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Hugh Likes Fiction: Even Though I Knew the End

March 6, 2023

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Even Through I Knew The End
Written by C. L. Polk
Audiobook Read by January LaVoy

The Skinny: A quick mix of Fantasy and Noir that hits hard and fast.

Helen Brandt is a Private Investigator living in 1940’s Chicago. She’s also a lesbian, and a warlock. She takes on magical work for her mysterious clients, gets paid well for her work, and doesn’t ask questions. But when she’s recruited to investigate a notorious serial killer whose murder scenes have a magical connection, she turns the job down. There’s too much risk involved, and people she cares about could get hurt, including her estranged brother and her girlfriend. But she changes her mind when her client offers her something she can’t refuse: Her soul.Even Though I Knew The End is a delightful little jewel of a fantasy noir novella. Polk’s recreation of 1941 Chicago, layered with a tantalizing hint of a rich magical world, is stunning and vibrant. The city breathes, and you can practically smell the stale cigarette smoke and stale coffee on the narrator’s breath. The combination of enticing fantasy world and impending doom with palpable and exciting. Polk’s well-researched noir prose is spot on, giving just enough to bring the story to life without turning purple.The audiobook, read by January LaVoy, is outstanding. Her narration brings the characters to life, and her performance of Brandt brings out the perfect amount of hard-luck noir sympathy for a protagonist who has undoubtedly done awful things for awful people (Marlowe in particular) but we want to root for her anyway, even though, well, we know how things are fated to turn out. Her performance of the rest of the cast is also excellent, giving otherworldly touches to the characters where appropriate and garnering sympathy when necessary.Even Though I Knew the End is a brilliant Fantasy Noir novella. You can find it in Print and eBook from the usual marketplaces, and as an audiobook from Audible.

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Hugh Likes Fiction: Fireheart Tiger

March 28, 2022

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Fireheart Tiger
Written by Aliette de Bodard
Published by Tor.com
Read on Kindle

The Skinny: A tightly plotted fantastic historical romance about power and politics

Thanh is a princess bereft of options. Sent as a hostage to the distant and powerful nation of Ephteria, she returned home after the royal palace burned down with her inside. She still has nightmares of the fire. Lately, these have been getting worse, and she’s been smelling smoke and seeing flames in impossible places.

 Worse still, her cold and uncaring mother the Empress has put her in charge of the latest negotiations with Ephteria led by her former lover the princess Eldris. Caught between impossible duties, irresponsible desires, and the terrifying prospect that she is either a witch or madwoman, Thanh fights to make a future for herself where she remains free.

 The author of novellas such as The Teamaster and the Detective and The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, I have been a fan of Aliette de Bodard’s writing for years. She has a signature grasp of political melodrama, with characters caught between the things they want and the duties and destinies of empires. She is a master of using that drama to humanize her characters, even when they’re sentient spaceships. And while I won’t spoil the twist in this novella, she uses that skill no less effectively in this secondary world echoing historical Vietnam and France in the colonial period. Thanh is an intriguing protagonist, limited in her options and constrained by her position. But she is always moving, always fighting, even while she bemoans her lack of power. This novella burns through fantasy and romance tropes like well, again, no spoilers but it is a delightful trick to see her use those tropes and the echoes of Vietnamese history to such excellent effect here. In another kind of story, Eldris would have been the protagonist with all her poise and strength, swaggering into a political negotiation with her sword bouncing on her hip.

 The major complaint I have for this story is that I would’ve liked to have seen more of it. de Bodard confines the action to the Imperial Palace, with lots of discussion concerning Thanh’s sisters and the Empire’s neighbors. While I understand the reason this story is so intimate, I would’ve also liked to have seen a longer novel, or perhaps a sequel that incorporates more of those elements.

 Fireheart Tiger is an enchanting queer fantasy romance that burns away the illusions and deconstructs some of the tropes of the subgenre. You can find it in print from your local indie bookstore, or digitally from the usual storefronts.

