Reviews of favorite books

Fiction: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

1/27/2023

It’s rare to read a book so exceptionally well-crafted as Alexandra Rowland’s A Taste of Gold and Iron.
The main character, Kadou, is a shy prince with debilitating anxiety and a habit of acting without foresight.
The second point-of-view character, Evermeer, is his methodical and morally rigid body-guard.

The story unfolds in a secondary (made-up) world reminiscent of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. There’s a mystery to solve, political intrigue of the highest order, and countless heart-clutching moments of betrayal, compassion, and pathos that kept me reading well past my bedtime.

There is so much to savor in this novel:

The writing is pitch-perfect throughout.
The characters are living, breathing human beings--not just the main characters, all of them (and I loved all of them).
The plot unfolds at a balanced pace--neither too fast or too slow.
The slow-burn romance feels organic and natural, and climaxes (pun intended) fantastically.
The world is complex (but not confusing) and fascinating.
The ending is completely satisfying.

I rarely give a five-star rating, but A Taste of Gold and Iron deserves the highest praise.
Perhaps the best book I’ve read this year, and one of the best I've ever read. Highly recommended.

Writing Craft: You’ve Got a Book in You by Elizabeth Sims

1/7/2023

The best thing about this how-to writing guide, You’ve Got a Book in You: A Stress-free Guide to Writing the Book of Your Dreams, is the author’s enthusiasm and positive attitude.
Eilizabeth Sims starts the book by declaring: Writing a book is a heroic act, and it is an accomplishment no one can take away from you.
She also advises: you can choose to write with patience, receptiveness, and a heart filled with zest. You can have fun.

Some favorite gems:

The way to succeed as a writer, by whatever standards you set for yourself, is to persist.
You are the hero of your own life.
(Writing) Time is not the point. Productivity is.
Write like your life depends on it.
Eat a good breakfast every day.
You have to be okay with exposing yourself, because that’s the way we best relate to real stories.
Give up your addiction to struggle … Just let it go.
Few great artists color inside the lines.
Distinguish your large cast of characters by using different first initials … and vary your number of syllables and places of emphasis
While plot is important, good characters can make or break your book.
Every word you write must serve a purpose, whether to move the action forward or to develop a person (character).
Open your heartbrain and write from there. Become the person you’re writing about.
A Ray Bradbury quote: “You’ve got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.”

One of the most powerful ideas in the book is the “Heart-Clutching Moment.” These are the big emotional set-pieces of a book: Judas takes the money.
Murder, betrayal, love at first sight, a change of heart, forgiveness--any of these can serve as a heart-clutching moment.
The skeleton of the book becomes a connect-the-dots map of these high moments.

A closing thought: “The best artists know that if they dedicate themselves to the process, a beautiful result will follow. It might not be the result they first envisioned, but it will be honest and true.”

For more by Elizabeth Sims, read my synopsis of her excellent short story class.

Fiction: The Witch King and The Fae Keeper by H.E. Edgmon

12/23/2022

These two novels by H.E. Edgmon are great fun: snarky, poignant at times, and often surprising.
Unlike many YA novels, the protagonist Wyatt’s poor choices feel grounded in his character, rather than convenient plot contrivances.

In The Witch King, Wyatt is yanked out of his found family by his fiance, the ultra-hot Fae prince, Emyr.
Wyatt left the hidden Fae stronghold of Asalin as a female, but now identifies as a transgendered male--which Emyr accepts without hesitation.
Though one villain does deadname Wyatt, it’s nice to inhabit a world where gender fluidity is acknowledged by the main characters.
And one where the badass fashionista Fae have horns as well as wings.

Wyatt’s best friend Briar (a human female) comes along to Asalin. She provides a great opportunity for the reader to absorb this new world.
Political tension simmers between the entitled Fae and the oppressed underclass of Witches (like Wyatt). There are deliciously evil villains bent on stealing the throne from Emyr, and colorful allies as well.
There’s too much cis-het man bashing for my taste--it brings the characters down to the same level as the bigots they’re trying to overcome when they take cheap shots at others.
Overall, an exciting story with a satisfying ending.

The Fae Keeper continues the story of The Witch King on a larger scale.
Transgenderd male Witch Wyatt and ultra-hot Fae Emyr are trying to advocate for equality between the Fae and Witches on a global scale. They visit a Fae kingdom ruled by two gay male Fae--who are NOT sympathetic to the cause.
The tension between advocating for equality and the entitlement of the ruling class, and a power-struggle over the throne of Asalin, play throughout the story.

