Review: The Choking Rain

The Choking Rain by Brian Lowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclaimer first: I picked up this book because the author, who is a fellow member of a writers' forum I belong to, mentioned it in the Books for Review thread on that forum. I don't know the author well.

This is an old-school pulp adventure, set in 1932, that could almost have been written in that year, down to contemporary references and subtleties of language. That's quite an achievement, though it does border on a fault insofar as the characters are no deeper than 1930s pulp characters would be. They have a small amount of backstory and a couple of quirks and their role in the plot, and that's about it. At times I struggled to distinguish Mary from Kate, and Ted from Eric, and "Professor Death" (whose nickname was never explained) from Damian - not so much that I was confused about who was who, but they did feel very similar to one another. I also felt that some of the characters' specific skills could have been brought out more; some could have seen more use, like Damian's chemistry knowledge, while others (the mastery of disguise by one character, for example) could have been better foreshadowed.

Kate's linguistic abilities and martial arts prowess did get a good amount of use, and her prominence and agency in the plot were a good update that probably wouldn't have appeared in many 1930s pulps; even though she does get captured through being, as she herself puts it, "too stupid to live," she contributes significantly to her own escape rather than being passively rescued. While I wouldn't say that the book has 21st-century sensibilities in the way that some books being written at the moment ignore the way historical people actually thought at the time and impose current thinking and language, it also avoids the casual sexism and racism that was prevalent in many (though not all) books a century ago, and treats its female and non-western characters with respect.

The author deliberately withholds information from the reader that's available to the characters at times, and even engages in deception, though my suspicion that he'd outright lied in the narrative at one point turned out to be technically incorrect. I haven't read enough 1930s pulp to know if this is part of the genre or specific to this author. I found it mildly annoying while it was happening, though it did set up some good reveals that compensated. (I still correctly guessed the biggest reveal, though not the other two about who was a hero and who a villain.) The advantage for the author of doing this is that he can almost get away with some events early on, when the reader doesn't know what's happening, that don't make complete sense in light of the final revelations. I was left with a number of questions, though, in retrospect. (view spoiler)[Why didn't the coffee work to set off the death trap for the mayor and the chief of police? Had their booby-trapped situation been fixed by Our Hero somehow? (And how did he get on the plane and hide there?) How did the reporters at the funeral get set up with the traps? Above all, what was the reason for the Nazis to take all of the significant characters to South America, apart from the plot demanding it? I give the "master of disguise not recognized when he should have been" thing a genre pass, though I still think his disguise skills needed more setup. (hide spoiler)]

The antagonists are early Nazis, always a strong choice, because you don't have to exaggerate to make them thoroughly villainous. The McGuffin is a clever idea, and more than plausible enough for pulp. While the plot does need a couple of minor Convenient Eavesdrops and at least one small Fortunate Coincidence to help it along, they're not egregious or constant, and the agency of appropriately motivated characters is the main plot driver.

While it's not without its minor flaws, anyone who enjoys 1930s pulp, which was often a lot more flawed in all the same ways and several others, should find it a fun ride; it has the strengths of that genre too, with a variety of challenges overcome by a mixture of intelligence, bravery and determination.

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Review: The Dragons of Deepwood Fen

The Dragons of Deepwood Fen by Bradley P. Beaulieu
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

It's been years since I read this style of full-on epic fantasy, where innocents die brutally in the prologue and then we get a lot of (initially) unconnected POVs all centering around a Big Bad Thing, and it's all very serious.

What I'd forgotten in those years is that I don't actually enjoy that kind of book very much, as a matter of personal taste; I like multiple POVs, but in a more connected, intimate arrangement, and prefer my fantasy to have at least some lightheartedness somewhere in it.

But if you like this kind of thing, this is definitely one, and an above-average one if a careful editor adds in all the missing words and takes out the many unnecessary coordinate commas before publication.

I received a pre-publication review copy via Netgalley.