Hugh Likes Fiction: Elder Race

February 14, 2022

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Elder Race
Written by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Published by tor.com

The Skinny – A braided novella that plays well with two very different set of tropes.

Lynesse Fourth Daughter is a princess on a noble quest. Perhaps the queen forbid her to get involved, and she doesn’t really know what she’s doing, but she’s off to a good start. She’s even recruited the legendary sorcerer Nyrgoth Elder to her side. Except that ‘Nyrgoth’ is in fact Nyr Illim Tevitch, a shlubby, depressed anthropologist from Earth, who should be studying the regressed society of interstellar colonists instead of playing wizard. But the rest of his team headed back to Earth centuries ago, and he hasn’t heard anything from them. And he’s lonely and depressed. But everything should work out fine, right?
Elder Race mixes far-future science fiction with old school sword and sorcery. Author Adrian Tchaikovsky weaves a deft course between genre tropes and delivers a stunning gut-punch of a novella packed with complex characters.
The story is split between the points of view of the main characters, switching off between Lynesse and Nyr as they go to confront a ‘demon’ causing havoc on the planet’s surface. Nyr is sure that this is just another bit of old technology that’s gotten out of hand. Lyn is sure that the Ancient Sorcerer will have no problems dealing with evil magic, as he did centuries before, when her ancestor called him. Of course, they’re both super wrong.
One of my favorite tricks Tchaikovsky plays with in this story is in the use of language. Nyr is constantly frustrated by the fact that he can’t even confess that he’s a charlatan, because all of this post-Earth cultur’e’s words for ‘scientist’ are also cognates for ‘wizard.’ By shifting perspective, the reader gets to understand both characters better than they do each other. There is even a great sequence where their text appears side by side, and the reader sees the same story as Nyr means to tell it and as Lyn hears it.
Tchiakovsky takes a warrior princess and a displaced sci-fi crew member and puts them into what amounts to a comedy of manners, with each struggling to both use the other to their own ends, and to understand one another. It’s a clever little story, and it surprised and moved me more than I expected.
Elder Race is a delightful spec-fic gem of a novella, and I highly recommend picking it up, whether you’re a fan of quests or post-human existential angst, it’s a cocktail sure to delight the palate.

Hugh Likes Fiction: Comfort Me With Apples

November 24, 2021

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Comfort Me With Apples
Written By Catherynne M Valente
Read By Karis Campbell
Published by Tordotcom and Dreamscape Media LLC

The Skinny – This puzzle box of a novella about a woman living in an exclusive gated community is a suspenseful, surprising little treat.


Sophia’s life is a paradise. She keeps her husband’s house in the Arcadia Gardens, the ultimate gated community, and even though he is away with work much of the time, he’s the perfect husband, who has given her the perfect life. She was made for him, and everything is perfect. But she begins notices cracks in the veneer of her supposedly perfect life. She finds a hairbrush that isn’t her’s and her neighbors seem just a bit too eager when they ask her if she’s happy. And then there’s the basement, which she is forbidden to enter. When Sophia’s perfect life begin to unravel, and the temptation to destroy the illusion becomes overpowering.
Giving much more of a description to this fast-paced and engaging novella would give away the game, but Valente’s luscious prose unfolds like a puzzle box, with Sophia’s narrative interposed with her contract from the unseen but all-powerful Arcadia Gardens Home Owners’ Association. It’s a clever trick that works beautifully. The story is a perfect novella length, giving just enough clues to resolve the mystery while keeping a sharp and suspenseful pace.
Karis Campbell’s narration is spot on, making this quick but engaging audiobook well worth the full credit, even if it only clocks in at a couple of hours of listening time. Each character is unique and distinct, and her read of their narration is subtle. She doesn’t give the game away, but still highlights all the incongruous and unsettling bits of Valente’s story.
Comfort Me With Apples was an unexpected and gripping little story that is well wroth your time, and works best if you go in not knowing the twist. It’s available in print, ebook and audiobook from all the usual retailers.

