Format: 368 pages, Paperback Published: January 1, 2023 by Orbit ISBN: 9780356520865 (ISBN10: 0356520862) Language: English
Blurb
The Terraformers is an equally heart-warming and thought-provoking vision of the future for fans of Becky Chambers, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Martha Wells.
Destry is a top network analyst with the Environmental Rescue Team, an ancient organization devoted to preventing ecosystem collapse. On the planet Sask-E, her mission is to terraform an Earthlike world, with the help of her taciturn moose, Whistle. But then she discovers a city that isn’t supposed to exist, hidden inside a massive volcano. Torn between loyalty to the ERT and the truth of the planet’s history, Destry makes a decision that echoes down the generations.
Centuries later, Destry’s protege, Misha, is building a planetwide transit system when his worldview is turned upside-down by Sulfur, a brilliant engineer from the volcano city. Together, they uncover a dark secret about the real estate company that’s buying up huge swaths of the planet―a secret that could destroy the lives of everyone who isn’t Homo sapiens. Working with a team of robots, naked mole rats, and a very angry cyborg cow, they quietly sow seeds of subversion. But when they’re threatened with violent diaspora, Misha and Sulfur’s very unusual child faces a stark choice: deploy a planet-altering weapon, or watch their people lose everything they’ve built on Sask-E.
My Review
This is two stories that follow on from each other, taking place several thousand years apart, containing some of the same characters. The characters are a variety of species and genders.
The character pairs of Destry and Moose, Sulfur and Misha, Moose and Scrubjay, are memorable and loving in their own way. They are biological or mechanical, hominins or other species, all with sentience. They interact with each other, form families and are torn between doing the right thing and being controlled by Verdance or Emerald. Scrubjay and Moose are particularly interesting. Scrubjay is a sentient flying train, Moose is a sentient cat. They fall in love with each other while taking on and taking down Emerald, the corporation that has taken control of Sask-E and who are trying to destroy Spider City.
The main theme of the story is that companies controlling life is a bad idea. That better ways of governing and building communities are possible, but there will always be forces intent on breaking those better ways for their own profit.
I enjoyed the descriptions of the environments of Sask-E and the social structures. They are clearly thought out and based on a lot of research.
Newitz is a clear and amusing writer. I have read (listened to) their non-fiction book, Four Lost Cities, and to be fair I also follow Annalee Newitz on Instagram. I listen to their Our Opinions Are Correct podcast. It’s a sci-fi and fantasy podcast Annalee Newitz does with Charlie Jane Anders.
172 pages, Paperback First published January 1, 2014 This edition Format: 172 pages, Paperback Published: June 30, 2020 by Routledge ISBN: 9780367600778 (ISBN10: 0367600773) Language: English
Blurb
Cultural anxieties about fatness and the attendant stigmatisation of fat bodies, have lent a medical authority and cultural legitimacy to what can be described as ‘fat-phobia’. Against the backdrop of the ever-growing medicalisation, pathologisation, and commodification of fatness, coupled with the moral panic over an alleged ‘obesity epidemic’, this volume brings together the latest scholarship from various critical disciplines to challenge existing ideas of fat and fat embodiment.
Shedding light on the ways in which fat embodiment is lived, experienced, regulated and (re)produced across a range of cultural sites and contexts, Queering Fat Embodiment destabilises established ideas about fat bodies, making explicit the intersectionality of fat identities and thereby countering the assertion that fat studies has in recent years reproduced a white, ableist, heteronormative subjectivity in its analyses.
A critical queer examination on fatness, Queering Fat Embodiment will be of interest to scholars of cultural and queer theory, sociology and media studies, working on questions of embodiment, stigmatisation and gender and sexuality.
Format: Hardcover Expected publication: June 1, 2023 by Puffin Classics ISBN: 9780241545423 (ISBN10: 0241545420) Language: English
Ten captivating stories of adventure and resilience celebrating LGBTQ+ characters, published as an illustrated collection of queer classics for the first time.
These are the fairy tales that history forgot – or concealed. Tales in which gender is fluid and where queer stories can have a happy ending.
Dellaria Wells – petty con artist, occasional thief, and partly educated fire witch – is behind on her rent. To make ends meet, Delly talks her way into a guard job in the city of Leiscourt, joining a team of unconventional women to protect an aristocrat from unseen assassins.
