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cathygeha · 2 years ago

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REVIEW

The Warden by Daniel M. Ford

The Warden #1

Aelis de Lenti has just arrived at her destination at what seems the end of the civilized world Her wizard’s tower is in disrepair, a goat her wannabe roommate, and nothing as she had expected it would be in Lone Pine. She feels she has been given a job beneath her capabilities but will do her best to fulfill her duties for the next two years. Aelis’s experience reminded me a bit of graduation from nursing school, putting in my request job in the operating room, but instead being sent to neurosurgical intensive to work nights. Not sure if she or I was best qualified to the jobs we were given…

What I liked:

* Aelis: strong, intelligent, diligent, capable, wise, willing to do her best and to learn

* The flashbacks to her educational experiences and how they played a part in her decision making

* Meeting the villagers of Lone Pine

* The fantasy elements woven into the story

* The way Aelis seemed able to find the essence of issues and then handle what needed to be done whether dealing with a bear, doubting and fearful villagers, outsiders, glamours, injuries, demon trees or…just about anything

* The action scenes

* Feeling a part of the story and caring about the outcome

* Wondering what parts Tunbridge, Rus, Martin, Phillipa, Emilia, Maurenia, the Dobrusz brothers, Elmo, Otto, and some others may play in the future

* That this is a book I can recommend to young adult readers as well as adults

* Curiosity about what will happen in book two

What I didn’t like:

* Who and what I was meant not to like

* Having to wait for book two

Did I like this book? Yes

Would I read more in this series? I think so though it felt aimed at a younger reader than I am

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars

BLURB

A Most Anticipated Book of the Year for GoodReads and FanfiAddict A Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Editors' Pick for Amazon For fans who have always wanted their Twin Peaks to have some wizards, The Warden is a non-stop action adventure story from author Daniel M. Ford. There was a plan. She had the money, the connections, even the brains. It was become one of the only female necromancers, earn as many degrees as possible, get a post in one of the grand cities, then prove she’s capable of greatness. The funny thing about plans is that they are seldom under your control. Now Aelis de Lenti, a daughter of a noble house and recent graduate of the esteemed Magisters’ Lyceum, finds herself in the far-removed village of Lone Pine. Mending fences, matching wits with goats, and serving people who want nothing to do with her. But, not all is well in Lone Pine, and as the villagers Aelis is reluctantly getting to know start to behave strangely, Aelis begins to suspect that there is far greater need for a Warden of her talents than she previously thought. Old magics are restless, and an insignificant village on the farthest border of the kingdom might hold secrets far beyond what anyone expected. Aelis might be the only person standing between one of the greatest evils ever known and the rest of the world.

#Daniel M. Ford #The Warden 1 #NetGalley #Tor Publishing #LGBTQIA #Romance #Fantasy #Science Fiction & Fantasy

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carriagelamp · 3 months ago

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Read some delightfully impactful books this month, it was a very satisfying assortment of stories! My biggest recommendation is Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books, I'm telling everyone I can to read that book. Funny, meaningful, and sort of lights a fire under your ass, makes you want to make the world better.

Doctor Who: Forever Autumn

My obligatory Halloween-y read. Like many Doctor Who books of this particular calibre it was a fine and entirely forgettable read. It was fun to have an autumn-themed setting and villain, and I always love when Martha’s around. They wind up needing to deal with “no no it’s not magic it’s definitely just science we don’t understand for sure for sure” and some pumpkin-headed terrors. It was a pleasant thing to have playing as an audiobook while driving to work amid autumn leaves.

A Lady for a Duke

This had so much potential but honestly failed to live up to it imo. This story is very deliberately tipping its hat to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and the initial set up is really promising. Injured and presumed dead during the Battle of Waterloo, transwoman Viola Carroll seizes her chance to remake her life and live the way she wants. She becomes the lady's companion to her brother’s wife (the only two who know that she’s alive) and with their help begins figuring out how to fit into this new life. However when an old childhood friend, the Duke of Gracewood who had fought alongside her in Waterloo, seems to be in a bad state she finds herself being forcefully drawn out of her quiet, secluded life and put at risk of being recognized by someone who had known her before.

Excellent premise! The characters are fun, Viola is an enjoyable protagonist, Gracewood is a decent romantic lead, and Viola’s sister-in-law is easily my favourite character in the book, she’s a DELIGHT, especially when paired with her husband. The first half of the book is also pretty well done, with lots of mistaken identity and pining, very much in the spirit of Twelfth Night. Unfortunate the second half is where it loses all momentum. The dialogue becomes repetitive and the romance rather dull, the B-Plot is really the only thing dragging the plot along at that point. It also loses any real touch with historical attitudes towards queer issues — it was always a light touch, but it quickly becomes everyone repeating All The Right Things to each other ad nauseum, without any real exploration of queer identities in a Regency period. Which, to be fair, is probably what some people want, very low stakes and chill romance, but for me it took the wind out of the book’s sails, I would have loved more discussion. It would have made the sex more interesting at least.

