a simple interpretation of war, and how Abraham examines the economic inequality that underpinned the conflict between the two nations. I also felt like this book brought the magic of the andat back to the forefront of the story, pushing the concept to its limits.
A strong installment in the series and I’m looking forward to reading the finale.
Queer Imperial Chinese fantasy and sequel to “She Who Became the Sun”
I received a copy of this eBook courtesy of the publisher.
Image is of “He Who Drowned the World” by Shelley Parker-Chan. The eBook cover is of sailing ships in yellow and blue sailing on a wavy yellow sea with a large blue moon at the top of the cover.
“He Who Drowned the World” by Shelley Parker-Chan is the sequel to “She Who Became the Sun” and the final book in “The Radiant Emperor” duology. The book picks up shortly after the events of the first book with the newly renamed Zhu Yuanzhang exultant as the Radiant King. However, Zhu’s ambitions don’t stop there and are now fixed firmly on the emperor’s throne together with other ambitious players. Meanwhile, her old enemy the haunted eunuch Ouyang may be the key ally to achieving her ambitions, but is Zhu willing to pay the price?
This is a powerful finale to the duology with an enormous amount of character development that builds on the very firm setting of the first book. The first book was an incredible novel exploring motivations like unfettered ambition and revenge, with the characters making decisions often seemingly against their own interests to pursue their ultimate goals. This book is a significant gear shift, and the decisions that the characters made in the first book begin to catch up on them. Zhu’s cheerful certainty against all odds, however, remains infectious. I also really enjoyed the character Wang Baoxiang who was equal parts pitiful and brilliant, and also willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals.
I really enjoyed this book and that it took the characters in a different direction, however it didn’t always have the same punchiness and surprises of the first book. I also felt that sex in this book was treated in a very challenging way: never for mutual enjoyment or love, but always either transactional or non-consensual.
A strong finish to the duology with great character development, if not quite as spectacular as the first.
Dark academia fantasy novel about a secretive, deadly society
This was the set book for my fantasy book club (we managed to squeeze in quite a few meetings in the second half of last year!). I didn’t get around to reading it in time for book club but did listen to the audiobook as a gardening book.
Image is of “The Atlas Six” by Olivie Blake. The audiobook cover is black with a gold design on top of concentric circles, and small symbols including an eye, a plant, an atomic symbol and a biological hazard symbol. There is also a larger symbol of an eye with a sword through the pupil and the text “KNOWLEDGE IS CARNAGE”.
“The Atlas Six” by Olivie Blake is a dark academia fantasy novel set in a world where magic is studied at university levels and top magicians vie for competitive corporate jobs. Six young magicians are invited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely to join the secretive Alexandrian Society that protects knowledge from lost civilisations. However, while there are six recruits with exceptional talent and potential, there are only five vacancies. The six magicians must make the most of a year of study prior to initiation, because acceptance into the society is a question of life or death.
This is a complex, character-driven story with six very different personalities thrown together in a closed and highly competitive community. Rivals Libby and Nico study at the same university and have very similar powers in the control of matter; Parisa is a telepath; Reina has an exceptional affinity for plants; Callum is an empath, and Tristan’s powers are mysterious – even to him. The key focus of the book is on the relationships, trysts, alliances and enmities between these six characters, however for those who are interested in magic theory, Blake puts a lot of thought into the physics and practicalities of each character’s powers as well. The story is told from multiple points of view, and I felt that the narration by a cast of different voice actors in the audiobook really helped to give each character their own distinct personality.
I think my fundamental issue with this book is that it is a character study, with deep psychological analysis of each of the six recruits and what makes them tick, but that all six of them (with perhaps the slight exception of Nico and Tristan) are really quite unlikeable. Usually when you have a book with multiple perspective, a favourite will emerge and you can look forward to their upcoming chapters if you’re finding others a bit laborious. However, I didn’t have any favourites in this book. None of the characters really resonated with me and I found the setting artificial and the extremely high stakes a bit inexplicable. Atlas was one of those Dumbledore-style puppet masters who, instead of being frank, is deliberately opaque without any good reason for why that type of manipulation might result in better outcomes.
A book for those who love the dark academia aesthetic and high character drama, but not one for me.
Image is of “The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi” by Shannan Chakraborty. The eBook cover is a Middle Eastern-inspired design with a black background and symmetrical geometric patterns in red, navy blue and gold over the top. There are images of fish, a crab, waves, sea birds, moons around the cover and a faint map in the centre.
“The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi” by Shannon Chakraborty is a seafaring historical fantasy novel set in and around the Indian Ocean in the twelfth century. The story is about Amina, a mother and retired pirate, who is living a peaceful life with her daughter Marjana. However, when the mother of one of Amina’s deceased crew mates arrives demanding Amina find her missing granddaughter Dunya, Amina must leave her quiet life and recruit her old crew. However, it soon becomes clear that there is more to this increasingly dangerous mission than a simple kidnapping, and Amina must face treacherous seas, evil sorcery and, worst of all, her husband.