It looks like easy money and a chance to romance her confident companion Winn – but when did anything in Delly’s life go to plan? With the help of a necromancer, a shapeshifting schoolgirl and a reanimated mouse named Buttons, Delly and Winn find themselves facing an adversary who wields a twisted magic and has friends in the highest of places.
My Review
I think I got recommended this book as another example of a ‘cosy fantasy’ after I enjoyed Legends & Lattes. This book was originally published by Ace in 2021, and a new Penguin edition will be published in July. I might get the Penguin edition too, although the covers are the same. Ace books tend to be a bit rough and the printing quality can be not great, and this book isn’t an exception.
I’ve ordered the Penguin edition of Unnatural Magic, which is being published in July; it’s the other book in this series and was originally published by Ace in 2019. I’ll compare the quality of both and order the other editions if I think there’s any point.
Dellaria Wells is desperate for funds and can’t find her mum. In Leiscourt, her ability as a Firewitch marks her out among the poor and makes her an object of derision for the rich. Unfortunately, her ability to get in her own way and mess things up has led to any advantages her skills and natural talents might have given her being more a cause for trouble than a benefit.
She stumbles into a gig as a bodyguard for a wealthy woman about to get married. Here she meets some ‘properly trained’ magicians, all women. She is immediately attracted to a half-troll called Winn, who is an amazing shot and reasonable at illusions. Her dad also happens to know some very important people. Delly sets her cap at Winn, a prospect for possible expensive gifts, but finds she actually really likes Winn. The job looks easy, a bit of romance and enough money to pay the rent for a few months.
Except things get a bit dangerous when they’re attacked by the creations of necromancers and the bride is almost killed by one of the party. When another of the party is murdered by the necromancer and the guilty party goes on the run, the job changes – this time it’s about revenge and the pay is a lot better.
Delly, Winn and co head back to Leiscourt to find the murderer and bring down a crime ring providing drugs that are currently killing lots of people, including Delly’s mum.
Delly seems to be a rather uncomplicated person until we get into the meat of the story, when we discover her complicated relationship with her mother, who is addicted to drugs and alcohol, and was a neglectful parent. As a child she is neglected and as an adult she has to look after her mother. She is angry and sad when she discovers her in hospital or in bars. She hopes for her to be a better person and is distressed when her mother reverts back to her usual behaviour.
Delly also has a complicated relationship with Winn; Winn sees the best in her, which Delly can’t see in herself. She is convinced that Winn is being duped by her own sense of goodness. They do love each other but Delly can’t say it even after they save each others’ lives.
Mrs Totham is cool. I found her very sympathetic and increasingly funny as she goes from being a bird-obsessed elderly lady to a revenge-obsessed necromancer (sorry, body scientist) after her daughter is murdered.
The plot is entertaining and gets complicated as the crew start investigating a couple of crimes – a murder and a drugs gang. The excitement builds as they finally bring down their enemy and a house explodes.
The setting is something like a Victorian London with magic, and some customs that seem strange to the reader. It took me a bit to get used to things. I still don’t quite get some of the background like ‘householders’ and ‘Hexos’. What are these things? The society is fairly open to relationships that certainly would not have been acceptable in Victorian London.
It was a fun read and I’m looking forward to reading Unnatural Magic in July.
In this stunning conclusion to N. E. Davenport’s fast-paced, action-packed sci-fantasy duology, elite warrior Ikenna and her rogue cohort must outrun bounty hunters, their former comrades, and a megalomaniacal demi-god, all in the hopes of saving their friends and enemies from the racist and misogynistic oppression that threatens the continents from all sides.
After discovering the depth of betrayal, treachery, and violence perpetrated against her by Mareen’s Tribunal Council and exposing her illegal blood-gift to save her Praetorian squad, Ikenna becomes a fugitive with a colossal bounty on her head.
Yet, somehow, that’s the least of her worries.
Her grandfather’s longtime allies refuse to offer help, and the Blood Emperor’s Warlord is tracking her. She’s also struggling to control the enormous power she was granted by the Goddess of Blood Rites…and come to terms with the promises she made to get such power.
Amidst all of this, the Blood Emperor wages a full-scale invasion against Mareen and leaves a trail of decimated cities, war crimes, and untold death in his wake. As the horrors increase, Ikenna and her team realize they must assassinate the Blood Emperor and quickly end the war. But the price to do so is steep and has planet-shattering consequences.
