#FERAL HIPPOS IN THE MISSISSIPPI

[littleapocalypsekitten]

This reminds me of that scrapped historical plan to bring African megafauna to the United States to be used as meat-animals, particularly hippos. There was a plan and failed bill to bring hippopotamus to the South because people thought they would eat up the invasive water hyacinths choking riverways there and provide a cheap source of meat to replenish supply during a meat-crisis. It makes one wistfully imagine feral hippos in Mississippi taking over the parking lot of a 7/11... Oh, what could have been.

Archetypal mad scientist who is an Ecologist and her evil plan is always something like put Baikal seals in the Great Lakes

[bookgeekgrrl]

Sunday reading recap (21-May-2017)

2nd week in a row where I’m basically checked out of the news. I really needed the break. And this 4-day weekend isn’t hurting. I’ve been watching a lot more TV than usual too, so less reading.

Huntsmen (Michelle Osgood) - I really liked the first one in this series, and I don’t know why it took me so long to get to the 2nd one (except that I have this thing where I sometimes hoard the books I know I’m going to like best, in case I need an antidote from something, I guess). And of course, I did really like this one as well! Fun to get back to the lady-loving werewolves with action and danger and some angst and a lot of really really hot sex. Shout out to a decent amount of anal play between the ladies because why should that be restricted to just the guys. Also, how much do I love that the werewolf oversight/council thingy’s acronym is GNAAW. SO MUCH I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

A Summer For Scandal (Lydia San Andres) - historical (1911) het romance set in the Spanish Caribbean. Very fun, definite Pride & Prejudice vibe (which is a big compliment let me be very clear), our MCs are each writing under pseudonyms and irritating one another. 

River of Teeth (Sarah Gailey) - this was a seriously FUN ROMP! An alt-history novella where an assembled crew of miscreants (of a solid mix of sexuality/gender/race) is hired to get rid of feral hippos who have become lethal nuisance in the southern part of the Mississippi. I straight up expected everyone to die, but mostly they did not. Inspired by a real-life plan (never realized) to import hippos for ranching in the bayous of Louisiana.

Two Cowboys and a Baby (B.A. Tortuga) - This was just fun & ridiculous. It had so many tropes crammed in, I just kept laughing. I’m rather ‘meh’ on kids IRL so I don’t know why I kinda love accidental baby acquisition but I do. And my love for cowboy stories is well-known. So this was friends-to-lovers with the catalyst for the change being a baby left on cowboy 1′s doorstep. Also, the sheriff’s name is Pooter.

Knit One, Girl Two (Shira Glassman) - this was so adorable!!! Two sweetheart Jewish girls: Clara’s an indie yarn dyer, Danielle is an artist. Clara is inspired to do some yarn based on Danielle’s paintings, so they do some business together and then get together. Short & super sweet.

Fav book of the week: RIVER OF TEETH - I mean, c’mon! It’s basically a caper fic and It has people riding hippos! 

[curiooftheheart]

Alternate universe where the plan to raise hippos for meat in Louisiana went through and there are now feral hippos throughout the Mississippi

So many deaths, no, please

[e-b-reads]

Book(s) of the month: May 2022

May felt approximately 3 months long, though unfortunately this is because my days were very full with work, not with time for reading.  Still, I always manage to find some time, so here are the books I read this May that I would definitely recommend:

- The View From Saturday (E.L. Konigsburg): A reread, and always a pleasant one. It is a children’s book, and reading it as an adult is a different experience from when I was a kid--for one thing, instead of thinking, “I would want to be these kids’ friend,” I think, “I might want to be their teacher.”  But it has stuff in it that is good for adults to read, too.  It is about a sixth-grade quiz team and their teacher, and how to win gracefully, and the way sometimes we need to give each other help on our journeys, and mostly about the importance of kindness.

- Educated (Tara Westover): A memoir from a mormon girl (now woman) whose family was/is very conservative, and anti-government, to the point that she (youngest of seven) and several of her siblings never actually attended grade school, but also weren’t really comprehensively homeschooled.  (Also her father is constantly preparing for the end of days.)  But she takes some tests, and makes it to college, and then to graduate school, getting into various prestigious programs--and then eventually writes this book.  I’m not sure that the book has one comprehensive theme or lesson; I mean, it’s well written, it has a few themes throughout, but there isn’t one phrase you can just pull out of it to say what it’s about.  Which is why it’s worth reading the whole thing!

- American Hippo (Sarah Gailey): This is technically the connected novellas Rivers of Teeth and Taste of Marrow, plus two related short stories.  It’s ridiculous, and lots of fun.  In this alternate 1890s America, feral hippos infest the dammed Mississippi River (and not-quite-cowboys ride around on tamed ones).  The stories are quick, silly, action-y (solid amounts of violence) and also...cute?  I enjoyed how the leader of the crew--the handsome, capable, bisexual white guy who seems supposed to have it all together--kept getting incredibly flustered about/around his Black nonbinary love interest.  Anyway, pretty sure I first saw this book suggested on tumblr, which makes sense as it does fit several tumblr-favorite buzzwords, but I enjoyed the characters beyond their labels, too!

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2022 Reading Challenge - Book 4 of 26

Title: River of Teeth (River of Teeth #1) (2017)

Author: Sarah Gailey

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Western, Alternate History, Novella, Third-Person, LGBT Protagonist, Female Protagonist, Nonbinary Protagonist

Rating: 3/10

Date Began: 02/14/2022

Date Finished: 02/19/2022

In the early 1900s, the US government considered introducing hippos into the Mississippi to raise as a food source and cleanse the waterways of invasive plant species. While this never came to pass, River of Teeth explores a world in which hippos came to America in 1857.

Winslow Houndstooth, a former hippo rancher, is hired by the US government to clear out the feral hippo population from the Harriet, a dam along the southern Missisippi River. He’s got a plan to get the job done quick and pocket the $8000, but he’ll need a crew to help him. But Houndstooth isn’t just chasing a payday; he also seeks revenge against the man who burned down his ranch years ago.

