Queer Black Author - Hugo Award Winner - I picked this book for our library as part of our effort to focus on under-represented authors in our collectQueer Black Author - Hugo Award Winner - I picked this book for our library as part of our effort to focus on under-represented authors in our collection.
Things I liked in this novella - the word based magic system was really interesting, not something I’d seen done a lot before, magical disappearing tattoos, interesting and horrifying take on demonic possession, and overthrow of toxic corporations.
This novella took on a huge task of building an entire complex fantasy world and political system in a very short space. I applaud it for the ideas that clearly went into it, but it was a little too much to fit into such a compressed space. This story was more suited for a novel length book, I was left struggling a lot to remember a lot of unfamiliar places and names of different factions and actors. I really wanted to know more about the magic system and the little pieces we got of characters backgrounds felt a little bit rushed and under developed.
The whole idea of demonic possession to create a super soldier was really original. I don’t think I’ve read that anywhere and it was so well done! I saw on the author’s website that this might just be the first of a novella series and I am interested enough to read the next one.
Read this if: you loved “This is How You Lose the Time War” and want to see a queer black male take on it, love political sci fi thrillers and don’t mind some not quite baked world building, Love Enemies to Rivals to Lovers, like a “I’ve been lied to my whole life and now it’s time to make it right” moment. ...more
Big thank you to @pridebooktours for the free ebook and including me in this tour!
I was hooked by the description of the book as “a sweet, slow burn rBig thank you to @pridebooktours for the free ebook and including me in this tour!
I was hooked by the description of the book as “a sweet, slow burn romance and a bookstore with a cat set in a queernormative world!” I signed right up for the tour! Things I liked about this book: an opinionated bookstore cat, a Black knight with natural hair as the heroic love interest, and the idea of a queernormative world. To be totally honest, this book wasn’t for me. I think the plot was a little too cliche. The ideas were solid, but weren’t well developed enough. I think this writer could have great promise with a little more workshopping. Jayce and Alexius did have a slow burn romance but it felt mechanical, like they were reading from a script instead of having their feelings actually develop. They both were suffering from PTSD from the war, but it was touched on so briefly and vanished as fast that it felt fake. It was like the author understood that they should have lasting issues from the war, but didn’t really understand them well enough to write them. The book struggled a bit overall with wanting to be a cozy book while still dealing with some very heavy issues (abuse, PTSD, survivors guilt, the need to atone, and regrets). I think it would have been better to have left those heavy elements out and chosen something more like past failed relationships or a failed business instead of a serious war....more
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