The price to do nothing, though, is annihilation.
War has erupted. Alliances are fracturing. And Ikenna is torn between her loyalties, her desires for revenge, and the power threatening to consume her. With the world aflame, only one thing is certain: blood will be spilled.
My Review
I enjoyed this book. I stayed up all night reading it. This may not be the most coherent review due to lack of sleep. Seriously, I sat down at half eight last night to read a few chapters before bed and realised I read all night when it started getting light, and finished reading the book at 6:03 a.m., and was stunned for a few moments. I have the Illumicrate Exclusive Edition which has blue edges and a red cover. It matches/contrasts with my Illumicrate Exclusive Edition of The Blood Trials. I also reviewed that book as part of the blog tour and was excited to find out what happened next.
The book begins some short time after the end of The Blood Trials; Ikenna and her team have spent time among the northern Microstates trying to gain allies for their war against both the Blood Emperor and the Tribunal of Mareen, but aren’t having much luck. They turn to a criminal syndicate for the means to fight their war, but don’t get to spend long with their new ally because they get attacked by Praetorians from Rhysian War House and mercenaries.
Eventually, they end up in the hands of Ajani, the Apis of Accacia – the second in command of the Blood Emperor, Nkosi. Ikenna and Ajani do not get on well, but for the good of Iludu, they make an agreement to work together long enough to kill Nkosi and put Ajani on the throne of Accacia. Ikenna doesn’t trust Ajani and assumes he’s going to kill her when he gets a chance, and Ajani doesn’t do much to reassure anyone on her team.
After a traumatic encounter with Krashna, the ancient god of Mareen, and being saved by Kissa, the goddess of Kanai, Ikanna learns that she needs to commune with her goddess, Amaka, to gain more control of her powers, but she doesn’t listen and things start to go very wrong with their plans. Eventually, Ikenna listens and comes into her power and learns that she is more than just a blood-gifted warrior. Her ancestry is more complex than that.
This is sci-fantasy. The cultures are technologically advanced but also use magic, some of the countries are stratified societies and monarchies, and most have a difficult relationship with religion. I quite enjoy this mix of magic and technology.
Ikenna and Darius’s relationship develops and their conversations addressing their personal issues is one of the best parts of the book. The fights are really fun too. Ikenna is slowly developing as a person, she is still often childish but has moments of maturity which improve her as a character. The team are becoming a cohesive unit, and they survive repeated attempts on their lives, from both the Mareen Republic and the Accacian Empire, as they try to gather allies to reset the planet.
The latter chapters which cover the war with the Tribunal and Ikenna’s revenge on Selene Rhysian and her family, feels a bit rushed. I can see a further series where Ikenna and the Invictus squad fight the gods, and Selene and Enoch team up to give Ikenna problems.
This is really two books squished into one, and it would have been best to end it at page 291, and then have the events after the death of Nkosi and the rearrangement of the world in a third book. The war against the Tribunal and the battle at the Krashna’s Citadel should have been the a third book. I don’t think this is the author’s fault, but a publishing decision. I would love to see Nia Davenport get a chance to write the two novels this was meant to be.
PUBLICATION DATE: 11 MAY 2023 HARDBACK ORIGINAL | £16.99 | ORENDA BOOKS
Blurb
A snobbish Danish literary author is challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days, travelling to a small village in Iceland for inspiration, and then the first body appears…
Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer’s block, Hannah has the feeling that she’s doing something wrong.
When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjörður – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration.
But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah.
Paperback Publication date: April 20th 2023, The History Press
Blurb
Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Ronnie Biggs, the Krays … All have become folk heroes, glamorised and romanticised, even when they killed. But where are all the female crooks? Where are the street robbers, gang leaders, diamond thieves, bank robbers and gold smugglers?
Queens of the Underworld reveals the incredible story of professional female criminals from the 17th century to today. From Moll Cutpurse who ruled the Jacobean underworld, to Victorian jewel thief Emily Lawrence and 1960s burglar Zoe Progl, these were charismatic women at the top of their game.
But female criminals have long been dismissed as either not ‘real women’ or not ‘real criminals’, and in the process their stories have been lost. Caitlin Davies unravels the myths, confronts the lies, and tracks down modern-day descendants in order to tell the truth about their lives.