That being said, if you want a soft, pleasant, historical trans romance, I would honestly give it a shot. If nothing else the first half is REALLY quite good, I couldn’t put it down, and the last half isn’t so bad that it damns the whole thing. It’s worth it if this is what you’re keen on.

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books

Easily my favourite book from October, this book managed to hit on very topical subjects with both tact and humour. In a small town in Georgia, Lula Dean has spearheaded a book banning crusade, managing to get a number of “problematic” books removed from the library and has made a show of setting up a Little Free Library in her yard full of “appropriate” books instead. When Beverly Underwood visits her mother and hears about this she’s so exasperated with it all that she quickly hatches a plan. The night before she leaves for home, she takes the banned library books from where they’re being stored and swaps out their dust jackets with the ones in Lula Dean’s Little Free Library. The rest of the story is about various people in the town who borrow a book from Lula Dean’s library and how the book they got instead ends up impacting not just themselves but their town. The first story involves a penis cake. Can’t recommend it enough, starts out humour and quickly becomes something you want to rally around.

My Neighbour Totoro

This was an enjoyable read just because I like Totoro in general, but it was not the best novelization I’ve ever read. Honestly I think it mostly suffers from a less-than-ideal translation… the whole thing comes across as quite stilted and I have a feeling the language was prioritised over the flow and intention. It was fine, cosy to sit and read, gives a couple scenes that aren’t in the movie that were interesting, but overall it won’t deliver anything the movie doesn’t do better.

Ogres

Absolutely fascinating novella, and a very rare example of a story told absolutely perfectly in second-person. If you’re looking for something a bit different and thought-provoking, this was a good read.

Ogres rule this world. They’re bigger than you. Stronger than you. Have magics you could never comprehend. The natural order of the world is for humans to serve ogres. However you, as the son of the village headman, live an idyllic sort of life… until the ogre landlords come to call and everything begins to go wrong and you're facing realities and secrets you never could have imagined.

The One and Only Family

I read this one mostly because I wanted to finish off the series. The One and Only Ivan is a fantastic novel that is a fictionalised account of a real silverback gorilla that was poached and brought back to the United States to live in a small cage in a roadside mall. The first story is about him, his friends Bob and Ruby, and his life in captivity. The second and third book are about Bob the dog and Ruby the elephant respectively, and this last book focuses back on Ivan, his new life in a zoo, and his growing family. Honestly all the other books in this series were fine for kids, had some good ideas behind them, but were otherwise somewhat bland. I’m glad I finished the series but they don’t hold a candle to the first book.

The Pushcart War

Now this was a fun children’s novel, recommended to me by my New York girlfriend who says it’s a staple in New York classrooms — and I can see why, it’s an incredibly fun read. A prime example of a well-done under-dog story, very satisfying! The book is a “historical account” of the “New York City Pushcart War”, in which the city streets are hopelessly congested and everyone is suffering. The worst offenders are the big trucks which just seem to get bigger and bigger, and pushier and pushier. The trucking companies hatch a plan on how to gradually push out all other competition: they’ll start with the little, old-fashion pushcarts, try to villainize them until they’re entirely removed from New York City... and if no one speaks up for them, then how hard will it be to push out the taxis next? Or the automobiles? However, the scrappy little push-cart owners fight back. It’s very much written to be an allegory for actual wars, played on a smaller scale which some delightful wit and an interesting narrative voice.

Series of Unfortunate Events 4-10

I continue to read A Series of Unfortunate Events. As a child I had only ever read up to The Carnivorous Carnival so it’s exciting to strike into new territory with The Slippery Slope. I really enjoy the slippery slope you see the Baudelaires beginning to get caught in as the series progresses, how they have to start making concessions and doing things they wouldn't have considered doing at the beginning, and how their views of the world is beginning to evolve. Austere Academy, Ersatz Elevator, and The Vile Village are my favourite of this set.

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System v3

I finished the main series of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System and I’m not ready for it to be over ;^; I’m in the process of reading the last book of bonus stories and trying to savour it. I was hugely judgemental about this series and was tempted to skip it entirely, but I’m so glad I actually sat down to read it. Out of all of MXTX’s series, this one has, in my opinion, the least palatable main relationship and I say that with deep and profound affection. It's passionate and complicated and slightly horrifying but I don't think you could write it any other way. Every single thing about this story is messy and I think that really works in its favour.

