Month: November 2023

book review

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

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The spirit bares its teethThe Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew joseph White
Genre: historical fiction/fantasy
I read it as a(n): ARC
Length: 384 pp
Her Grace’s rating: 5 out of 5 stars

In White’s version of Victorian England, some people are born with violet eyes. These people can cut through the Veil, opening a portal to the realm of the spirits of the dead. Many of these violet-eyed people, called Speakers, are women who are highly sought as brides, but since this is Victorian England, they are naturally considered too mentally feeble and physically unsuited to handle being a Speaker. That’s a whole lot of bullshit right there. Female Speakers who are deemed to be unfit, or in some other way rebel against the patriarchy, are diagnosed with Veil Sickness and sent away for treatment, similarly to actual Victorian women who dared to have a mind of her own and got sent off for a nice little lobotomy. Such is the lot of Silas Bell, a trans boy railing against a society that doesn’t see his true self and being unable to attend medical school as a result. Silas is sent to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanatorium for Girls where other wayward females are stashed away until they are “cured,” usually by forced marriage. There’s a code word for “rape” if I ever heard it. While there, Silas learns that Braxton’s has a horrific secret that the headmaster will guard at any cost.

This superlative novel speaks directly to the trauma of not being seen or valued as one’s authentic self. Even today, many of us know the rage, fear, and despair of living in a society that would see us hidden away, eliminated, and which perpetuates a very deliberate erasure of the things that hold meaning for us. White, himself a trans man, has woven a delicate web of a novel, drawing on current events and lived experience, to craft an exciting plot, complex worldbuilding, and memorable characters who readers are bound to care about deeply. Historical details such as Victorian social mores add to an already intense and vivid story.

A quick warning: there are some gory quasi-medical scenes. Maybe skim over those if you are squeamish. I’m not and felt that the gore added intensity to the plot as well as an additional layer of desperation and hopelessness that makes you want to burn everything to the fucking ground.

I recommend this with the greatest enthusiasm. Fuck the patriarchy, friends!

Weirdly, my daughter is reading White’s debut book, Hell Followed with Us, for a project in her English class. Neither of us realized we were reading the same author until we both, at the same moment, looked at each other’s books while sitting on the couch and said, “holy crap, I’m reading his other book right now!”

This review was originally published on the Historical Novels Review website, minus the swears. 

historical fiction

The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall

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Baskerville HallThe Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall by Ali Standish
Genre: historical fantasy/YA
I read it as a(n): ARC
Length: 336 pp
Her Grace’s rating: 2 out of 5 stars

The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall by Ali Standish mingles elements of the historical Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous series, Sherlock Holmes into a steampunk-influenced adventure that’s reminiscent of a jaunt through Hogwart’s. A young Arthur Conan Doyle, living hand to mouth with his sisters, mother, and alcoholic father in Edinburgh, jumps at the chance to improve his family’s fortunes when he is offered a spot at an exclusive boarding school, Baskerville Hall. When he arrives – by airship! – Doyle settles in and quickly establishes himself as one of the most promising students currently in residence. When a series of break-ins, thefts, and threatening appearances by shadowy figures occur, events conspire to put Doyle’s education and life at risk.

This book will surely appeal to many young readers, but adult readers will wonder how the fuck Sherlock Holmes ended up in Hogwarts. At times, it felt as though the author were merely replacing names from Harry Potter with ones from Sherlock Holmes and dusting her hands off afterward. While that Potteresque aspect of the book might be forgiven since a lot of fantasy is pretty derivative anyway, it is harder to overlook the fantasy aspects as a whole. “Fantasy” isn’t usually what readers expect from anyone with the name Sherlock Holmes attached to it, so this book felt very out of alignment. The Sherlock Holmes series lends itself well to steampunk, no argument with that at all, and author Ali  Standish does a good job incorporating components of that genre into this novel. However, I was expecting a logic book. Where’s my damn logic book? In other words, it lacks the investigative style and logic that is associated with Sherlock Holmes and expected in any retelling of the great detective’s stories. 

To give credit where it is due, the story is filled with interesting and well-crafted characters. Real people such as Doyle himself mingle with his fictional characters such as Dr. Watson, creating an intriguing cast. I loved the diversity in the people the best. They’re not all homogenous and bland; they are vivid and have personalities that are deeply developed, given the relative shortness of the book and its targeted age level.