The magic, the villains, the worldbuilding--everything is bigger in The Fae Keeper.
Like The Witch King, its strengths are Wyatt’s snarky attitude, the moments of tenderness between Wyatt and Emyr, and the surprising plot twists. But I had difficulty keeping up with the larger cast, many of whom were introduced too late in the story for me to identify with them, much less remember who they were in the chaos of battle. I also found the character voices at the closing interlude (when the story is told from POVs other than Wyatt’s) unsatisfying. Briar in particular didn’t have a unique voice; her inner monologue was very similar to Wyatt’s.
The way the villains were defeated felt cheap rather than cathartic. If you defeat your enemies by using their vile methods, the victory is tainted in my opinion. For me, this weakened the story.
Though this sequel wasn't as strong as The Witch King, it was still a fun read.

Short Fiction: Story collections by Ken Liu

12/18/2022

I recently took a fantabulous workshop with Ken Liu, which prompted me to dive into his short stories.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories.The title story, “The Paper Menagerie,” is the tale of a boy who becomes estranged from his Chinese mother (a mail-order bride) in his quest to assimilate into American culture. She creates magical origami figures that move around like the living animals they resemble.
After her death, the adult protagonist comes across the paper animals in a box and is able to come to an understanding of his mother’s love.

Other stories I enjoyed in this collection:

“The Perfect Match” explores the implications of search engine algorithms as they might relate to dating. What do we sacrifice when we let technology make our lives easier?
“The Waves” asks what would happen if people could upload their consciousness to the web. What if your spouse or child chose to stay behind--or upload without you?
“Mono No Aware” explores life in a generation ship heading out into the stars and the heroic choices people make when something goes horribly wrong.
“A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel” is an alternate history where the Great Depression is resolved by building a pneumatic tunnel between Shanghai, Tokyo, and Seattle. Good news: Hitler was never elected in this timeline.
My favorite story in this book was “The Regular,” about a broken cop trying to solve a murder case. The futuristic tech was believable and fascinating, and the main character someone you can’t help rooting for.

A few stories in this collection were heavy on “message” and too light on narrative flow and characterization for my taste, but the stories listed above were all strong.

The Hidden Girl and Other Stories.
The writing in this collection was more mature and the stories more compelling overall, with no "weak" entires.
Both story collections are worth a read, but of the two, I preferred The Hidden Girl.

Favorites:

“The Reborn” is a fascinating tale of a human bonded to an alien. After committing a crime, his consciousness was rebooted, but there seems to be a glitch . . .
“Thoughts and Prayers” explores familial grief in the wake of a young child’s death during a mass shooting. The dead girl's persona is recreated via artificial intelligence to publicize her senseless death, with tragic results.
A similar theme underlies “Byzantine Empathy,” which asks if we would be motivated to take action if we could directly experience the suffering of others.
“The Gods Will Not Be Chained” is another tale of uploading consciousness to a computer, but told from a fresh angle with an endearing young protagonist.
One of the most impactful stories was “Memories of My Mother.” In this tale, a mother with a terminal illness volunteers for space travel so she can prolong her presence in her daughter’s life. A unique take on the paradox of faster-than-light space travel.
“Dispatches from the Cradle” follows the exploits of a retired financier living as a hermit on Massachusetts Bay in the far future. It questions our impact and responsibility (as humans) to address our wrongs against nature--or not.
“Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard” is a delightful myth/fairy tale of magical people who can transform into animals and three would-be heroes throwing themselves against an unethical regime to save loved ones.
Another mythic fantasy, “The Hidden Girl” is a story of a young girl learning a magical martial art--and choosing between duty and honor.
“The Message” is a heartbreaking tale of an archeologist father and his young daughter trying to decipher pictograms left by aliens on a planet scheduled for demolition.

Fiction: The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne

12/15/2022

The Book of Gothel is a reframing of the Rapunzel fairy tale from Dame Gothel’s perspective.
Most of the story follows the adventures of Gothel as a young girl named Haelewise, who has mysterious fainting spells. Her parents take her to numerous healers and clergymen, seeking a cure.

The novel recreates medieval Germany with meticulous detail. You can feel the mud and smell the herbs the author describes. The clash between the growing sect of Christianity and ancient folk beliefs creates an undercurrent of tension.
Hildegard of Bingen makes an appearance, though her contribution to the plot is tangential, and her subplot is only vaguely resolved.
She seems like an authorial indulgence rather than a crucial element of the story.

