Nanoreviews: Into Shadow, a Collection of Amazon Short Stories

A collection of short fiction stories examining hidden and forgotten things, in which seven authors give us stories of characters wandering into places and spaces that others cannot, or will not, and risk the darkness as the price of their hidden knowledge.

The Garden by Tomi Champion-Adeyemi

The only thing I have previously read by Tomi Champion-Adeyemi is Children of Blood and Bone, of which I was not enormously fond - for all its great setting, I often found the characters a little weakly drawn and the plot tending to the obvious. The Garden could have been written by an entirely different author. It’s magical realism in tone, following a woman on a trip to Brazil inspired by the contents of a journal belonging to her mother, and the conversations she has with her guide along the way, digging into his and her own beliefs about the world and the supernatural, and what she’ll find when she reaches the mysterious garden she’s searching for. It’s told in a mixture of prose and poem, and really puts you into Lęina’s strange perspective, showing you a world fracturing into greater strangeness as she follows her journey onwards. Almost all of the story is in the conversations she has with Angelo, her guide, or just with herself, and so it feels incredibly intimate, and was well suited to the audio version I listened to.

It's a lyrical, strange little story, that's doing a lot of interesting things. It doesn't always quite pull them off, and is suffering a little from the short form, but well worth the time and interest regardless.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

Persephone by Lev Grossman

Following on from The Garden, Lev Grossman’s contribution to Into Shadow is a little disappointing. Where Champion-Adeyemi was playing with prose and poetry and an interesting character study, Grossman’s Persephone is far more a typical urban fantasy sort of vibe. It’s a perfectly fine example of one, but I feel like it was let down a lot by the form, simply because, for me, much of the appeal of an urban fantasy type narrative comes from exploring a world that lies within or alongside or under our own, and the juxtapositions and contrasts or ideas you get thrown out of the two together. When you have so little space as this, you cut the reader off from a lot of the time spent in that world and discovering it, and so you just don’t give them the opportunity to love it in the way a full-length novel might.

Aside from that – and in some ways that’s a good aside as I was genuinely left wanting to know more about the world – it’s well done. There’s a mystery at the core of the story, and how it develops is very well paced. It also has that spareness and economy that allows a short form story to really do a lot in its little space, and a lot of implication that relies on the reader making jumps of intuition or logic to try to figure things out. I finished it thinking “oh I wonder” and “does that mean…” and “so did she just…”, and those questions lingered with me after, which for me is a sign of a story well told... if it then goes on to give you the answers to those questions, or leave you in a position to ponder them more thoughtfully. Ultimately, I think it would have been much better told in a full length novel, so it ended up being relatively middling for me over all, despite feeling like a decent story start.

Nerd Coefficient: 5/10

The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow

By contrast, The Six Deaths of the Saint was a phenomenal story, and one that took its size and form and used them to make itself better, not less. It is exactly what it needs to be and no more, and manages to pack a huge emotional punch for its very short size.

It follows a poor girl, young and ill, who sees a vision of a saint and is led to follow her prince, to fight and to kill. And then it becomes something… else. Something wider. A story about stories, and patterns, and change, and the things we don't notice that are right in front of us all along. It's dreamy and drifty and has that slightly indefinable quality of the fairytale or legend - very much deliberately in this case evoking Arthuriana - that speaks to something at the level of the mythic. It's sad, hopeful and bittersweet in equal parts as well as glorious, and really manages to give you that full arc of a satisfying story in just a few pages.

It’s also one where sharing almost anything about the actual details of the story would ruin the sheer delight of it, so I’m going to leave it there, and end with an exhortation that you should read it because it is simply beautiful. 

Nerd Coefficient: 10/10

What the Dead Know by Nghi Vo

Unsurprisingly given the title, this is an intensely creepy story of mediums and murder. We follow a couple of fraudulent mediums wanting to pull yet another scam... and yet the story isn't quite what it seems. In this world... there is magic? Maybe? And yet the mediums are still fake? It's a story that tugs at the edges, throwing you off with details that don't conform to your expectations, even as much of it does. Between this and the great and immediate way Vo has conjured the atmosphere, it really packs a punch in terms of the creepiness.

It's also a story happy to leave much unsaid, in the traditions of the best magic and mystery. We don't really need to understand the world, or why what happens happens. We just need to inhabit it for a little while, and enjoy passing through it, experiencing this little window into a bit of strangeness. This works particularly well because there are threads cast outwards, rooting it in contexts before and after the moment of the story, hints of background and backstories to the characters and places, we just never need them to be fully explained, fully spelled out. It's a story completely content to be as it is and do what it needs to do with a deft, light touch and I enjoyed it enormously.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Undercover by Tamsyn Muir

Somehow, we get even creepier, in a world of moving gangster dens and decomposing ghoul dancers and undercover cops. Muir has made sure all the nastiness of organised crime is definitely kept in her story, and then added an extra layer of zombie nastiness as delightful icing on the cake. Definitely this isn't one to read alone, late at night.