This was a really fun story with a great setting that turns the pirate and fantasy genres on its head. Amina is a fantastic character and it was so refreshing to have a middle-aged mother as a protagonist with a colourful history and a plethora of skills as compared to the usual teenager or jaded older man. I also absolutely loved the way Chakraborty wrote about sex and sexuality, and how Amina loves (and frequently objectifies) men and the trouble she gets into as a result. Chakraborty also tackles Amina’s relationship with faith and Islam in a really interesting and nuanced way while still providing a really strong fantasy setting and including plenty of engaging and diverse characters from different regions around the Indian Ocean and with different sexualities and gender identities.
While there are plenty of story elements to keep you hooked, fundamentally the plot is a fetch-quest which includes lots of tropes from the seafaring and piracy canon like the pursuit of mythical treasures, deadly islands, sea creatures from the deep and a motley crew. I found myself enjoying the interpersonal relationships, Chakraborty’s forte, much more than the actual action.
A really great start to a new series, I can’t wait to read more of Amina’s adventures.
Fantasy novel about complicated families, displacement, fanaticism and persecution
I received a copy of this eBook courtesy of the publisher.
Image is of “The Saint of Bright Doors” by Vajra Chandrasekera. The eBook cover is of an elaborately designed double door in the centre of a cover of midnight blue and bright yellow. In the corners are shards of broken pottery.
“The Saint of Bright Doors” by Vajra Chandrasekera is a fantasy novel about a shadowless young man called Fetter who was raised by his mother to assassinate his father and destroy everything he stands for. However, Fetter doesn’t want the life his mother has chosen for him, and eventually flees his hometown for the bigger city of Luriat. Reasonably welcoming to refugees, Fetter joins group therapy, helps people navigate complicated bureaucracy and forms relationships all while keeping his parentage quiet. However, Luriat is a dynamic city and with visiting gods, laws in flux and mysterious Bright Doors, Fetter has to work out who he is, and who he wants to be.
This was an incredibly creative and layered story that subverts typical fantasy subgenres to create something fresh and relevant. The city of Luriat is both familiar and foreign. I really enjoyed Chandrasekera’s inclusion of modern features like emails and apartments, while maintaining subtle speculative elements. Fetter is a great character who, having tried to shed his past, tries to live as gentle a life as possible while remaining true to his loyalties. The constantly changing rules and shifting sentiments of the city evoked the kind of unstable regimes we experience here in the real world, and the scenes set in vast refugee camps were among the most hard-hitting in the book. There was some great commentary throughout this book about how quickly changes become the status quo, and how things considered ancient history may not be as distant as we believe.
The only challenge I had with this book was that with so much subterfuge, changes to the city and contested history it did at times feel like I was standing on shifting sands. While I appreciate this is reflective of many nations, especially those that persecute minorities, the additional magical elements meant that at times the logic of the book felt inconsistent.
Nevertheless, a highly original book with compelling characters and incisive messages.
Historical fantasy novel about field research on faeries
With my garden overrun by couch grass and running on hold for now, I was in need of a good audiobook to listen to while I tried to get on top of weeding and this one was the next set book for my fantasy book club.
Image is of “Emily Wild’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries” by Heather Fawcett. The eBook cover is beige with a an open book at the botom, and vines, mushrooms, stars and a key coming out of it.
“Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries” by Heather Fawcett and narrated by Ell Potter and Michael Dodds is a historical fantasy novel set in 1909 in rural Norway. Scholar Emily Wilde has arrived in the remote village of Hrafnsvik to conduct field research for her latest project: an encyclopaedia of faerie lore. Although Emily is a talented academic, she is a bit lacking in people skills and struggles to connect with the locals of Hrafnsvik and make headway on her research. However, when her handsome, charming and infuriating rival Wendell Bambleby arrives in town, she reluctantly joins forces with him to search for the elusive Hidden Ones. It will take all of Emily’s knowledge and Bambleby’s charm to achieve their goals, however the more they work together, the more Emily realises that Bambleby has secrets of his own.
This is a fun story that blends adventure, folklore, romance and academia in the beautiful but bleak winter setting of northern Scandinavia. There are a lot elements in this book, but the plot never feels cluttered and Fawcett weaves them together smoothly. Bambleby in particular was a delightful character and I really liked how his character grew in complexity as the story progressed, and his otherworldly charisma is offset by quaint hobbies and quirks like sewing and darning. I think for people who love fairy tales and folklore, the fantasy elements of this story will be very satisfying.
As enjoyable as the book was overall, I did find Emily’s character a little frustrating and inconsistent at times. While I appreciate that Emily is strongly suggested to be neurodiverse with difficulties anticipating and interpreting social interactions, and a special interest in faeries, I did feel that her ability to interpret and respond to faerie etiquette was a bit at odds with her apparent difficulties with other people. As much as I loved Bambleby, I wasn’t as enamoured with the suggestion that Emily needed Bambleby to form relationships with the locals. For the audiobook, even though I enjoyed Michael Dodds’ narration of Bambleby’s small number of chapters, I found the use of a different narrator a bit jarring.
