Novedad: The Martian Simulacra: A Sherlock Holmes Mistery, de Eric Brown

NewCon Press ha puesto a la venta una nueva entrega de su colección de novelas cortas. Se trata de The Martian Simulacra: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, de Eric Brown.

Esta es su sinopsis:

The year is 1907, the setting is Baker Street, London. When the Martian Ambassador arrives at Holmes’ door seeking the Great Detective’s help in solving a grisly murder, how can he refuse?

The case will involve a trip to the Red Planet, where few humans have been privileged enough to visit. Ever since the second wave of Martians arrived on Earth, inoculated against the germs that had halted their tripods the first time around, and humanity accepted the aliens as their overlords, Holmes has been curious... Soon he and Watson are boarding one of the great Martian spaceships, where they discover their old friend Professor Challenger has been invited along for the ride. What awaits them at their destination is a plot more dastardly than any of them could have imagined.

In The Martian Simulacra, award-winning author Eric Brown delivers a glorious mash-up of Sherlock Holmes and The War of the Worlds, seasoned with a dash of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World for good measure.

Alexander Páez reviews The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander

I am greatly honored to host this review of The Only Harmless Great Thing by my friend Alexander Páez, a huge fan of Brooke Bolander's work (and, in fact, the translator into Spanish of one of her stories). Hope you enjoy it, and remember that you can also read the review in Spanish at Álex's blog, Donde acaba el infinito.  

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to Radium Girls, by Pat Burtis (Spotify).

I’m going to make this short, as the story here is short as well. A quick punch to the guts. A brief “Holy cow” swearing. A short realization that you’ve read a huge and profound story. An angry story. An “I’m tired of this shit” story. If you have read "Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies" you may know what I am talking about. I will call it Rage Writing. Stories that comes as a ferocity burst of being tired of this society that allows inequality, injustice and suffering. 

The Only Harmless Great Thing is a story hard to talk about. I read it in two days and I felt like I was in a hurry. I needed to finish it as soon as possible. Get rid of that anger. Get rid of than painful story. This novella is a mix of two real stories: Topsy the Elephant and the Radium Girls. The first one is about an elephant that was publicly executed on Coney Island and the Radium Girls is a group of women who ended poisoned because of their work with radioactive stuff. Although the events happened in different timelines (1903 and 1917) Bolander builds her fiction among these two events occurring at the same time. In Bolander’s novella we have the electrocution of an elephant that causes a nuclear explosion at the coast of New York. The story goes back and forward between many protagonists and characters, before and after the Topsy execution and the aftermath explosion. Bolander introduces songs, lullabies, a fable about an ancient elephant mother, and media pieces. All of it makes a collage of small stories, tiny points of view that the reader must put together to understand what is going on. Just imaging that someone throws a lot of documents on your table and you have to reconstruct the whole story. It is fun. It is exhausting. It is challenging. It is Bolander.

The transitions in the story are smooth and perfect, you don’t feel like as a reader you are being pushed around in a fuzzy way, but that you are being on your own in a huge gallery and you kind of choose what piece you approach. The book is very short, yes, but is has so much to say. It actually says so much. Funny how many things we have to say about such tiny pieces and so less about the incredible long ones. The Only Harmless Great Thing is a fable about nuclear waste, slavery, fighting women, animal abuse, patriarchy and many more metaphors you will find. To end this, I will speak about the beginning of the book, which opens with a huge mountain of nuclear waste, the total extinction of humanity. And over there are living the irradiated elephants. Eternal. Brooke Bolander’s writing is like a roar, a vast battle cry. And we can’t ignore it.

Reviews of novellas by Kai Ashante Wilson and Paul Cornell

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to A Taste of Honey, by Chet Atkins (Spotify, YouTube).

It has been much longer that I intended since I last reviewed a batch of novellas published by Tor.com. In fact, in the past few weeks I've been devoted to closing up my 2016 reading and I confess that I still need to catch up with what Tor.com has released in 2017. But, in the meantime, I want to, at least, write down my impressions of three works that I (mostly) read in November and December: A Taste of Honey, by Kai Ashante Wilson, and Witches of Lychford and The Lost of Lychford, both by Paul Cornell. 