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Review: Town Guard

Town Guard by Jake Brannigan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I haven't tried to read a full-on LitRPG before, so this was interesting. It makes no real attempt to make the presumable game-world plausible in its own internal terms, and the game aspects (stats, character sheets, punctuation that calls out the skills and inventory items as special) were obtrusive, but I'm guessing that comes with the territory. From poking around, I've gained the impression that LitRPG is normally terribly edited, and although this definitely needed more editing, mainly for typos and internal inconsistencies, it was better than plenty of other books I've read lately; the author at least has a basic grasp of commas and can (mostly) narrate competently in the past tense. He also knows the difference between a hoard and a horde, and uses the correct spelling for "discreet," which plenty of people who make few other mistakes get wrong. On the other hand, he is given to stating the blindingly obvious, such as that no mortal is immortal, or that a small park is not large, and sometimes displays a bit of ignorance about the world and how it works, like referring to a tailor "knitting" a shirt made of fine fabric. He puts an apostrophe in "heads up" that doesn't belong there, and occasionally uses the wrong preposition, such as "with 50 yards" instead of "within 50 yards". And he writes "wailing" where he means "whaling".

He's clearly young, not only because of the slang he uses but because he says at one point "the old man was nearly 50," so he gets a bit of a n00b pass for not knowing things.

The other sign of youth is an adolescent obsession with sex at times, though it mostly takes the form of innuendo or reference to people having or wanting to have sex; there's nothing outright explicit on screen, so it's PG rather than R.

The protagonist is also young; he turns 16 early in the book, which is the age at which people can choose a class (or have one chosen for them by the gods) in his world. (It's also the age of consent, taken very literally; the gods prevent people under 14 from any sexual expression at all, those 14-15 from anything more than kissing and cuddling, and those over 16 from anything that isn't consented to by both parties, and one can only be with people of one's own age range.) Despite his youth, he's serious-minded and absolutely determined to do the right thing, which is usually putting himself at risk in order to protect others. I liked that aspect of his character.

As the blurb gives away, this leads to him being classed as a Town Guard, a deliberately OP class that makes sure towns are safe places - but they can't leave the town they're assigned to until they reach level 20, which torpedoes his life plans. The actual moment at which he becomes a Town Guard doesn't come until almost halfway through, so the first half of the book is spent establishing the characters and their relationships, and setting up some mysteries and conflicts. I didn't feel it went too slowly; there were some action scenes that were both varied and well described scattered throughout, the characters were interesting to spend time with, and the various mysteries piqued my curiosity.

I found the resolution of the various mysteries and conflicts satisfying, and appreciated that Glenn wasn't just good-hearted and brave and loyal, but also smart. He worked with others effectively, too; he wasn't just a solo hero.

I definitely look forward to reading the sequel, and this easily makes it onto my Best of the Year list. I've put it at the Bronze tier, the lowest, but it's high Bronze; I just can't quite justify Silver given the need for more polish, especially when it comes to internal consistency and continuity. Still, a promising debut.

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Review: Royal Tea Service

Royal Tea Service by Casey Blair
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First of all, this is not really a cozy fantasy, in the sense that it doesn't have low stakes. The protagonist is setting out to save the world, which is as high as stakes can get. But it has a lot of the furniture of cozy: a tea shop, a sweet romance, a lot of page space dedicated to the personal and interpersonal development of the characters rather than to the world-saving.

Don't start with this book, by the way. The books are based on a continuous web series, and so when a character from a previous book reappears there isn't the slightest attempt to recap who they are, what they do, or what their relationship to the protagonist is; you need to remember from having read the previous volumes relatively recently. And there are a lot of these characters, too.

I was pleased to note that one of my criticisms of the previous book is starting to be addressed in this one. Miyara the Tea Princess has been making everything about her, doing all the protagonism, and treating her friends and acquaintances largely as a little court who she orders about as extensions of herself. In this book, she's become aware of that and is trying to work on it, delegate more, trust them to do what they're good at in their own way without her direct supervision, and have their own development and growth. Because it's still narrated in her voice, inevitably everything still filters through her perspective, but at least she's encouraging more agency in the other characters, and they're taking it on.