Shen Qingqiu is an incredibly biased narrator, and it’s really interesting to read a story in which the main character tends to think of those around him more as characters in a book than as genuine people. You get to see how him viewing himself as a passive observer instead of an actual person with agency who can have an impact on others continuously trips him up, and how his actions have far reaching consequences that he fails to recognize. It makes this entire series a very meta exploration of storytelling and the impact people's personal narratives have on themselves and others. It really consistently shows how cruelty begets cruelty... but also how the choice to step away from easy resentment can break endless cycles. That's a common theme across her works, but the way its handled in this book particularly struck me.

Over all, it’s a fun, silly story with way more heart than I anticipated -- this last book really made me cry! I was so unprepared for the series to be over that I had to stare at the ceiling for a while to try to digest it all. If you were feeling debating whether or not to try this series, I’d honestly give it a shot because it brings way more to the table than the surface level plot would suggest.

This Census-Taker

Fucking weird novella. I grabbed this from the library because I quite enjoyed Railsea so I thought I’d try something else by this author. And I really liked it! But also what the fuck. Still don’t know if I absorbed everything that I was meant to absorb, but it’s obviously a book with a lot to say and did it through the most deranged and intriguing world building. China Miéville is great at creating unique worlds that feel alive and vibrant — this is the sort of world real people could live in, no matter how strange.

Goodread’s summary because gun to my head I’m not sure I’d be able to come up with a more functional explanation: “After witnessing a profoundly traumatic event, a boy is left alone in a remote house on a hilltop with his increasingly deranged parent. When a stranger knocks on his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation are over—but by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? Is he the boy’s friend? His enemy? Or something altogether other?” This doesn’t even scratch the surface but it does give a functional idea of the surface level plot. If you want something to sink your teeth in to and flex your analytical muscles, this one will do it for you.

The War That Saved My Life // The War I Finally Won

Absolutely stunning YA novel series, can’t recommend it enough. This series is centred on Ada, a girl born in the East End of London to an abusive mother who scorns her for her club foot. Ada is forced to stay in the apartment, is severely neglected and mistreated, and does her best to take care of her younger brother during all this. When news of WWII arrives though and people begin sending their children away from London to live in the country, Ada is determined to run away with her brother and get them both onto one of those trains, to find a better life far from the threatened bombs and their mother. The story followers Ada and Jamie finding a new home and contending with the trauma they’ve lived through during the throes of World War 2.

(* in regards to the queer content of this book: it is entirely subtext however it is such obvious subtext that I feel fine labelling it as queer, it's beautifully done -- very much a "haunting the narrative" sort of plotline)

The Warden

A “cosy fantasy” novel that was a fairly decent attempt at the genre. I find some cosy fantasies fail (for me at least) just because… nothing happens. This novel sort of straddles the line between cosy fantasy and standard fantasy in a way that I found quite satisfying and kept things from getting boring.

Aelis de Lenti is a newly graduated necromancer from the Lyceum who has accepted the position of Warden in the remote village of Lone Pines. Admittedly she had been hoping for a posting in an actual city with actual modern amenities but here she is. Surrounded by sheep shit and villagers who don’t trust her, in a crumbling wizard’s tower. Great. The story is about her gradually finding her space in this community, learning how to handle her position, and generally getting to kick ass and take names. It was a fun read.

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sheepfics · 8 days ago

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The Warden (Daniel M. Ford) The sword-and-sorcery romp that probably wasn’t supposed to be a comedy.

3.75 ⭐

Ok. So. This was sold to me by some shlub at [INSERT GIANT LOCAL BOOKSTORE] with the promise it has lesbianism and is Like The Locked Tomb. The book claims its Like Twin Peaks But With Wizards. This raises the important questions: Is This Like The Locked Tomb? Is this Twin Peaks But With Wizards?

No.

This is Northern Exposure if you replaced Dr. Fleischman with Aelis, a bisexual 22 year old workaholic Wizard. This has “pros”, and this has “cons”. Here’s the non-spoiler list that could help you decide if you might like this book.

“PROS”.

Cozy Sword-and-Sorcery adventure, heavy ttrpg pulls, but not serial-numbers-filled-off levels of referencing. Hearkens back to an older era of ‘cheap’ fantasy novels.

This 22 year old workaholic study-hard-party-harder Wizard girl sucks just the right amount.

Enough foreshadowing to indicate something is important, novel enough connections to spark interest in how things are important.

Great setup for interesting future adventures/world.

