Book 1 of the Lady Astronaut series telling the story of the first lady astronaut deserves the praise it has garnered. Following Dr. Elma York’s journey in a post apocalyptic alternate history where a meteorite has slammed into the earth and wiped out most of the eastern US.
The story is set in a time when many cultural norms do not fit the views of our current society. This put me very much in mind of the movie Hidden Figures, set in something close to the same time period (off by a few years I believe). The author does not shy away from the norms of the day and her writing is such that the outrage is felt through the page. I was quite frequently angry with characters on the page – and that is a sign of damn good writing. They’re not real. It’s a made up story – and I was still irritated with these “people”.
I downloaded this book for free when it was offered by the publisher and I’m glad I did. I will be going out and getting the rest of the series (just as they hoped). This book is absolutely worth your time to read if you’re a fan of science fiction / alternate history. IF you’re not, I would also suggest reading some of the author’s other work. I am particularly a fan of ‘Shades of Milk and Honey’ in the magical / fantasy category. I love this author’s work and hope she continues to write for a very long time.
I actually finished reading this book within a couple of days of starting it. I’ve held off writing my review until I had time to give it some thought. I also wanted to put this review here on my own web site. There are a couple of reasons for this – but mainly because I’m going to own what I say and putting that here feels like it makes a difference to me.
This book was a gift to me – I was asked to give it a review.
There are going to be lots of spoilery parts in here – so if you don’t want to have the story spoiled for you, read it first then come back.
Let me start by saying that I also write. I don’t like to give reviews like this because I know how difficult it is to get a good book both finished and published. I also fully intend to be honest about how I feel about the books I read. It’s the only thing that gives a reviewer any credibility or integrity in their reviews. I know I’m not much of a reviewer, but I do try to be consistent about these things.
I gave this book one star. The one star setting in Goodreads is “Did not like it”. Clearly, I did not like it. It was very hard to read. I think I skimmed a lot toward the 2/3 mark. I did finish it. I could have walked away early, but it was a gift and a request so I didn’t.
At least it’s not the tramp stamp view.
So – first – the author generally has no control over cover art related things, but the character portrayed on the cover looks like an urban fantasy knock off, holds the wrong weapon and is dressed like she could have just walked off the street next to you. I think those things tie together with the world building things I had trouble with.
World building – there’s no clear definition of the world. There’s very little description of the in, the outfits, the stadium, or any of the atmosphere that would surround a world wide event. Consider something like the Olympics by comparison. When the Olympic games happen you hear about everything from the stadiums new and amazing features all the way down to the villages where the competitors are to be housed. There’s a little something about everything that goes on surrounding the games. In this book there’s one part that describes a paved road, but walking or wizardly teleportation are the only modes of transportation ever mentioned. Why would the road be specifically “paved” if not for automobile traffic? IF it is for autos of some kind – where are they? Where is the structure that supports them? There is literally no description for this. The main stadium where all the action takes place is described like this, “It was a beautiful stadium about the size of a large city within any kingdom. The outside was made from grey stone and was carved with the intricate details of battles that had taken place centuries ago.” That’s it. The main location for a large amount of the story and that’s the whole description. No other places in the story fare better. BUT for those people that have followed my other reviews you may know that I tend to be big into world building as part of a good story. Fair enough.
Characters – Melanie Atax (from the guild Inferno Serpents) has no adjectives. I don’t know what she looks like, perhaps beyond the cover. I went back and checked – after 4 chapters there’s still not any mention of hair length, skin color, eye color, scars, crooked teeth… nothing. There’s not much more about the other players in the wizard games either… but back to Mel. She states at the start of the book that it’s this super lofty goal to reach an elite guild. Awesome. Hard work and having your foes underestimate you based on a lower guild I get. She puts all this effort in to these battles, yet gives zero thoughts to what happens if she wins. Zero. When she does actually win a spot at an elite guild it’s an afterthought. The stated goal has NO impact on her. None. She doesn’t grow, she doesn’t change, she never loses. That is not a character (lack of) arc that works for me.
So it’s got to be about the action, right? I mean, wizard game would be just like the Tri-wizard tournament or something like that, right?
No.
It’s human wizard Pokemon. Fire-whip lady I choose you!
