😍😍😍 Adrian Tchaikovsky's Science Fiction and a Memoir by Amy Griffin

 

The more I read of Adrian Tchaikovsky, the more respect I have for his creative way of thinking about the intersection of science, the unknown, and the maybe possible. Alien Clay reminds me of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago because it is set in a deadly labor camp on a prison planet called Kiln. The leadership, the Commander, wants to make scientific discoveries that will make him famous. He drives his prisoners to make discoveries that conform to "acceptable" science on a planet seeking to colonize the bodies and minds of the humans transplanted there. It's terrifically creepy and scary with enough science to feel plausible. 

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    I don't know how I came across the book. I was on a waiting list for it and jumped into reading before realizing it was a memoir, not a novel. In The Tell, "tell" has several meanings. One is a "tell" that gives observers an understanding about someone they don't have, like an eye twitch when you're lying or crossing your arms when feeling attacked. Amy Griffin's tell was her perfectionism. Another meaning is "to tell." As one of her daughters pointed out, a part of Amy Griffin feels missing. Griffin explores why she is that way. The book starts with trigger warnings about sexual abuse, so the reader can guess at what will be discovered. Griffen had buried her horrendous abuse so profoundly that she didn't remember it. Brains are excellent at protecting us from damage. What saves us children, eats us up as adults. I appreciate Amy Griffin's forthrightness and gentleness in sharing her trek as she comes to know and tell her story.

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    And Put Away Childish Things and The Expert System's Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky have wildly different environments and characters, but they are similar. I have fallen into a spiral of reading Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I'm loving it. These short books are quite different, but they share the common theme of how to make sense of the protagonist's mysterious, dangerous world.  Who am I? What is my place in it? Those ideas probably all fit under the coming-of-age trope. 

    There is an idea that writers only write one book over and over. Adrian Tchaikovsky does a fantastic job of world-building each place and populating it with emotionally authentic characters doing weird stuff, in weird places, with weird companions and enemies. He is thought-provoking and entertaining. And sometimes a bit creepy.

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🤖🛸🐷🚀🧑‍🚀👯AI Friend or Foe? Two Books Explore

 

    I enjoy Adrian Tchaikovsky's science fiction and have read several of his books, like his Children of Time series. Service Model takes place on Earth. The protagonist is a valet robot named Charles whose days are an endless repetition of caring for his master, the only human in the house, that is run and maintained by robots. One day, Charles does something he'd never done before, changing everything for him, for robots, and for the world. This started slowly, but I persevered and was captivated by the ideas, the mysterious plot, and by Charles. It reminded me of Pinocchio. Charles goes through different places and experiences, meeting big, exploitative characters with his sidekick that doubles as the voice in his head that leads him toward his big moment.

 Here are reviews of other Adrian Tchaikovsky books: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Adrian

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    Come & Get It by Kiley Reid has a cast of eight women. Their backstories have similarities, but differ in how family and authorities respond. Once, a character, when she was sixteen, almost hit a man with her car, and he had a heart attack and died. She receives support, counseling, and understanding. Another character accidentally kills a dog, and she is shamed and shunned. Reid weaves these experiences into the choices they make in the book. As someone who frequently wonders what causes someone to do, say, or act in unwise ways, I found this book fascinating. It has a large build-up to a critical moment. The aftermath is surprising to me. Reid's writing is tight and suspenseful. 

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   I have recently discovered the writer Mur Lafferty, a Hugo Award Finalist. She writes Sci-Fi that reminds me of Connie Willis, my favorite author. When I visited her website (https://murverse.com/about/), I saw that Connie Willis is one of her influential authors. This week, I listened to Six Wakes. A spaceship carries six crew members to a planet to colonize life. Cloning technology has been established, and many people use it to extend their lives. Maria Arena awakens in a clone vat without memories of her time on the ship save for her orientation: meaning she has died and the last mind map available for her clone is the start of the voyage. Around her are her fellow crew members also emerging from clone vats, plus several dead bodies. It is a locked room mystery. One of the crew members killed the others and then died as well. But no one has memories of their last days, which makes it difficult to know who to trust. Maria, the lowliest member of the crew, races to solve the mystery before the killer remembers and seeks to accomplish their mission. A great book from a sci-fi perspective, not only predicting cloning but also many of the problems surrounding clones. The book is a tantalizing mystery. So good!

