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Blood of the Old Kings: A Review

Hey gang, it’s been a minute. Sorry that life happened, and some things slowed down the reviewing process. But now, I get to catch you up with one of last week’s new releases, Sung-il Kim’s phenomenal Blood of the Old Kings.

The Empire rules over all, wielding Powered armor and vehicles to overwhelm any who might try to stand against them. Those who have survived its onslaughts now struggle to maintain the ways of their ancestors. The Empire claims to be a force for good, but anyone who lost family, friends, or land knows that for the lie that it is.

In the territory once known as Arland, a woman named Loran seeks revenge for the death of her husband and children. In her desperation, she seeks out the dragon that is rumored to live beneath a volcano. There, she finds a living (albeit sleeping) legend who grants her tremendous power in the form of a flaming sword.

In the Capital, Cain is an orphan, a now-grown child of anti-Imperialist parents who were killed for their resistance. Cain is hunting for answers as to who killed his friend and why. His search quickly brings him under the scrutiny of the Empire as he learns more about the Arlanders his friend was helping.

And at a school for mages, mediocre student Arienne is feeling at the end of her rope. The best future she can hope for is to become a Power generator upon her death, sealed into a lead coffin to provide energy for the Empire’s machinery. Such is the fate of almost all sorcerers in the Empire, but she’s been offered a new chance. A mysterious voice is guiding her to escape the school and the Capital altogether, promising her the chance to learn real magic.

On their own, each of these three is potentially a threat to the stability of the Empire. Between the three of them, they might just topple it. Blood of the Old Kings is a clever and creative fantasy novel, spectacularly translated from the original Korean text. Familiar elements like a Roman Empire-inspired military legion in Warhammer-esque armor make for a thrilling bit of reading. I couldn’t help being reminded of Boudicca and her efforts against Rome. Sung-il Kim has provided a fresh perspective on a European-inspired world, and I’m happy to say it’s a lot of fun to read. My utmost thanks to him, NetGalley, and Tor for the eARC in exchange for a fair review. Blood of the Old Kings has been out in the world since last Tuesday, 10/8/24. Go check it out!

Gravity Lost: A Review

L.M. Sagas won me over earlier this year with the spectacular sci-fi/found family novel Cascade Failure. Today, she’s back with a sequel!

It’s been a few months since the events of Cascade Failure and the Guild crew of the Ambit have been spending their days watching over Drestyn, the agitator who’s quest for revenge led to the events of the first book. While they anonymously leaked a large number of Trust records in the aftermath, their captive still holds many more. So as Jal is recovering from his injuries, Saint, Nash, and Captain Eoan help out with the security shifts that monitor the Guild’s prison cell. Should be an easy detail, but nothing is ever as easy as it should be.

The day that Drestyn is transferred from the Guild station, Saint and Nash are led on a chase through the underbelly by none other than Jal. Turns out that some of Drestyn’s buddies have a plan to break him out, and that starts with kidnapping Jal’s sister. As soon as Jal breaks the news to the rest of the Ambit crew, they set off to find the kidnappers, with Jal’s niece in tow. Our lovable found family of misfits may even have to save Drestyn himself along the way, lest the secrets he holds do more harm.

Like its predecessor, Gravity Lost is a great ride. It’s fun, creative sci-fi with nice modern pop culture nods here and there that help it feel grounded in our reality. It’s a solid and successful follow-up, and helps to better build out the universe that Sagas introduced us to earlier this year. Go check it out for yourself. Gravity Lost was released on Tuesday, 7/23. Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

I Was a Teenage Slasher: A Review

Hey, look! There’s a new Stephen Graham Jones book out!

I mean, naturally, I picked it up for review, so here we are.

I Was a Teenage Slasher is the story of Tolly Driver, a 17-year-old boy in the small town of Lamesa, Texas. While not a stunningly popular kid in his school, Tolly is largely unremarkable before everything goes wrong at his classmate Deek’s party. Before that night, he was known mostly for his deathly peanut allergy and for the tractor collision that killed his father. It’s the summer of 1989, and all hell is about to break loose.

