Book Review: Scorpica by G.R. Macallister
Posted on March 28, 2022 12 Comments
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
Mogsy’s Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Book1 of The Five Queendoms
Publisher: Saga Press (February 22, 2022)
Length: 448 pages
Author Information: Website
Here’s what I’ll first say about Scorpica: I was glad I went in knowing very little about it, because I came out on the other side of it with my mind completely blown! This is the perfect example of a book where having almost no knowledge about the story or its themes before starting helped a lot; free from the weight of any preconceptions or expectations, I simply let myself be carried along for the ride and swept up into its world of magic and intrigue.
To begin, readers are transported to a realm ruled by five queendoms, each with its own specialty. For example, the titular land of Scorpica is known for its fierce warrior women. Arca, on the other hand, is famous for magic, while Bastion’s reputation is for its dedication to the scholarly arts and pursuits. Then there’s Sestia, its fertile lands making them natural agricultural specialists, and finally Paxim, a bustling hub for tradecraft and diplomacy. For centuries, peace has existed among these queendoms despite the vast differences between their people’s cultural values and their society, simply because the queens that rule have always recognized the mutual benefits that comes with balance and reciprocity.
But soon, it appears that this precarious balance is about to come to an end, with a phenomenon that is being called the Drought of Girls. What this means is that fewer girls are being born each year, and it’s a complete mystery as to why it’s happening, even if each queendom may have its own theories. What’s clear enough for everyone though, is that for a matriarchal society, the lack of baby girls will have severe and devastating implications for the future of the entire realm.
With a plotline that allows readers a glimpse into the events unfolding across all the queendoms and from multiple perspectives, there were a lot of characters to keep track of, but fortunately it never got overwhelming, mainly because all the POVs were interesting and memorable. Through the eyes of these characters, the world around them also started to emerge, and in this way, we got to learn more about the five queendoms—their histories, traditions, customs, etc.
Indeed, I thought the world-building was perhaps one of the novel’s greatest strengths. G.R. Macallister is also a pen name of historical fiction author Greer Macallister, who is dipping into epic fantasy for the first time with Scorpica, but her experience with her main genre was clearly an asset. The scope of this story and its world is huge, and here we’re probably only grazing the surface. It probably won’t come as a surprise, given its title, but the majority of this book focused on the land of Scorpica and its internal power struggles, and I imagine we will eventually see the same treatment for each of the four other queendoms in future installments.
Macallister also did a fantastic job with her characters, and because I would hate to inadvertently reveal any spoilers by detailing names and specifics, I’ll just say there were plenty of surprises and plot twists that kept the cast list evolving constantly. And yes, I suppose there also may be some truth in comparisons made between Scorpica and Game of Thrones. With that said though, I appreciated the way time transitioned in this novel and the fact that character actions would directly impact the world—meaning everyone had a role to play, no matter how small.
All told, I enjoyed myself immensely with Scorpica, a lushly written and character-driven gem of an epic fantasy novel that will undoubtedly end up on my highlights list of 2022. I’m very excited to continue The Five Queendoms series and am looking forward to the next book.
Bookshelf Roundup: 03/26/22: Stacking the Shelves & Recent Reads
Posted on March 26, 2022 9 Comments
Bookshelf Roundup is a feature I do every weekend which fills the role of several blog memes, like Stacking the Shelves where I talk about the new books I’ve added to my library or received for review, as well as It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? where I summarize what I’ve finished reading in the last week and what I’m planning to read soon. Mostly it also serves as a recap post, so sometimes I’ll throw in stuff like reading challenge progress reports, book lists, and other random bookish thoughts or announcements.
It’s been another busy week, to the point where even the regular feature posts I typically schedule ahead of time are being done last minute (like this one!) Hopefully though, things should settle down a little after this weekend. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here before, but I started doing martial arts (Ninpo) recently and tonight was my belt test, for which I’ve spent the last two weeks preparing with training and cramming on Japanese. Now that that’s over, I will more free time again, or at least until the next belt test! By the way, I passed 😀
Received for Review
My thanks to the publishers and authors for the following review copies received, and be sure to click the links to their Goodreads pages for more details and full descriptions!
There were several more books that came this week that I haven’t even had a chance to really look at yet because things have been so crazy, but here are a few I got to log. And they are super exciting! My thanks to Angry Robot for a review copy of Stringers by Chris Panatier. I’ve heard a lot of great things about his book The Phlebotomist and I’m definitely not about to let this one pass me by.
