Smith Reads

This duology centers on Odessa, a master necromancer in a country filled with as many dead as there are living. As soon as someone dies and the funeral is over, the family can hire a necromancer to journey into the Deadlands and lure the spirit back into the realm of the living. There, the spirit can continue to "live", although they must stay shrouded at all times. Having a living being spy their skin will instantly turn them into a deadly Shade, and once that Shade is killed, that spirit can never come back into the world. Odessa and her friends spend a good amount of time going in to the Deadlands after the spirits of the royal family, and she has become quite skilled at raising the dead and fighting off the monsters that live there. Then, someone starts to create shades on purpose of royal family members, and it's up to Odessa to figure out why.

Reign has a few plot twists I didn't see coming, and that's a bit of a rarity considering how much young-adult-fiction I read. I appreciated the originality of the storyline, and I was honestly intrigued a lot by the sparkly cover and necromancer plot point. This book also features unabashed and comfortable homosexual relationships, an element that is not easy to find in a fantasy novel. The way the author built this world makes it seem natural that some relationships would be homosexual and others aren't. No one bats an eye when one character falls in love with a girl after her relationship with a boy ended. No one questions her or her feelings for the boy or girl, as if saying that one was invalid and the other true. Books like this will set the tone of future storylines where we won't have to comment on the fact that there are homosexual relationships at all. In addition to originality, Marsh's writing really draws in her reader with suspense and vivid descriptions. Readers are fighting right next to Odessa as she battles shades and tries to save the royal family from extermination.

Unfortunately, here's another example of a series that should have quit while it was ahead. One of the issues with following up a debut novel right away with another book in the series is that often authors have years to perfect their debut novel while they shop around for a publisher, then publishers demand a quick turnaround on a follow-up to a successful first book.

This book follows a pointless journey across the sea that leads to a lot of back-and-forth traveling that is over in a few pages. How can a seven month journey at sea be summed up into a single sentence or paragraph and readers not feel cheated? If the journey was over that quickly, why go on it at all? One good thing about traveling across the sea was Nipper, Odessa's new dragon pet. Nipper is one of the best characters in this second book because of her mischievousness and perfect reactions to people. So we gather a few people from these foreign lands that are going to be integral to the plot later, and then we spend a literal second traveling back to Karthia because of a threat that Odessa feels obligated to warn the queen about. Then, there's an internal threat from mechanized soldiers, and a sickness that we've never heard about before, and oh look, our new friends factor in heavily to both. Marsh tried to capture the spirit of intrigue as she had in her first book, but instead, this one comes off as campy and anti-climatic.

In college, I took a class on The Fantastics, a small sub-genre that centers around unreliable narrators, ambiguous supernatural forces, and an unclear separation between the rationale and irrational explanation. Understandably, this genre is extremely hard to write and find. It's also difficult for many readers because of the unsettled feeling that proceeds the reading. When I delved into the world of Caraval, I had no idea that I would be confronted with the elements of this beautiful sub-genre, but I was oh-so-glad for it. In the world that is Caraval, nothing is to be believed. After all, it's only a game. But is it? When people start disappearing and being murdered right in front of Scarlett's eyes, how can she remember the first warning she ever got about Caraval?

The second book in the trilogy is Legendary, and this focuses on Scarlett's sister, Tella, as the main character. After the events of Caraval, Tella owes a big debt to a notorious criminal. She must deliver Legend's true identity or suffer disastrous consequences. Then again, if she exposes Legend, all of Caraval and the society built with it will be destroyed. Tella gets swept up in another game, this time for the royal family. She, too, has to learn that not everyone is as they seem within the world of the game.

As Caraval followed Scarlett, and Legendary followed Tella, we have more of an alternating viewpoint in Finale following both sisters when it is convenient for the author. Finale is the story of what Tella has to do after the end of events in Legendary. She is somehow the only person in the entire world that can fix what happened, even though she posesses no special skills nor magical abilities, other than apparently getting boys to fall in love with her. There is no game in Finale, no intrigue, no fantastique qualities that drew me to the series in the first place.