Not quite a lake and not quite a marsh, the Harriet was a triumph in engineering, but the ferals trapped within it rendered it a national embarrassment. The riverboat casinos that dominated its surface did little to alleviate the distaste with which most of the country considered the entire region. 

Review, content warnings, and minor spoilers below the cut. 

Content warnings: Depicted-- Graphic violence, mutilation, fatphobia, misgendering, death, animal death, child death. Mentioned-- Mild sexual content.

River of Teeth is one of those books that’s most enjoyable when you turn off your brain and just dive into it. Like a schlocky horror movie, perhaps. Don’t think too hard and you might get some entertainment from it. And trust me, I tried; I wanted so bad to sink into some mindless fun. I was hyped for a corny hippo Western. But River of Teeth has so many fundamental problems that I just couldn’t do it. The moment I realized I wasn’t having fun with this book, the more its glaring issues started to show. I wanted to like it— but unfortunately, you can’t force yourself to like a book.

In some ways River of Teeth reminds me of the better early drafts I’d encounter in writing workshop classes. It has a killer premise. There’s the bones of a good idea here, and just enough things I like about it that I can see the story it might become, given sufficient reworks. But River of Teeth isn’t an early draft; it’s a traditionally published novella courtesy of Tor. So this is the story we got. Nevertheless, I’ll do my best to point out the good— or at least the stuff that worked for me.

The most successful part of this novella is how Gailey portrays the setting’s atmosphere and general vibe. River of Teeth takes place in the deep South, but is also an obvious riff on traditional Westerns. This leads to some neat visuals, like the giant casino riverboat(s) floating on the dammed-up Mississippi. It’s a bayou with cowboys riding giant domesticated hippos, and I could totally sink into that setting. I feel that Gailey balanced both aspects in a believable way. Perhaps it’s weird that a book taking place in 1890s Louisiana has absolutely nothing to say about Jim Crow, but from what I can tell American slavery was never a thing in this universe. That may rub some people the wrong way, but I’ll take it at face value since this is an alternate history. I’m not sure this book has the depth to tackle such serious subject matter.

I try not to praise representation unless a book does something particularly noteworthy. Usually I’ll acknowledge if a character matches my own identity/life experience in a way that feels genuine. But I do have to give Gailey credit for one thing; this is the first book I’ve read that (1) features a nonbinary lead and (2) makes them the love interest. Like Hero (and the author), I’m nonbinary. Nonbinary characters are so rare that it’s nice to see one at all, let alone framed as someone attractive or desirable. So props for that, even if the romance itself is a little lackluster.

Finally, there are several small details I like. Real-world sayings are adapted to match the setting, which is fun. Houndstooth’s tragic backstory flashback is well-written. Each of the characters’ hippo mounts have unique appearances, temperaments, and backstories; a nice level of detail. There’s some good scenes, like when one character threatens another’s life by holding him over a literal horde of hungry, hungry hippos (and boy, that’s a joke I had to keep myself from making all the time). The little political timeline at the end is pretty funny. And even if the ending is a bit of a mess, I appreciate the layered dramatic irony of what happens to the villain.

And, well… that’s about it. Onto the stuff that didn’t work for me.

The characters are objectively the weakest point of this book. I get the sense that I’m supposed to like this crew of (mostly) well-meaning rogues. But they’re so flat that I couldn’t force any emotional connection to them. The only character who gets anything resembling an arc is Houndstooth, so he’s probably the strongest member of the cast. Sadly, that’s not saying much. Everyone else is one-note at best and stereotypical at worst. I appreciate the attempt at diversity, especially in a Western— but diversity isn’t enough if it’s the only thing the characters have going for them.

The main way we learn about River of Teeth’s characters is through direct statements. Usually this is through one character describing another in expository dialogue. Sometimes the narration does it instead. Character traits may as well be a bullet-point list, as we rarely see them organically in the story. It feels better when the cast actually does stuff and has to show some personality, but this is so infrequent that it may as well not happen. One detail I found frustrating is the narrative tells you if a character misunderstood something rather than showing that misunderstanding through their actions. I know “show don’t tell” is Writing 101 stuff, and should be taken with a grain of salt. But this book needed way more showing to make these characters feel like people, not rough outlines.

Another big issue is that River of Teeth tries to be too many things at once. It’s here the restrictions of a novella really come into play. Novellas can be amazing, fully realized stories, but there’s not enough focus on anything here to make it work. On one hand, we have a heist story— but one where you never see the heist itself or the logistics behind it. It’s a Western with hippos— but with only barebones detail on how a world like that works. It’s a revenge story full of twists— but they’re so painfully obvious that the payoff is dissatisfying. Perhaps if this was a full novel Gailey would have time to expand all these threads into something more compelling. As it stands, though, none of these concepts succeed.

Then there’s all the ways River of Teeth abandons logic and consistency. I suppose you can argue that this story isn’t meant to be taken seriously, so it doesn’t have to make sense. But for me it’s the opposite. Corny stories work for me when the laws of their worlds have some internal logic. Graboids in the Tremors films behave in consistent ways that make sense for them as ancient predators, no matter how silly and over-the-top giant underground man-eating worms are in practice. Hell, I could accept a nonsensical story if it was at least self-aware. But River of Teeth doesn’t bother with that level of effort, and many of the writing choices feel lazy.

If Gailey did sufficient research when writing this, or took time to flesh out the quirkier aspects of the story, River of Teeth would be a much better schlock-fest. Instead we get a plot-critical dam that’s physically impossible (hint: the lake would be north of the dam wall, not south). The villain’s master plan is so stupid that I found it impossible to believe even the most unhinged character would consider it. Perhaps most baffling is that everyone, including the author, seems to forget a major character is heavily pregnant for the entire last third of the novella. These are just a few examples. I don’t need anything amazing or mind-blowing on any of these points— simple acknowledgment would suffice. Obviously we don’t get any.