Political maneuvering and abuse of power are driving forces in Haelewise’s life, which she grasps belatedly and poorly.
Most of the story, Haelewise careens from one disaster to the next, with no realistic plan. Following a number of irrational and impulsive choices (typical of YA stories, but annoying and unnecessary to the tale’s unfolding) she is able to take decisive action at the novel’s climax.
An impossible romance is at the heart of the novel. Instead of the prince being blinded (as in the Brothers Grimm tale), in this version, no man can see in the mist generated by Gothel’s tower. And the love interest is a tailor, whereas the “handsome prince” is one of the antagonists.

I got The Book of Gothel from my local library because I enjoy tweaked fairy tales. It delivers on that count.
This could’ve been a great book had the characterization and plot been stronger.
As written, it’s of interest to anyone intrigued by recast fairy tales or German medieval history, but of less interest to the general reader.

Writing Craft: Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell

12/2/2022

Matt Bell advocates three major drafts in novel writing in his craft book, Refuse to Be Done.
He says: The first draft is to discover the book I’m writing by writing the book.

I try to never go a day without looking at the book, which seems to keep my subconscious working on it.
So often you learn what’s right only by trying more than one solution in the same document, remembering always that efficiency isn’t the goal; a great book is the goal.

For the second draft, he suggests a reverse outline:

write a full outline of the novel, outlining what already exists.
Once the outline is complete, I revise it, not the novel, until the outline becomes a plan for the better book I want to write.
The aim here is to discover what you’ve already done and then think of how you might better take advantage of the inherent qualities in the structure
The trick of the second draft is to recapture or re-create the magic that inspired the novel in the first place, but to do so with the fullness of the style you developed by the time you reached the end.

For the third draft:

On your first pass, highlight in one color every sentence in which you explain something [exposition: try to streamline or eliminate]
With a different color, do a pass where you highlight every instance of backstory. [Try to streamline or delay/eliminate]
For your next pass, highlight the weakest sentence [or weakest clause in each paragraph: try to eliminate]
Next highlight the strongest sentence in each paragraph . . . lift the surrounding prose to the same level
Highlight any passages where you feel yourself being genuinely moved…feel some kind of emotional, intellectual, moral, or esthetic jolt [also note where you feel nothing]

I find this highlighting technique helpful in my own revision process, but many of his suggestions (such as retyping the second and third drafts from scratch) didn’t resonate with me. I didn't purchase this book (I borrowed it from the library), though it did have a lot of useful ideas.

His overall message: revision and rewriting are most of what good writing entails…the sustained and often small-scale work of making a promising manuscript better hour by hour, day by day, slowly but steadily moving it closer to your imagined ideal. Read more from Matt Bell on the practice of writing.

Writing Craft: Zen in the Art of Writing

11/26/2022

Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity is 170 pages of pure fun.
Mr. Bradbury advocates play as a means of freeing the subconscious, and encourages the writer to relax into the art of writing.

Favorite quotes:

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
The first thing a writer should be is--excited.
Passion often saves the day.
Life is short, misery sure, mortality certain. But on the way, in your work, why not [incorporate] Zest and Gusto.
Read poetry every day of your life.
What we [writers] are trying to do is find a way to release the truth that lies in all of us.
Can we borrow cups of fire from the sun? We can and must and light the world.

On revision: “The main thing is compression.”
He says: “there are two arts: number one, getting the [story] done; and then, the second great art is learning how to cut it so you don’t kill it or hurt it in any way.”
And: “The artist learns what to leave out.”

This collection of essays doesn’t delve into craft mechanics, but does provide an encouraging overview of the creative journey.

Writing Craft: Writing the Other

11/15/2022

I bought Writing the Other: A Practical Approach by Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward in preparation for the excellent worldbuilding Master Class: Building Inclusive Worlds.
At a little over 100 pages, this is a slim book. The content is similar to that of the resources listed on the Writing the Other website.