Amy Starr is an undercover police officer, trying to worm her way into the good graces of a mob boss. She gets taken on as a bodyguard and keeper for the boss' big secret - a ghoul who can dance, and think, and respond to conversation. Which makes her dangerous. The ones that can think are the worst. We follow Amy wrestling with her curiosity about the ghoul, her need to know more, while balancing her superior's need to destroy something - someone - so very dangerous.

But even in such an un-right world, something else is off. And it takes the whole story to get us there, in a twist that is genuinely twisty and well managed, but leaves the story ending hanging on possibilities and wondering. It's brilliant, solid work and entirely worth being creeped out by.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

The Candles Are Burning by Veronica G. Henry

With a sharp twist, for all that The Candles Are Burning is still about death and mystery as the rest of the collection is, the focus here is far more on the living human experience than the darkness itself, and that makes the experience of reading it, while not exactly a light one, a contrast in tone to the previous two stories. It is far more about a woman grappling with the loss of her husband, the precarity of her life, and the strangeness of the things happening to her, than those strange happenings themselves.

It helps also that our main character, Maggie, is an intensely pragmatic, practical woman, even in the face of shuddering, portentous candles and spectral visions, and it grounds the tone of the story far closer to the real and the living. She's a pleasant person to follow and live in the thoughts of, and it is easy to feel for her instantly, even before the drama of the story truly begins. She's a woman who doesn't want to leave her home for the dubious promises of a better life elsewhere, at least not without proof. She's a woman trying to do right by her daughter, persuade her husband to be sensible. She's a woman trying to live even while haunted by spectres of death, and so she burns bright through the story.

That being said, I think this is one that could have done with being a little longer. The mystery is great, and well played out for the most of it, but the wrap up feels sudden when we get there. Everything is neat and tidy, but could have done with that bit more space to breathe, and get us there a little more naturally and gently. And that would have just given us more time with Maggie.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

Out of the Mirror, Darkness by Garth Nix

Alas, a weaker story than many of the others to close.

We follow Harper, the general fixer, scary man and solver of extremely odd problems at a mid-tier film studio in old Hollywood. Two of the stars of their current film have fallen mysteriously ill, and particularly seem to be unable to tolerate bright light. He suspects something paranormal at work, but the mysterious secretary to the big boss, knower of many things, isn't around to answer his questions, and so he must investigate, and perhaps figure out how to keep things together on his own.

The premise is fine, and interesting enough, but the problem comes with both the character dynamics, and the ending. Garth Nix loves a weak man/strong woman pairing (whether romantic or otherwise) and this is no exception... but because we spend most of the story with just the weaker half, it feels incomplete. We just get to watch him flounder somewhat, though more competently than many of Nix's men manage. But then, when the strong woman does turn up? She's the deus (or I suppose dea) ex machina, and so the tension that's been building for the whole of the story just dissipates instantly. There simply wasn't the space to manage both the worry and foreboding in her absence and give any level of drama and mystery when she shows up. It makes this feel very much like something that exists in a larger universe - if she were a familiar character making a cameo, she'd make far more sense - or something shorter than it was intended to be. There are simply too many threads surrounding her.

And then there's her character in general - she knows all the answers, but we never know why, and not in the enjoyable sense of a story well done that leaves you wanting more. We feel short-changed by her, and her swift resolution of events. The ending of the final story of the set is an abrupt cut-off, and it unfortunately undercuts so much of the good work the rest of the stories have put in to build such a lovely, coherent and creepy collection.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10

Review: For the First Time, Again by Sylvain Neuvel

The Take Them to the Stars trilogy concludes with a massive setup and a deflated resolution

The centuries-long saga that started in A History of What Comes Next and continued in Until the Last of Me is coming to an end with For the First Time, Again. Now author Sylvain Neuvel brings his superstrong, supersmart, human-looking aliens into the 21st century, and the pressing question that drives their cat-and-mouse game is: Does Earth stand any chance against the rest of the alien civilization that the antagonist succeeded in inviting at the end of the second novel?

Let's recap: the Kibsu are an alien species composed of two lineages, male and female. They can mate with humans, but the offspring is always an identical clone of the alien parent. Since the dawn of our history, the Kibsu women have been secretly nudging us toward developing advanced mathematics, metallurgy, and finally rocket science; for the same length of time, the Kibsu men have been hunting the Kibsu women, trying to avenge their ancient betrayal and get their hands on the machine that can signal their homeworld to let them know here's a whole world ripe for conquering.

The protagonists of this final showdown are Aster, the last daughter of the Kibsu, given up for adoption and raised with no knowledge of her cosmic mission; and Samael, the last son of the Kibsu, murderer of Aster's mother and now her remorseful rescuer. Once they meet each other, they start living on the run from Earth authorities, learning to tolerate each other's peculiarities and trying to prevent the disaster that will come if the rest of their species decides to visit us.

The narration style in this closing entry in the series improves noticeably compared to the previous two. Aster's inner monologue sounds genuinely like that of a Millennial kid who understands the world in the language of grunge rock albums and Bruce Willis movies. Her snark is sharp without crossing the line into annoying, and her gallows humor is exactly the right hue of believable given her absurd circumstances. The chapters told from her perspective are a head-spinningly quick read, but the author was wise enough to intercalate some chapters focused on Samael, whose pensive, calculating personality provides the necessary counterweight that keeps the novel's rhythm from entering chaotic meltdown.