But the biggest thing for me is… the hippos! I wanted more goddamn hippos! We don’t get nearly enough of them, which is a tragedy in a book with this premise. Even though I liked the characters’ personal hippos, we see very little of them. The feral hippos are used exclusively as a plot device to kill off characters and add occasional peril. I’m no hippo expert, but I feel like a book with this premise needs to fully lean into hippo behavior and biology, even when taking liberties. But I never got that sense while reading; the mounts may as well be horses, and the ferals may as well be sentient meat grinders for how they function in the story.

I’m sad I didn’t enjoy this book. In theory it has lots of things I like. A weird alternate history premise, a revenge narrative, a diverse gang of ne’er-do-wells, a heist, and so on. But the execution fell way short of this book’s potential. River of Teeth is a debut novel(la), so perhaps I should give Gailey the benefit of the doubt. I’ll at least give the sequel, Taste of Marrow, a fair shake.

[nicolaslibrary]

American Hippo - Sarah Gailey

Synopsis:

In 2017 Sarah Gailey made their debut with River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow, two action-packed novellas that introduced readers to an alternate America in which hippos rule the colossal swamp that was once the Mississippi River. Now readers have the chance to own both novellas in American Hippo, a single, beautiful volume.

Years ago, in an America that never was, the United States government introduced herds of hippos to the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This plan failed to take into account some key facts about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.

By the 1890s, the vast bayou that was once America's greatest waterway belongs to feral hippos, and Winslow Houndstooth has been contracted to take it back. To do so, he will gather a crew of the damnedest cons, outlaws, and assassins to ever ride a hippo. American Hippo is the story of their fortunes, their failures, and his revenge.

[fancyhalloran]

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

Read: February 2, 2022

I read this book in one sitting.

Normally I’m a little skeptical of alternate history books. My dad loves the genre and has been trying to get me to pick up Harry Turtledove since I was a wee lass. But I’ve never been able to get past my lack of interest in scenarios like “what if the Nazis won WWII” and “what if the confederates won the civil war” and such. It’s just never appealed to me (for some reason nonfiction about those subjects is easier for me to get into).

River of Teeth won me over on concept alone: an alternate history where the US government went through on its plan to import hippos to the Mississippi delta as a meat source. It was a bad idea of course and the book features man-eating feral hippos, quirky queer mercenaries, and a casino magnate who likes feeding card cheats to the aforementioned feral hippos.

If it wasn’t already obvious, this book is fun. It’s written like a heist story, with a fast pace and an ensemble of memorable characters. And lots of hippos. All the characters ride domesticated hippos. There’s a hippo battle at the climax. It’s all hippos all the way down. And I love it for that.

[carriagelamp]

Book Review - Summer Summary 2020

I didn’t get around to doing an individual post for the books I read in June/July/August, so I decided to choose a dozen that I read over the summer... I’d separate the wheat from the chaff for you so to speak. Though like you’re about to find out, that doesn’t necessarily mean they were all good by any means...

Crave

My girlfriend got this for me to “tide me over until Midnight Sun”. Between you and me, I think she was taking the piss. Anyway, Crave is very... standard fare paranormal YA school romance with the added flare of being written by an adult erotica writer, meaning the rhythm and tone of this novel is fucking bonkers. If you want to read the novel without reading the novel, just take Twilight and the entire Vampire Academy series, shove them in a blend, and force down the sludge you get from that. Normal Average Girl Goes To Secret School In Alaska For Vampire, Werewolves and Dragons. That’s this book. It is so big and so so so bad. I finished it out of spite, please don’t do that to yourself. Unless you are really craving (hurr hurr) some top tier trashy paranormal romance, in which case... no judgment.

The Last Firehawk

The Last Firehawk is a Scholastic “Branches” series, written for beginning readers (grade 1-3ish, depending on the child’s reading level). It has short stories, big text, and awesome pictures on every page. Guys. I unironically am adoring this series. It’s simple and is introducing children to a number of classic elements in the fantasy quest genre, but it is so charming. Friends Tag and Skyla discover a firehawk egg, and species that is supposed to have disappeared long ago. When Blaze hatches from it, the three are tasked with going out and finding the magical ember stone which was hidden long ago by the firehawks and which could be used to defeat the evil vulture Thorn and his dark magic... I read the first two books to second graders who ate it up and read the next four books because I personally wanted to continue the series. If you have young readers in your life (or just want a fun kid adventure) then please try these they’re the literary equivalent of nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie.

Lupin III: World’s Most Wanted #3

All the kind people that still follow my tumblr and haven’t tried to murder me because of my Lupin obsession are not going to be surprised by this one. I finally read one of the manga for this series and honestly I’m delighted. Somehow even hornier than the show, but hilariously funny. I felt like I was reading a more adult version of Spy Vs Spy. It’s a bunch of short, individual bits/adventures with lots of visual gags and an artstyle that is really different and delightful.

River of Teeth / Taste of Marrow (American Hippo series)

I’ve talked about River of Teeth before, but I finally finished the American Hippo duology and need to sing its praise. This is an alternate history series composed of two novellas that explore the question What would have happened if the States had decided to import hippos as livestock...? Anyways, my pitch for you: queer hippo cowboys. That’s all it took for me to read it. You have a gay gunslinger who loves his hippo to death, a nonbinary explosives-expert / poisoner who is the main love interest, a fat con artist who spoils her hippo and is the only voice of reason in this entire series, and a latina mother-to-be who is the scariest assassin in the entire series and is obviously scheming. The four of them are brought together on a job to deal with the Mississippi’s feral hippo problem.

IT’S A QUEER HIPPO COWBOY HEIST NOVEL GUYS I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M STILL TALKING AND YOU HAVEN’T JUST GONE TO READ THIS YET.

Petals to the Metal (The Adventure Zone series)

The graphic novel adaptation to the McElroy family’s DND podcast The Adventure Zone. Most of you are probably aware of this? It’s a great adaptation, it hits all the important beats, shows off the characters really well, and still gets lots of good gags in even while condensing entire arcs into single book stories. This one is probably my favourite so far just because Petals to the Metal was one of my favourite arcs in the show... but you can also see how the art has improved and the chaos of the race is fun to see drawn out.