Hugh Likes Fiction: Finna

December 4, 2020

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Finna
Written by Nino Cipri
Published by Tor.Com

The Skinny: A broken-up couple adventures through a muliversal furniture store on a desperate rescue mission.

Imagine an IKEA that goes on forever. In this retail hellscape, Ava and Jules find themselves on a quest to find a missing shopper that has gone missing not merely between aisles, but between realities. Even though they have just broken up and are avoiding each other, they have been sent by their manager to rescue a lost grandmother, with no hope of overtime, but if they can prevent any bad press or leakage from a dystopian parallel Earth, there might be a Pasta and Friends gift card for them when they get back.
Cipri has pulled off something magnificent with this quirky novella. I’ve never seen the existential dread of modern retail work so elegantly expressed. They also set this story not at the beginning of a relationship, but at the fractious end, throwing together two humans who are still emotionally raw and wondering what comes next. They cover a huge amount of thematic issues in such a scant story, and they thread the needle beautifully, providing a moody, atmospheric story full of sympathetic characters. But Cipri’s compelling fantasy worlds will be what really draws you in. From a floating city of merchant ships to a forest of carnivorous furniture, Cipri creates a multiverse of dangers and wonders that is not to be missed.
Finna is available in print and ebook from Tor.Com and all the usual retailers.

Hugh Likes Fiction: Gluttony Bay

February 6, 2018

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gluttony bay.jpg

Sin Du Jour: Gluttony Bay
Written by Matt Wallace
Published by Tor

The Skinny: Matt Wallace returns for the sixth installment of his Sin Du Jour series, and the penultimate volume is just as nasty, brutal, and short as you’d expect. And that’s why it’s great.

After building tension over the course of five novellas, Matt Wallace’s “Sin Du Jour” Series is reaching the end of its rope, and it’s been one hell of a climb. Focusing on the misadventures of a supernatural catering service, the series has had a solid thematic line of making deals with the devil. The first novel involved a celebratory dinner for a whole tribe of demons, in fact. And the consequences of those decisions are finally coming home to roost for Wallace’s huge cast of characters.
As the crew of Sin Du Jour’s relationship with government contact and string-puller Allensworth continues to sour, he reveals to them his most closely guarded secret: Gluttony Bay, a combination black site prison/five star dinning experience for his most discerning supernatural contacts. I’ll leave you to guess what’s on the menu, but Bronko, Lena and the rest will have to make a difficult choice, and hopefully live with the consequences.
We’re nearly at the end of Wallace’s masterfully crafted rollercoaster ride, and the tension is so thick you can cut it with the finest of chef’s knives. Wallace doesn’t pull any punches with this one, and he leaves us with more of a statement than a question. The supernatural catering company has always danced around the question of how do you serve monsters without becoming one. And the answer is, simply, that you don’t. He makes his characters face an impossible choice, and the writing is as juicy and delicious as a perfectly prepared steak.
SIn Du Jour book six, “Gluttony Bay” is available from amazon.com, or your preferred ebook retailer. If my previous six reviews haven’t swayed you, don’t sleep on this one.

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Book Announcement: The City (Now in Print and Wattpad!)

June 4, 2017

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So I probably should have done this BEFORE Balticon, but I’ve got a book out! In print and everything! And you can read it a whole bunch of different ways! “The City: A Story in 140 Characters” has appeared in blog and ebook format, and now a revised edition is available on Wattpad and even in print! Check it out below and enjoy a drabble novella of action, greed, and cyberpunk zombies!

The City-final-5

“O’Donnell builds a world both enticing and unsettling…The City remains full of surprises at every turn.”
—JRD Skinner, “Flashpulp”

WELCOME TO THE CITY…

The City is a place beyond the real world. Created and controlled by the titanic Midas Corporation, The hyper-realistic virtual environment is the capital of an empire without borders, outside the reach of terrestrial law enforcement.
When controlling interest in the company is sold to a mysterious new player, The City breaks down, trapping millions inside. It falls to the Daytrippers, teenage hackers and rebels who don’t play by Midas’ rules, to save The City, and the world.

