29 Jan, 2019
Translation
2009’s Amanchu!, Volume One, collects the first six issues of Kozue Amano’s eponymous manga. Unlike Amano’s Aria, Amanchu! does not appear to be SF. Like Aria, it focuses on the friendship between two teens.
28 Jan, 2019
Special Requests
Kat Howard’s A Cathedral of Myth and Bone is a collection: fourteen short stories, one novella, and one novelette. She is also the author of several well-regarded novels, which I reviewed here.
27 Jan, 2019
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
Larry Niven’s 1976 The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton collects the three then-extant Gil Hamilton stories1. All three are police procedurals and all three feature Gil Hamilton, a retired asteroid miner turned Amalgamated Regional Militia [ARM] officer.
25 Jan, 2019
Big Hair, Big Guns!
Paul Preuss’ 1987’s Breaking Strain is the first volume of six in the Arthur C. Clark’s Venus Prime series.
Taking pity on the amnesiac woman in his care, a guilt-ridden doctor restores her memories. This act costs the doctor his life, but allows the young cyborg, code-named Sparta, to escape the secret medical facility in which she is being held prisoner.
Reinventing herself as Ellen Troy, Sparta joins the Space Board as an investigator. Her cutting-edge education and advanced implants make her an exemplary recruit. First assignment: Port Hesperus, Venus!
25 Jan, 2019
Doing What the WFC Cannot Do
Maggie Shen King’s 2017’s An Excess Male is a standalone near-future SF novel.
Lee Wei-guo is one of forty million men who make up China’s so-called Bounty, the number of men in excess of the number of women. It’s a legacy of China’s one child policy that has been complicated by misogynistic choices to favor male children and abort or abandon females. Managing the Bounty is a pressing public policy challenge. Responses have included legalizing polyandry and assigning sex workers to the superfluous men.
Wei-guo is forty; his chances of finding a bride are waning. But there’s a glimmer of hope. He has enough money saved for a dowry1; he and his fathers can afford to pay a matchmaker for a few lunch meetings with prospective brides. One such has agreed to meet with Wei-guo and his fathers.
22 Jan, 2019
Translation
Choukakou, which is also known as Chang Ge Xing, Chang Ge’s Journey, or Song of the Long March, is an ongoing manhua (Chinese comic) series by Xia Da. Volume two collects issues five through eleven.
Princess Li Chang Ge fled her uncle’s (Tang emperor Taizong) ruthless purge of Li Chang Ge’s immediate family. Posing as a young man of noble birth, she has wormed her way into the inner circle of Gong Sun Heng, Governor of Shuo.
Chang Ge’s plans to kill the Emperor are on hold for the moment. She and the whole of Shou have far more immediate problems:
Turks.
20 Jan, 2019
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
Jane Toombs’ 1976 The Fog Maiden is a standalone fantasy novel. If it were published today, I suspect it would be classified as urban fantasy/paranormal romance.
After the death of her father, Janella Maki was raised by her well-meaning but distant stepmother. Janella has no memories of her early past and knows even less about her biological parents. It’s a surprise when an uncle shows up to renew family ties.
19 Jan, 2019
Big Hair, Big Guns!
Frederik Pohl’s 1985 Black Star Rising is a standalone science fiction novel.
The world is divided into two spheres, one dominated by India, one by China, These two powers were the only slightly damaged by an apocalyptic nuclear war that ravaged the United States and the Soviet Union. North America falls under China’s benevolent umbrella. Its aboriginal population is monitored by Chinese supervisors.
Castor is an Anglo farmer with pretensions above his class. Denied entry into university, he is an autodidact, hoovering up knowledge of no relevance to his duties to the Heavenly Grain Rice Collective. Elevation from this humble but necessary role comes courtesy of two unrelated events: a brutal murder and what seems to be a First Contact event.
18 Jan, 2019
Doing What the WFC Cannot Do
Yoon Ha Lee’s 2019 Dragon Pearl is a standalone science fantasy novel.
Thirteen-year-old Min is a magical fox girl. Other supernatural races may be respected throughout the Thousand Worlds, but not foxes. Foxes are seen as untrustworthy and murderous. Min is brought up to conceal her fox nature from neighbours on Jinju.
Min is biding her time, waiting to turn fifteen, when she will be eligible to join the Thousand Worlds’ space force. That’s one way off backwater Jinju. She knows even a fox can do this, because her older brother Jun managed it.
One day an investigator appears, with bad news about Jun.
16 Jan, 2019
Miscellaneous Reviews
Ann Leckie’s The Raven Tower is a standalone secondary-world fantasy.
Mawat’s story may sound familiar: a northern kingdom; an heir who learns that his father has disappeared and that his uncle has seized power.