A Taste of Honey has been highly praised and I am sure it will be included in many awards shortlists in 2017. However, I am afraid that I have to give a "minority report" on this one. In fact, I was unable to finish reading it and I quit after I was roughly a quarter in. One important problem I found was that I didn't connect with the characters at all, and neither the worldbuilding nor the plot were of interest to me.

However, my principal issue with A Taste of Honey was that I quite disliked Wilson's style and tone. I know, I know, I'm probably alone on this one, for his prose is one the elements of his writing that people praise the most, but I just couldn't get into. And, to tell the truth, this problem is not new to me. I had tried listening to the audiobook version of The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps some months ago and I was also unable to finish it. So, I am afraid I can't recommend this novella. You must take my opinion with a (big) grain of salt, though, for most people seem to love Wilson's work and, thus, you mileage will very likely vary. 

My experience with Paul Cornell's Lychford novellas was much more satisfactory. I read Witches of Lychford around Halloween last year (a really adequate moment!) and I liked it so much that, shortly after, I was starting The Lost Child of Lychford, breaking my golden rule of (almost) never reading two works by the same author in a short period of time. 

These Lychford stories are an amazing combination of urban fantasy and comedy, a mixture that I didn't know could work so well. And it all mostly comes down to the marvellous trio of protagonists that Cornell has given life to. They are completely disparate and, to be completely honest, they are not very good witches (one of them doesn't even believe in magic!). But the chemistry among them is just incredible despite (or, possibly, because of) their blatant differences in personality, attitude and experience.

In fact, I did like The Lost Child of Lychford even better than Witches of Lychford. Once that the three women know each other and begin working as a team, the full potential of the world imagined by Cornell develops and explodes. The plot is tighter and more interesting and, what is even better, this story plants the seeds for many new adventures to come, something that I am already looking forward to, For all these reasons, I chose The Lost Child of Lychford as one of my favourite 2016 novellas.

All in all, I heartily recommend the Lychford series by Paul Cornell, a fun urban fantasy saga with three fascinating protagonists. Regarding A Taste of Honey I honestly don't know what to say. I didn't find it to my taste (no pun intended), but it may very well be just a particular quirk of mine. Anyhow, Tor.com keeps offering a varied and appealing range of novellas and I will keep reading them and informing you about my findings.

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)          

Review of novellas by Khaw, Penny and Williams

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to The Future Never Dies, by Scorpions (Spotify, YouTube). 

In this new instalment of novella reviews, today I bring you the three most recent ones published by Tor.com: Hammers on Bone, by Cassandra Khaw, Everything Belongs to the Future, by Laurie Penny, and Impersonations, by Walter Jon Williams.  

The first of them, Hammers on Bone, is yet another Lovecraftian pastiche, on this occasion in the form of a classical noir story. As I mentioned when I reviewed The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson, I am not really into Lovecraft and I didn't care much for that part of the novella. However, I did like how Khaw managed, from the very first sentence, to evoke an appealing atmosphere, well in the tradition of crime fiction, but with some innovative elements. 

The protagonist, John Persons, is also very interesting and his mysterious back story is only partially revealed in Hammers on Bone. Thus, if at it seems, this is just the first part of a series of novellas, I think there are enough elements to make the next instalment even better. I, for one, will be reading it. 

Everything Belongs to the Future is a very intelligent science fiction story that brings together medical, economical and social speculation in an almost perfect way. The beginning is really strong, and the idea of an eternal life medicine that can only be afforded by the well-off is, at the same time, plausible, scary and thought-provoking. 

I did also like the way Penny recreates the group dynamics and personal relationships of the activists. Again, really believable and provocative, especially because we are given some information that most of the characters don't know. I found some pacing problems after the first half of the story, but apart from that, I thoroughly enjoyed the novella and I recommend it. 