The book explores the intersectionality of Race, sexual Orientation, Age, Ability, Religion, and Sex/gender (ROAARS) in terms of fiction writing.
The authors note that class is “arguably as important as race in terms of categorization” but generally disregard class identity in the content arguing that class is “not a difference [the] majority culture recognizes as significant.”
The authors give examples of clumsy writing, such as:

Creating unlikely relationships between characters (a white Maine lobsterman and his gay New Yorker friend) with no acknowledgment when this is culturally unusual (Mainers don’t befriend New Yorkers)
Giving a particular character (gay man) every stereotypical trait of one ROAARS characteristic (florist, yappy dog, flamboyant speech)

Some helpful hints:

Have two or more characters from a given ROAARS category [with other, differing character traits] to avoid negative stereotypes (one of the Gay men works construction).
Focus on non-ROAARS traits to help readers identify with characters different from themselves (a picky eater, deeply in love, etc.)
Learning boils down to making mistakes, seeing what you’ve done wrong, and making connections [with mentors or other guides]. If you’re going to be a good writer, if you’re going to improve, you mustn't flinch from this process.
You need to know what it feels like to be conspicuous. If your character’s a minority, she or he will be quite familiar with the sensation.
By assigning unusual speech patterns [dialects] to the adopted [appropriated] culture, a writer will distance her readers from the people of that culture.
If you’re borrowing creative elements from a non-dominant and/or non-Western culture, consider making a cash donation to some institution that supports, preserves, or furthers the knowledge of that culture.

I’ll confess I didn’t do any of the exercises at the end of each chapter. But I found the advice and examples throughout the book helpful.
Writing the Other is a solid introduction to expanding characterization and worldbuilding in respectful and inclusive ways.

Black Pulp, ed. Tommy Hancock, Gary Phillips, and Morgan Minor

11/12/2022

I love pulp noir characters of the 20s & 30s: Conan the Barbarian (created by Robert E. Howard), Philip Marlowe (by Raymond Chandler), the Continental Op and Sam Spade (Dashiell Hammett). However, I detest the sexism, racism, and homophobia that plagued books of this era. Happily, Pro Se Press is producing “New Pulp” books that retain the compelling storytelling of the older works without the offensive bigotry.

Black Pulp, is a short story collection reminiscent of hard-boiled noir featuring Black champions.
My favorite stories in the collection:

“Mtimu” by Charles R. Saunders features a Black Tarzan-like character (Mtimbu) and two strong women who battle a big-game hunter trying to capture Mtimu.
“Dillon and the Alchemist’s Morning Coffee” by Derrick Ferguson is a rollicking tale of a mercenary and a spy who team up to thwart evil villains bent on world domination. The clever banter between these two characters is an absolute delight!
Gary Philips writes a face-paced tale of a boxer who gets entangled in a mystery involving a freakish cult in “Decimator Smith and the Fangs of the Fire Serpent.”
“Drums of the Ogbanje” is a rescue adventure by Mel Odom involving evil slave traders and eldritch sorcery.
Kimberly Richardson’s “Agnes Viridian and the Search for the Scales” features a female protagonist embroiled in a conflict involving Egyptian gods.
“The Hammer of Norgill” by Tommy Hancock is an imaginative tale of the legendary contest between John Henry and the steam drill, and John Henry’s after-death adventure.

Black Pulp is not a perfect anthology. Women are treated like disposable objects in the opening story by Joe R. Lansdale, and the overt anti-Asian prejudice in Christopher Chambers’ contribution was disappointing in an otherwise action-packed yarn.
Black Pulp is a fun read despite these two stories, especially for anyone interested in “New Pulp.”

Fiction: A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

11/8/2022

A Snake Falls to Earth is a magical tale of friendship and found family, told through the lens of traditional Lipan Apache storytelling. One strength of the novel is the mixture of characters of different ages and backgrounds, all of whom are respectful of each other, unlike too much young adult fiction where the generations are disconnected.

The story is told through alternating viewpoints of Nina and Oli. Nina, a young girl of Lipan heritage, is trying to translate her great-great-grandmother’s final story. Oli, a cottonmouth kid from the land of spirits and monsters, is trying to survive without family or friends.
All of the characters (with the exception of the antagonists) are delightful people to spend time with. There are plenty of dangers and surprises to keep the pages turning, and enough magic to provide an otherworldly experience.
There were a couple of places I had to reread--one being the opening scene, where the viewpoint (Nina’s) wasn't initially clear. Another spot that was hard for me to follow occurred during the climax, when a passage to the Otherworld is revealed that hadn’t been foreshadowed. The author also switched out of the two main POV characters and into omniscient, which distanced me from the story.
These were small quibbles in what was otherwize a wonderful fable, suitable for all ages.

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