Tag: book review

Book Review: STAR WARS: I, JEDI is a solid story, but not for me

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

Star Wars: I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole is the first novel I’ve read from the “Legends” canon of the Star Wars universe.

I’m not sure I’m the target audience for this novel. While there were parts of this story I greatly enjoyed, there were a few parts that bugged me.

Corran Horn is arrogant and presumptuous as a protagonist. He constantly assumes that he’s the only person who could possibly have the correct solution to any given dilemma. Even when he expresses self-awareness over his own ego, he continues to act as if he’s the only person capable of anything. This is perplexing given his backstory as a pilot of Rogue Squadron. Presumably, he could have asked for help is rescuing his wife much earlier, and ends up being backed up by a few friends anyway.

This story is laced with Star Wars Easter eggs to the point that I just ignored whatever random characters or planets were name-dropped in every chapter. I’m not deep enough into Star Wars lore to get all the references, and they didn’t add anything to the story. Novelty appearances of Han, Leia, and Wedge (of original trilogy fame) also seemed to serve little purpose but to build up Corran’s chops as an in-universe person-of-interest.

Luke was an interesting character who helped drive some of the narrative, and I’m thinking I should read some of the Luke-centric Legends novels.

The plot is winding and overflowing with context about Corran’s past, his time served as a pilot, also a detective, and his relationship with his wife Mirax. Unfortunately, these experiences are only touched on through exposition, and Mirax is fridged until the final chapter.

I consider myself a more-than-average Star Wars fan, but perhaps this particular story just wasn’t for me. I think I just struggled to connect with Corran, and in an in-depth first-person narrative, that’s an issue for the reader. I don’t regret reading this, and I’m interested in exploring other parts of the Legends canon.

Steve D

Book Review: BOUDICA: DREAMING THE SERPENT SPEAR lands an epic saga

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

What a series.

Manda Scott’s fourth novel in the Boudica series, Dreaming the Serpent Spear, was a fantastic ending to an epic saga about Boudica’s rise and rebellion against the Roman Empire in Britannia.

Where book one primarily covered how Breaca, daughter of the royal bloodline of the Eceni, rose to become a warrior and leader of her people, books two and three dove into the characters’ their internal struggles and the manifestations of their various choices on and off the battlefield, casting some of them far afield, with no apparent hope of ever reuniting.

Dreaming the Serpent Spear managed to bring many of the main characters’ arcs colliding back in a final clash to decide their individual fates, and that of the Celtic and druidic peoples of Britainnia.

Author Manda Scott treated the lingering trauma of Breaca and Graine with care while demonstrating their growth as individuals and in their relationship as mother and daughter. Other characters, like Cunomar, Sigve, Valerius, and Corvus also stretched and grew into their own – at times surprising – fitting ends.

The sense of dread throughout this read forced me to a slower pace. Knowing that Rome occupied Britannia for another century-plus after the timeframe of this novel meant that I did not expect a happy ending. I didn’t want to see beloved characters die in battle or languish in imprisonment.

However, I think Scott deftly navigated the brutality and desperation of the final battle and brought the characters’ stories to worthy resolution.

This series is absolutely worth a re-read and will sit among my favorite novels on this historical period.

Steve D


Book Review: BOUDICA: DREAMING THE HOUND

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

As expected from my earlier goals post, I finished Boudica: Dreaming the Hound, the third book of this series by Manda Scott, and am well on my way with the fourth.

I’ve already reviewed books one and two.

As book three of a four-book series, it was not too surprising to find that Dreaming the Hound had a minor case of middle book syndrome. The plot dragged a bit more than its predecessors, and both the characters and the reader are left waiting for momentous changes to happen: the Roman invasion of Mona, for instance.

Even still, there was some interesting character development in this story, particularly for Valerius and Cunomar. Valerius steps into his redemption arc, while Cunomar finally takes some initiative to become the warrior for which he has always overreached.

The ending of Breaca’s time with the Eceni, under Roman rule, comes swiftly and shockingly. I will spare the details, but the confrontational sequence towards the end of this arc is brutal and traumatic. Its purpose in the story is to portray what little historical evidence there exists for these events, as explained by Scott in the afterword. In the moment, though, it left a poor feeling.