See, another student who was trying to fit in with Deek’s gang died during a hazing ritual. In true slasher fashion, he rises from the dead and comes back for a roaring rampage of revenge, meting out justice to all of the other high schoolers who didn’t prevent his death in the first place. In the aftermath of that encounter, Tolly ends up getting some of the killer’s blood into an open cut on his own forehead. Now things are getting weird. Vehicles fail to start when he’s around. The kitchen knife makes an audibly sharp SHTING sound when pulled from the wood block, but only when he does it. Is Tolly Driver the new killer?

I Was a Teenage Slasher isn’t the first time Stephen Graham Jones has tackled horror from the killer’s perspective. This is his wheelhouse, after all. He plays with classic slasher movie tropes much as he did in his Angel of Indian Lake Trilogy. This time, though, we’re dealing with a delightfully reluctant killer who gradually becomes aware of what’s happening to him, but unable to stop himself. After all, he’s not the final girl. No matter what, he’s definitely going to be notable now.

My utmost thanks to Saga Press and NetGalley for an eARC of this one in exchange for a fair review. I Was a Teenage Slasher is out in the world as of yesterday, 7/16/24. Run out and get it. Just… watch your back.

Bury Your Gays: A Review

In which Chuck Tingle goes to Hollywood.

Misha Byrne is a screenwriter, and he’s just locked in his first Oscar nomination. He’s also gay, and executive meddling is on the cusp of forcing him to kill off the two queer leads of his latest TV series. Nearly four seasons of wildly successful X-Files-esque television, and he’s finding his work being subject to one of the oldest tropes in fiction: bury your gays. For Misha, this is particularly egregious, as his favorite childhood show fell victim to the same treatment years before. However, if he doesn’t go along with the studio’s plans, he’ll be in breach of contract and lose his job, and potentially any chance of working in Hollywood again.

Then, things start to get weird at the studio lot. Raymond Nelson, one of the oldest working animators at the studio, is crushed by a piano in an ironic echo of a cartoon death. Not long after, Misha spots a character from one of his horror films while walking out of a bar. This omen warns him that he has only five day to live, a timeline that coincides with the night of the Academy Awards ceremony. Soon, more of his horror characters begin intruding into his life, and he’s forced to face the very real traumas that shaped his career (and are threatening his boyfriend). Will Misha succumb to studio pressure by Oscar night, or will he fall to a twisted version of one of his own creations?

Chuck Tingle is absolutely killing it in the horror genre, y’all. Bury Your Gays is littered with little nods to actual Hollywood staples, all while carefully avoiding name-dropping any specific real world studio. Tingle builds phenomenal tension and intersperses some clever screenwriting aspects between segments of the story. This is a brilliant follow-up to last year’s Camp Damascus, and further solidifies Chuck as a horror writer of note. My utmost thanks to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. Bury Your Gays is out as of yesterday, 7/9/24. Go get it.

Unexploded Remnants: A Review

Alice is the last surviving human in the universe, and she’s on the run. When she was exploring the Alta Sidoie market, she found something in a scrap collector’s booth that was far more than met the eye. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t the only one who recognized it. Now she’s being chased throughout an intergalactic portal network by a warmongering alien race that wants to use the weapon-controlling AI she found to attack anyone who has ever wronged them.

Alice fell into the portal network by chance, an accidental bit of access from a world that wasn’t supposed to be able to connect. She was observed by the Archive, one of the unifying forces for good in the universe, and sent back to report on humanity as a whole. Eventually Earth’s conflicts grew to the point where the Archive opted to quarantine the world instead of attempting to keep helping, leaving humans to their own slow self-destruction. Alice, however, was allowed to keep performing work for them. Now alongside her virtual assistant, Bugs, she’s employed as a blend of archaeologist and grave robber for the Archive, trading in favors and information as well as artifacts.

Alice has her hands on the key to one of the most powerful remaining weapons in the galaxy, and the enemy is closing in. The AI is a threat to everyone, but Alice is determined to save Gunn, the being trapped in the heart of the artifact. She doesn’t know who she can fully trust, but she’s going to do whatever it takes to free him.

Elaine Gallagher has packed a tremendous amount of detail into a very small package with Unexploded Remnants. This novella is fast-paced and a hell of a lot of fun. World hopping action and clever characters reminiscent of Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and Evelyn O’Connor make for a quick, entertaining read that still manages to provide commentary on weapons of war and how we treat soldiers.

