Review: Wrath of the Dragonfather

Wrath of the Dragonfather by Zachary C. Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Genuinely fine, just nothing to get excited about. As with much of the Warmachine fiction, it tries to shoehorn way too many unnecessary characters in, so none of them get much in the way of development. And the book really needs a background in the setting to understand much of what is going on. (Which is fine, really; its unlikely anyone who doesn't play the game is going to read these...) For those familiar, it fills in some of the backdrop to the game nicely.

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Review: Clockwork Boys

Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amusing fantasy with a world that contains some nice novel aspects, though the world-building is not terribly deep, and the details don't bear looking at too closely. Main characters are essentially Mary Sue and her two faithful companions, Bad Boy and Good Boy, who of course fight for her attention, but the banter is entertaining. Interesting depiction of demonic possession and exorcism.

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Review: A Closed and Common Orbit

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are two stories in this book: the story of Jane, who escapes from slavery and has to navigate her way off the junk planet where she finds herself stranded. And the story of Sidra, an AI illegally loaded into a fake human body. I thought the first of these was gorgeous, while the second was only mildly successful, and the attempt to braid them together at the end mostly failed for me. If the big, climactic challenge at the end of your book is going to be "how do we rescue an AI trapped in the ship that houses it", then it's probably not a good idea to _start_ the book with a different character who has already overcome that exact problem, off-camera.

The characters are still excellently-drawn, and the world building is very well done. Chambers does a particularly good job of depicting aliens in a way that is sufficiently comprehensible to be empathic, but still foreign enough to feel like aliens. Well worth the read.

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Review: The Last Wish

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This review encompasses the first and second books Sword of Destiny in the series, because I didn't feel the first book alone gave it a good viewing.

Stop me if you've heard this one:

A non-human albino is a sorcerer and also a badarse swordsman when he takes his special drugs. He is largely hated and reviled in the world he travels through... except by essentially every woman he meets, who immediately throws herself at his feet. He has a special sword that he does not draw unless he will blood it.

If you think that I'm describing Geralt, you've clearly never read Elric of Melniboné - which was, I should note, written over 20 years before The Last Wish. I love the games based on these books, but these are fanfiction with Marty Stu in an Elric suit. And he really is a classic Marty Stu; he ticks all the boxes:

* He's vastly better than everyone else at fighting.
* He's brooding and silent, yet lusted after by all creatures(!) remotely female in form.
* But in his heart, he only wants The One (who is a one-dimensional sex goddess obsessed with having children.)
* He's "darker" and "edgier" than a closed knife drawer.
* He's got the perma-stubble, the scars, and the coolest sword.
* His only real flaw is his difficulty (though in Geralt's case it is supposedly "inability") to feel emotions.
* Despite the repetition of that mantra, he clearly feels the deepest and purest love for The One.

Look, these stories are not terrible. It's pretty _decent_ Elric fanfiction. And the world-building is truly marvelous. Wonderful gritty details that really paint a picture. Sapkowski likes to draw in traditional eastern European faerie tales and give them a bit of a twist, like when Snow White and the Seven Dwarves turn out to be a famous band of highwaymen. And that's a lot of fun - it's what earns this 3 stars in my book - it's just a shame there aren't any characters in here. The short story format takes away from that worldbuilding a fair bit too; there's very little actual story, just a Spaghetti Western with swords and a really cool backdrop. In fact, I may have to give one more of these a try, because I think the next in the series is the first full-length novel, and I'd love to see Sapkowski fit some sort of plot into this gorgeous gritty world of his.


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