Short Book Reviews: Carrie Vaughn's Questland

Questland, by Carrie Vaughn (Mariner)

I’m not a gamer, but I belong firmly in the camp of those who’ve longed to run away to Narnia or Middle Earth, or to ride a unicorn or cross wits with a sphinx. Imagine an entire island amusement park where such adventures come alive! Add high tech monsters and characters and you’ve got a sure hit. What could possibly go wrong? (Shades of Jurassic Park?) To begin with, even before Insula Mirabilis can go online, it goes offline. As in, breaks off all contact with the outside world. When a Coast Guard ship attempts to investigate, it crashes into an invisible force shield and is destroyed. Suspicion for this technological insurrection falls on Dominic, the head designer. At this point, the eccentric billionaire genius behind the project puts together a mercenary team to infiltrate the island and bring it back under his control. He enlists Addie Cox, a literature professor and ardent gamer with special expertise in legends and mythology, to help the team negotiate the built-in quests. The mercenaries, initially skeptical about Addie’s value, soon realize they are in over their heads. Insula Mirabilis is neither predictable nor safe, especially when they venture into areas where the foundational stories break down and supernatural creatures run amok. But Addie’s expertise is not the only reason she’s been offered the job: Dominic, the head designer, is her ex-boyfriend, and she’s probably the only one who can get through to him.

Smooth prose, fascinating details, and pitch-perfect pacing mark this, as other novels by Carrie Vaughn, as a book that will swallow you up in the most satisfying way.

 

Short Book Reviews: Physician to the Fae Plague

The Memory of Water (Magorian & Jones Book 1), by Taylen Carver (Stories Rule Press, 2020)

Despite a confusing and completely unnecessary prolog, this book drew me in. A plague has swept the world, killing most of its victims but transforming the survivors into creatures such as goblins, angels, sirens, and dragons. Feared and reviled by the human remnant, these “Errata” are hunted and corralled into reservations. In one such sanctuary, Michael Jones, a physician, devotes himself to treating the plague victims through the all-too-often-fatal metamorphosis. This is despite or perhaps because of the death of his family at the hands of the early Errata. The struggle is often futile, so Jones ends up teaming up with Ben Magorian, an honest-to-goodness wizard, although not the most easy-going person. Despite their incompatible beliefs, Jones’s entrenched skepticism, and Magorian’s antisocial attitudes, the two team up to thwart an even deadlier menace.

Once the story got going, I kept turning the pages. I loved the idea of medical approach to an essentially magical transformation. The various Errata races and their abilities, as well as the individual struggles (or not) to retain their humanity not only fascinated me but raise questions of ethics and compassion. I had a little trouble accepting that most people would so strongly reject their neighbors and family members for getting sick, or would not be curious, eager to have conversations with mythic-appearing creatures or to exploit them in movies, promotions, and the like (human greed at work). That’s my primary criticism, yet I was able to take such rejection and prejudice as a given in this world and go along with the story. I’m a sucker for wounded, conflicted heroes, and Jones was just that. This is the first of a series of the “Magorian and Jones” novels.

 

Deborah Reads from "Eagle's Beak and Wings of Bronze, or Something Unusual Happens to Allis"

 Hope you enjoy this snippet:

When sweet, slow-witted Alis gets shipped off to be the bride of the Duke’s son, she isn’t quite sure what to make of her situation, especially the changes that happen to her during the full moon. Soon she’s holding her own in conversation with a sonnet-composing dragon and a contentious two-headed roc. Is she cursed to become a were-gryphon or is the world finally making sense?

Release date is September 1. Pre-order it from Amazon; or Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Overdrive, and other vendors.

Short Book Reviews: Victims No More

Fury, by Rachel Vincent (Harlequin)

This is yet another book I’ve innocently dived into, unaware it was part of a series. “Series” can mean a number of things, from stand-alone complete-in-themselves novels set in the same universe to one long story that extends over several volumes. Recently I listened to an interview with Peter Jackson in which he discussed the decision to not put a recap at the beginning of The Two Towers, the second part of The Lord of the Rings. He felt that one year between film was a short enough time for viewers (those few not intimately familiar with the books) to remember and anyone who went to see it without having seen or read The Fellowship of the Ring, oh well… I admit to not being as careful as I might about checking to see if a book is a sequel, so I rely on the skill of the author to furnish necessary backstory without inundating me with it, and to draw me into the story so that even if I have to work a little harder to figure out what has gone before, I’m already hooked.

Rachel Vincent’s Fury definitely falls into this category. For the first couple of chapters I vacillated between “this is a sequel and I can’t keep straight who and what all these characters are” to “this is a stand-alone that brilliantly weaves the backstory into the present, trusting the reader to gradually put it all together.”

The book begins with parallel stories from the past and present. In the past, we learn of a mysterious rash of murders that leave one child survivor, always a six-year-old. In the present, a small band of cryptids (werewolves, redcaps, oracles, a minotaur, and the like), having escaped a brutal captivity, struggle to maintain their freedom while tracking down their abusers. Their journeys kept me reading on, dying of curiosity about how the two story lines would come together, and I was quickly so in love with these characters that discovering there were not one but two previous novels filled me not with disappointment but anticipation. There’s lots more, even if I read them in the wrong order. You, on the other hand, can reap the benefit of my experience and start at the beginning.

In some ways, this book made me think of the flip side of Seanan McGuire’s “Incryptid” series, which I like very much and have reviewed elsewhere. In McGuire’s world, as Vincent’s, these nonhuman people are at tremendous risk from the mundane world, only there is an extended family devoted to their protection and preservation. While it’s a terrible shame such heroes do not exist in the world of Fury, here the cryptids are their own saviors, which makes for a different but no less satisfying tale.

The usual disclaimer: I received an advance reading copy of this book, but no one bribed me to say anything in particular about it.