It took me a while to figure out the pattern. The fights, the tournament, the battles and duels are exactly the sort of thing you see in anime shows where the names and statistics of the brawlers in question get displayed on the screen. You know them in the same way you know or recognize the queen of spades. These wizards (and dragons!) hurl the devastation of lightning and tornadoes, fire and acid along with whippings, dagger slashes and sword cuts… to zero lasting effect. There’s not a single bit of danger to the competition here – or to Mel. Everything is healed when the “round” is over. Go team magic healer! The impact of these massive weapons amounted to a cool light show. No danger, nothing other than missing some points on the scoreboard.
Speaking of the scoreboard, there’s a mystery of two of the top players in the games being kidnapped for a day or two right in the middle of the tournament week, but that doesn’t seem to really impact their chances of winning and didn’t really grab my attention. It felt like a distraction. There’s a cult and another dragon and I don’t even remember her name.
The dragons really bother me the most of all this. There’s a seed of a great story there. Dragons were hunted to the point where they disguised themselves as humans, then lost the knowledge or ability to change back into dragons. That could be such a cool story – and it’s a side note… until the very end of the book. That’s when we suddenly switch from Mel to the second dragon and get “set up” for the next book. Ugh. NO.
Long sigh. In all, I struggled with this. I did not like it. I think that if you’re a fan of Pokemon or anime battle type shows that you might actually enjoy this. Maybe. It might also be something that could be turned into an anime to great effect. I’m not sure – but I am sure I’m not moving on with the series.
I picked this book up as part of a reading group list. It’s not a book that I would have picked up on my own I don’t think. A story about a retired time cop (yes, I’m stuck on old Jean Claude movies) that gets dragged back into active service and the mystery that ensues…
I understand why this book was recommended by the person that brought it to the group. There is an awful lot of talk about stitching, fabrics, research and practical application of clothing. This is decidedly not my thing. I get it. It’s important – I just don’t see it working long term for stories.
I found all the characters in this novel to be understandable and have a real feel to them. I was happy to see a protagonist that doesn’t fit neatly into a standard publishing pigeon hole. I was also happy to see secondary characters with thoughts and feelings that mattered to the line of the story.
The world building was a teeny bit problematic, but then I find any kind of time travel story to have issues relating to paradox and changing the past. The author took pains to add explanations about this to the story, but there still seemed to be holes in certain aspects for me. The action parts of the story were all but glossed over and I had a number of logistical issues with that.
The story of a young girl given extensive and dangerous powers as part of an experimental weapons program – creating a void witch… I could have really been on board with this. There were a number of things that pulled me out of the story. This definitely fits into space opera territory and I could see this becoming a series on a network like Netflix.
There were holes and world building gaps that didn’t work for me. The main character’s power level seemed out of balance. The fact that the program is supposedly secret but everyone seems to know a void witch when they see one didn’t sit right with me. The character does have a well developed sense of not wanting to be close to people.
I’m very middle of the road on this title. It’s interesting, but I don’t know if I can actively recommend it.
I didn’t know what to expect heading into this book. I don’t know if I would have picked it up if not for it being a selection of Watch The Skies. I’m glad it was picked, and I’m glad I took that chance to read it.
I enjoyed this book. I fear that my total enjoyment was hindered by the simple fact that I read it during a global pandemic – and there are apocalyptic things happening in the book. It’s a challenging juxtaposition. There were any number of parts to the story that I found completely plausible and that made the rest easy to go with.
I enjoyed the characters. They are certainly not ‘traditional’ in any sense, but they were true I think. They were exactly the sort of people that would be involved in things just the way they were. I was also a little surprised by the peculiar way the romance worked out in the story. Very well done.
I look forward to talking about all the various parts of this book with our group. Like all good science fiction there are a number of ideas worth exploring in here.
I just finished the last of the Murderbot Diaries – Exit Strategy. It’s #4 in the series of novellas by author Martha Wells. I very much enjoyed this series. Each one was just the right length and attitude that I was looking for right now. I burned through them terribly quickly…
You should too if you like science fiction / action stories.
I don’t know if I would have found them if not for Tor giving them away. It’s so difficult to weed through all the options out there these days. I give them their due – I am into it and will be looking forward to the release of Network Effect: A Murderbot Novel in the early part of May.
The last novella – Exit Strategy pushed the action harder than any of the others in the series. There were a couple of times when I had to stretch my willing suspension of disbelief about the amount of things MB was processing, but then the author handled that really, really well. I’m not going to spoil it for you – but I was happy with it.
I was also interested to note that MB was referred to as “it” a lot. The gender of MB was something that was only faint background stuff to me, but it was there. I only gave it more than a passing thought because of the organic parts being altered for the sake of appearance. There isn’t a super clear description of what the main character actually looks like anywhere in there. I think it really works well, and I don’t honestly know if I could pull that off as an author. I think that’s something to admire about this author’s writing. Very well done indeed.