If you like The Adventure Zone but haven’t tried the graphic novels yet -- would recommend! If you’ve always wanted to listen to The Adventure Zone but don’t have time for such a long series or struggle to focus on podcasts then pick up the first book of this series (Here There Be Gerblins) and try reading it! It really is an enjoyable adaptation.

Pony to the Rescue (Pony Pals series)

I continued my April/May theme of reading old-school chapter book series to combat Covid Brain Fry, so I picked up a few Pony Pals books. I read these as a kid and always enjoy them -- there’s just something so appealing to a child about having a horse. It gives your child characters a level of independence and ability to explore that you wouldn’t get otherwise. These books definitely read young, but they were nostalgic to revisit.

Small Spaces

A really cool middle grade horror novel I picked up. Maybe it’s because I live around a lot of corn fields, but farm/scarecrow themed horror absolutely does it for me. One evening, after seeing a woman try to destroy a strange, old book, eleven year old Ollie doesn’t stop to think, instead stealing the book and running. That’s how she becomes wrapped up in the strange, sinister story of a cursed family and creature called the Smiling Man that seems to live out in the foggy fields. While unsettling, Ollie tries to remind herself that it’s just a story... but this becomes more challenging when her school bus breaks down one day out their own set of fields, and a fog is rolling in...

“Avoid large spaces. Stick to small.”

Snot Girl #1 - #2

A Canadian graphic novel series by the creator of the Scott Pilgrim series! I love his work so I decided to give Snotgirl a try, even though it’s not generally my genre. I’m glad I did! First book took a while for me to get into, but by the time I hit the second I was really wrapped up in the mystery and character development. Snotgirl is about Lottie, a self-consumed fashion blogger whose biggest struggles are dealing with her allergies, frustration with her fellow-blogger friends, and how entirely her self-esteem is tied to her “beauty” and how people view her. But everything shifts in strange and horrifying ways when Lottie starts taking a new allergy medication, meets a new friend... and then witnesses that girl’s death. Or does she?

Seriously, or does she? I have no idea, I need to read the third book. This book is full of intrigue, complicated relationships, murder (or not?), and a healthy dose of magical realism to keep you guessing. If you like slice-of-life, crime, and abstract reality then this series is world a try. Plus the art is gorgeous.

Summer Wars #1 - #2

I recently rewatched Summer Wars (still one of my favourite movies) and decided to read the two-book manga adaptation. It was a really neat little adaptation. The creator of the movie gave the writer free range to tweak things to fit better in a manga format, which means some movie elements were allowed to fade into the background, whereas other aspects were fulled into the forefront and fleshed out to a greater degree. It was very cool, it kept the same story but gave you new things to think about which I wasn’t expecting. Reading this as a stand alone works just fine, but honestly if you’ve never watched the movie Summer Wars you should give it a try! It’s a great mix of slice-of-life, sprawling family dynamics that I relate to a little too well, cyber adventures, and fantasy. Super feel good.

This One Summer

Okay, last graphic novel, I swear. This One Summer was... weird and intense. It’s a coming-of-age Canadian graphic novel that follows a pair of pre-teens who meet up like they do every year at their family’s summer cottages. You see them both in the awkward phases between childhood and growing up to become teenagers, as they’re confronted with things like maturity, friendship, self-esteem, family problems, and sexuality. A beautiful read, but probably the heaviest out of all the books on my list.

Wild Thornberrys Novelization

I rewatched The Wild Thornberrys movie with my girlfriend earlier this year, and decided I wanted to hunt down the chapter book novelization because I’m kind of a sucker for novelizations. Honestly, this was about what you would expect from the era. 90s/00s novelizations, especially young novelizations, are generally just a transcript of the movie without much thought or effort put into them to make them anything but. That’s what this was. It was fine, and it really let me revisualize the entire movie, but honestly you’re probably better off just rewatching the movie unless you also really deeply love The Wild Thornberrys.

The Willoughbys

I saw that Netflix had done a funky looking adaptation of The Willoughbys and I decided I needed to read the book first before watching the movie. This was a little bizarre, I’m still not sure how I feel about it. Over all, I think it was a net-positive experience. It’s an obvious satire on classic children’s novels, especially the likes of Mary Poppins (real Mary Poppins, not the Disney version) and while a little heavy-handed, it does a Series of Unfortunate Events vibe that redeems it. The story is about a group of horrible children (The Ruthless Willoughbys) who decide they are sick of their parents and would rather become Worth Orphans... and to do that, they’re going to have to dispose of their inconvenient parents, obviously. Conveniently their parents are also sick of having children and decide to do away with them as well. The Willoughbys sets up three (or four?) different subplots that are gradually woven together through a series of schemes and exploits. It’s definitely more ruthless (hurr hurr) than the Netflix version, which tried to make the children more sympathetic, and in some ways I think that’s a definite point in the novel’s favour. I’m not sure I would go out of my way to recommend it, but it was a fun romp if you want something short and off the wall (and a lot more fleshed out than the Netflix version).

[cricketnationrise]

January 2021 Reading Roundup

quarantine (2020) reads here

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey: novella 2 of the River of Teeth duology in which in an alternate USA, hippos were introduced as an alternative to cows and then went feral along the mississippi river and also there was a queer heist gang that formed. anyway its great and everyone should read this series

Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law by Lavie Tidhar: tor.com short story featuring vampire politics and a loyal henchman

Black Powder War by Naomi Novik: book 3 in the temeraire series. talking dragons bond with their humans in this alternate history around the napoleonic wars. absolutely need to read these in order

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019: what it says on the tin. short story collection

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty: snapshots of death/funeral customs around the world as told by a US based mortician. she has a couple other books as well. non-fiction.