Impersonations, by Walter Jon Williams, is another science fiction novella, in fact one set in the universe of his Praxis novels. I didn't know when I started reading it and, when I realized, I was a bit afraid I wouldn't be able to follow the story or I would miss some important information, but I am happy to say that it is a stand-alone and can be enjoyed without any previous knowledge of the series. 

In fact, after reading Impersonations, I may give the rest of the Praxis stories a try, for I really liked the setting, with lots of political intrigue and, above all, the really interesting main protagonist, Caroline Sula, who strongly reminded me of another favorite of mine: Adam-Troy Castro's Andrea Cort. On the negative side, there were some coincidences that were too convenient for the plot to advance by the end of the book, but all in all, I really liked the novella and I'd recommend it to any science fiction fan. 

So, again, another three solid novellas from Tor.com. I did especially enjoy the two science fiction ones (Everything Belongs to the Future and Impersonations), but I guess you'll also like Hammers on Bone if Lovecraft is your thing. As always, my advice is to keep a close eye on anything published by Tor.com for they hardly disappoint. In fact, I have just finished reading the Lychford stories by Paul Cornell and they are really refreshing and entertaining. I will review them in detail later this month, so stay tuned!

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)     

Reviews of novellas by Johnson, Brennan and Evenson

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to Memories (Somenone Will Never Know), composed by Clint Mansell for the soundtrack of Moon (Spotify, YouTube).

As I promised a few weeks, I am back with reviews of novellas. In this case, I want to talk about some books published by Tor.com which, in little more than a year, has become the imprint to follow in this format. My choices today are their three more recent releases: The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson, Cold-Forged Flame, by Marie Brennan, and The Warren, by Brian Evenson. 

I was really looking forward to The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, since Kij Johnson is the author of some of my favorite stories ever ("Twelve Monkeys, Also the Abyss", for instance). But, despite an interesting beginning, I couldn't help feeling a bit underwhelmed with this novella. This is (just another) response to the work of H.P. Lovecraft (in which I am not very interested, I must say) and it will probably appeal to many readers. However, I missed almost the references and found the central part of the story, a long trip in which the main protagonists visits different places and faces a number of monsters, a bit boring. I did like the ending and its original twist, but my overall opinion is that the story is just average and I did certainly expect much more from Johnson. Your mileage may vary, though. 

Cold-Forged Flame, my first contact with Marie Brennan's writing, was considerably more satisfactory. It starts with a not very original situation (a character who doesn't remember anything about her past), but the tone and the atmosphere are almost perfect and the reader is intrigued by the mystery from the very first page. I did also like the worldbuilding very much, and one of the pleasures of reading this story is the opportunity to discover new things about the peculiar magical island in which it takes place. I found the ending to be a bit rushed, but all in all this a very good novella and I recommend it. Also, I am looking forward to the sequel, Lightning in the Blood, that will be published in April next year; the setting really has a lot of potential and I want to find out more about the world and the characters. 

Finally, The Warren, by Brian Evenson, also starts with a protagonist with memory problems. But this novella is completely different from Cold-Forged Flame. To start with, The Warren is a very interesting mix of psychological thriller and science fiction, with a setting that reminded me of Wool, by Hugh Howey, and the movie Moon, directed by Duncan Jones. Also, the main character is a very particular case of a unreliable narrator, with a memory and identity that have been tinkered with, leading to a more than interesting effect:

At times, I become confused about the order in which things should be told. Parts of me know things that other parts do not, and sometimes I both know a thing and do not know it, or part of me knows something is true and another part knows it is not true, and there is nothing to allow me to negotiate between the two.

The Warren is not an easy read and it requires some effort and collaboration on the reader's part, but I think the final result is more than worth it even if no clean-cut explanations are given in each and every case. Also recommended. 

All in all, three more books that show, once again, that Tor.com can satisfy all your SF&F novella needs with both quantity and quality. And next month they will publish four more, really appealing titles. Stay tuned, for I will bring you their reviews soon!

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)

Reviews of novellas by Powers, Haley, Palecek and Olson

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to Goodbye Horses, by Q Lazzarus (Spotify, YouTube).