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🤖Surprise! No Dragons This Week, but Plenty of Aliens 👽, Books 📚, and Creepy Dystopian Future📱

 

    Hum by Helen Phillips is a look into a possible dystopian future. I found it scary because it felt so very possible. A woman loses her job teaching AI how to be more human. In financial desperation, she agrees to an experimental surgical procedure that would make her unreadable to the ubiquitous surveillance, screens, and targeted advertising that pervades every aspect of living. With the money, she buys her family an extravagant trip to a hotel/botanical garden. There, they smell unpolluted air, drink untainted water, and lie in the grass under a tree. An impossibility in their current city life in a cramped apartment, where they are behind in the rent. She hopes this time in paradise will be a respite from their daily lives, but even there, serpents hide.

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    Mark Lawrence's library trilogy ends with The Book That Held Her Heart. Lawrence finishes well. It is obvious Lawrence is well-versed in fantasy literature, and there are Easter Eggs in the text that made me smile. The main characters, Livira and Evar, are apart in time and space and seek a way back toward each other, and want to end the great war at the heart of the library. Lawrence tackles the scourge of tribalism and the need for a common enemy to rally against. The characters visit a Jewish book store in Nazi Germany on Kristallenacht and find similarities to their world. The infinite library is troubled, and its structure is collapsing. The final book is a fitting conclusion to a great series.

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    My favorite author is Connie Willis, who writes incredible science fiction, and Mur Lafferty has a similar vibe. I reaher series'she first and second booes: The Midsolar Murders. The first book, Station Eternity, introduces Mallory Viridian, who seems to have the unfortunate ability to attract murder. Wherever she goes, murders happen, which she then solves. The police and the FBI suspect her even though she solves each murder--and there are many. Her family and friends recognize that she's innocent, but still fear being collateral damage and keep their distance. So she travels to a space station with only two other humans to live among multiple alien species, hoping her murder curse won't follow her there. Guess what happens? The premise is clever and well thought out. Malory makes friends among the variety of sentient beings who dwell there. It is as if Star Trek and Murder She Wrote had a space baby that lived in Cabot Cove.

    After finishing the first, I immediately started the second book, Chaos Terminal. Lafferty continues the story. More humans visit Eternity with designs on exploiting the aliens for their own nefarious reasons. As Mallory would say, it's all about the connections.

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🐺💧🐺Mystery, ❤️‍🩹Romance, and 🐷High and 🐉Low Fantasy

    The Grey Wolf is #19 in the series, Chief Inspector Armande Gamache by Louise Penny. I can count on Penny to bring a sly humor, intriguing mystery, and mouth-watering food descriptions. Her latest book is as twisty and heartwarming as her previous ones. I remember watching the Starsky and Hutch TV show. In one show, Hutch's fiancée is killed. In the next episode, it's back to business as usual. Louis Penny's characters are continually affected by what has happened to them in previous books. It makes them more life-like and vulnerable. Her plots are usually based in the terrible possible--like terrorist attacks or greed overriding compassion. This is one of my favorite mystery series.

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    Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert is the first book I've read by the British Romance writer. She writes funny, sarcastic characters that deal with relatable issues like chronic illness and social anxiety without resorting to easy answers. Her main character, Chloe Brown, is trying to figure out life with fibromyalgia, so she makes a list of scary things to do, like go camping and travel the world with nothing but hand luggage. She is bright and struggling. She meets her new building super, another wounded person trying to find his footing after being knocked down by life. It adheres to the Rom-com rules. You know they'll end up together, but the journey there is fun. 