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn: book 1 in the bridgerton series. romance, sex on the page. YES there is a problematic scene involving consent. YES this book is good anyway. also re: consent issues, they use their words to talk about it and forgive each other. don’t @ me. focuses on the oldest sister, Daphne.

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn: book 2 in the bridgerton series. romance, sex on the page. sort of a riff on pride and prejudice/taming of the shrew. focuses on the oldest brother, Andrew.

An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn: book 2 in the bridgerton series. romance, sex on the page. cinderella as a reference point but diverges wildly after the “lost slipper” scene (its a glove in this case). focuses on the second oldest brother, Benedict.

#Selfcare by Annalee Newitz: tor.com short story, fantasy/faerie elements

Kindred by Octavia Butler: trigger/content warning for slavery, violence of all kinds, harm to children, murder, etc; a black woman time travels to multiple points in her own family’s history to save her white great great great? slave owner grandfather from dying. she flashes back and forth from the plantation to her own life, but 3 months on the plantation could be as little as 2 hours in her own life.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman: a (failed) bank robber holds an open house’s worth of people in an apartment hostage, a father and son cop duo try to talk the hostage taker into letting them go and coming peacefully. changing POV. everyone’s preconceived notions get turned on their heads. content warning for suicide, anxiety. translated from swedish.

The High King’s Tomb by Kristen Britain: book 3 in the Green Rider series. high fantasy series that you absolutely have to read in order.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson: in kentucky, there were a group of people known as Blue People due to a birth defect making their skin take on a blueish tint. during the New Deal “Book Women” would take books/magazines/etc to extremely rural houses/schools and serve as libraries on mules/horseback. the book woman of troublesome creek belongs to both groups. warnings for forced experimentation/medication, racism, violence against women, suicide, murder, assault, stalking

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner: book 5 in the queen’s thief series, definitely need to read these in order. based LOOSELY on greek gods being present in the world, lots of political machinations

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker: graphic novel, fantasy coexisting with the mundane world, an old shapeshifter friend shows back up in the town where the witch narrator lives with her witch moms (maybe aunts), the two reconnect and fall in love while trying to figure out who could be trying to attack the shapeshifter (look it was a while ago now and i was too lazy to look up their names), art is really cute and the story is wonderful. nonbinary/female relationship at the center. ~magic lesbians~ warning for kidnapping and harm to teenagers, magical violence/coersion

[theradioghost]

what books did u get ? i rly need to get back into reading more now school is over

oh man. so I’ll give you what I bought & then I’m also gonna throw in some similar books that I have already read just because I can actually vouch for the quality of those

(brief note that my main qualifications when I was looking for books, besides not wanting YA, was that 1. they were not about straight cis white men and/or 2. they had particular appeal to one of the areas of sf&f that I have a particular fondness for and/or 3. they cost under five bucks. so there’s a lot of diverse lit, and a lot of novellas, and a lot of urban fantasy wizards who are also detectives/rebellious angels and or demons/necromancy/dragons/stuff that is explictly Lovecraftian adaptations but takes the piss out of Lovecraft/anything on this list/anything published by Tor)

new books that I have read:

(coming back to update this as I get through these books)

the Lovelace & Wick series by Jennifer Rainey – this is the Demon Husbands one I’ve been yelling about. Two gentleman demons in love – a Faustian tempter and a bringer of catastrophes – are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the work they do for hell, while also being forced to contend with new and dangerous enemies. Set in a vaguely-steampunk 1890s Massachusetts. Also includes monster-hunting steampunk scientist lesbian wives.

Deadline by Stephanie Ahn – fourteen months after a disastrous failed ritual, disgraced blood witch Harrietta Lee gets offered a ridiculously lucrative job quietly recovering a stolen artifact for a young member of a powerful magical family, and promptly finds out that this is too good to be true. Also she keeps meeting scary, hot women. Instantly the only wisecracking urban fantasy PI named Harry that my heart has any room for. (This one’s a bit Spicier than my usual fare but the author actually includes a list of content warnings including page numbers at the front of each book, which you can view with the preview option on the Amazon page.)

Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw – A kid hires London PI John Persons to kill his stepfather. The first catch is that the stepfather is a Lovecraftian horror. The second catch is that Persons is too. This is like, the noir-est horror I’ve ever read and that’s something I am very into. 

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark – An urban fantasy police procedural set in an alternate 1912 Cairo, in which two government officials are sent to deal with a strange, malevolent spirit in the midst of political upheaval as Egypt’s women demand universal suffrage. There’s a free short story prequel to this on tor.com called “A Dead Djinn in Cairo“ that’s worth reading first.

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone – high fantasy with a black protagonist, in which Tara Abernathy, a disgraced magic user and rookie associate in an internationally renowned necromancy firm, is assigned to resurrect a city’s murdered patron fire god – but first, with the help of a chain-smoking priest and a vampire-addicted servant of Justice Herself, she has to track down his killer.

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey – in an alternate history where the 1910 “Hippo Bill” passed, Winslow Remington Houndstooth, an ex-rancher out for revenge, is hired to travel north with a ragtag crew – a con artist and pickpocket, a demolitions expert with a proclivity for poisoning, the most dangerous contract killer in the country, and the very man who ruined his life – and take on the dangers of the massive swamp that was once the Mississippi river, a place ruled over by deadly feral hippos and a homicidal riverboat gambling king.

or, essentially, a swamp-based heist Western with a cast including a British-East Asian bisexual man, a black nb person, an unashamedly fat woman, and a pregnant Latina lesbian, and also their pet hippos. Listen just go ahead and get the version with both stories in it

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh – Tobias has lived in the woods as long as anyone can remember; long enough that the nearby town tells stories of the Green Man, the spirit-king of the forest, who dwells in the trees. These stories are truer, and far more dangerous, than anyone but Tobias knows – so when friendly, handsome, curious Henry Silver buys up the neighboring Greenhollow Hall and starts investigating the local folklore, Tobias will have to decide whether to sacrifice the only life he has known for centuries, or the first person he has loved in all that time.

not-new books that I have read:

idk if you don’t know about the Wayfarers series, the first of which is The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, but it is an absolutely stellar bit of sci-fi very much based around ideas of found family and discovering your own identity and place in the universe and love and compassion and stories based around sweet slice-of-life stuff in a scifi universe with lots of fun aliens and it is so very queer and so very heartwarming and all three books (which each have different casts, although the characters in all three are connected to one another and sort of cameo across all the books) are fantastic.