It's been a while since I last devoted a post to reviewing novellas. But it doesn't mean that I have not been reading any. On the contrary, I have so many I want to talk about that I will reviewing four today and another three later this month. Are you ready?

My first selection is also the one that was the most disappointing: Down and Out in Purgatory, by Tim Powers. I had great expectations with this novella and I am afraid that I can't recommend it. The start was quite interesting and I did really like things like the topology of Purgatory and the way the dead communicate with the living. But after that, the plot seems to stop making that much sense and I quickly lost all my interest in finding out what was going to happen to the protagonist. As I mentioned, quite a disappointment. 

  

I did like The Ghoul King, by Guy Haley, much more. This is the second instalment of the Dreaming Cities series, whose first volume, The Emperor's Railroad, I reviewed earlier this year. In that occasion, I said that I wanted to wait to read the sequel because I was really intrigued by the final part of the novella. And I must say that the potential of the story is beginning to explode fully in this second part. The plot has definitely changed for the better, with new science fiction elements that makes it more interesting and original. The next novella has not been announced yet, but it is one that I will surely be reading as soon as I can get it. 

City of Wolves, by Willow Palecek, has an interesting worldbuilding and shows a lot of promise if, as it seems, this is just the first instalment in a series. Roughly speaking, the novella is a detective story in a world where werevolves are real. Alexander Drake must investigate a strange murder in what constitutes a fairly intriguing and interesting story. However, the writing is a bit bland, with a worldbuilding that is too schematic and a somewhat thin atmosphere. City of Wolves is entertaining enough, but it does not fully realize the potential of the ideas and the characters. I hope there is a sequel in which these problems are taken into account. 

Finally, Nightshades by Melissa F. Olson, is the novella that I enjoyed the most of the four I am writing about today, and one that I highly recommend. It is similar to City of Wolves in that it is also a detective story with supernatural elements, but Olson's prose and tone worked much better for than Palecek's. Nightshades can be briefly described as Silence of the Lambs with vampires, and, in fact, the author clearly acknowledges that influence early in the story. The novella is far from perfect (in fact, I is a bit of a guilty pleasure somehow), but it kept me reading page after page and I am really looking forward to the next in the series. 

All in all, of these four novellas I highly recommend Nightshades and you will want to check The Ghoul King if you liked The Emperor's Railroad. I'd also keep an eye on Palecek's work, for it shows potential and, sadly, I'd recommend giving Down and Out in Purgatory a pass. Oh, and stay tuned in: more reviews of novellas coming soon!

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)         

Three Tor.com novellas

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to Cyborg, by M83 (Spotify, YouTube). 

As you may know if you are familiar with this blog, I love reading novellas and I closely follow all those published by Tor.com, many of which I have reviewed in the past months. Today, I will briefly talk about three of the most recent: A Whisper of Southern Lights, by Tim Lebbon, Return of Souls, by Andy Remic, and Runtime, by S.B. Divya.

A Whisper of Southern Lights is a new story in the Assassin saga, after Deadman's Hand and Pieces of Hate (collected by Tor.com in a single volume). In this case, the action is set in the Second World War and again Gabriel faces Temple seeking revenge. Lebbon manages to build a more than adequate atmosphere, but I found the plot not very engaging. In fact, I was expecting the fight between the main protagonists to move forward somehow, maybe even reach some kind of resolution, but I was disappointed. I don't know if the author is planning to write further installments of the series (originally, they were published several years ago) but if this is all there is, I really think there are still many things to wrap up. 

Return of Souls, by Andy Remic, is also a sequel, in this case to A Song for No Man's Land (which I really enjoyed). I was curious to know where the plot was going to move, since the previous story had a quite satisfying ending and I wasn't expecting a second part. The author, however, clearly had in mind a very definite direction for the series and, after a few chapters which are similar to what we saw in A Song for No Man's Land, there is a big twist and clear change in tone. I did like the first novella better, but at least I am intrigued and looking forward The Iron Beast, the third and final installment of the series. 