One thing hasn't changed. One of her sisters says at one point, "I was under the impression that defeat by graciousness was your primary mode of operating." I have never been under that impression; to me, it seems that Miyara's primary mode of operating is to berate people with harsh truths and ultimatums until they fold and do what she wants, inexplicably without resenting her manner in most cases.

In terms of language, the sentences sometimes wander so much that they get lost and fall apart grammatically; there was one I couldn't parse at all, I assume because at least one of the words had the wrong part of speech. There are numerous missing words, repeated words, transposed words, and other errors and typos (including "knew" for "new," twice, and "their" for "there"; maybe the author uses dictation software and doesn't clean up the output properly?). A couple of times, Miyara claims to be the "fourth youngest" princess; she's actually fourth oldest, and therefore second youngest, of the five.

All up, I noted about twice as many errors as I'd expect to see in a book this length (it's long), which earned it my "seriously-needs-editing" tag. The author is being ambitious with the prose, attempting sentences that are long and complicated and profound, but doesn't have the chops to pull it off consistently. Apparently, the books were funded by a Kickstarter following success as a web series; more of the proceeds needed to be dedicated to competent professional editing.

In my reviews of the previous two books, I mentioned that the worldbuilding felt like scenery flats. Here, it feels a little more filled in, especially the magic systems. We do still get the occasional ritual recitation of 2020s US progressive orthodox doctrine on oppressive systems, with no attempt to make it feel like an organic part of the setting or something Miyara, with her background, would realistically think, but most of the thoughts that are actually integrated into the story are not so rote or simplistic and most of them make some sense. (I will note that ambassadors are not usually empowered to change the laws of their countries by making a treaty with other countries; their government still needs to ratify the treaty and make the changes to the law by their normal process.)

I'm being harsh on it, despite rating it highly, because it's a fresh and (from a story point of view) mostly well-executed premise that I felt was badly let down by lack of attention to detail. I would normally place a book with this amount of depth and character development in at least the Gold tier of my Best of the Year list, if not the Platinum tier, but as it is, it only merits Silver.

There's a sentence in there somewhere that I didn't highlight from Deniel, Miyara's love interest, about putting effort into your art to make it the best it can be. I feel like the author needs to put that sentence up on the wall and reflect on it deeply. This whole series shows a lot of promise that, for me, is not fully realized because of poor mechanics, mental blind spots and ignorance about how a world works. If the author (who is young and early-career) works hard on these things, rather than coasting on the popularity the good storytelling and strong characters deservedly attract, future books could be extraordinarily good, rather than a mixture of excellence and profound flaws.

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Review: Battle's Legacy

Battle's Legacy by Darian Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a tough one to review. I've met Darian Smith a couple of times in person, and he's a great guy. I've also enjoyed the previous books in the series (with a couple of reservations), and included them on my Best of the Year lists. And from a storytelling point of view, it works: the characters have arcs, they struggle, they use their alliances and their skills and their history and determination and courage to persevere and succeed, they're determined to do the right thing even if it costs them. All of this is good, and would normally get it an automatic spot on my Best of the Year for 2023, with no hesitation.

On the other hand, it could do with a lot more polish, which was one of the reservations I mentioned regarding the earlier books. This one is even worse than the others, though. The whole ebook is formatted as one long "chapter," so the "time left in chapter" and "time left in book" numbers are the same, and what should be em dashes are all hyphens, inconsistently spaced. There are a number of small words missing out of sentences (a hard error to spot) and occasionally added to sentences, "let's eat Grandma" errors (missing comma before term of address), missing question marks, and a remarkably complete collection of other common errors, over 100 of them, which is more than I spotted in the other two books put together (see my highlights and notes). Towards the end, the continuity gets a little suspect, as well, and at least one person misses something that should be completely obvious to him so that an enemy's move can succeed.

My other big reservation about the earlier books was that they are darker than I prefer, with a lot of death, tragedy, pain, and overall angst. That's a personal taste thing; other people will find that a feature, but I don't, and that's the main reason (along with the low standard of editing) that I won't be getting the fourth book when it comes out. I'm pretty confident I can see some of where that book will be going, and I have no desire to experience it.