Urban Dragon by J.W. Troemner – Dragons are supposed to be ruthless, unpredictable, deadly, selfish creatures. So why is it that Rosa Hernandez seems to be able to keep her best friend Arkay in check? How did Arkay, a shape-changing dragon with lightning at her command, end up being found alone and starving and with no memory of her past by a homeless woman? And as evidence mounts that someone is hunting down supernatural beings, who can they trust? (I stumbled across this while looking for urban fantasy on TV Tropes and BOY am I glad I did. Good if you like close friendships between queer women or the enemies-to-lovers trope)

The Merry Spinster by Daniel Mallory Ortberg – of course I was going to read Daniel Ortberg’s short story collection, are you kidding me. Not “””darker””” fairy tale retellings, but fairy tales as often very surreal, psychological horror. Read this if you want to totally ruin “The Velveteen Rabbit” for yourself.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker – historical fantasy set in the early-20th-century Orthodox Jewish and Middle Eastern immigrant communities of NYC, about the strange friendship that springs up between a bitter jinn trapped in a mortal body and a masterless golem living among humans. and it gave me feelings.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle – a retelling of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Horror at Red Hook” from the perspective of a black man. One of the better pieces of horror I have ever read.

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff – a very different take on a similar concept to The Ballad of Black Tom, wherein a mid-century black Midwestern family find themselves mixed up in the plans of a bunch of cultists and set out to disentangle themselves from this whole cosmic-horror mess. Apparently Jordan Peele is adapting this into a TV show, so I’m stoked for that.

new books that I have not read:

(& also a couple that are just books I want, and some that I just haven’t read yet but got free from the Tor monthly ebook club, which is very much worth joining)

Armed in Her Fashion by Kate Heartfield– I’m just going to let the official blurb speak for this one because there is absolutely no way I could improve on it

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark – New Orleans-based steampunk fantasy about an airship captain and a stowaway who talks to orishas.

Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef by Cassandra Khaw – Apparently several authors have written standalone works in this series, and Cassandra Khaw’s aren’t chronologically the first, but I love Cassandra Khaw and “chef for ghouls and pencil-pusher for the Ten Chinese Hells is forced to solve an inter-pantheon murder mystery” just sounds so good to me.

Bones and Bourbon by Dorian Graves – Cursed half-huldra PI is forced to help out his little brother and the demon who shares his body, and then everything goes wrong. Feat. carnivorous unicorns.

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova – reluctant bruja attempts to rid herself of her magic and instead plunges her entire family into magical trouble. YA.

Robbergirl by S. T. Gibson – WLW retelling of The Snow Queen from the perspective of the bandit princess. YA.

Passing Strange by Ellen Klages – slightly-fantastical historical lesbian noir novella set in the burgeoning 1940s gay club scene in San Francisco.

The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang – admittedly caught my eye because the cover art reminded me of Moribito, which I adore. East-Asian-inspired epic fantasy which I believe has a nonbinary protagonist.

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire – I’ve been neglecting getting around to October Daye way, way too long considering how much I love Seanan McGuire and urban fantasy, but my mom started reading this and that pushed me over the edge because damn it, yes I want to read her take on the Wizard Detective genre that I have such a weakness for.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson – this was recommended to me in a Tumblr post listing interesting, diverse fantasy, and I’ve been into high fantasy political intrigue lately.

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg – came across this in a Twitter thread about fantasy worlds with unconventional and interesting magic systems. A newly graduated student of magic is bitter about being sent to learn paper-crafting magic rather than working with metal, until Murder Stuff Happens. YA.

Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett – queer fantasy sequel to The Tempest, with Miranda as protagonist.

Witchmark by C. L. Polk – post-WWI gaslamp fantasy MLM romance about a male witch in hiding, working as a doctor; the reviews seem to indicate people think it’s more ‘delightful’ than ‘literary’ but apparently it is pretty fucking delightful.

In the Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette de Bodard– East Asian WLW retelling of Beauty and the Beast and also one of them is a dragon.

Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys – another one of the rash of new Lovecraft adaptations that are turning perspectives around, this being one where the citizens of Innsmouth are the protagonists. Also has a really good short story prequel you can read for free on tor.com.

also I just feel like mentioning that I’m stupidly excited for Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir to come out this fall because the review they’ve decided to put at the top of every blurb is “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” (not my exclamation mark) and I don’t know how anyone could more perfectly craft something to my tastes.

[servantofclio]

Summer Reading

Summer’s almost over, and I read a bunch of stuff and forgot to post about it as I finished. So here’s Some Stuff I Read This Summer and brief notes about it:

John Scalzi, The Collapsing Empire. First in a new series, this book spends a lot of time on set-up, but does it entertainingly, with some very compelling characters and an intriguing premise: the resource that makes FTL travel in a far-flung interstellar empire possible is disappearing, possibly bringing about the collapse of society.

Sarah Gailey, River of Teeth. Imagine an alternate 19th-century America where hippo farming was a thing and the Mississippi River had been dammed to form a giant lake. Full of vicious feral hippos, naturally. So it’s the Wild West with scheming and backstabbing and hippos, and I think that’s all you really need to know to know if you want to read this or not.

Mur Lafferty, Six Wakes. A bunch of clones on a long-distance space voyage wake to discover that someone has murdered their previous selves. Unraveling what happened and why is complicated, especially when no one has reason to trust the others.