Runtime, by S.B. Divya, is the novella I enjoyed the most of the three I am reviewing today. Initially, I was not very attracted by the synopsis, since I am not especially interested in mountain races. However, this extreme sport is just one of the elements of Runtime and I dare to say it is not even the most important. I was gladly surprised to see that the novella is, in fact, a dystopia in which the use of use cybernetic augmentations is a complex issue and can lead to social differences and discrimination. But what I liked above everything else was the way the author puts her protagonist in some difficult moral dilemmas and refuses to give clear-cut, easy answers to them. 

All in all, of these three novellas I recommend Runtime and I reserve my verdict on Return of Souls until I read The Iron Beast. But tor.com never stops and I already have ARCs of more, really interesting novellas on my ereader, so I hope to review them for you soon.  

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)

The Emperor's Railroad, by Guy Haley

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to The Power Of Thy Sword, by Manowar (Spotify, YouTube).  

There are to fantasy literature subgenres that I usually try to avoid: zombies and post-apocalyptic stories. I know that it is a gross generalization, but my impression is the tropes in those kinds of stories are very rigid and leave very little space for innovation and originality. Also, I don't really care for the idea of living dead or destroyed civilizations in the first place. 

Imagine, then, my dilemma when I learned that The Emperor's Railroad, by Guy Haley, one of the most recent novellas published by Tor.com features both zombies and a post-apocalyptic world. "Should I read it?", I thought. "The synopsis does not appeal to me. But it is Tor.com, man. Tor.com! They have surprised you in the past with stories you believed were not up your alley. And the cover is freaking awesome too... What to do?"

Obviously, since you are reading my review, I finally decided to give it a try, especially because the time investment with novellas is relatively low. And I am glad that I did, although I must say that I did not like it as much as other Tor.com stories I've reviewed recently. 

In fact, I confess that reading The Emperor's Railroad took me longer than I expected. I had some unexpected problems that week, that's true, but the first part of the novella did not interest me much. I did like the tone, with a well-chosen first-person narrator, but the plot was more or less along the lines I feared it would be: people wandering in destroyed cities, zombie attacks, lots of walking from one place to another... 

Fortunately, the last third of the novella is much, much better. In addition to the zombies, suddenly we get to see some unexpected things: a dragon, for instance. And all the strange mentions of angels and knights become to make much more sense. And there is an awesome sword fight. In those last chapters, The Emperor's Railroad becomes something new, something different and, even better, makes the reader think to try and work out how all those seemingly extraneous elements fit in this apocalyptic world. 

All in all, this is a novella that I cannot say in justice that I completely enjoyed, but that I am glad that I read for it promises some very interesting developments in the next instalments of the series. In fact, I've already got an ARC of The Ghoul King and I plan to read it as soon as possible, for I need to know how Haley is going to tie things up.  Color me intrigued.    

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)

Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to Owner of a Lonely Heart, by Yes (Spotify, YouTube). 

The good people at Tor.com are working really hard to make it very difficult for me to choose the best novella of the year. After The Devil You Know, Forest of Memory and A Song for No Man's Land now they have published another excellent book: Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire.

The novella takes place in Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, an institution for young girls (and some boys, but mainly girls) who once entered a fantasy world through a magical portal and, after returning to the real world feel lost and, what is worse, are not accepted by their families. A very interesting idea, somehow related to novels such as The Magicians, by Lev Grossman, and recent stories such as "Not by Wardrobe, Tornado, or Looking Glass", by Jeremiah Tolbert, but with a distinct personality and some really original twists.

To me, the strongest point of Every Heart a Doorway is that the idea of coming back from a magical realm can be interpreted literally and the novella works just perfectly in that way. But it can also be seen as a metaphor for many, many different things: mental illness, drug addiction, unrequited love, coming out the closet, undesired pregnancy, school bullying... or, simply, coming of age and the confusion and uneasiness that usually goes with it.

In fact, each of the characters in Every Heart a Doorway shows a different aspect of that metaphor and almost all of them are fully fleshed and charismatic, another of the strong elements of this wonderful novella. Also, the world-building, with the different categories of magical worlds, is extremely appealing, as well as the mystery that is central to the plot in the second half of the book.