The author is aware that the dynamic between Aster and Samael is so interesting that their world-saving mission can afford to take a backseat. On one hand, it was the right choice to foreground the interpersonal push-and-pull between a hunter and a prey forced to become allies. With a genius teenager and a psychopathic assassin as narrators, this novel had to give inner feelings the center stage. On the other hand, the incongruity in the scale of stakes hurts the ending's impact. The moment when our protagonists succeed in sending a decoy that will throw the enemy off Earth's location is written too matter-of-factly; it arrives without due gravitas and ends before the reader has had time to process the experience. The dramatic sacrifice of a hard-won helper is framed in a way that makes Aster look monstrously uncaring. The crucial consequence of all their effort, the event that should have been the climax of the book, is relegated to what is effectively a post-credits scene (I didn't know that was possible with the written word, and no, I don't welcome it).

As if to tie the final bow on the frustrating way this series proposes great ideas that it can only halfway develop, the believability issue that I pointed out in books 1 and 2 reaches critical mass in book 3. I'm talking about the characters' impossible talent to just board a plane whenever it's convenient to the plot. It gets worse in this book because it's set right after 9/11, when video surveillance metastasized to total state paranoia. These are the two most wanted fugitives on the planet, and somehow they routinely make it past several international security checkpoints without even an aside from the author that would at least do us the courtesy of handwaving how they haven't been arrested a dozen times before the novel's midpoint.

Scattered hints here and there give the impression that the author may be planning to continue this series and finally explain what drove the mysterious aliens to look for other worlds to settle in. While the ending we get here is final enough for the story's immediate purposes, it does leave an aftertaste of unsatisfaction with regard to larger questions. This series could serve as a case study for a discussion on when to place the start and the ending of a plot and which events in it are the ones most worth narrating. All three entries are set in the modern day, with interludes that give very short glimpses into the remote history of the Kibsu, and one can imagine a universe where the author chose differently, starting with an unbroken focus on the remote history (which in itself could have filled half a dozen novels) and building to a truly epic finale set entirely in our time. I have to concede that the fragmentary structure of these novels as they are reflects very appropriately the protagonists' incomplete knowledge of their own past, but that effect is achieved at the expense of punishing the reader's curiosity. As a whole, Take Them to the Stars was a potent idea that deserved a less rushed treatment.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Reference: Neuvel, Sylvain. For the First Time, Again [Tordotcom, 2023].

Review: Furious Heaven by Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott’s Furious Heaven continues her genderflipped Alexander the Great in space as we truly get into the more well known parts of his history.

Unconquerable Sun introduced us to Kate Elliott’s Princess Sun of Chaonia, the daughter of Queen-Marshal Eirene, a young and ambitious woman in a world of interstellar Empires struggle and Chaonia not so long freed from the yoke of the mighty Phene empire, dreams of retribution upon it.  In an epic story, we were introduced to Sun and her companions as a surprise attack by the Phene ultimately brought Sun glory as she turned back the strike. 

Now, in Furious Heaven, the story of Sun and her companions continues.

One of the games to play as a reader of these novels, if you are aware of the original history they are based upon, is to play “Spot the moment or part  in Alexander’s history this is based upon”. What surprised me slightly in the first novel was that while this is the story of Sun, based on Alexander, the action takes place in the reign of Philip, or Eirene (Philip being genderflipped too).  When we get to this second novel, Furious Heaven, the question in my mind became this as I started reading--when was Eirene going to die? The death of Philip II of Macedon is one of the great world-changing events in world history, for it set Alexander on his path to eventual global conquest. One can argue what-ifs of world history all day long, but if Philip isn't assassinated when he is, Alexander doesn’t get his campaigns and his shattering of Persia.

Another aspect, and it is far more spoilery to discuss, is how and why Eirene dies. The death of Philip II and the discourse and discussion on that assassination and its motives and true origin is something that has consumed scholars of ancient history since the moment Philip was put in the ground, and there is still no definitive answer to this day. We have a killer, who did not live long, but their motives, backer, plans are a nebulous mystery. You might say that Philip’s death is the JFK assassination of its epoch. (and yes, one of the theories is that Russia, err, the Persians, funded the whole thing).   Elliott makes use of this ambiguity and provides an in-universe answer which I will not discuss for plot reasons, but she uses the main line that history does--that Alexander takes the death of his father and uses it as a rallying call, that happens here, too. Given that the death of Eirene happens at about the quarter turn of the book, the rest of the book starts laying out Sun’s campaigns against the Phene. 

But not just Sun’s story. In the first novel, one of our major point of views is the “Wily Persephone”, Persephone Lee, somewhat renegade daughter of a major House of Chaonia, wh becomes one of Sun’s companions in the wake of her twin brother (and also former Companion)’s tragic death. The story of Unconquerable Sun is not only that of Sun but also of Persephone and how Persephone winds up slotting herself into the role of Companion, how her glory, reflected moon to Sun, gets to shine itself. 