Solid and descriptive fight scenes.

“CONS”.

Necromancy in this book is not raising the dead, it just helps you be really good at practicing medicine. (see Northern Exposure Comparison)

Ignore the redhead elf on the new-edition cover, this is a book is only about the other girl.

This is a Fantasy with hints of Romance, not a romance-fantasy or a romantasy.

Not as Meta/Intellectually Meaty as TLT.

Not as Ethereal/Supernatural as Twin Peaks.

Overall Non-spoiler Review: The Warden is a lighter-fare adventure fantasy read. Even if you only dabble in fantasy, you will find this to be a tasty little snack of a read. Chapters are short, pace is a bit odd at times but not overwhelmingly so. I finished this in about three days.

Despite the book covering both a lot and very little time, The adventure pacing is acceptable. The time it takes for each fraction of the mystery to unfold makes reasonable sense. I find Aelis to be appropriately bitchy and hardworking, and I do really like that about her. I enjoy main characters that have strong enough personalities that they can definitively suck. I can see why people might not like Aelis, but I think her personality makes perfect sense with her origin and how she is told to relate and understand her job. She considers the feelings of others, but certainly doesn't need good bedside manner when her job is to exist outside, but in reach of, a specific community. Her affair with Maurenia is also appropriate in its intensity (or one’s perceived lack thereof). It feels like a very early-twenties-I'm-here-on-a-temp-gig affair. Tun is really fun and I like the mutual respect him and Aelis have for each other and how that is forged throughout the work.

If you can’t tolerate Aelis within about 5 chapters, I don’t think you’re going to like this book. This book might have two gals on the cover (depending on your edition) but its not about both of them. Its about Aelis. And if you aren’t even kinda rockin with her by the halfway point, its probably worth a DNF. It took finishing the book for me to go from “yeah she’s fine” to “ok yeah I wanna read more about her”.

I am interested in seeing how the next book progresses. The mysteries of this book were enjoyable and (enjoyably!!!) predictable at parts. There was a good set-up of people/places/things where you could attach things that could be connected, and then be rewarded with how they were connected.

If you want to read this book, I think you loose about 20-30% of the value of reading it if you get spoiled with the following review, so proceed below with that knowledge.

WITH SPOILERS/The Long Form Below.

I'm not covering main plotpoints here, I don't want this to devolve into a summary, because this is my first attempt at a book review and I know I am prone to such things. My notes on the overall plot are that: 1. This Is Very Much The First Book In A Series, 2. The Stakes Are Reasonable, At This Time, and 3. We're keeping MacGuffins to a minimum.

Ok, now the real review.

It took me until the end of this book to be fully convinced on Aelis, but now that I’ve put the book down (and waiting on my hold of the second book to come in) I can say more confidently that I like her. I don’t think I would be bothering to think particularly hard about her if I didn’t have that second book on route. The Warden is a book about Aelis. This series is a series about Aelis. Everyone and everything is tangential to her. I think that the OG cover (left) and the new cover (right) portray this book as two different books.

I read the one on the left, and when I got it off the hold shelf I checked my phone make sure it was the correct book. That alternative cover really indicates that this will be a different kinda book. The Aelis & Maurenia cover indicates that Maurenia is going to be Cool and Fight in this book- and she doesn’t. She shows up, brings in a plot device, sleeps with Aelis, and then dips for a while before U-hauling back up. This isn’t a book about the two of them. This is a book that focuses largely on Aelis and then has a lot of screentime for Tun, who’s in the background of the OG cover. I think the first cover is far more accurate to the vibe of this novel than the newer one, and would argue that the newer one is almost false-advertising.

So Where’s the Dykes? An Addressing of the Queer/Romantic Elements this book is sold on.

Aelis is Bisexual, if her pre-Lone Pine Wardendom casual polyamory is to be read face-value. I found it very funny that 1. She allegedly boned a dude named Humphrey on the reg and 2. She liked Miralla more than him and her boning Humphrey was potentially her trying to best Miralla. Great stuff. This does bring me to her Tension with Maurenia. As stated earlier, we don’t know shit about Maurenia, even at the end of the book. Aelis notes this, but is reasonably apprehensive about pursuing romance, although she does think about it. I hope there is drama about this in the next book, because Maurenia seems wayyyy more into this than Aelis is. This makes their relationship very interesting, in a way some other reviewer called ‘very masculine’ while claiming both characters had a lot of ‘masculine energy’ and thats not important here its just really fucking funny to me. I had to get that into this review. Holy shit it made me crack up laughing. I just think Aelis is, like me, too focused on the grind to be thinking toooo much about emotional satisfaction. I would make a “while you were having sex I was studying the blade” joke, but she was doing both, so. Even after the semi-tasteful fade-to-black sex scenes that happen (Good call, Mr. Ford.), Aelis is debating wether to take this seriously. She didn’t seem to be taking the previous ones seriously, or at least, not as serious romantic relationships. She’s not dating the people she’s fucking, she doesn’t have any previous heartbreaks that we know of. I think her focus on (previously, her education), and now, her job, makes all that stuff a little difficult.