The tone and the prose are also fantastic, with a style very different from what I had read previously by McGuire/Grant and an almost perfect balance of dark scenes and horror elements and other that are more melancholic or optimistic. As a minor problem, I'd mention that the transition from a first part in which we get to know the characters and the setting to the second part, which is mainly a whodunit, is a bit abrupt, but it is easily forgivable in light of the many virtues of Every Heart a Doorway.

All in all, an excellent, evocative and intelligent story that I just loved from the very first page. I don't know if this is the best novella of the year (in fact, with so many strong contenders I think I should just stop trying to decide and enjoy the ride) but I am sure it is one you should not miss.

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)

Forest of Memory, by Mary Robinette Kowal

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to Deer, by Swod (Spotify). 

A couple of weeks ago, I stated that The Devil You Know, by K.J. Parker, was the best novella of the year so far. I still think it is, but Forest of Memory, by Mary Robinette Kowal, that came out shortly after, is a close runner-up. In less than one hundred pages, the author manages to explore several different topics with a story that is interesting and very intelligent and has lots of well-thought-out elements. 

The first one of them is the format of the novella. Forest of Memory is a document that explains a story involving, among other things, an old typewriter and that is written with that same typewriter. The protagonist, a dealer in antiques that is selling the typewriter to a customer, is not very used to typing in it. This implies that there are some errors and typos throughout the text, something that constantly reminds the reader of who is narrating the story.

And that is the main focus of the novella: the narrator. A narrator that is unreliable because, for reasons that are slowly revealed in the story, lost for some days the connection to all the recording technologies that are omnipresent in the world she lives in and has, thus, to rely only on her memory:

It's important to understand, through this next bit, that I didn't know that I was offline already or that I was talking to Lizzie's buffer on my inboard system. 

None of the warning indicators went off to indicate that I'd lost connection to the net. 

I doubt my own mind, at times. 

I'll tell you that it's strange trying to remember without being able to pull up the recording and just look at it.

In that sense, Forest of Memory addresses questions that have been prominent in science fiction in the last few years (for instance, in "Single-Bit Error", by Ken Liu, and "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling", by Ted Chiang). But it also adds a different dimension, for the novella is also a mystery.  Or several ones, in fact: What happened in the forest? Why did Katya loose her connection? Why is she typing the document? And what about the deer? Since the protagonist's memory is unreliable, the reader must doubt every statement and consider every possibility and, in fact, the final revelation is an invitation to interpret all the story in a very different light. 

The world-building is also very interesting. Perceived only through glimpses and indirect comments, we discover that Katya's world is one where privacy is almost non-existent and everything can be copied (or printed), thus giving extreme importance to experiences and objects that are original and unique. All this perfectly dovetails with the themes of memory and identity and, in fact, also with the idea of storytelling itself, adding another layer of metareferentiality to the novella. 

All in all, Forest of Memory is a very intelligent, though-provoking story in which Kowal masterfully introduces and combines quite a number of original elements while she explores several important topics. I can only give it my highest recommendation. 

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)      

The Second Death, by Teresa Frohock

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to The Second Death, by AXXONN (Spotify, YouTube). 

The Second Death, by Teresa Frohock, is the third instalment of Los Nefilim, an ongoing series of novellas whose first two parts (In Midnight's Silence and Without Light or Guide) I've read and reviewed in the past months.   

This chapter opens with Diago, Miquel and Rafael reunited as a family and with their bonds stronger than ever. But this quiet scene is just a mirage, for soon they will be in danger again and they will have to face past enemies as well as new ones. Separated again, they will be forced to use their magic and their intelligence to unravel a conspiracy that is becoming more intricate by the minute and to avoid the fatal, Second Death. 

In this instalment we find quite a number of action and fight scenes and we learn much more about the powers of Diago in particular and of the Angels, Daimons and Nefilim in general. We also discover some interesting and crucial facts about Diago's past, with revelations that help us to understand the different factions and alliances that are struggling for power and also to see how the main protagonist's personality has evolved in his different lives.  