My utmost thanks to Tor and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. Unexploded Remnants is out today, 6/25/24. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Cuckoo: A Review

Gretchen Felker-Martin is back! It’s been two years since Manhunt dropped, and the world is still reeling from her spectacularly violent, grimy apocalypse novel. Now she’s written an arguably darker tale of queer fear in Cuckoo.

Like its predecessor, Cuckoo is undeniably a queer horror story. The novel introduces us to a group of teens, each of whom has been violently removed from their home and forcefully transported across the country. Their only crime? Being a queer teen in the 90s, for which their parents shipped them off to be changed. When they arrive at Camp Resolution, a desert-based conversion camp, they have nothing but each other, and no idea what they’re about to face. They don’t even know what state they’re in. Far from home and cut off from the outside world, they’ll have to band together to make it out unchanged.

Camp Resolution is, in a word, weird. The educational curriculum is pseudoscience, the physical activities consist of backbreaking labor or myriad household chores (depending on assigned sex), and the counselors are not just prone to violence but actively encourage it. The campers who have been there longer are brutal to the newcomers, and even Pastor Eddie, the leader of the camp, won’t hesitate to beat any of the teens who don’t bow to his whims.

Something darker still lurks in the shadows of Camp Resolution, though. The campers who have graduated from the program are… different. Not themselves anymore (and while some would argue that yes, that’s the point of a conversion camp, Resolution’s strategy relies a lot less on prayer and the Bible). Then, the dreams begin. The same dream. Each camper is digging a hole, and they find their own body buried deep in the earth. Something is reaching out to them, speaking to them… preparing them. Our ragged misfits know that they have to escape the camp, before they too are irrevocably changed.

Gretchen Felker-Martin absolutely nailed the building dread in Cuckoo. This book is just as filthy as Manhunt, and I mean that in the best way of describing her aesthetics and worldbuilding. I was thrilled to find out that her sophomore effort was an incredibly solid piece of horror. Cuckoo is out in the world today. Go get it. Read it. Get scared. Repeat.

My utmost thanks to Tor and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

Service Model: A Review

I am a relative newcomer to the work of Adrian Tchaikovsky. I first picked up Walking to Aldebaran a few months ago after a recommendation on Bluesky and I loved it, so I leapt at the opportunity to get an early copy of his latest novel, Service Model.

Service Model introduces readers to Charles, a robot valet working in a manor up until the untimely death of his master. Charles is an incredibly skilled robot, programmed to handle all aspects of coordinating with House, the majordomo system of the manor. This facilitates any and all of the Master’s needs. Clothing selection? Check. Travel plans? Check. Shave? Check. One day, however, Charles goes a bit far. Master is unable to give new orders to Charles or House or any of the other servants, and Charles finds that an odd bit of staining is appearing on everything he’s touched in the time since he last shaved Master.

Soon, an investigation is underway, and Charles is ejected from the Manor into the wider world. Unfortunately for him, the outer world is a largely uninhabited wasteland. Fortunately, he has one more thing in his task queue. He sets off to have his malfunctions examined by a diagnostician. So begins his trek across the post-apocalyptic landscape in search of answers and a new Master to serve.

Service Model almost immediately made me think of Douglas Adams, and I can only attempt to describe the protagonist as a mashup of Marvin the Paranoid Android with Wadsworth, the butler from Clue. Our deteriorating valet needs to find out why he acted the way he did as well as what happened to all of the humans. Along the way, he gets into increasingly philosophical discussions about humanity or the lack thereof, with a growing self-awareness. The journey is more important than the destination, after all, and an unexpected companion quickly adds complications to both Charles’ sense of self and his quest.

I absolutely loved reading this book. It’s a phenomenal wandering hero narrative, with elements of allegory reminiscent of The Pilgrim’s Progress. I’m very grateful to Tor Publishing and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. Service Model is out today.

Necrobane: A Review

Daniel M. Ford blew me away last year when I got to read The Warden. At the time, I had said that I was hoping that I would get to spend more time in Aelis’s world soon, and guess what? Necrobane is here.

This book picks up immediately where The Warden left off, so heads up. Here there be spoilers.