Furious Heaven keeps Sun and Persephone as viewpoint characters, and adds a new one, and this one a Phene. Given that the bulk of the novel is Sun’s struggle against the Phene, it makes sense from a narrative standpoint to have a point of view that counterpoints both Sun and Persephone, who is on team Sun at this point. Although, there is some question whether Persephone is or should be more loyal to Lee House, or to Sun herself. Persephone’s nature, too, which was touched upon in the first novel, really gets a work out  Persephone finds herself in some very crossed loyalties as the novel progresses and a lot of drama and high stakes character development.

And that really is the strength of this thick (750 pages novels).  Sure, there is plenty of space opera action for those who want that sort of thing. Space fleets clashing. Action and mayhem and the tricks and strategy of Sun, who really is Alexander the Great in space--brash, impulsive, driven, and brilliant. Intense and crunchy worldbuilding, borrowing from ancient history here, inventing wildly and deeply there. Crackerjack and well thought out plotting, drawing the various threads and elements from both sides and making the large gargantuan book work as a read that keeps you turning the pages.  Kate Elliott’s book has all of this in spades and all are good reasons to read this book (after reading Unconquerable Sun, I wouldn’t start here)

What this book does and why I read a Kate Elliott book for, at the bottom, what she does best is to create amazing characters and explore their limits, challenges, drama and development. Taking Persephone Lee, the Wily Persephone, and putting her through a lot of challenges, and drama. Sun is a force of nature, difficult to look at without squinting. There is less from Sun’s point of view than what you might think in the novel and I think that is a good and deliberate choice, since she is so iconic. She is not inhuman, her relationship with Hetty is touching and moves the heart and soul. 

On the other hand Persephone is far more human, far more vulnerable far more of a character to ring changes and challenges upon, and Elliott does this ably.

Just as Persephone was the “new kid on the block” in the first novel, we do get a new Companion as a POV character in the book on the site od the Chaoians, and that is the Valiant Makinde. Like Persephone, it is happenstance, and sudden decision on Sun’s part, and his backstory that catapults him into the ranks of Companions. Even more than the first novel, especially after Eirene’s death, there is some very good work here in showing how and why and who Sun picks as Companions as to how her mother did it. James, Alika and the others form a formidable team and group. There are many Companions and they do not all get equal screen time. (Alika, for example, is more downplayed here than in the previous novel).  

But then there is the Phene. Apama At Sabao is a pilot, a lieutenant in the forces of the Phene, but far from the halls of power. Her story which only at the end really intersects with Sun’s, in addition to giving us a human view on the Phene, gives us connections to other characters, like Admiral Manu, who seems to be based on Mnemon of Rhodes, a Greek who was in the service of Persia. Apama has to make difficult decisions, especially on a personal level. Catapulted into politics and conflict, when she would rather be a Lancer pilot, Apama shows us the costs of war on a number of levels and the sacrifices one must make. It also shows the nuance of the novel in showing there is heroism and strength on both sides of a war, and nuance.  We also get some brief interludes from other points of view, seeing these characters (especially Sun) from different points of view as the conflict erupts, flares and the aftermath of same happens. 

I did elide over the worldbuilding previously but I will spend a few moments here to talk about it if you will indulge me, since my love of worldbuilding is well know to readers of my reviews. As mentioned before, this is a genderflipped Alexander the Great in space. All of these polities are refugees of an Earth lost, they have pieces of our heritage but only fragments. It was a long and arduous trip (and we learn more about it from Sun’s explorations as well as the knowledge of Apama) and a lot of the old world was lost. The fact that the events now echo the past is not lost on, and is even commented on makes me think of a bit of properties such as Battlestar Galactica. Resonances between our past and our future. Is it by design? The workings of Lady Chaos? There are no definitive answers but Elliott sure likes bringing it up, sometimes in philosophical debate and sometimes by bold action.  Sure, the Phene are sort of the Persians, except when they are not. The Mishirru are the Egyptians, except when they are not  There is interesting technology for how interstellar travel works (and how it fails miserably). Channel Idol continues to be an interesting innovation, showing how a cognate of Alexander the Great could use media to her advantage. 

Sun is a brilliant, fearless and solar character and if you want to follow her through the first book, you will want to in this second. Like the book says in its opening epigraph:

“There is but one true sun

And each of us

Casts nothing more than her

Reflected glory

She, and too, the author herself, is indeed the spear cast at the furious heaven and I look forward to see where that spear lands in the third and final book.

Reference: Elliott, Kate, Furious Heaven, Tor Books, 2023

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Recap: Mandalorian Episode 23 — Spies

The penultimate episode starts masterfully weaving together all the plot threads from this season and beyond — including ties to the sequel trilogy. 

Also, before this recap begins, I'd like to hold a moment of silence for the Satine Kryze erasure that continues to dominate season 3. 

Let's begin!

We start with a very cyber-punky cold open on the lower streets of Coruscant following Elia Kane — AKA Imperial Amnesty Officer G-68 — as she swaggers in her best Rick Deckard trench coat to meet an Imperial probe droid. She makes contact with Moff Gideon, her old boss, and FINALLY! 100% direct proof she’s a spy (mindflaying aside).