Also thanks to HarperVoyager for an ARC of Tear Down the Throne by Jennifer Estep, the second book in the Gargoyle Queen sequence. I’ve been really enjoying this world since her Crown of Shards series and I can’t wait to continue.
And a huge thank you to the amazing folks at Ballantine Books for an ARC of Upgrade by Blake Crouch! The book isn’t due to be released until July, but something tells me I’ll be diving into it much sooner.
I tried so hard not to request any audiobooks this week with April just around the corner, and as you know, each new month always brings plenty of available audio review copies and I already have a pretty big reading list. Still, I could not resist grabbing Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild, described as a story about “the most likable murderess you will ever meet.” Now, that’s the kind of tagline that gets my attention! My thanks to Penguin Audio for providing a listening copy.
Reviews
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (4 of 5 stars)
Sea Storm by Andrew Mayne (3.5 of 5 stars)
What I’ve Been Reading
Have you heard of or read any of the books featured this week? What caught your eye? Any new discoveries? I hope you found something interesting for a future read!
Friday Face-Off: One-Word Title
Posted on March 25, 2022 5 Comments
Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme created by Books by Proxy! Each Friday, we will pit cover against cover while also taking the opportunity to showcase gorgeous artwork and feature some of our favorite book covers. If you want to join the fun, simply choose a book each Friday that fits that week’s predetermined theme, post and compare two or more different covers available for that book, then name your favorite. A list of future weeks’ themes are available at Lynn’s Book Blog.
This week’s theme is:
“A book of few words”
~ a book cover with a ONE-WORD TITLE
Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Echo was my most recent read with a one-word title, and lucky for me there were also a few different covers available to compare! Let’s take a look at them now:
From left to right:
Tor Nightfire (2022) – Hodder (2022)
Dutch Edition A (2019) – Dutch Edition B (2020)
Winner:
All of these are great, driving home the horror element in their own ways. In my opinion though, the Hodder edition does it the best. Not only does it emphasize the frigid setting, it’s the depiction of the yawning cavern resembling a face is what seals the deal, drawing your gaze to the abyss and and making you wonder what mysteries await you on this haunted mountain.
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
Waiting on Wednesday 03/23/22
Posted on March 23, 2022 13 Comments
Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme that first originated at Breaking the Spine but has since linked up with “Can’t Wait Wednesday” at Wishful Endings now that the original creator is unable to host it anymore. Either way, this fun feature is a chance to showcase the upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!
Mogsy’s Pick
Babel by R.F. Kuang (August 23, 2022 by HarperVoyager)
This sounds quite heavy and very different than The Poppy Wars series, but I would read anything this talented lady writes.
“Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel.
Babel is the world’s center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel’s research in foreign languages serves the Empire’s quest to colonize everything it encounters.
Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin; a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down?
Babel — a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal response to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell — grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of translation as a tool of empire.”
Book Review: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Posted on March 22, 2022 11 Comments
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy
Series: Stand Alone
Publisher: Tor Books (March 15, 2022)
Length: 272 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
John Scalzi is at his best when he’s not taking himself too seriously, and books like The Kaiju Preservation Society are the proof. He stated as much in his author’s afterword that he wrote this novel as an escape, a way to let loose and take a break from the crappiness of what’s happening in the world, and the results are something we can all be thankful for.
The story follows Jamie Gray, an ambitious go-getter who has all kinds of great ideas for the online food ordering and delivery service company he works for, and he just can’t wait to share them all during his six-month performance review. Too bad Jamie’s boss has no interest in hearing them, however, and our hapless protagonist ends up losing his job right as the world enters the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As luck would have it though, he soon reconnects with his old friend Tom Stevens who presents him with a new opportunity: a chance to work with an “animal rights organization” called KPS as a laborer in the field, with duties to include some heavy lifting and large wildlife care. Nothing too complicated, even if the job description is suspiciously vague. Still, desperate for anything that will help pay the bills, Jamie signs on, and the next thing he knows, he’s jetting off with his new team to Greenland where they’re told they’ll be doing fieldwork for the next little while.
But soon after they arrive, Jamie realizes why Tom had been so tight-lipped. As it turns out, KPS actually stands for a top-secret organization called the Kaiju Preservation Society, and though their location might be Greenland, in fact they have traveled to an alternate Earth. Here, giant creatures similar to those featured in Japanese fantasy and sci-fi monster movies called kaiju get to roam freely, and it is KPS’s mission to not only study them but also to keep them breaking through the barrier between worlds into our Earth. Because obviously, that would be very, very bad.