I can certainly say that if you like action oriented science fiction (or science fantasy if you prefer) you should go and check this series out!
This was a ‘freebie’ loan from the library. It was part of a promotion where readers in particular book clubs were given a ticket to visit Longwood Gardens as part of picking this book to read for the club. I was one of the folks that was able to get a ticket as part of this deal.
This was a slow read for me. I was really hesitant when I tried to get into it. Part of me thinks it’s because as a book club book it felt a little like ‘homework’ and I’m particularly good at avoiding that (always have been). Once I got a feel for the writing style then I was OK with it and things really moved along.
As I told folks at our on-line book club meeting, this book feels a lot like an “old school” science fiction book. The big deal part of this book revolves around the idea rather than a single protagonist. That made it difficult for a lot of our book club members, but not so much for me. There was enough tying each generation together that the story carried for me.
As for the idea itself – a sentient plant as our friend or foe on an alien planet is very interesting. There was a lot of bits that felt like science class, but I could move through those pretty easily. I liked the number of different ideas that cropped up through each section of the book as well. The story spans a fair amount of time but that didn’t seem to slow it down.
I found out this is part of a duology, but I don’t know that I’m invested enough to go and dig up (see what I did there – dirt joke) the next one. IF you’re into plants, alien life and survival stories this could be for you.
I pre-ordered this book so I was on the list when it came out. I am very lucky to have spent some time with the author at science fiction conventions in the past – I was able to get a copy before the official release day.
I agree with the author – I don’t want to tell you how to go about enjoying your books – but you’ll get a lot more out of this second in the series if you read the first one, well, first (you should totally go buy it if you haven’t!).
I enjoyed this book. I like the world and the premise. I like the characters.
I was looking for something light, and there is some heavy stuff in this book. I don’t think it was meant to be in depth and certainly didn’t feel like some other works I’ve read where it felt like as much text book or research paper as it did anything else – but there were parts of this story where I was reading and felt as weighted down as the protagonist.
I think that’s a sign of some very good writing right there. This book also does something that the best science fiction does. It takes on things from the real world in fictional terms. There’s a lot of stuff to discuss from this book too. I’d love to chat about it – you should go get it and read it!
I have to say up front – I bought this book because I knew there was a Jim Butcher story in there and I wanted to read that. I don’t know if I would have found this anthology if not for him.
The collection is a total of 19 stories. As with any anthology, this one was up and down for me. I did not read the story from the Dresden verse first. I tried just plowing through stories front to back. Then I got impatient and read Mr. Butcher’s story. I was missing something – and it prompted me to go back and start re-reading the Dresden Files.
That’s a significant part of why it took so very long to finish all the stories in this book. I did in fact read them all. I think that matters for an anthology – you can find new authors you really like that way.
Of the other 18 stories there were a few that stood out. I was surprised and delighted to be reminded of the Myth series with Aahz & Company in “Myth Deeds”. It’s been forever since I’ve read any of those. “Prisoner 141” was interesting, but it seemed to me more the kind of story that needs discussion when done. “Valentine Blues” was a fun take on an old story. “Tragedy of John Metcalf” was the most true to the parallel worlds theme and it was well done. I really liked the world building of “Demons of Arae” and will probably look up more of that.
There were other good stories in there and a couple that didn’t work for me. I know how tough anthologies can be – I would suggest grabbing this one and giving it a shot. You never know what you might find that appeals to you.
The story of FBI (or possibly former FBI) agent Jane Hawk hunting down a global conspiracy.
This book was a pick from the science fiction book club. IF you go with the thought process defining science fiction as ‘a story that fails without the science’ then this book fits that definition. There is a science portion here that the book wouldn’t survive without. I would not categorize this as science fiction ~ I’d put it much more into the ‘techno thriller’ category. There are many other aspects of what I consider to be science fiction that don’t actually appear in the book.
This book will bring excellent discussion to our group. There are lots of topics to pick from. Ethics, technology, law enforcement, moral choices, and how far some of the action stretches. I won’t say the story breaks my willingness to ignore my disbelief, but there are certainly a couple of stress points that are being pushed.
There were a couple of spots in the book that I thought made it drag too long. There were a number of details that the writer in me cheered as ‘research done’ so that the story was very grounded in the world we live in. This was OK, but I enjoyed Odd Thomas much more.