The Galaxy’s Most Evil Zoom Call

It’s important to talk about context again, for folks who may have forgotten. The Mandalorian takes place 9 years ABY (after the battle of Yavin, where the first Death Star was destroyed) or, as my brain makes sense of it, 5 years after the events of Return of the Jedi. After the Empire’s defeat, the New Republic moves in to take over, but there are still lots of systems loyal to the Empire. Roving bands of Imperial Warlords are jockeying for power.

Moff Gideon walks into a room featuring a meeting of the Shadow Council, a collection of these warlords. A LOT happens here — so buckle up. 

They’re discussing how to collaborate and prepare for the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who is the firm leadership they definitely need right now. Then, almost in passing, they discuss Project Necromancer. They don’t get into details, but word on the street is that this may have to do with the reappearance of Palpatine in Rise of Skywalker. Or maybe it’s the creation of Snoke — it remains to be seen. Either way, it’s thought that this will tie current Star Wars properties into the lore of the sequel trilogy, which it definitely needs. Dave Filoni is really doin’ the lord’s work on this one. Honestly, anything they come up with will be better than just "Somehow...Palpatine came back."

We also meet Captain Pellaeon in the flesh, and it’s a fantastic portrayal. A fan favorite like his boss Thrawn, he’s another EU legends-turned-canon character. Also present on the council is Brendol Hux — General Armitage Hux’s dad. 

Fun fact: Brian Gleeson plays Brendol, who is the real-life brother of Domhnall Gleeson, who portrayed Armitage in the sequels. You love to see this kind of continuity.

Gideon expresses his concerns about the Mandalorians retaking their home planet, and receives reinforcements from the council— including Chekhov’s Praetorian guards. 

Jets & Sharks: The Mandalorian Campsite

Bo-Katan returns to the Children of the Watch with her fleet and army, and it’s not an instant party. The two clans are wary of each other at first, but a relatively easy detente occurs as the Armorer welcomes them and plans a feast. Bo has a lot of work to do to get these two camps on the same page. 

IG-11 Is Dead. Long Live IG-12!

You may have forgotten that IG-11 was in the process of trying to be restored by the Anzellians. I know I did! But they did their job — kind of. They created a new version that’s essentially a mobile exoskeleton a la Krang’s android body.

IG-12 is to be driven by you guessed it — Grogu, in an adorable scene that gives us a little language from him. He can press a button and exclaim “yes” or “no” in ways that are almost entirely comedic. Man, just thinking about how Grogu can combine extra-human mechanical prowess with Force ability gets me real excited about what’s to come.

Mandalorians Returning to Mandalore

Bo rallies a strike team to begin the first reconnaissance of their home planet as the entire fleet leaves Nevarro. As they search for the Great Forge on the devastated Mandalore, they encounter a roving landship (Locomotion with no electronics or technology! Actual sails and winches and ropes! Seeing this kind of archaic technology in Star Wars is stellar, and I'm 100% here for it.) with surviving Mandalorians, its inhabitants still loyal to Kryze.

She explains how she surrendered after the Night of a Thousand Tears and negotiated a ceasefire with Gideon — but he betrayed her and purged Mandalore, the Darksaber in his possession. 

Many of the survivors are ill, from what I can only assume is scurvy, as they've been at-land for what appears to be a while, and their first question to Bo and company is "Do you have food?"

A Knight in Shining Beskar

We get a touching moment between Bo and Dinn as he finally understands what led to the purge. He reaffirms his belief in her leadership — as well as her loyalty and character. “Your song is not yet written, I will serve you until it is.” Man, what a guy!

Meanwhile, Paz Viszla and Axe Woves are bored and decide to let their egos take the wheel and battle it out on the landship as they speed toward the former capital. Grogu steps in to stop them, his cuteness overpowering their rage. Here, we see the Jedi in him coming out — and not the rigid honor-bound Mandalorian — and honestly, often toxic — behavior he’s been exposed to. He really may turn out to be the best of both worlds. 

Ambush on Mandalore

Our heroes are attacked by a huge dragon creature (but sadly not a mythosaur) and abandon the landship, taking to the ruins of the Great Forge. Then, another ambush — this time by those flying stormtrooper-type soldiers we saw earlier in the season. An epic ground fight ensues, reminiscent of Battlefront sorties. Turns out that Moff Gideon has made this part of Mandalore into his secret Imperial base. 

A VERY Intense Conclusion

As they get surrounded, Din is separated and captured — and we see Gideon appear in his own Mandalorian-type armor. He plans to mine the planet for its beskar to make new, more powerful Darktrooper suits. He also speaks of combining Jedi, cloning, and Mandalorians to create an unstoppable fighting force — which ties together why he wanted Grogu in the first place back in season one. Maybe he wants to make a Jedi clone army? Is that even possible? What type of balance would THAT bring to the force? I have so many questions. 

As Din is carried off, the remaining Mandalorians get to work trying to escape — and our boy Paz Visla makes a final stand so everyone can escape, his machine gun overheating in a molten glow. He takes on three Praetorian guards — the Chekhov's ones mentioned in the opening! — sacrificing himself in the process. Say what you will about The Last Jedi, but the Snoke throne room battle scene with these red boys was absolutely incredible. It's great to see them again.