Her job, at present, focuses heavily on this pioneering town that’s mostly sheep, where everyone there is afraid of her because she was mainly educated as a necromancer. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of the townspeople after this, for adventure calls!I wish I could expect more from/with them, but I don’t think I’m going to get that. Mostly because I can sense our inevitable adventuring party, which brings me to my footnote paragraph about Tun.

Tun is a half-orc druid/woodsman/bear man. He’s really fun and I like him. He reveals just enough to be interesting, keeps enough secrets to keep me hooked, highlights when Aelis is being a bitch, and spurs her to make some tweaks. Coworkers-growing-to-respect-each-other sort of vibe. I liked it a lot. I like him being a werebear, the hints as to his well-educated past and orc-connected present, his I think his main thread being solved with very little intricate explanation from Aelis was a bit of a letdown, but I’m hopeful for book two.

Maurenia must, certainly, be important for book two, because Necrobane only ever has had one cover design and its got her and Aelis on it. Aelis doesn’t know much about her, she says as much, I have no complex thoughts about her other than what I’ve already mentioned. Mostly that this book ain’t about Maurenia, its about The Warden.

The Warden, which is Aelis. She’s been shoved to Lone Pine in Bumfuck Nowhere to go serve as a government-sanctioned Wizard detective/helper/advisor. The motivations or details behind this system are hardly explored, and only expanded in the limits of the position. How Aelis can act in regards to financial issues, law enforcement, and other such things. Being a Warden is a 2-year tenure, and it is still unclear to me why exactly she wanted to be a Warden, other than proving that women can do it. That’s a fine motivation, but I wanted more substance on why she gives a shit about the things she does. She’s primarily a necromancer, but theres little time spent on why she wants to be a top necromancer or Wizard or Warden, other than just to flex. Towards the end of the book, she herself states that she doesn’t think like a Necromancer, she thinks like an Abjurer with the talents of a Necromancer. I am hoping she’s forced to explore necromancy more intensely as the series progress. I would like less school flashbacks and more details on how she’s tweaking her abilities and spells to suit her. The descriptions of her surgeries were very interesting though and followed solid logic and fantasy-adjusted practice. The way fight scenes flow with her were also very good! There are many good things about her. There are many bad things about her. The biggest thing about this book is that it’s all about her.

If you can’t get with Aelis, you will not like this book. There’s not much more I can expand this. I’m repeating myself from the non-spoiler section. If you ain’t rockin with her, you’re not gonna like this One Bit. I can live with that, because I think she’s super funny to read about. She’s an enjoyable type of mildly-pretentious intellectual. Other reviewers I have read have found her to be horribly insufferable for not Grasping The Call Of Adventure and being Mildly Rude To Peasants. I don’t care about that. I like that she’s very willing to do her job, but is understanding that a lot of it might be suckage. She wants to prove a point. She’s ambitious, and that's what makes you a good Wizard. At least, that’s what she tells us makes a good wizard.

That brings me to my final note on the book’s content. I found Aelis’s isolation to be absolutely fascinating. She’s so goddamn lonely. Sure, there may be people around her, but as a Warden, she’s to serve as a Lighthouse, not a Tavern. She is not to become one of them. She’s there to be the voice of the Lyceum and the Crown upon a town that asked for her. Her choosing to ask for help from Tun is a big step for her, but also, Tun and Maurenia’s refusal to even offer company or further assistance to her when she goes off on her own, in winter, on undisclosed business? That solidified that this was an Aelis book. I expect the other books will also very much be Aelis books, but to a lesser degree.

As mentioned earlier, I wouldn’t be thinking nearly the same amount of this book if I caught it when it had just come out. I think I would have read it, went “huh, neat”, and moved on. I think I may be giving this book more grace than I ought to, but that’s alright. I think if I could get into Aelis earlier, and I wasn’t sold a GTN-like with a Twin Peaks Twist, this would be a ⭐⭐⭐⭐ read.

I do think that grey goat that breaks into her tower is going to be the BBG though. (That’s only partially a joke.)

#sheep reviews #The Warden #Daniel M Ford #booklr #book review #storygraph #3.75 stars #3 stars

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