I am still definitely enjoying this series overall, but I was somewhat relieved for this book to be over. Given Scott’s deft plot development and skilled character building, I was also optimistic to begin the fourth and final installment. That optimism has already paid off, and I’m greatly looking forward to seeing how this epic series ends.

Steve D

Book Review: BOUDICA: DREAMING THE BULL

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As anticipated from my review of Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott, I quickly picked up and pored through book two of this series.

I actually finished reading (listening to) Boudica: Dreaming the Bull at the end of May, but I’m just now getting around to posting my review.

Everything I loved about the first book – the writer’s elegant prose, the depth of historical world-building, the poignant interplay of the characters’ dialogue and gestures – carried through in book two.

While I missed spending as much time with Breaca as in the first novel, I was surprised and riveted by the stories of some of the other characters. The continued fall into darkness of Julius Velarius was not what I had looked forward to about this novel, but his chapters were compelling.

Scott did an excellent job showing how one can empathize with Julius, even when one disagrees with and even despises the choices he makes. His tragedy becomes the centerpiece for this book that still carries the reader through, without bogging them down in despair or anger. Those emotions are certainly felt, but they don’t hold back enjoyment of the wider story. Dubornos was another surprisingly interesting character in this novel.

This book was enjoyable overall. The consistency in writing style and attention to detail is a testament to Scott’s skill as a writer. As of this writing, I’m already 75% done with book three.

Steve D

Book Review: BOUDICA: DREAMING THE EAGLE and intricate narratives

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

Among my greatest literary addictions is historical fiction, especially that of pre-Norman Britain. Thus, it was only a matter of time before I came across, immediately bought, and read Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle, by Manda Scott.

This is the epic telling of Boudica, the Warrior Queen of the Celts who led the Celtic tribes of Britain against Rome’s second invasion in the first century BCE.

One of my favorite acknowledgments of this book is when Scott describes that very little – almost nothing, in fact – is actually known about who Boudica was, so most of the story of her life, her family, and the people whose lives she influenced are fictional.

Even still, this is a period in history that is so well-researched that the world comes to life from the very first chapter. Scott fully acknowledges the immensity of historical and archaeological resources and experts she leans on to construct this work. The payoff is a style of world-building and character-driven exposition that feels organic and does not overwhelm the reader yet completely envelops them.

The story generally follows the young Boudica – before she earns that title – and various members of her tribe as they prepare for the Roman legions to return to their shores. The characters’ connection to each other, through inter-tribal politics and vows of personal honor, drive the emotional weight of the story.

This book has brutal depictions of war, but Scott deftly works around the gory details to paint the tapestry of a battle from the perceptions of those involved. The reader can see the battle play out in their mind’s eye but does not need to be told about every stroke of a blade or every spurt of blood. The horrors of war are apparent without being gratuitous.

Scott’s narrative is incredibly detailed with not a single word or metaphor wasted. Her prose is elegant and precise, where dialogue between characters does not have to reveal every single thought in order to convey deep meaning.

This is flat out one of the best epic novels I’ve read. I’m already reading book two, Boudica: Dreaming the Bull.

Steve D

Book Review: A CLOSED AND COMMON ORBIT lands as cozy sci-fi with intimately personal stakes

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After gulping down the audiobook form of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers’s first in the Wayfarer series, I did not hesitate to pick up book 2: A Closed and Common Orbit.

I had thoroughly enjoyed the first series entrant as a galaxy-crossing sci-fi adventure, so I was a caught a bit off guard to discover that I would spend all of book 2 with characters who were only a footnote in book 1.

Part of this is my fault, because I neglected to read the blurb before purchasing and beginning A Closed and Common Orbit. So I was a bit surprised, a little confused, and then curious.

This book follows Pepper, a tech whom the crew of The Wayfarer encounter in book 1, and Sidra, a conscious AI placed into a human-like body. Pepper’s and Sidra’s stories meshed well and approached themes of identity, predestination, and humanity with thoughtfulness. The two spend much of the book trying to navigate their own senses of self, while also figuring out how to integrate Sidra into Personhood and the local society of pepper’s home city.