T. Kingfisher, Summer in Orcus. This was SO GOOD, it’s a lovely YA book in which the young protagonist goes to another world... but her purpose there is anything but clear. Along the way, she acquires a really wonderful array of traveling companions (there’s a noble hoopoe, and a were-house). The book really plays with the typical tropes of a portal fantasy, highly recommended.

Mary Robinette Kowal, The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky. Two closely linked novels based on the premise “What if the world had gone all-in on a space program, including a mission to Mars, in the 1950s?” A love letter to early space travel, whose protagonist is a Jewish woman mathematician. The books take the opportunity to make this AU space program multinational and multiethnic, but mid-20th-century racism and sexism are still present (called out and confronted, but present).

I really enjoyed all of these! What did you read this summer?

[brigdh]

Continuing to catch up on book reviews

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey. Around 1910, a US congressman proposed to import hippos into the southern states as meat animals (supposedly "lake cow bacon" was delicious). Obviously this never happened, but Gailey has written a novella set in the world where it did. In her 1890s, an enormous stretch of the Mississippi River has been dammed to create a shallow marsh in response to the hippo ranching boom; unfortunately this marsh is now overrun with feral, man-eating, escaped hippos who have turned the area into a lawless danger zone. Winslow Houndstooth, former hippo breeder and current mercenary, is hired by federal agents to clear out the ferals and return the marshlands to government control. He promptly gathers the crew he needs to pull off the job. River of Teeth follows typical heist-movie structure: the long opening sequence of assembling the team, each with their own speciality; the suspense of putting together a plan and setting the pieces in motion; and finally the actual heist, which of course goes wrong in several unexpected ways, adding new and exciting twists to the plot. It's a structure refined to perfection by the Ocean's movies, and Gailey follows it faithfully. Except that this heist takes place in a Wild West where the cowboys all ride hippos. There are even different breeds of hippos, selected for size or speed or fighting ability, and given the same sort of loving descriptions and characterizations as any fiery stallion or faithful steed in a traditional Western. How can you not love this? I also appreciated the clear attention to diversity in the cast. There's Winslow himself, a bisexual Korean-British man giving to flirting and sleeping with anyone who catches his eye; Regina "Archie" Archambault, a fat Frenchwoman who's a skilled conman and pickpocket; Hero Shackleby, black non-binary demolitions expert who has to be coaxed out of retirement for one last job; Adelia Reyes, described as "without question, the deadliest, most ruthless contract killer of her day" and also a Latina woman who's eight months pregnant; and finally Cal Hotchkiss, inside man and literally the token white guy – Winslow explains that they need someone with privilege for part of the plan. Unfortunately, despite all of the amazing rule-of-cool in the above paragraphs, I didn't much like River of Teeth. This is Gailey's first full-length piece of writing (she'd published short stories before) and it shows. The biggest problem is simply that it's a novella packed with a plot that desperately needed to be at least a novel, and the smushing and cramming required to fit it all into such a small space did a great deal of damage. We're told, for example, that Winslow and Hero fall in love, but this takes place pretty much entirely off-page and we're given no explanation for Winslow's sudden transition from one-night-stands to devoted commitment. That kind of character arc really needs room to breathe if it's going to be believable. In addition, there are several betrayals and shocking double-crosses, but they all come so quickly one after another and we know so little about the characters in question that there's no emotional weight to any of them. Finally, there were some mistakes in the worldbuilding, the biggest of which was the fact that the dam that created this new marshland was upriver of the marsh. That's... that's not how dams work. Right? I'm now second-guessing myself because I can't find anyone else complaining about it online, but it bugged me through every single page of this short novella. Literally every page, because it was on a map included before the story started, so I was already confused before I'd read one word. I'm sad that I didn't like River of Teeth, because I expected to; it's such an incredibly cool concept and bit of history. But the execution just didn't hold up to the idea, alas. Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey. The sixth book in The Expanse series, and the first one to be almost entirely free of alien plot devices (though they do show up for a spectacular ending, well-foreshadowed and still totally surprising). Humanity in this future is divided into three groups: those who live on Earth, those who live on Mars, and 'Belters', those who live in the asteroid belt and beyond. Earth and Mars have been the superpowers dominating the solar system, while the Belters suffer under heavy taxes, tariffs, and fees for importing water, gravity, air, food, etc. At least, that's how it was until the previous book, when a small group of Belter terrorists/freedom fighters (depending on your point of view, as the old joke goes) diverted asteroids into colliding with Earth, killing billions and rendering most of the planet uninhabitable for the foreseeable future. They also infiltrated the Martian military (leaving its government to fester in infighting and backbiting and eventually to collapse into a constitutional crisis) as well as barring any entry to or exit from our solar system, thus cutting off potential resources that could be used to aid Earth's or Mars's citizens. That was Nemesis Games. Babylon's Ashes is the fallout. The Belter terrorist group unsurprisingly begins to falter as its component small segments follow divergent goals, a problem heightened when Michio Pa, the main military commander, realizes that unless everyone stops fighting and immediately focuses on rebuilding infrastructure, all of humanity is going to starve to death in a few years. Her solution is to rebrand herself as a pirate queen, capturing necessary resources and delivering them to those most in need, a move that pits her against both her former terrorist allies and the newly forming Earth/Mars/some of the Belt coalition. Meanwhile, Filip, the seventeen year old only son of Marco, the terrorist leader, is slowly coming to realize that his father is maybe not that great of a guy, but is instead an unreliable, short-sighted narcissist who happens to be blessed with immense charisma. There's a lot of good stuff in this book. Unfortunately, there's also nineteen goddamn POVs, a simply ridiculous number. It's the first time in this series that I struggled to remember who was who, which is never a good sign. Some of the POVs are ones we've seen before (Holden, Naomi, Amos, Alex, Avasarala, Prax, Bobbie, Anna, Clarissa), some were previously minor characters now upgraded to narrators (Namono, Anna's wife; Dawes, governor of Ceres, largest city in the Belt; Fred, political leader of the centrist Belters; and the previously mentioned Pa, Filip, and Marco) and some are entirely new (Salis, Jakulski, Vandercaust, and Roberts, all four minor technicians working on Medina Station, which was cut off after Marco sealed the solar system). Nine of these characters only get one chapter each; that's barely enough time to get a sense of them as a personality, much less for them to have a storyline. Of the remaining ten, the only ones who get enough screentime to manage an actual character arc are Filip and maybe Pa. Though to be fair, Filip's arc is an incredibly well-done portrayal of an angry young man from a sheltered background – he doesn't realize it, but he's been indoctrinated in Marco's beliefs since birth – just beginning to question how he was raised. Outside of those two, though, the plot and themes of Babylon's Ashes fall a little flat with no one for the reader to emotionally latch onto. Significant portions of the book feel more like a detailed nonfiction account of a war – lists of places and dates, battle maneuvers and troop movements – than they do a novel. Which is really too bad, because Babylon's Ashes does have worthwhile things to say. I particularly liked the recurrent theme about how war makes it very easy to view our enemies as less than human: We’re not people,” he said. “We’re the stories that people tell each other about us. Belters are crazy terrorists. Earthers are lazy gluttons. Martians are cogs in a great big machine.” “Men are fighters,” Naomi said, and then, her voice growing bleak. “Women are nurturing and sweet and they stay home with the kids. It’s always been like that. We always react to the stories about people, not who they really are.” “And look where it got us,” Holden said. “I always thought that if you gave people all the information, they’d do the right thing, you know? Not always, maybe, but usually. More often than when they chose to do the wrong thing anyway.” “Everybody’s a little naïve sometimes,” Alex said, feeling as the words passed his lips that maybe he wasn’t quite following Holden’s point. Maybe he should have taken the first of the sobriety pills before he’d left the men’s room. “I meant fact,” Holden went on as if he hadn’t heard Alex at all. “I thought if you told people facts, they’d draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don’t run on facts. We run on stories about things. About people. Naomi told me that when the rocks fell, the people on Inaros’ ship cheered. They were happy about it.” “Yeah, well.” Alex paused, rubbing a knuckle across his upper lip. “Consider they might all be a bag of assholes.” “They weren’t killing people. In their heads? They were striking a blow for freedom or independence. Or making it right for all the Belter kids that got shitty growth hormones. All the ships that got impounded because they were behind on the registration fees. And it’s just the same back home. Father Cesar’s a good man. He’s gentle and he’s kind and he’s funny, and to him Belters are all Free Navy and radical OPA. If someone killed Pallas, he’d be worried about what the drop in refining capacity would do before he thought about how many preschools there are on the station. Or if the station manager’s son liked writing poetry. Or that blowing the station meant that Annie down in Pallas central accounting wasn’t going to get to throw her big birthday party after all.” “Annie?” Alex asked. “I made her up. Whoever. The thing is I wasn’t wrong. About telling people the truth? I was right about that. I was wrong about what they needed to know.” There's more, about politics and alliances, small-scale loss and planet-wide grief, protest and authority, and if history is made by sweeping changes in economies and technology or the choices of individuals. It's all meaningful and well-done, but... it's just hard to care without a character who cares. I needed fewer POVs. It's funny how such a minor-seeming stylistic choice can overwhelm so many other positives, but I simply didn't enjoy Babylon's Ashes the way I enjoyed the previous books. Ah, well. At least the next one in the series seems to return to the usual four-ish narrators.