‘A riveting dive into the criminal underworld and the women who queened it there’ – Helena Kennedy QC
‘A rollicking account of all kinds of crime committed by women, who have not only been forgotten or ignored, but who put their male counterparts to shame’ – Julie Bindel, The Spectator
In the follow up to his Sunday Times bestseller, The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben compares tree planting to battery farming
‘In clear, vivid prose with impeccable reasoning, Peter Wohlleben makes a compelling case that almost everything we do in modern forestry management may be dead wrong. What should we do instead? Let the wisdom of the trees quell our human arrogance, heal the forest and restore our sweet, green world’ Sy Montgomery, author of How to be a Good Creature and The Soul of an Octopus
TREES CAN SURVIVE without humans, but we can’t live without trees. Even if human-caused climate change devastates our planet, trees will return—as they do, always and everywhere, even after ice ages, catastrophic fires, destructive storms, and deforestation. It would just be nice if we were around to see them flourish.
The Power of Trees is forester Peter Wohlleben’s follow-up to The Hidden Life of Trees, a Sunday Times bestseller that sold millions of copies worldwide. In his latest book, he is dismissive of token gestures in terms of tree planting. Just as he compared forest trees to ‘families’ and urban trees to ‘street urchins’ in his first book, in The Power of Trees he uses equally powerful metaphors to compare tree planting to battery farming (‘Switching to fast-growing species and breeding trees for desired traits brought results like those achieved by factory farming: individuals ready for harvest at a young age, all with a relatively uniform carcass weight.’). However, he also joyfully describes trees determination to survive, describing seedlings breaking through the earth where you least expect them, as ‘stalwart tree children’.
This latest work is as fascinating and eye-opening as it is trenchant in its critique: on the one hand, Wohlleben describes astonishing discoveries about how trees pass knowledge down to succeeding generations and their ability to survive climate change; on the other, he is unsparing in his criticism of those who wield economic and political power—who plant trees exclusively for the sake of logging and virtue signaling—even as they ruthlessly exploit nature. The Power of Trees is a love letter to the forest and a passionate argument for protecting nature’s boundless diversity, not only for the sake of trees, but also for us.
Cozy Craft Mysteries can be read in any order. A funny whodunnit series, full of charming characters and mysteries that will keep you guessing to the very end.
A wedding is a cause for celebration. Not only do dressmakers Penny and Izzy get an invite to the big day but they have an unusual dress commission to complete for one of the guests.
It seems Penny’s only problem is deciding which potential boyfriend to take as her plus-one guest — practical handyman Aubrey or cultured fabric expert Oscar.
But bigger problems arise when the maker of the wedding cake is found dead in the grounds of the stately home where the wedding is to take place.
And when another key individual in the wedding plans is also murdered, it seems like someone has deadly plans to prevent this marriage.
Can Penny and Izzy unravel the mystery and solve this crime before the big day is fatally ruined?
If your ideal book features mystery, friendship, cute romance, crafting and a charming rural setting then this is the book for you.
Cozy Craft Mysteries can be read in any order. A funny whodunnit series, full of charming characters and mysteries that will keep you guessing to the very end.
Things are going great for Penny Slipper. Running a sewing shop in the middle of the English countryside is like a dream come true and she’s got her colourful cousin Izzy and her corgi, Monty, to keep her entertained.
Her grandma’s eightieth birthday is coming up soon and Penny and Izzy are busier than ever, making fancy dress costumes for the party guests.
However, Penny’s dream life is thrown into chaos when a murdered woman is found in the bathroom of her cosy flat above the shop. With the doors and the windows all locked, no one can understand how this mystery corpse got there.
But things take a further sinister turn when a local shopkeeper is also killed. There’s a murderer on the loose and no one is safe!
Can Penny and Izzy uncover the answers and unmask the criminal in their midst?
If your ideal book features mystery, friendship, cute romance, even cuter animals, crafting and a big slice of birthday cake then this is the book for you.
Thanks to Rachel for organising this blog tour and to the author for my copy of this book.