Pepper’s story also looks backward, beginning with her life a child to explore how she got where she is. I was intrigued by Pepper’s hardships as a teenager, and I felt that her transition from that life into the one she built for herself was glossed over. However, her backstory clearly focused on and succeeded with explaining why she has such an affinity for advanced AI’s and their personhood.

Both character arcs are effective in demonstrating and resolving their respective emotional journeys.

Surrounding these very intimate themes of identity, the story barely touched on how Pepper’s and Sidra’s society did not accept AI’s as People, and what that might mean for Sidra. I would have liked to understand more about how technology and sapient AI was viewed and treated in the Galactic Commons at large.

Rich world-building surrounds this story, but it’s a little too focused on the characters’ internal struggles. I kept looking for a broader view to balance the intense personal stakes of the story. Similar to its predecessor, A Closed and Common Orbit excels in displaying what life is like for people on this planet, a sort of cozy sci-fi setting for these poignant themes.

Still, this was very much worth the read, and I’m interested in continuing this series in the near future.

For the audiobook, I found the narration stilted with unnatural inflection in many places, especially with dialogue. I think this may have been intentional by the narrator to reflect Sidra’s voice as an AI, but it honestly became more and more grating as the story proceeded.

Steve D

Book Review: THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

I recently listened to the audiobook version of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, a story I found delightful in its character-building, and intriguing in its world-building.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet presents a vivid galaxy of unique species governed by the Galactic Commons. Humans in this story are among the least powerful species, their Exodans having survived the destruction of Earth (at human hands) and only recently invited as a GC member species. The Galactic Commons includes a diverse array of non-human species, each with their own cultures, histories, and perceptions about their galaxy and the other peoples within it.

Chambers is very deliberate the language she uses to describe each species and individual. While their physical traits and cultural norms may differ, all GC member species are People, and all are referred to as Sapient. Specific individuals are also male, female, or non-binary, with standard pronouns that appear to be widely accepted across the story for such designations. This helps acclimate the reader to each character’s voice and perspective, while making it seem plausible that they speak a common language (called Clip) and have relatable mannerisms and colloquial speech patterns.

Within this setting, Chambers explores a rich tapestry of relationships, inter-species politics, and grounded character struggles aboard a long-haul ship. Rosemary Harper, a human from the Mars settlement, is the lead protagonist, but she does not necessarily drive the narrative.

As the newest member of the Wayfarer crew, a long-haul tunneling ship which bores holes through the fabric of spacetime to create tunnels through which ships can jump light-years across the galaxy, Rosemary is an observer who becomes a more and more prominent member of the crew. She develops her own relationships with her crewmates and shows how her clerical and research skills can help their ship.

But Rosemary’s outsider status as a spacer means that her perspective is a suitable entry point for the reader into this world.

Chambers’s writing is funny and poignant, with realistic dialogue and good escalation amid more tense moments and scenes. Her character development would work in any setting, but the fact that she couples this with believable sci-fi world-building elevates the story into a compelling narrative.

This was a book I couldn’t put down, and would gladly read again.

I would likely purchase and read a hard copy, because the audiobook’s narrator made some interesting inflection and pronunciation choices that took me out of the story for scattered moments.

Steve D

Book Review: BLACKFISH CITY and the scarily real imaginings of our post-apocalyptic future

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

I’m way behind on posting this. Last month, I finished listening to Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller in audiobook.

This book had jumped out to me both for its stunning cover — cyberpunk feel with Indigenous artistic themes — and its intriguing synopsis.

Miller constructs a fascinating future world where refugees and oligarchs have fled or abandoned their fallen cities due to climate disasters. Miller deftly alludes to a multitude of climate disasters causing upheaval around the world, but really only goes into detail in one instance, as it affected a few of the characters.

Many of these refugees fled their homes for a newly built city in the Arctic Circle — an eight-armed floating city called Qaanaaq. The design of Qaanaaq is intricate and authentic. Miller describes geothermal pipes used to warm the entire city, and a highly computerized system that mostly runs the underlying infrastructure needs of the entire city.

Qaanaaq feels like a place that could very easily exist in a post-climate disaster world, both exploitative of the people who’ve lost everything and serving those who have profited from the chaos of a crumbling global civilization. It is technologically advanced and still not free of poverty, overcrowding, resource scarcity, and bureaucratic ignorance of real people’s issues that plagues rapidly growing cities.