Younger readers will no doubt be thrilled with this story, but I don’t think it would appeal very much to many well-read adults.

This was originally published on the Historical Novels Review website. That review was nicer, though it said basically the same thing as here.

book review

The Prince and the Coyote

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The prince and the coyoteThe Prince and the Coyote by David Bowles
Genre: historical fiction
I read it as a(n): ARC
Length: 424 pp
Her Grace’s rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Set in 1418, pre-Columbian Mexico, a young nobleman comes of age in a time of tremendous upheaval. The Mexican national hero, Nezahualcoyotl, a dreamer and poet as well as the Crown Prince of Tetzcoco (modern Texcoco), is sent to an elite school to learn the many duties of being a royal. His world is shattered when an uprising, led in part by his illegitimate half-brother, leads to the deaths of all of Nezahualcoyotl’s family and sends Nezahualcoyotl himself into exile. Complex political strategy, military brilliance, and sheer stubborn determination to reclaim his throne keep Nezahualcoyotl going as he forges new alliances and fights for his rightful throne.

The world building in this novel was exceptional. Bowles took great pains to create a living, breathing world that appeals to modern readers. The labyrinthine politics involved in the relationships between the various city-states of Mexico at the time are fascinating. That aspect of the novel was certainly the strongest. The battle scenes, though sometimes feeling a little rushed, were exciting and detailed. Learning more about the weapons and battle tactics of this time period was intriguing and made me want to learn more. Similarly, I appreciated learning about daily life for this region and time period.

I have two minor quibbles: the book is marketed as a YA but because of the complexity of the plot, it definitely reads like an adult novel. I think a lot of younger readers would be bored with this.

Also, even though the story quickly grabbed my attention, I was almost undone by the names. While I appreciate, and usually insist upon, historical accuracy, this might be an instance where it would be acceptable to shorten some names to make this book more readable, even if that isn’t technically accurate. It would have been so much easier to read and keep straight all the characters if they were actually called Fasting Coyote or whatever the translation of their name would be. 

Overall, The Prince and the Coyote is a gripping, enjoyable epic through a period of history that the U.S. largely skips right over. Warmly recommended. 

book review

To Be Taught, If Fortunate

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To Be Taught, If Fortunate

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Genre: SF
I read it as a(n): audiobook
Narrator: Brittany Pressley
Length: 4:30:00
Her Grace’s rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

This novella tells the story of 4 astronauts who volunteered for a decades-long mission to explore other worlds. Because of the distances, travel between planets would be done by the ship so the crew could be in suspension. They don’t explore in hopes of finding a planet to terraform. Instead, each time they wake up in orbit around a new planet, they have different bodies that are adapted to the planet’s environment. They send their research home to Earth, which changes drastically in between their sleep cycles, even though to the crew, they only left a few months ago.

So this was the first anything I ever read by Becky Chambers. I fucking loved it. One of my coworkers said that I needed to read Chambers’ debut novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I have actually had it sitting on my shelf for a few years and have gotten around to it yet. To Be Taught…was a book club selection and I’m really glad it was. It will be the impetus I needed to finally read Chambers’ other books. 

I thought that altering the humans’ bodies to fit the planet rather than the other way around was a cool idea. I would think it would be so much easier to do that than to terraform a whole planet just for 4 people. 

The worldbuilding, history, and character development were all phenomenal, especially considering that this was such a short book. I listened to the audio version which was only 4.5 hours; the print version is 153 pages. The crew were all diverse and had a distinct voice within the story. I thought it was all very nicely done.

I also loved the title. It is a quote from NASA’s Golden Record, the recordings from Earth that were sent out with the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes. Specifically, it is from the then-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kurt Waldheim, who wrote, “We step out of our Solar System into the Universe, seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of this immense Universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.” I can hardly even write the words down without tearing up. Look what we can do when we put aside petty irrelevancies like religion, skin color, sex, or geographic boundaries. Imagine what we could do if we eliminated all these superficial limitations and really became a true global society.

Cosmic Cliff of the Carina Nebula (JWST)