In describing the process of writing The Kaiju Preservation Society, Scalzi likened the book to a pop song, and that pop songs are sometimes what we all need. Amen to that! Everyone has that favorite catchy song they like to put on, a guilty pleasure to turn to when life is getting you down and you need something to cheer you up and lighten the mood. Well, what we have here is pretty much the literary equivalent.
Putting myself in that frame of mind, it was super easy to just kick back and enjoy myself. The story was also popcorny and fun, and as long as you’re aware of that going in, chances are high you’ll have a pretty damn good time as well. The prose is pure Scalzi when he’s not trying too hard to be all deep and meaningful; unlike some of his more recent projects, there is no whiff of pretention here, just his quirky sense of humor coming through in all its snarky glory. Hey, nothing wrong with some easy, breezy entertainment once in a while! Sure, this might feel liked fluff, but it’s also refreshingly earnest and completely satisfying.
That said, I don’t want to give anyone the impression that the story was all superficial, because we have some superb characterization and great world-building ideas here too. In fact, if I have one criticism, it might be that the book was frontloaded was too much setup, with the explanations and descriptions bordering on info-dumping. There’s a lot to take in, and not much attempt on the author’s part to spread all those details out or present it with any kind of panache. Also, ironically enough, for a book that’s all about kaiju, time spent with actual kaiju was in rather short supply, and I would have really liked to see more action involving these giant monsters.
At the end of the day though, John Scalzi clearly wanted to write a particular kind of story, and he definitely achieved that goal, ultimately delivering his most entertaining novel in years. It certainly put me in mind of the atmosphere and mood of another one of my favorite books of his, Old Man’s War, whose humor and accessibility I’ve always credited for igniting my interest in the science fiction and fantasy genres way back when I read it. With The Kaiju Preservation Society, I felt all those vibes as well, making this one a must-read for any fan of the author.
Audiobook Review: Sea Storm by Andrew Mayne
Posted on March 20, 2022 7 Comments
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
Mogsy’s Rating (Overall): 3.5 of 5 stars
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Series: Book 3 of Underwater Investigation Unit
Publisher: Brilliance Audio (March 29, 2022)
Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Narrator: Susannah Jones
Sea Storm is the third book of the Underwater Investigation Unit series by Andrew Mayne which begins with a distress call from a cruise ship sinking off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. As part of a designated marine law enforcement task force, protagonist Sloan McPherson and her colleague Scott Hughs find themselves lending aid to the massive rescue effort to get all the passengers into lifeboats as quickly as possible, but then reports come that several crew members are still trapped below decks and are unable to escape. With the integrity of the ship’s hull compromised, time is quickly running out, but luckily the UIU are well equipped to handle the situation.
What’s more troubling though, is how the cruise ship came to be disabled in the first place. The damage appears to have been caused by an explosion, and authorities are quick to point the finger at a notorious ecoterrorism group, especially when more ships across the country are coming under threat. However, Sloan isn’t so sure the answer is that simple, and goes on an investigative dive on her own before the evidence can be swept away by the area’s turbulent storms. When she makes a startling discovery on the ocean floor, Sloan’s determination to get to the truth will put her in the crosshairs of some powerful individuals who will stop at nothing to eliminate obstacles standing in their way.
I am a big fan of Andrew Mayne’s work and have enjoyed every book I’ve read by him, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t love Sea Storm. It’s probably the weakest of the Underwater Investigation Unit books thus far, though that is most likely down to personal taste. For example, the previous book Black Coral was more to my liking, focusing on solving cold cases or catching serial killers. In contrast, here we have a story with greater emphasis on internal politics and UIU’s constant struggle to keep others from shutting them down, and I just don’t find the topic as interesting. In addition to that, I was slightly disappointed we didn’t get as much of the “underwater investigation” angle in this one.
On the plus side though, we got a lot more character development as Sea Storm explores Sloan McPherson’s relationships with the people closest to her, including her family members and colleagues. Sloan still maintains a close friendship with her ex, and their daughter Jackie is playing a bigger role in the series as she matures, going on dives with her parents and helping her mom with the investigation. The story also features greater involvement from Scott as he and Sloan are getting a better feel for each other’s working styles, and their boss George Solar gets major points from me as well for his tireless fight to establish legitimacy for the UIU.