Dec 11, 2018

Get ready to invest a ton of time into an amazing book series! This is 4,181 pages of nail-biting intensity. The series follows Celaena Sardothien's adventures through Erilea and against the forces of evil. This, at first, starts off as the stereotypical young-adult fantasy adventure with intrigue, romance, and butt-kicking female leads, but after the first book, it morphs into an epic-fantasy rivaling Game of Thrones. There is a slew of characters that you may need a flow-chart to remember, but Maas does a fantastic job of making the characters integral to the plot, even the minor run-ins. By the end of the series, you'll see that everything is connected - Celaena's machinations for years come to fruition to fight off the bad guy and hopefully free Erilea from the clutches of the worst evil Time has ever seen.

Feb 26, 2018

One of my favorite composers is Dmitri Shostakovich, a Russian who lived from 1906 - 1975 -- a critical time in Russian history. Shostakovich saw the fall of the Tzars - his father was part of the group that marched on the palace and demanded Tzar Nicholas II give up his throne. Shostakovich saw the rise of Communism - he lived in Petrograd, renamed Leningrad after party leader Vladimir Lenin. And, Shostakovich was in Leningrad when the Germans decided to wipe it from the face of the Earth in Operation Barbarossa, the savage invasion of Russia by Nazi forces. Shostakovich recorded all of these tumultuous events in his symphonies, some widely received, others not so much. At times, Shostakovich found himself on the wrong side of Stalin -- and the only thing that saved him was, most likely, his international celebrity. While this book follows much of Shostakovich's life, it also brings in details of the Russian government and international politics when necessary. You'll learn all about The Great Terror - Stalin's project to wipe out any and all opposition to his way of rule. You'll also learn about the relationship between Stalin and Hitler, one that really came back to haunt Stalin.

Feb 8, 2018

Nix is the daughter of a time traveler, but the limitation of this time travel is a Navigator has to have an authentic map of the time period or place they want to go to. Nix's special talent is, you guessed it, identifying authentic maps. Nix and her father make a great pair that way, but not in many other ways. Her father is obsessed with getting back to Nix's birth time, Hawaii of 1868, and every failed attempt sends him into an opium-induced craze. Nix wants to help him, but will getting her father back to 1868 destroy her own timeline?

In The Ship Beyond Time, we see how that obsession can be transferred from father to daughter, and Nix becomes her father more and more. She is given a prophecy she cannot stand to see come true, and travels to distant places, real and fictional, in order to stop it from happening.

I loved almost every single page of these two books. The only major downside was there were times when the writing was confusing. The author clearly knew what she meant, but if you weren't carefully reading, you could miss huge swaths of detail. In quite a few instances, she left you wondering, then explained after, what was happening, which was disorienting because the series is told from Nix' first-person point-of-view. Aside from moments of re-reading, these books were huge page turners. This book series has an absolutely fascinating premise with the very different stipulations of time traveling through maps. This adventure is one you will want to go on.

Oct 10, 2017

This debut novel by Tara Sim has a fascinating premise, where clocks control the actual passage of time. Clock towers all over England ensure that time passes normally each day. What happens if something tragic befalls these towers? The area becomes stopped. Danny, our protagonist, has personal experience with a stopped town. While he and the other mechanics try desperately to find a way to fix the clock tower and restore the town, and all the people trapped there, Danny falls unexpectedly in love with a teen boy. Their love is complicated, but pure, and Danny has to fight for his way in the profession of mechanics, clear his name, and keep the one he loves.

Danny is a sympathetic main character who will have the reader rooting for him on every page. His relationship with Colton is sweet and genuine. In addition to the two lovebirds, there is plenty of intrigue and action to keep readers going. The alternative Victorian world is fun to explore, and Sim has the right amount of world-building without being overloading. This book is refreshing and exciting. A great page turner!

Mar 30, 2017

Lucero's Catalyst explores the world of Galen Erso, a scientist who mainly studies Kyber Crystals (what powers lightsabers) and their use for supplying energy to planets. Galen was later conscripted into the construction project of the Death Star despite his moral objections to the War and super weapons. Also present is Galen's family, wife Lela and daughter Jyn (seen all-grown-up in Rogue One, played by Felicity Jones). Playing the ultimate puppet-master is Director Krennic (played by Ben Mendelson in Rogue One). Krennic manages to trick Galen into thinking his research was being used in life-saving ways, not twisted into the basis for the super weapon's planet-destroying laser cannon. The book also delves into the many relationships of Imperial notables, including Wilhoff Tarkin, Darth Vader, the Emperor and his many underlings, and many others.