I found it difficult to connect with the characters at first. I couldn’t quite place the age of most of the characters until much later int he story, so I assumed they were all Adults — this was not the case. Miller’s brilliance is in the way he slowly weaves interconnectedness between the characters, but this also requires patience from the reader to allow those connections and the wider story to unfold.

Fortunately, the world-building is what really kept me invested. Once some of the plot began to reveal itself, the pacing picked up, and I began to understand the wider narrative better.

This was a highly enjoyable story, and Miller is a fantastic writer. I genuinely hope to return to this world in future stories.

Steve D

Book Review: A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS

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I finally picked A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin off my bookshelf to read, and I ended up powering through most of it during our relaxing beach weekend.

I had always intended to read this story, a novel set within Martin’s world of Westeros that takes place a century before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire.

While I had little doubt that I would enjoy this story, as I’ve enjoyed Martin’s other Westerosi writings, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is an excellent example of the depth of Martin’s world-building in this series.

While the familiarity of the world brought me to this novel, the obvious joy with which Martin writes about Ser Duncan the Tall and Egg kept me reading. Dunk is an interesting protagonist in that he has traveled all over Westeros as both a squire to a former knight and a knight himself, and yet he doesn’t have much familiarity with the great houses of Westeros, except what he has seen himself or absorbed from the knight who had trained and knighted him. He provides a good counterpoint to the protagonists of A Song of Ice and Fire, many of whom are in positions of power, or come from families power.

Dunk has no power, except his sword, armor, and horses, and the optimistic chance that strangers on the road will recognize his knighthood. Egg, Dunk’s unlikely squire of noble birth, is a good foil to Dunk’s taciturn, blunt, but ultimately honorable nature. Egg comes from privilege but grows to respect Dunk and the experiences they have together as a hedge knight and squire with no permanent home. Dunk must choose to remain honorable, even in the face of corruption and cruelty from his fellow knights, or lords in whom he could find stability, comfort, and gold.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a good story in its own right, but I definitely feel like it enriches and is enriched by the wider world of Westeros. I also read this novel alongside The World of Ice and Fire, a literal encyclopedic history of the Seven Kingdoms co-authored by Maritn and beautifully illustrated by several artists. I was able to read the wider historical context of the period in which Dunk traveled Westeros to better understand some of the more minute plot details.

Like all great world-builders, Martin relishes the opportunity to write about people just trying to survive in this world, even if they are heroes whose legends have not yet grown. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a testament to that joy. I’ll be looking forward to any future installments in this series.

Steve D

Book Review: A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS leaps above middle book syndrome

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A Blight of Blackwings is the second installment of Kevin Hearne’s The Seven Kennings series, and I could not resist diving straight into it after I finished A Plague of Giants a few weeks back.

As with the first book, I greatly enjoyed A Blight of Blackwings, which felt somewhat different from its predecessor and deftly maneuvered around the dreaded middle book syndrome.

Hearne achieved this by lacing this book with its own somewhat contained narrative threads that appeared separate from the larger series plot. The introduction of characters like Pen, Hanima, and Koesha enriched the plot without making the reader feel over-burdened with new voices. After being given the proper time to develop in their own right, each new character ended up serving the larger narrative in their own ways, without becoming subsumed by it.

Where some middle books, especially in trilogies, struggle to maintain narrative momentum, Hearne provides tangible story progression that is not wholly divorced from the wider series, so the reader does not feel like they are just getting “filler” content before the finale.

Hearne also manages to hit similar emotional stakes in this book as the first. Grief, and the myriad ways in which characters process their grief, is a significant and explicit theme in the first book. Grief and loss play just as important a role in Blackwings, but in a much different way.

Where the first book used dramatic scenes to demonstrate the power of grief – and anger, and sorrow, and despair – Blackwings focuses this poignancy on smaller, more intimate scenes that deepen the reader’s connections with the characters.

In short, A Blight of Blackwings both inherits and expands upon its predecessor’s themes, creating a story that builds upon the series without feeling repetitive.

I’ve already started book three.

Steve D