In this Cozy Craft mystery, Penny gets home from a trip to London to find a dead woman on the loo and an incriminating note from Izzy. Meanwhile the stitch and natter group must be dealt with and a water leak controlled. The police are eventually called when Izzy returns and the pair realise there was a bit of a misunderstanding. It seems the building was locked up tight, and they have nothing worth stealing, so why was the woman on the toilet? How did she get in and who killed her?
Since they can’t stay in the shop, Penny and Monty go to stay with Izzy and her parents. They have a small house and a surprisingly large garden, but Monty doesn’t like the upheaval and starts misbehaving. Izzy meets a potential boyfriend when she finds a way to deal with Monty’s outbursts.
Nanna Lem is having a birthday party and Izzy’s dad, Terry King wants an Elvis costume. Everyone else wants costumes too, so Penny devises a ‘family discount’ chart to help Izzy say no to cousins who expect freebees. To get some inspiration, the pair visit a neighbour who specialises in musical memorabilia. He has just the thing to inspire them.
Eventually, Penny, Izzy and Monty get back in the shop but there’s an awful mess and Aubrey has to do an assessment for the insurance company, while Darren the plumber suggests a cheeky fiddle. There’s a couple of questionable characters hanging about outside, and Stuart Dinktrout starts moaning about the fabric of the building.
Izzy and Penny do some sleuthing and both have realisations about the crime as the man down the road is found dead on a golf course. The police are rather annoyed by Izzy and Penny.
At Nanna Lem’s party, the criminals are revealed, the hows and whys are answered, and there’s an Elvis competition. Izzy invites her dog trainer to the party while Penny is still torn between Aubrey and Oscar.
This is the third book in the series and once again we find the creative pair getting into and out of some odd situations; the dead woman on the loo is just the start of it. We meet some of Izzy and Penny’s other family and learn more about Nanna Lem’s past. Izzy is clearly from a highly creative family, but you wouldn’t want to live next door to them. Penny and her Aunt Pat seem like the sensible ones.
Penny’s dilemma about how to start a relationship is understandable. Oscar is very forthright about his feelings but is fine with friendship; Aubrey says lovely things but doesn’t ask directly, leaving Penny confused about both of them. She could carry on with both of them as friends, or one friend and one boyfriend. Can’t see why she can’t have two boyfriends, personally, so long as everyone knows and consents to it.
Monty once again points the reader in the right direction and I think he’s a useful doggy ex machina, as well as a fun character. Dogs are always a good excuse for wondering about places you’re not meant to. Or just generally wandering about. (Yes, I am using the correct wondering and wandering – thing about it).
The reality of small towns – knowing everyone and being distantly related to half of the long-term residents, bossy town officials, gossip and nosiness – is admirably demonstrated, as is the reality of being a creative sector professional; everyone thinks they can ask for something for free because they know you but don’t actually value your time, skills or the materials costs. I totally understand the frustrations of being asked to ‘rustle up’ something that’ll take days to make and cost a fortune, by people who want it for free. If I make you something as a gift that’s one thing, but I’m charging for my time and materials otherwise.
I can see Penny and Izzy building an investigative relationship with DS Chang, the police officer who has turned up in all three books so far. He’s not imposing on the plot much at the moment, but his appearances have become more important in this novel. Tariq the enthusiastic young journalist is another character I can see being important as part of their ‘famous five sleuthing’ as Aubrey puts it at one point in the story, as a recorder of events, especially with his camera.
The Cozy Crafts Mysteries have fairly straightforward plots, set in a familiar setting, just like many Golden Age crime novels, especially Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple novels. They have red herrings and quirky main characters, with the police only tangentially involved. From me this is not a criticism – I enjoy Miss Marple stories, and I like the modern cosy mystery that has evolved from the same tradition. These ones are easy to read and entertaining. You’re halfway through before you know it.
Need the odd bit of editing though. I noticed a few mis-used words and a chapter change that wasn’t formatted correctly.
Right, on to number 4 – The Swan Dress Murder, which I have already started reading.
Giveaway Prize – The Wonderland Murders, a cross stitch book, a floral notepad, a note writing set and a grass bunny.
Author Bio – Millie Ravensworth writes the Cozy Craft Mystery series of books. Her love of murder mysteries and passion for dressmaking made her want to write books full of quirky characters and unbelievable murders. Millie lives in central England where children and pets are something of a distraction from the serious business of writing, although dog walking is always a good time to plot the next book.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 