[gher-bear]

[mfred]

My book slump continues. I’m struggling to pick anything up/ finish what I start. But I did managed to read these two fantastic books!

Phantom Pains by Mishell Baker

The second in the Arcadia Project series and not a standalone. Baker continues to aptly portray a person living with Borderline Personality Disorder and multiple physical disabilities within the context of a fantasy world. This time Millie has to unravel a conspiracy that reached all the way to the Unseelie court and beyond, to a time of beasts and legends. She remains something of an anti-hero, difficult and prickly, but I think Baker tries harder to show Millie’s emotional motivations in the second novel and her longing for understanding/loneliness. 4 stars.

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

What a fun and fantastic read. Back in the early 20th century, the US gov decides to introduce hippo farming to the Mississippi to deal with a meat shortage. Well and then hippos get loose and end up feral and whole parts of the river are almost unnavigable due to the ferocious beasts (did you know hippos were ferocious man eaters? We’ve all learned something today). Enter Winslow Houndstooth and his merry band of savage criminals and con artists intent on freeing OIe Miss of her hippo problem. Gailey works in great queer representation-- bisexual lead, genderfluid secondary character, without any dramatics or even exposition. And the story is a rollicking, funny, adventurous good time. 4 stars.

[torpublishinggroup]

Sneak a peek from Taste of Marrow, Sarah Gailey's hippo-infested follow-up to River of Teeth.

A few months ago, Winslow Houndstooth put together the damnedest crew of outlaws, assassins, cons, and saboteurs on either side of the Harriet for a history-changing caper. Together they conspired to blow the dam that choked the Mississippi and funnel the hordes of feral hippos contained within downriver, to finally give America back its greatest waterway.

Songs are sung of their exploits, many with a haunting refrain: "And not a soul escaped alive."

In the aftermath of the Harriet catastrophe, that crew has scattered to the winds. Some hunt the missing lovers they refuse to believe have died. Others band together to protect a precious infant and a peaceful future. All of them struggle with who they've become after a long life of theft, murder, deception, and general disinterest in the strictures of the law.

[thievinghippo]

HIPPO! HIPPO! HIPPO!!!! I just read a novella that I think you will love — it's River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey and it's AMAZING, it's an alternate history sci-fi where the US government introduced hippos as a new livestock into the Mississippi Bayou but a bunch of them go feral and a ragtag group of mercenaries with their badass hippo steeds have to go fight them. It also features awesome LGBT characters!! it's really short but so good and the next in the series is coming out in September!

I require this book immediately. 

HIPPO STEEDS! OMG. Here’s the link if this sounds as awesome to anyone else as it does to me. 

Thank you for telling me about this!