As is common with a lot of penultimate episodes, it appears everything is all but lost, our heroes in an impossible situation. It'll be interesting to see how much happens in the finale.

Next week, we may not get our long-awaited Thrawn episode, as he's been teased in the recent Ahsoka trailer, but we are inching close towards his appearance, it's going to be a game-changer. 

The Math

Baseline score: 7/10

Bonuses: + 3 Pellaeon! Baby Yoda in a Krang bodysuit! More Anzellian screen time! Incredible battle scenes!

Penalties: - 1 A LOT happens in this episode, but it also flies by. It’s over before you can barely blink.

Nerd coefficient: +4 Effortlessly tying together EU-Legends lore with sequel trilogy plot lines and characters is fantastic.

Gonk droid count: 0. Sadly, not a single gonk droid in this installment.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, new NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo-nominated podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, Vidalia onions, and growing corn and giving them pun names like Anacorn Skywalker. 

Review: Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold

Death by Silver is a classic murder mystery that brings gay romance and a fascinating magic system to Edwardian England.

Cover by Matthew Bright

In 2013, Amy Griswold and Melissa Scott self-published Death by Silver, going on to win a Lambda Award the following year. Now in time for the tenth anniversary, the book is being republished by Queen of Swords Press.

In this historical fantasy, magic can be learned by anyone with the right education. Ned Mathey is a metaphysician who trained at Oxford and who is finding money a bit tight after establishing his business as a practitioner. When he is approached by the father of his childhood bully to check the family's silver for a curse, he is reluctant to take the job. However, the money is decent and it is a straightforward job... up until his client turns up dead days later. To help clear his name, he seeks help from Julian Lynes, boyhood friend and lover, now a private detective.

Death by Silver deftly weaves fantasy, romance and mystery together into a seamless whole. The natural comparisons here are with KJ Charles's series A Charm of Magpies and with Jordan Hawk's Whybourne and Griffin. However, it is worth noting that the romance is different in a few key elements. Death by Silver opens with an existing relationship between the protagonists. Having met at school and become lovers, Ned and Julian drifted apart when they went to university, though never entirely lost touch. Having recently reconnected, their relationship is best characterised as friends with benefits. Each wants something more, but are uncertain of the other and unwilling to make the first move. This relies on a reluctance to communicate which may annoy some readers, even if the reasons for this reluctance are somewhat understandable on both sides.

Another difference from the comp titles is the treatment of sex. While it unequivocally takes place, the action fades to black rather than features explicitly on the page, which may suit readers of historical fantasy and mystery rather more than dedicated readers of romance and erotica.

However, even though the story features no explicit sex, it is by no means without landmines. I would give content warnings for bullying, as well as physical and sexual abuse. Most of this occurs in flashback scenes detailing Ned and Julian's time at boarding school together.

The main characters are a study in contrasts, tending to fall into the sunshine/storm-cloud trope but with a little more nuance than usual. Ned is almost universally beloved, a sportsman who also has a talent for magic. While he may not be exactly cheery all the time, he nevertheless has a relatively sanguine outlook on life.

Julian, on the other hand, tends to be the sharper of the two. He has an ongoing war with his landlady and a tendency to use magic in the place of drugs, to energise or calm himself down. He has more of an affinity for literature and art, though he detests the opera, and is from a lower class background than Ned.

Unsurprisingly for a mystery, there is a strong theme of justice throughout the book. This is one of the more subtle areas of difference between the main characters. Julian, of course, is the more extreme of the two. Even as a boy, he had a well developed sense of injustice and is inclined to speak out, paired with a willingness to take matters into his own hands where society turns a blind eye. Ned tended to go along with the conventionally accepted, even if it isn't really fair. He tempered Julian's more extreme impulses. As they grow and mature, these attitudes shift closer together.

As is often the case in m/m romance, the female characters are rather less detailed than their male counterparts and tended to serve as plot functions. However, I recognise that it is hard to flesh out every character and still have a plausibly long suspect list for a murder mystery. One of the best realised female characters was Ned's secretary, Miss Frost, who was a charming during her somewhat rare appearances. Keen to study magic, she is hampered by society's attitudes regarding what is appropriate for women. Nevertheless, she is able to offer some important insights that further the investigation.

Which brings me to the magic system. This was for me one of the most fascinating elements of the book. Death by Silver is the first in the Lynes and Mathey series, a punny name that, in addition to referring to the title characters, is also an allusion to the magic system. Magic or planetary squares form the basis for this system, and are an element that has been part of occult practice for hundreds of years. Much like sudoku, planetary squares are a grid of numbers where each line and column adds up to the same number—generally one significant to the planet associated with the particular grid. This is then paired with alphabets so that sigils can be generated by tracing a path between the numbers that correspond to the letters of any given word. Hence lines and math.

The story at times lacks a bit of clarity around how a given spell is cast, perhaps relying on knowledge of the historical process to fill in the gaps or simply allowing space for readers to use their imaginations. However, where it excels is in the worldbuilding tied to the magic. Planetary squares lend themselves well to the kind of institutionalised learning that's featured in Death by Silver; they become just another thing to be learned alongside multiplication tables and Latin vocabulary. This is reinforced by adding a kind of grammar system to the construction of spells—get the word order wrong and you could have quite the mess on your hands.