A light-hearted and well-paced story with plenty to keep you hooked.
Speculative fiction novel about time, war and a labyrinth of a library
I received a copy of this eBook courtesy of the publisher.
Image is of “The Book That Wouldn’t Burn” by Mark Lawrence. The eBook cover is of an enormous, expansive library with multi-storey staircases reminiscent of a Escher print.
“The Book That Wouldn’t Burn” by Mark Lawrence is a speculative fiction novel and the first in “The Library Trilogy”. The book contains two stories about two young. Livira, born in a remote settlement in a desert known as the Dust, survives a kidnapping and finds herself in training at a magnificent library at the centre of a city called Malar. Evar, a gentle and sensitive soul, lives in a very similar library with his adopted siblings who have all been raised by android-like beings called the Assistant and the Soldier. As Livira and Evar’s stories become increasingly connected, the mysteries of the libraries and the perpetual threat of invasion and war begin to be revealed.
This was without a doubt my favourite read of 2023. I’ve read Lawrence‘s work before, and all the potential I found in that book was fully realised in this one. The plot is meticulously set out and the pacing is perfect. The book is mostly science fiction but with elements of fantasy that will appeal to readers of either genre, and I am really looking forward to learning more about the premise and the world in the upcoming sequel. I was equally invested in both Livira and Evar’s stories and Lawrence demonstrates again that he writes great female characters. Livira’s ability to perfectly recall information and insatiable curiosity makes her a great lens through which to explore Malar’s library. Meanwhile, although Evar’s siblings have clear memories of how they came to their library and the books they were reading at the time, Evar only has faint memories of a woman who he is certain is the key to his own history. Both stories are extremely compelling, and unfold and intertwine in a really satisfying way.
A really fascinating and enjoyable book and I can’t wait for more.
Fantasy series about a magic school that few students escape alive
Since I started listening to audiobooks about four and a half years ago as motivation to go to the gym and go running, I’ve made it through almost 50 books – over 420 hours of listening! However, shortly before I started listening to this series, I found out that I’m having a baby, and even though I did a few more Parkruns, I got to a point where I wasn’t able to run any more. So instead, I’ve been listening while gardening and commuting to work. I picked this series because I had read this author before, and before I knew it, I ended up listening to all three.
Image is of “A Deadly Education” by Naomi Novik. The audiobook cover is navy blue with a design in gold of an open book with a circle of moons in different phases above and an eye in the middle.
“A Deadly Education” by Naomi Novik and narrated by Anisha Dadia is a young adult fantasy novel about a teenager called Galadriel, known as El, who is a student at a school of magical studies called the Scholomance. When young magical people hit adolescence, their mana attracts deadly monsters called maleficaria or “mals”. To help keep them, and their communities, safe, young people are sent to live in isolation from the outside world at the Scholomance for four years. At the end, they must try to survive graduation by running the gauntlet of a year’s worth of mals. Many students form alliances, however most other students take a disliking to El and actively avoid her, and El becomes determined to survive on her own. In her third year, however, El draws the attention of a popular student called Orion who is renowned for saving other students. As other students begin to warm up to El, she begins to think that perhaps she doesn’t have to be alone after all.
Image is of “The Last Graduate” by Naomi Novik. The audiobook cover is dark green with a design in gold of a keyhole in a circle with arrows and a key hanging down.
In “The Last Graduate”, El is in her final year at the Scholomance and refuses to accept the death rate at graduation. With grim news coming in with the year’s new students, and the arrival of a rare book, El’s ambitions to simply survive graduation and save as many of her classmates as possible grow to improving the magical world for everyone.
Image is of “The Golden Enclaves” by Naomi Novik. The audiobook cover is black with a design in gold of gates, a city and floating eyes.
In “The Golden Enclaves”, graduation is finally over but the global danger to the magical world is only just beginning. To save the world, El must discover the truth that underpins the exclusive communities that so many magical people live in: the enclaves.
This is a fast-paced and easy series to get into with high stakes and considerable character development. Novik subverts the magical school trope with the grim and spartan Scholomance where every day students face mortal danger, hunger and incredibly challenging studies. The reluctant friendship between El and Orion was one of the highlights of the books, and I also enjoyed the slow unravelling of El’s family history and how it influences her past and future decisions. Generally, I enjoyed Dadia’s narration and El’s quite sardonic tone, though I think I would have liked a little more range.
There were quite a few things that didn’t work for me with this book. While the Scholomance felt very fleshed out, I found that this book suffered a bit from what I’ve noticed in other YA speculative fiction series where the more the world expands, the fuzzier the worldbuilding gets. While the third book wraps up the series well, I didn’t find exploring the different enclaves particularly enjoyable or interesting. The relationships El built in books one and two end up being sidelined for different ones in the third book which felt a bit disjointed.
A very readable series and while I wasn’t sold on all of it, it was compelling enough to keep me hooked throughout the entire trilogy.
Tinted Edges 