So where do I land in terms of a score and a recommendation? I've been privately judgmental in the past of authors who are, I think, too kind when they review books by their fellow authors who they like as people, and I don't want to fall into the same behaviour. On the other hand, I have allowed some books onto the bottom tier of my Best of the Year list this year that, while they have terrible mechanics and/or are darker than I prefer, are well-told stories, and this is one of those.

In the end, because I know that there are people who will enjoy this more than I did (not noticing the many errors and not minding the death and dismemberment), it just barely squeaks into the very bottom of the Bronze tier of my 2023 list, and I still feel conflicted about letting it on there. In a year where I was judging more harshly, it would get three stars.

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Review: The King of Faerie

The King of Faerie by A.J. Lancaster
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a consistently excellent series (start at the beginning; it's a continuous story, though each book has its own resolution). Well edited, apart from the occasional unnecessary "!?" and a few very minor glitches; full of vivid characters, some of whom are wonderfully determined to do the right thing; with a marvelous and fresh-feeling setting that nevertheless evokes both Fae lore and British tradition.

I do have a minor quibble, which I've mentioned in reviews of earlier books: this is a Britain (or Prydain) where the religion is Celtic paganism, and yet several characters (Jonathan, John, and James) unaccountably have biblical names. Apart from that, the worldbuilding is excellent. A lot of books that present a society that goes back for centuries don't give me the feel of antiquity that, say, a British book set in the real world does, with its odd traditions that make no sense but are kept up because that's the way things have always been. This book does give me that. It's a parallel-world Britain where the details are all different, but the overall feel of it is the same.

There's an old family manor. It's dilapidated in parts, it's been renovated and built onto and rooms repurposed dozens of times, the rooms have names that no doubt all have histories behind them, a big extended family lives there (and argues constantly, but ultimately pulls together in the face of an external threat), and it's completely wonderful and evocative.

The fae are unpredictable and alluring and dangerous, sometimes cruel, always fascinating. But Wyn, the fae prince who is one of the central characters, is a kind and good-hearted man who's lived as a human for years and is only just now returning to reluctantly embrace his fae side. That's a theme: if you don't acknowledge who you are and live that out, you're buying yourself a world of trouble and weakening yourself as well. (A book having that kind of a theme, and working it out successfully, is one of my criteria for a five-star rating.)

And then there's Hetta. The book would be worth reading for Hetta alone; she's determined, steadfast, forthright (which both the fae and her fellow humans tend to find some combination of amusing and offensive), and takes no crap from anyone, no matter how powerful, even though she's only the lord of a small faeland that's also an estate in the human world. She's pregnant, to her fiancé Wyn, which in her society is scandalous; she has no time for people's moral panic about it when there's a ticking clock to resolve a series of difficult problems in order to save everything that matters to her. She's not perfect or flawless or overpowered; she struggles both internally and externally throughout the book, but, as she says at one point, "Monsters first; self-doubt later." I love how pragmatic and sensible she is. (It's a characteristic that New Zealand women often have, in my experience, and the author is a fellow New Zealander.) She and Wyn form a powerful team; both racked by self-doubt but with full confidence in each other, she pragmatic and blunt, he organized and diplomatic, both thrown into a sea of chaos mostly not of their own making, and swimming strongly for an at first invisible shore.

I always enjoy it when I find an author who can set up a series of problems that I can't see a solution to, and I look forward to seeing how they resolve them. This book is particularly successful in that regard, and (vaguely to avoid spoilers) involves plenty of agency from the key characters and zero fortunate coincidences in the actual resolution, too. It manages to pull off "surprising but inevitable," and that's hard.

I pick up a lot of bad books in my search for books like this, so I know what the average writer is capable of. This is the work of a writer who is well above average. It fully deserves a high spot on my Best of the Year list for 2023.

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Review: The First Law of Cultivation

The First Law of Cultivation by KrazeKode
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

I almost need another tag stronger than "seriously needs editing" for this one.