A drabble novella told from over a hundred different points of view, The City is like no place you’ve ever seen before.

Amazon

Wattpad

Hugh Likes Fiction: Idle Ingredients

February 20, 2017

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Idle Ingredients (Sin du Jour Book 4)
Written by Matt Wallace
Published by Tor

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Matt Wallace is back again with the fourth course of his ‘Sin du Jour’ novellas. Each bite-sized course of these epicurean Urban Fantasy series is an utter delight, and I’ve been looking forward to this one. As usual, Wallace doesn’t disappoint.
Still reeling from their last big job in Los Angeles, Sin du Jour line chef Lena Tarr goes on the lamb. Bronko and Nikki bring her back to the kitchen on the very reasonable assumption that the armies of Hell that are after them will kill her without the protection Sin du Jour provides. But there’s a new face at the catering company, ‘Government liaison’ Luciana Monrovio and Lena is immediately suspicious of the hold she seems to suddenly have over all of them, particularly the guys.
This novella is a bit more serious than the last three, but that’s not surprising after the major throw down at the end of “Pride’s Spell.” The thing I did like about this one is that it packs in a lot of character growth for characters we haven’t seen too much of before. Darren gets some nice page time, and really starts to come into his own, even as Lena is shown as more vulnerable than we’ve seen her in the past, and planning assistant Jett gets a cool arc too. Wallace’s strength is in keeping all of his plates spinning so flawlessly. Sin du Jour, as in his previous novella series, Slingers, has a huge cast of characters. Matt manages to breathe life into all of them, and progress their individual stories, in a breathtakingly short amount of pages. Each bite-sized book contains more character growth and personality than your average doorstop fantasy epic.
Sin du Jour book four, Idle Ingredients, is out now from Tor. You can purchase it from Amazon or wherever you get books.

Hugh Likes Fiction: The Shootout Solution’ by Mike Underwood

January 30, 2017

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Genrenauts: The Shootout Solution
Written by Michael R. Underwood
Published by Tor
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Writing metafiction is a difficult needle to thread. Fiction about fiction can easily become maze-like and incomprehensible, and it makes the reader very aware of the author. By its very nature, it doesn’t suspend disbelief. Metafiction done well can be cathartic and clever. Done poorly, it just feels like a writer bragging about their MFA in literature. So I was a little leery approaching Michael Underwood’s “Genrenauts” novellas, but after finishing the first one, he’s managed to pull off something extraordinary.
Leah Tang is a standup comedian struggling to make her big break while holding down a boring day job she hates. When a strange man offers her a dream job, she is skeptical at first, but jumps at the chance.
She joins the Genrenauts. An elite, highly secret team that travels to parallel worlds and fixes problems before they bleed over into our world. Leah’s first mission is to help a desert town in Western World. But the Genrenauts don’t save the day. They put stories back on track, which is a much more difficult proposition.
Underwood’s concept of genres as alternate realities is fun and has a lot of possibilities to it. He gets to show off his own savviness with tropes and conventions, but giving these discussions to the characters rather than the narrator softens the rough edges. It makes for a quick novella read that gives old tropes new tricks. Making genres living, breathing worlds might not have worked in a longer book, but it sets the stage quickly and lets the reader get right to the plot without too much fuss here.
The other real strength is the Genrenauts team, whom the reader only gets introduced to here. Leah is the newbie on the team, and there are a lot of first impressions, but the characters seem to all have a lot of hidden depths. Putting them up against genres that often rely on stock, pulpy characters is an interesting dynamic.
Genrenauts: The Shootout Solution is a quick, delightful introduction to a novella series that is built on a great premise. I can’t wait to see what adventures the Genrenauts have ahead of them, and what other adventures they’ll have to fix. Genrenauts is available in ebook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, MichaelRUnderwood.com.