Aelis is a necromancer and a noble scion. She’s a child raised in wealth in a large city, trained in magic and combat. In short, she is the antithesis of most of the people that she is, as a Warden, charged to protect. In her efforts to defend the village of Lone Pine, she accidentally activated an unknown number of animated dead of Mahlgren, necromancy-fueled remnants of the last war. While she was able to defeat the handful of skeletons that arose within the chamber she was exploring, she learned that there are far more similar crypts scattered throughout the realm. Now that they’re active, they’re likely to be heading in the direction of her new home. Just as the villagers were beginning to trust the outsider, now she’s got to warn them about an impending invasion of restless dead that are technically only emerging because of her actions.

Rather than leave the people of Lone Pine to fend for themselves, Aelis quickly hatches a plan to seek out a control mechanism that could potentially deactivate the entire enemy force. She narrows down the likely location to a stronghold of a fallen empire and gathers her allies. She may be a skilled and talented Necrobane, able to defeat animated dead with her own magic, but this struggle isn’t a solo venture. Up first, of course, is Maurenia. The half-elf is a skilled soldier and engineer, and her status as Aelis’s lover doesn’t hurt her chances to be invited along. Next is Timmuk, a dwarf merchant and a coworker of Maurenia’s on their last excursion across the frontier of Ystain. Last but not least is Tun, a half-orc woodsman who assisted Aelis on her previous adventure. Tun’s skill as a tracker is invaluable in their journey through the wilderness. Together, they hope to cut off any animated dead before they’re able to even approach Lone Pine. Ideally, they’ll put them down before any tensions between the humans and orcs along the frontier can be strained and reignite a war. Plus, maybe they’ll find some treasure along the way! As long, that is, as the control mechanism actually exists…

Ford’s writing and world-building remain top-notch throughout Necrobane, and it makes a spectacular continuation to the story established in The Warden. The stakes are higher now, and Aelis’s skills are going to be pushed to their limit if the party has any chance of succeeding. I am still wildly in love with this series, and will continue to recommend it for any fantasy fan who enjoys D&D and books like Gideon the Ninth and Legends & Lattes. I know at this point that we’re expecting a 3rd book in Aelis’s adventures in the near future, and I am ready for it.

My utmost thanks (once again) to Netgalley and Tor Publishing for access to an eARC of this book in exchange for a fair review. Today is publication day, so go grab yourself a copy.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In: A Review

Shesheshen woke up early, and is understandably upset. Her hibernation in her lair was interrupted by a trio of would-be monster hunters, and she was only able to kill and eat one of them before the others escaped. Using some of the dead hunter’s remains (and other bits of the ruins where she lives), the shape-shifter is able to build herself a bit of human-like body framework so that she can sneak down into the nearby town to see what’s changed since she was last awake. Borrowed bits of flesh and bone give her body more of the appropriate shape, allowing her to fake her way through some interactions. When her disguise fails in the middle of a festival celebrating her imminent death, she’s chased back out of town. The crowd, including the two survivors of the raid on her lair, pursue her until she falls off of a cliff.

Upon her next awakening, she’s startled by the presence of a human woman who has treated her wounds, wrapped her in blankets, and stoked a fire. The woman, an outsider not from the village, introduces herself as Homily. Before the monster can really focus on what’s happened, she’s being fed soup and entreated to rest by a woman who is clearly oblivious to Shesheshen’s monstrous nature, taking any oddities about her as symptoms of having just fallen over a cliff. Homily loads her into a cart and strikes off back to town. Soon, she’s in Homily’s room at a local inn until she can finish convalescing. A couple of things strike Shesheshen, then. First, the people of the village seem terrified of Homily. Second, she is beginning to feel… feelings. An odd sort of mutual attraction seems to be blooming between Homily and the woman she knows as Siobhan. Homily feels a genuine attraction to the monster she’s rescued, but she has no idea what Siobhan actually is.

As the two are getting to know each other and growing closer, though, the reason for Homily’s presence in Underlook comes to light. She’s the daughter of the Baroness Wulfyre, one of the family that rules the isthmus where Shesheshen lives. She’s also a master monster hunter in her own right, and had come to the village to assist her brother in hunting down the Wyrm of Underlook. Unfortunately for her, her brother Catharsis was the monster hunter that Shesheshen devoured before she and Homily met, and all of her remaining relatives believe that Shesheshen has cursed their line. Now Shesheshen is torn. Does she continue her charade or reveal her monstrous nature to Homily and hope that she can be forgiven for who she is? She’s finally met someone who might be a suitable host for her eggs, but if Homily figures out her identity, siding with her admittedly toxic family means Shesheshen’s death.