Another interesting development is the way Mayne has begun gradually bringing the different worlds of his multiple series together. Recently, readers were treated to a team-up between Jessica Blackwood and The Naturalist’s Theo Cray in Mastermind, and it was confirmed in Sea Storm that the Underwater Investigation Unit books also take place in the same “universe.” So who knows, maybe one day we’ll see a collaboration involving Sloan as well.
Bottom line, I’m still interested in continuing the Underwater Investigation Unit series and I hope there will be plenty more books to come, especially if Susannah Jones will continue to narrate the audio editions, because she’s awesome and a great voice for Sloan. But all in all, I would also love for the stories to go back to focus more on the police procedural element and, of course, more diving!
More on The BiblioSanctum:
Review of The Girl Beneath the Sea (Book 1)
Review of Black Coral (Book 2)
Bookshelf Roundup: 03/19/22: Stacking the Shelves & Recent Reads
Posted on March 19, 2022 11 Comments
Bookshelf Roundup is a feature I do every weekend which fills the role of several blog memes, like Stacking the Shelves where I talk about the new books I’ve added to my library or received for review, as well as It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? where I summarize what I’ve finished reading in the last week and what I’m planning to read soon. Mostly it also serves as a recap post, so sometimes I’ll throw in stuff like reading challenge progress reports, book lists, and other random bookish thoughts or announcements.
Received for Review
Work has been picking up so my reading time has been going down, but hopefully this will give me some time to catch up reviews. My thanks to the publishers and authors for the following review copies received, and be sure to click the links to their Goodreads pages for more details and full descriptions!
Huge thanks to the amazing team at Tor.com publishing for this gorgeous review copy of All the Horses of Iceland by Sarah Tolmie as well as an ARC of A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, the follow-up to A Psalm for the Wild-Built.
Thank you also to kind folks at Wunderkind PR and 47North for an ARC of The Peacekeeper by B.L. Blanchard, which was new to me. Description says it’s a murder mystery featuring an Ojibwe detective set in an alternate never-colonized North America, which sounds totally awesome.
With thanks also to Subterranean Press for a review copy of Among Strangers by Robert Silverberg. This book isn’t up on Goodreads nor on the publisher’s own website yet, so I don’t know much about it, but according to the blurb this is an omnibus collecting four of the author’s stories that explore the strange, the alien, and the unexplored (that cover certainly matches that description).
And in the digital haul, with thanks to Penguin Audio for listening copies of Curfew by Jayne Cowie as well as The Impossible Us by Sarah Lotz.
Reviews
The Resting Place by Camilla Sten (4 of 5 stars)
Crowbones by Anne Bishop (4 of 5 stars)
What I’ve Been Reading
Have you heard of or read any of the books featured this week? What caught your eye? Any new discoveries? I hope you found something interesting for a future read!
Friday Face-Off: Colorful
Posted on March 18, 2022 11 Comments
Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme created by Books by Proxy! Each Friday, we will pit cover against cover while also taking the opportunity to showcase gorgeous artwork and feature some of our favorite book covers. If you want to join the fun, simply choose a book each Friday that fits that week’s predetermined theme, post and compare two or more different covers available for that book, then name your favorite. A list of future weeks’ themes are available at Lynn’s Book Blog.
This week’s theme is:
“Somewhere over the rainbow”
~ a COLORFUL cover
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
When I saw the prompt for this week, my mind immediately went to this book!
From left to right:
Redhook (2019) – Subterranean Press (2021) – Croatian Edition (2021)
Bulgarian Edition (2020) – German Edition (2021) – French Edition (2021)
Winner:
Hands down, my favorite is the Redhook edition. It’s just so beeeautiful!
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
Waiting on Wednesday 03/16/22
Posted on March 16, 2022 7 Comments
Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme that first originated at Breaking the Spine but has since linked up with “Can’t Wait Wednesday” at Wishful Endings now that the original creator is unable to host it anymore. Either way, this fun feature is a chance to showcase the upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!
Mogsy’s Pick
The Voyage of the Forgotten by Nick Martell (November 1, 2022 by Gallery/Saga Press)
I’ve had an excellent time with this series so far, and as book two was even better than book one, with luck maybe this third one will continue the trend and be the best one of all? Regardless, I can’t wait to see how the trilogy will conclude.
“In this twistingly beautiful and epically thrilling conclusion to the fantasy trilogy The Legacy of the Mercenary King, Michael, the infamous Kingkiller, and Serena, the Hollow Queen, race against the odds to have the future they’ve worked so hard to protect…or risk bringing about the end of the world.
Michael Kingman has discovered his destiny, but the distance to what he wants, namely a life with Serena, the queen of Hollow kingdom, is as wide as the world, and just as cruel.
