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GRAND CONCEPTION

BOOK I IN MORNIG BLISS TRILOGY

An innovative and triumphantly bizarre story, with enough material to keep readers eager for an entire trilogy.

Morgan (Heroes of the New Eden, 2012, etc.) delivers the first installment in his Morning Bliss trilogy, an imaginative, allegorical sci-fi tale.

The battleship Kincazion is a living being—more specifically, it’s a male. Its potential mate is a female cathedral named Mahandaahl. In the cathedral, blue-haired human Anthem is fascinated by the Kincazion and wants to build a baby ship, while human wage slave Skiff, aboard the battleship, craves escape. Kincazion eventually fights another ship for Mahandaahl’s affections. The novel, set entirely on the ship and the cathedral, is filled with allegory, often sexual in nature and sometimes unsubtle. Intriguingly, some inanimate entities are given life while many living creatures—including giant spiders, lizards and even men—function as transportation; the women on Mahandaahl, for example, ride on males’ shoulders. One of the book’s most convincing elements is Skiff’s changing concept of freedom, which includes such goals as garnering knowledge or accumulating wealth. There are also occasional dips into political incorrectness—there’s more than one reference to dolphins as food, for example—and Morgan has a tendency to provide only a modicum of description for things that beg for more, including a snake infantry unit and a “scoob moonty,” a nuclear-powered “walking brain,” but these are minor faults. Gorplid, Anthem’s antagonist, also adds notes of dark humor with her colorful insults—“fetid little tart” and “puke face” are just two of her less offensive jabs.

An innovative and triumphantly bizarre story, with enough material to keep readers eager for an entire trilogy.

Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2012

ISBN: 978-1466927285

Page Count: 356

Publisher: Trafford

Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2013

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THE FAMILIAR

Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.

In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.

Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.

Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.

Pub Date: April 9, 2024

ISBN: 9781250884251

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

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FOURTH WING

From the Empyrean series , Vol. 1

Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.

On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.

Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.

Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.

Pub Date: May 2, 2023

ISBN: 9781649374042

Page Count: 528

Publisher: Red Tower

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024

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