The Second Death may very well be the best novella of the series so far. It has more action, more character development and more magic than any of the two others. However, I confess that I did not enjoy it as much as I expected. The series is getting longer and longer (with these three books the total number of words is well into novel-length territory already) but my feeling is that the main conflict has yet to begin. There are some hints of a bigger picture, but in the end, this is just another adventure of Diago, Miquel and Rafael and I don't feel we are closer to witness the main events of the series. Call me impatient, but I wouldn't like it if the author decides to postpone indefinitely the impeding war that we've been anticipating since In Midnight's Silence.

Anyway, The Second Death is a good fantasy novella and if you've read and enjoyed the rest of the series you will very probably also enjoy this one. I will give a try to the next chapter, but I sincerely hope we see some major events or I think I will start losing part of my interest. 

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español) 

A Song for No Man's Land, by Andy Remic, and The Devil You Know, by K.J. Parker

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review listening to The Green Fields of France (No Man's Land), by Dropkick Murphys (Spotify, YouTube).

As I promised last week, today I am reviewing another two novellas published by Tor.com: A Song for No Man's Land, by Andy Remic, and The Devil You Know, by K.J. Parker. What is more, I have the additional pleasure of collaborating with my very good friend Leticia Lara, from Fantástica Ficción, who is simultaneously publishing a review of Parker's novella.   

I didn't know what to expect exactly from A Song No Man's Land. I hadn't read anything by Andy Remic and I wasn't completely convinced by the synopsis. However, I must say that I was very, very pleasantly surprised. From the first page, the author does an excellent job of evoking the desperate atmosphere of a country at war: 

Distant machine guns roared, like some great alien creature in agony. Rain lashed from unhealthy iron skies, caressed the upturned faces of soldiers praying to a god they no longer believed in for a miracle that couldn't happen.   

Then, very subtly, Remic introduces the supernatural element and mixes it seamlessly with the rest of the story using flashbacks and dreamlike scenes. I usually don't care for that kind of story, but in this case I loved every sentence of it: believable characters, excellent prose, perfect world-building and an interesting plot with a good ending. Highly recommend it and I am already looking forward to the second installment, Return of Souls, that will come out in June. 

The Devil You Know, by K.J. Parker is even better, and that is a lot to say. This novella is a perfect complement (and sort of a counterpoint) to the also very good Downfall of the Gods, that Antonio Díaz reviewed for us last week. If in that other story the main protagonists were a goddess and a mortal, here the main focus is in the pact of the philosopher Saloninus, one of the most intelligent persons ever, with a demon. But when Saloninus is involved you can be sure that this will be not your run-of-the-mill pact with the devil. 

Parker delivers, once again, a witty, intelligent and cynical novella, with excellent dialog and an almost perfect pace. With an intriguing and always twisting plot, it is impossible not to love the cunning Saloninus and feel a bit sorry for the poor demon that is at his service. The best novella of the year so far and one that you should not miss. 

All in all, two very different but excellent additions to Tor.com's amazing novella imprint. I enjoyed both of them immensely and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in fantasy literature. And very soon I will be reviewing even more novellas so... stay tuned!

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)

Three Tor.com novellas reviewed

(Disclaimer: English is my second language, so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.)

Review Soundtrack: I suggest reading this review while listening to Dead Man's Hand, by Motörhead (Spotify, YouTube).

Lately, I've been binge-reading novellas and short stories, especially those published by Tor.com. Thus, I've decided to divide my reviews in several different posts, each one devoted to three or four books. To start with, today I will be talking about Patchwerk, by David Tallerman, The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle, and Pieces of Hate, by Tim Lebbon.  

Patchwerk is a science fiction story about a machine that makes it possible to travel through universes, visiting alternative Earths. You may think that you have already read this kind of story a hundred times, but what is new in Tallerman's approach is the literary technique that he has chosen to convey the idea of changing realities. In Patchwerk, the multiverse machine begins to malfunction and thus the characters are moved from one dimension to another without previous warning. These displacements happen, most times, in the middle of a scene, and the reader finds that, suddenly, the names of the protagonists and the setting have abruptly changed from paragraph to another. 