There's also an interesting intersection with the time period. While I'm a little hazy on the exact year, the technology and fashion suggest the Edwardian Era. Certainly, we're post Industrial Revolution, with its ability to mass produce items. This includes magic kits; trace the sigils as they are laid out for you and you too can trap a burglar or banish your acne. Or, more likely, you could lose your money and end up needing to call in a trained metaphysician to clean up the result. Such details show the consideration that has been given to the worldbuilding and provide a wonderful richness to the setting.

The plot is a classic mystery format. I found the ultimate villain perhaps a touch predictable, but not overly so.

All in all, I found it a delight to read and can easily see how it earned a Lammy. The sequel is due to be released in December and I am already looking forward to it.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for excellent magic world building, +1 for deft balancing of fantasy, romance and mystery elements

Penalties: -1 for flat female characters, -1 for the lack of communication between characters

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

POSTED BY: Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a writer, binge reader, tabletop gamer & tea addict. @elizabeth_fitz@ wandering.shop

References

Death by Silver. Griswold, Amy, and Scott, Melissa (Queen of Swords Press, 2023)

The Magpie Lord. Charles, K.J. (KJC Books, 2013)

Widdershins. Hawk, Jordan L. (Widdershins Press LLC, 2012)

Review: Unraveller, by Frances Hardinge

Undoing the curse is only the start.

If you have ever stood by, quietly seething, swallowing down a boiling fury that cannot find an outlet because you are too powerless to express it, then this book will strike you with a deep resonance. It is, fundamentally, a ‘what-if’ for those people who have writhed in the grip of impotent anger: What if you had the power to express it, to defy social strictures, to channel your rage into an outlet that would make them pay? 

In the country of Raddith, which lives in an uneasy equilibrium with the creatures of the Wilds next door, the furious, wronged, indignant, or malevolent among us are granted that outlet. The gift comes from spiderlike creatures from the Wilds, known as Little Brothers because an affectionate, friendly name blunts—however ineffectively—people's fear of their terrible power. Little Brothers find people nursing a deep sense of wrong, and grant them a curse egg, which grows and matures inside the wronged, nurtured by their hurt and indignation, until they let fly, turning the target of their anger to stone, mist, a fishhook, a bat, a sentient harp, a murderous monster who must be cast out and ostracized from all she ever knew and loved. The shape each curse takes is dictated by the nature of the wrong that was committed, because a punishment is all the more satisfying when it fits.

Naturally, a nation plagued by cursers and cursed must develop an infrastructure to handle this. Institutions are constructed to lock up cursers—or indeed, potential cursers, because the best way to prevent a curse is to find the carrier of a curse egg and lock them up before they’ve hurt anyone. After all,

There were telltale signs of a potential curser, if you knew what to look for, so they could be identified. Some showed flashes of uncontainable rage or saw things other people couldn’t. No, it wasn’t fair to lock up an innocent person, but what else could you do? It would be like saying you couldn’t take an arrow from a drawn bow because it hadn’t hurt anyone yet.

Because, you see, everyone knows that if you have a curse egg, you will use it. And if you’ve had one, you will probably get another, because everyone knows that a curser will always curse again. Always. Everyone knows this.

Kellen, a teenage boy cast out from his family of weavers due to his uncanny ability to unravel any woven thing merely by getting too close, also possesses the ability to unravel curses. Together with Nettle, a girl who’d been cursed into a heron until he’d intervened, he travels Raddith, taking commissions from people who want their loved ones released from their curses. 

Unravelling curses is not a simple matter. The first stage of every investigation requires Kellen and Nettle to learn everything about the nature of the curse—who cast it, to be sure, but also why. Which means every investigation must begin with the question, ‘what did you do to deserve this?’ In this world, victims must be blamed, not because they are necessarily culpable (although, to be sure, many are a right piece of work), but because the nature of how curses work requires that the curser feel wronged and hard done by. The work is as much psychology as it is magic.

These psychological causes and consequences of cursing form the real strength of this book. The writing is equally sympathetic to both curser and cursed. Yes, if you’ve spent thirty years as a terrifying monster in the wilderness, luring people with your siren voice to a swamp where you drown them and eat them, you are not okay when the curse is unravelled and you must face what you’ve done as a human. But, similarly, if you’ve been wronged so deeply (or feel that you’ve been wronged so deeply) that you are willing to turn someone into a terrifying swamp monster, you’re equally not okay. Hardinge allows the cursers to speak their bit with their own voices, never losing sight of the harm that they’ve done, but also not glossing over the harm that was done to them that spawned their curse egg in the first place.

Throughout the book, we repeatedly run into the message that you must treat the harm—whether the original wrong that was done, or the aftermath of the unravelled curse—with as much care as you treat the technical unravelling of the magic itself. Kellen’s real skill lies in unravelling the curses, not ministering to the mental health of the uncursed and curser alike, but just because you’re not good at something doesn’t mean you get a free pass to neglect it. 