Meanwhile, Dark, the realm’s most fearsome mercenary, Michael’s sometime mentor, and son of his nemesis, Angelo, is trying to keep Michael in line, for his own purposes as he too has a hidden agenda. Michael comes to realize that he is outclassed by powers that have been working for centuries to bring about a fresh end to the world filled with those he loves. But when has merely being overpowered ever stopped Michael from getting what he wants?
To prevent what may bring about the end times Michael must gather his remaining allies and push himself to achieve the impossible because the alternative is worse than he can imagine: it’s not just the beginning of the end of the world, it’s being alone and forgotten.
In this epic conclusion, The Voyage of the Forgotten brilliantly wraps up the stories fans have fallen in love with as the characters struggle against odds that seem impossible to overcome.”
Book Review: The Resting Place by Camilla Sten
Posted on March 15, 2022 12 Comments
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
The Resting Place by Camilla Sten
Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Genre: Horror, Suspense
Series: Stand Alone
Publisher: Minotaur Books (March 29, 2022)
Length: 336 pages
Author Information: Website
I first discovered Camilla Sten last year with The Lost Village and enjoyed it enough that I immediately pounced on the chance to read The Resting Place when I was offered a review copy. And wow, I liked it even better! What a twisted and atmospheric mind trip it was.
Our story follows Eleanor, a young woman who suffers from prosopagnosia, a rare disorder commonly known as “face blindness” which causes the inability to recognize faces. Whether she is interacting with someone she’s meeting for the first time or a loved one that she’s known for years, her brain prevents her from registering their facial features. Unfortunately, this meant Eleanor was unable to recognize her grandmother Vivianne’s killer after accidentally walking in on the murder as it was happening. She even came face to face with them as they were escaping the scene of the brutal crime—but it was no use. Eleanor was unable to give the police anything useful, or even tell them if the killer might be someone she knew.
In the wake of Vivianne’s death, however, our protagonist discovers her grandmother had left something behind for her, a sprawling estate nestled in the Swedish woods called Solhöga. Arriving there with her boyfriend Sebastian, Eleanor meets up with her aunt Veronika as well as the lawyer handling Vivianne’s will. In truth though, Eleanor has come to Solhöga for another reason. She wants to know where her grandmother grew up, hoping the old mansion would reveal its secrets and explain how Vivianne became the cold, hard woman who raised her. And, just maybe, it may even answer the question of why she was murdered.
The Resting Place was a slow-moving mystery, though that is merely an observation, not really a criticism. In fact, I tend to enjoy such stories, where the suspense gradually builds, and at times even veers off into horror territory. Part of the reason for the pacing can be explained by the novel’s structure, which splits into two timelines with chapters alternating between past and present. The present timeline follows Eleanor, while the one in the past takes place in the mid-sixties, told through the eyes of a young Polish girl named Annushka. Eleanor first learns of the enigmatic young woman’s existence when she chances upon an old diary while exploring the house. The entries within reveal that Annushka was a servant girl at Solhöga, and that even in her youth, Vivianne was a cruel mistress.
Chapter by chapter, the author peels back the layers concealing the truth behind the estate’s history, which was filled with grief, pain, and tragedy. Piece by piece, the puzzle slowly comes together to form a clearer picture, and Eleanor starts to gain a better understanding of why her grandmother might have wanted to keep this part of her past hidden from everyone. The mystery aspect of the story was done well, and like I’d alluded to before, sometimes the tensions would be cranked so high that they bordered on creepy and disturbing.
My only regret was not seeing prosopagnosia play a larger role in the story. This might sound strange, considering the opening scene with Vivianne’s murder and the fact that the whole mystery rested on Eleanor’s inability to recognize the killer. But other than serving its purpose for this one critical plot point, our protagonist’s condition was practically a non-issue, and she certainly didn’t feel convincing as a character who had suffered from it her entire life, at least not to me. To a lesser extent, I was also side-eyeing the ending, which felt a bit out of left field. But because the twist was so good, not to mention that some suspension of disbelief is to be expected for this genre, I didn’t let that bother me too much.
All in all, I was riveted by The Resting Place with its innumerable secrets and shiver-inducing moments. Stories set in creaky old houses are a perpetual favorite of mine, filled with dark corners and hidden nooks in which to hide, and Camilla Sten certainly took full advantage of the setting, creating an unforgettable atmospheric and suspenseful experience.
The BiblioSanctum 