Look, I can put up with some errors for the sake of a good story. If I couldn't, I wouldn't enjoy reading much; most authors these days make the same ten types of errors at least occasionally, because they haven't been taught not to. But by the time I abandoned this at 4% I'd marked about 40 issues, most of them to do with the fact that the author has no clue, absolutely none, about how to write a narrative in the past tense. I'm used to the occasional missing past perfect tense when referring to something happening before the narrative moment, and the occasional "may" when it should be "might," and even the odd slip into present tense, but this book makes those errors constantly, on practically every Kindle page (which is smaller than a print page). Not to mention frequently writing something as two words where it should be one, and occasionally the other way round, and the usual excess coordinate commas between adjectives that don't need them, and some sentences that are phrased so awkwardly it's hard to figure out what they mean, and most of the other common errors. It's a constant barrage of bad mechanics, which distracted me so much that I couldn't get into the story and see if it was any good.

The opening is extremely reminiscent of Beware of Chicken Volume 1 : person from our world is suddenly dropped into the body of a young cultivator in a xanxia world who has just been beaten to death by more senior cultivators, who use "sparring" as an excuse to bully the weak. (I'm not sure if it's directly ripping off BoC or drawing on a widespread trope of the genre, because BoC is the only other such novel I've read.) But where the protagonist of BoC was a farmer and wants to be one again, this protagonist definitely does not want to farm; he was a chemistry student, and takes up the study of alchemy (or Alchemy, since it's capitalized for some reason). He apprentices himself to an old alchemy master with that goal in mind.

That's as far as I got before the terrible mechanics drove me away. Reading other reviews convinces me that I made the right choice. The quality of the mechanics doesn't absolutely predict the quality of the story, but there is a strong correlation.

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Review: Beware of Chicken 2

Beware of Chicken 2 by CasualFarmer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

CasualFarmer can write a cozy, humourous cultivation novel, for sure, even if the editing does need another pass and the pacing at the beginning and end could do with some adjustment.

This is a big book, and it needs to be in order to fit all the viewpoints from the ever-multiplying cast. An ensemble cast with multiple viewpoints is hard to do, and the author manages it well, although having so many different storylines to wrap up does land him with the Return of the King problem: too many endings that seem to go on just a bit too long. I also felt that the potential conflict of the senior cultivator looking for Jin Rou, the central character in the ensemble cast, could have been introduced slightly earlier - say, by 25% rather than 30% of the way through. The first 30% is an ambling slice-of-life, which is fine, but not as interesting as it becomes once there's a threat (which the main characters are unaware of) to worry about. Apart from that, I felt the plot was well handled; it's not a highly plotty book, being more about the development of the characters, but you need a certain minimum amount of plot to show that development, and what plot there is unfolds at the pace it needs to.

As I noted, it's long, and so the fact that there are about 70 errors in it (that I noticed) makes it only average in terms of needing editing, proportionately. If anything, it's a bit better in this regard than the first book, though there are still a good few excess coordinate commas, occasional problems with dialog punctuation (especially at the end, when we get several instances of the issue that I saw a lot of in the first book, where the dialog tag is punctuated as a separate sentence), and a sample platter of other common issues: dangling modifiers, missing past perfect, noun/verb agreement, fumbled phrasing, homonym errors, apostrophe placement, and simple uncaught typos. Still, they're no more frequent than in a lot of other books these days, and from what I can tell, a good deal better than most other books in this genre, which are frankly inept.

What I liked a lot was that the characters are good-hearted people, including the ones who are animals, even the arrogant ones. They mostly have some kind of significant progression during the book, too, and that progression is different for each of them. The characters are distinct; they have different voices and different personalities and different conflicts and aspirations and abilities, and you'd never confuse one of them for another. I can think of at least one Hugo-winning author who could take lessons from this book in writing well-defined characters.

Also, the determined aversion of the harem trope is great; it always makes me happy to see a dedicated monogamist in fiction.

Overall, a satisfying experience, and I look forward to Book 3.

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