It’s a dark and difficult message. Indeed, many of Hardinge’s books have quite a grim undertone to them. Although her books are nominally YA, she does not give her young main characters the naivety or impetuousness that so frequently characterizes teenage protagonists of YA books. Kellen and Nettle are persistently distrusting of adults, and their distrust is usually well-founded. It makes for cynical story, but satisfying reading: A too-trusting character who gets duped is just frustrating, and that never happens in Hardinge’s books. Characters must earn Kellen and Nettle’s trust. At the same time, though, their perpetual caution and second-guessing of every decision regarding whom to trust becomes exhausting. Yet that exhaustion, that dilemma, is the very heart of the difficulty of their task, because trust is a key component in treating mental health. And as they learn at the end, the path forward is going to require a substantial amount of that. 

The world-building of this tale supports the story beautifully, starting with one of the finest prologues I’ve ever encountered. The Wilds, which constitute the source of everything dark and magical about the world, are shrouded in a veil of uninterestingness. People’s minds slide right past them; views of them from the sea make them look like a pathetic scrubby bit of nothing, hardly worth the trouble to think about, let alone explore. Yet within them are all sorts of magical beings: the spidery Little Brothers who grant curse eggs; the carnivorous marsh-horses who form bonds with humans at the cost of an eye and—effectively—a life; the Dancing Star, who detaches its hands to form a cage that traps and eat souls; the Bookbearers, who oversee and enforce all agreements, whether or not the speaker realizes that they’re entering into it at the time. (Magically enforced bargains that operate by rigid adherence to the wording, rather than good faith respect for the intention, are my favorite kind of bargain.)

It is a wonderful instantiation of the wild and weird kind of magical realm, filled not with the twee twinkling Tinkerbell fairies, but the magical Other, akin to Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies, to Clarke’s Raven King and Faerie kingdom. It is a realm whose blue and orange morality is so far askew from human dimensions that people who live on the borders of the Wilds shut their doors at night and don’t let anyone in; while people who live within the Wilds themselves welcome everyone to their homes without question, because they vulnerable to terrifying punishment if they give the slightest offense to any of the inhabitants. Indeed, so satisfying is this kind of magic that it is rather disappointing when some of the Wilds creatures turn out to operate according to human standards of kindness. It is, to be sure, a relief to Kellen and Nettle, who have received precious little of it in their wanderings, but it felt unearned here, where kindness, and trust, and goodness, are granted grudgingly, if at all. 

But then, that trust in kindness must be granted if the curses are not just to be unravelled, but fully healed.

Highlights

Nerd coefficient: 8/10, well worth your time and attention

• An understanding of mental health, without getting bogged down in a Trauma Plot
• Weird and wild magical creatures
• Appropriately suspicious youngsters

CLARA COHEN lives in Scotland in a creaky old building with pipes for gas lighting still lurking under her floorboards. She is an experimental linguist by profession, and calligrapher and Islamic geometric artist by vocation. During figure skating season she does blather on a bit about figure skating. She is on mastodon at wandering.shop/@ergative

Reference: Unraveller. Frances Hardinge. [Macmillan Children's Books, 2022].

Contributor Profile: Ann Michelle Harris

Today we welcome a new contributor to the flock: Ann Michelle Harris

Raised in Atlanta with a degree from Penn, Ann loves character driven sci-fi and anime,
escapist books, loud cats, and vacations at the beach. She is a problem solver by day and fiction
writer by night with a short story featured in the crime anthology Hook, Line and Sinker and a
fantasy novel scheduled for 2024. Find her on Twitter at @_AnnHarris_ or on Instagram at
@ann_michelle_harris25

NAME: Ann Michelle Harris

SECRET UNDISCLOSED LOCATION: Atlanta, the filming location of the best Marvel movies.

NERD SPECIALIZATION(S): TV, movies, some anime

MY PET PEEVES IN NERD-DOM ARE: killing the Black character first.

VAMPIRES, WEREWOLVES, ZOMBIES, ALIENS OR ROBOTS: Aliens!

RIGHT NOW I'M READING: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

...AND A COUPLE BOOKS I RECENTLY FINISHED ARE: Everything Inside by Edwidge Dant, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

NEXT TWO ON QUEUE ARE: Binti Home by Nnedi Okorafor, Faery Tale by Stephen King

WHEN THE WEATHER SUCKS OUTSIDE I'M MOST LIKELY TO BE... writing my novel

MY FAVORITE SUPERHERO AND SUPER-VILLAIN ARE: Storm and Magneto

IF I WERE A SUPERHERO/VILLAIN, MY POWER WOULD BE: Teleportation

THE BEST COMIC FILM OF THE PAST 5 YEARS IS: Black Panther

THE WORST COMIC FILM OF THE PAST 5 YEARS IS: Aquaman, maybe?

I JUST WATCHED Spy x Family AND IT WAS AWESOME.

I JUST WATCHED Russian Doll, Season 2 AND IT WAS TERRIBLE. (Loved Season 1)

EVERYONE SHOULD SEE Everything Everywhere All at Once BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

BEST SCIENCE/SPECULATIVE FICTION SHOW OF THE PAST 10 YEARS: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

NAME A BOOK YOU *NEED* A MOVIE OF (OR VICE VERSA): N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season


Welcome, Ann!