John Wiswell has released a brilliant debut novel with Someone You Can Build a Nest In. It’s a delightfully bizarre fantasy romance told from the perspective of a monster, and I’m utterly entranced by it. His descriptions of Shesheshen’s odd morphology and attempts to human are charming and disturbing simultaneously, and the Wulfyre clan (barring Homily) are suitably horrible. All in all, it’s an unconventional love story that will leave you questioning what relationships can be, and whether we can grow to become more than what our parents expect us to become.

My utmost thanks to NetGalley and DAW for an eARC of this title in exchange for a fair review. Someone You Can Build a Nest In is out in stores today, 4/2/24. Check it out.

The Angel of Indian Lake: A Review

It’s Halloween in Proofrock, Idaho, and all of the ghosts are coming home.

It’s been almost four years since Dark Mill South rampaged through the town, just over eight since the Independence Day Massacre. Jade Daniels, survivor of both of these incidents, is now out of prison and back in her home town, finding a new place to… well, to exist. She can’t be said to be thriving, but that’s to be expected in a town that still largely blames her for the slaughters. She’s taken a position teaching history at the high school, carrying on the legacy of her favorite teacher. History’s a good subject for the girl who needs to know about all of Proofrock’s dangers, after all. Stacy Graves. Ezekiel. Drown Town. After all, she faced down killers twice and lived. Now she’s got medication and therapy, and she’s finally working her way through her trauma (at least as far as the murders go).

But now, The Angel of Indian Lake is the third book in Jade’s story, and that means it’s time for Scream 3’s trilogy rules:

1.) “You’ve got a killer who’s gonna be superhuman. Stabbing him won’t work, shooting him won’t work. Basically in the third one, you gotta cryogenically freeze his head, decapitate him, or blow him up.”

2.) “Anyone, including the main character, can die.”

3.) “The past will come back to bite you in the ass. Whatever you think you know about the past, forget it. The past is not at rest! Any sins you think were committed in the past are about to break out and destroy you.”

On Friday, October 13th, 2023, two of Proofrock’s teens went missing, along with one’s younger brother. Because it has to begin on Friday the 13th. Those disappearances become more significant when bodies are found on Halloween. Jade herself initially dismisses the vanishing teens, even though the older two are her students. Before the bodies are found, she can write it off as a young couple who have taken off to find their fortunes somewhere beyond Idaho, or maybe to save a little brother off to find his errant father. She tries to convince herself that it’s only a coincidence, that a new slasher cycle isn’t starting. It can’t start now, not when Proofrock’s final girl, Letha Mondragon-Tompkins, is out of town. But things are starting to pile up.

There’s a wildfire burning in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and many of the residents of Proofrock are leaving town. The wealthy soon-to-be residents of Terra Nova, across the lake from Proofrock, are desperate to save their under-construction homes from the blaze. They’ve offered a cash reward to anyone who stays to help create a firebreak: $1500 to anyone taking an axe, $3000 to anyone taking a chainsaw. Soon, an impromptu fire brigade has assembled out in the woods, and someone—or something—is stalking them. Local game warden, Seth Mullins, was supposed to be in the fire watchtower, but he’s gone off-grid (and may be the source of the fire). Banner Tompkins, Letha’s husband and Proofrock’s current sheriff, is hoping to set out to the far side of the lake to find Mullins, leaving his and Letha’s daughter Adie at the police station with his secretary. What Banner knows, though, is that several dead bodies have been found, and all signs indicate that they’re Jade’s missing students. Despite Jade’s insistence that there’s not a new slasher in town, Banner isn’t so sure. As the day wears on, things are only going to get worse, and as the rules state, anyone can die this time around.

Stephen Graham Jones has knocked it out of the park with The Angel of Indian Lake. It’s a spectacular, gory finish to the series that instilled me with a love of slasher films. I’ve been a fan of Jones’ writing since I first picked up Mapping the Interior, and this book is a brilliant showcase of his skill. Setting the primary action over the course of a single night and shifting narration fully to Jade’s first-person perspective, he’s pulled all the stops and no punches as Jade breathlessly races toward her destiny. The time of Proofrock’s reckoning is at hand, and for Jade, it’s personal. Let’s go.

My utmost thanks to Saga Press and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. The Angel of Indian Lake is out today. Go get yourself scared.