This approach is certainly original and surprising, but I don't know if I'm completely convinced by the results. The sudden changes are confusing (an intended effect, undoubtedly), but after a couple of them you get used to them and you see them as a kind of game in which you need to work out which elements have been transformed into what others. More problematic is the fact that other than this interesting narrative form there is little else to Patchwerk. Little characterization. Little plot. To me it was more a curiosity than a real, complete story, but your mileage may vary. 

In The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle tries something very bold: an interrogation of racism through the work of none other than H.P. Lovecraft. The novella is certainly intelligent and well-written, but it didn't catch at all my interest and after the first half of it I really didn't care much about how it was going to end, maybe because I'm not into Lovecraft (or Lovecraftian pastiches for that matter). I'm probably wrong, though, because almost everybody seems to love the novella, so you might want to try it anyway. 

Pieces of Hate, by Tim Lebbon, was the book that I've enjoyed the most out of the three. In fact, it includes two stories: Dead Man's Hand and Pieces of Hate. Although they are separated by several centuries, they share characters: an immortal assassin and the also immortal protagonist, who seeks vengeance for the murder of his family. Dead Man's Hand is set in the Wild West and intelligently revolves around a well-known historial event. The setting of Pieces of Hate, on the other hand, is a Carribean sea full of pirates. In both, Lebbon does a fantastic job of recreating a fascinating atmosphere. The prose is excellent and with just a couple of sentences the author manages to evoke the feeling of being in a pirate ship or in a frontier town. The plot is a bit thin, but I expect more things to happen in A Whisper of Southern Lights, the next installment of the series, that I am already looking forward to reading. I applaud the decision of reprinting these stories, which I have really enjoyed.

All in all, two novellas (Patchwerk and The Ballad of Black Tom) with interesting elements, that I failed to appreciate completely but that you might like better than me, and another one, Pieces of Hate, that I recommend for its prose and setting. And soon, more reviews of novellas published by Tor.com. Stay tuned!

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)     

Antonio Díaz reviews Downfall of the Gods, by K.J. Parker

Publishing today's review is a double pleasure for me. First, because the great Antonio Díaz is once more sharing his insights with us. Second, because the amazing Leticia Lara, from Fantástica Ficción, is featuring simultaneously a review of the same novella. Hope you enjoy it!  

Review Soundtrack: Antonio suggests reading this review while listening to Song of Forgiveness, by Saint of Sin (Spotify, YouTube).

Downfall of the Gods is a novella from fantasy master K. J. Parker. The short format is a medium where the writer swims with ease. In this novella, Parker tells the story of a goddess that visits a believer who committed a very grave sin and wants absolution for it. The real plot trigger is the goddess’s refusal to absolve the faithful man of this sin, therefore going against the celestial laws. The text's central piece is then the exploration of the consequences of this whimsical decision.

This story strongly evokes 'The Things We Do For Love', another one of Parker's novellas, with love and power as a central theme. In both novellas the wise man Saloninus is mentioned so they probably take place in the same world (despite this being the only link between them). The central theme to Downfall of the Gods is the nature of the divine essence and the consequences of absolute power.

However, the book's most appealing ingredient is its vibrant sense of humour. The novella has a first person narrator, the goddess, and a general light-hearted tone. The explanation the narrator gives regarding her powers' origin and the divine pantheon which she belongs to are very insightful. The dialogue between the believer and the goddess is hilarious and I found myself laughing out loud while alone. Both central characters are perfectly defined and Parker really brings out a credible goddess.

The plot is rather simple but that is not important. What matters are the characters' insights regarding what is happening to them over the events themselves. The same can be said about the world-building, which is drawn roughly in broad strokes without too much attention to detail. But, again, that is not something that the reader would miss in such a short read. It is a story that pushes you constantly forward.

Overall, the experience is excellent and one can read the whole novella easily in one go. I would definitely recommend this outstanding book to any lover of satire and clever dialogue. If you have read Parker before, you already know what you are in for and if you haven't, then this could be a great place to start.

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español)