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    I read the series, The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander, many years ago in middle school. My book club is reading Newbery award winners, and this month we read the final book in the series, The High King. I have enjoyed the books we've read, but this one wasn't a great read on its own because it is the culmination of the series. The events in the previous books are dim in my memory. I could tell that an interaction or character was significant, but I didn't know why. To fully enjoy this book, I would need to read the entire series. The large cast of characters was skillfully rendered with distinctive mannerisms and voices. My primary feeling upon finishing the book was disappointment that I hadn't started at the beginning. Lloyd Alexander's characters agonize over choices that resonate. I recommend the series, especially for middle schoolers.

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    The Black Powder War is book #3 of the Temeraire series. Our dragon, Temeraire, is still in China, where he originated. Life for dragons in China is integrated with everyday life, and dragons are treated as equals, in contrast with Britain, where dragons are considered domesticated beasts on the level of a horse. Lawrence, his captain, wrestles with wanting Temeraire to flourish and also serve the British nation honorably. That is a moral dilemma that has grown throughout the series so far. Lawrence is portrayed as quite conventional despite being in the Dragon Corps. It is the height of the Napoleonic War, and Britain is in danger from Napoleon. 

    The history aspect is interesting. It has caused me to look at several Wikipedia articles, and I want to read a book about them when I find one I like. At times, the pace of the story suffers from getting bogged down in the minutiae of the war; however, there are still dragons. Novik has considered how dragons would best be deployed as a fighting force.

 I look forward to continuing the series.

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🐉 Dragons, 🐦‍⬛Avenging Birds, and 😐 Noobs

 

Book two of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik takes place in China, where dragons are more commonplace than in England. I like how Novik thinks about several aspects of a world with dragons, like whether a country could raise enough food to support dragons and dragon bloodlines. Book two wasn't as exciting as book one, but the British and dragons are compelling. I plan to continue reading the series until I finish all nine books, though not urgently. The writing and plot are solid.

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  Lucy Foley excels at writing creepy, suspenseful stories full of broken, struggling people who hurt others and themselves. It gave me pause when I was deciding whether or not to read The Midnight Feast. I know I will go down the dark alleys of the human experience. She has unforeseen zigzags to the final page. There is no moment I can let my guard down because there is a plot twist to reveal. The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley is a suspenseful, bleak mystery that kept me guessing. Her characters are layers of light and shadow. The ending was immensely satisfying.

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Paris+Apartment

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    Audible gave me a free listen to the Lit RPG The Mayor of Noobtown by Ryan Rimmel. This is an eight-book series, so if they hook me, it's to their financial advantage. It is a lightweight, fun book. The premise (like most Lit RPGs) is that a real person finds themselves in some sort of video game needing to survive by leveling up and defeating monsters. The humor is juvenile, so it made me smile. Having a pet or magical creature as a guide is a feature of all Lit RPGs. Jim, the main character, is stuck with an unreliable guide, a level one demon needing his help. It creates an interesting symbiotic relationship. The book ends on a cliffhanger. 

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🐲🌊🦄🦛🧌🐙 Help! I'm Caught in a Series Loop!

 

    I have read and enjoyed Naomi Novik's series Scholomance and several of her stand-alones like Uprooted and Spinning Silver. I am pleased she has another series, Temeraire, of which  His Majesty's Dragon is the start. I have been reluctant to read another series about dragons and the people who ride them. The book captivated me from the beginning, with an origin story set in the Napoleonic Wars, in which dragons fight for both sides. They are trained and treated like cavalry horses. However, Temeraire is different. Captain Will Lawrence fights on the sea for England. The ship he captains captures a French ship with valuable treasure: an unhatched dragon egg. It hatches early and bonds with Captain Lawrence, changing his life's trajectory. He must now join the Dragon Corp. Both dragon and rider must learn to fight as a team in a service that isn't well respected and is resentful of the newcomers. Novik paints vivid action scenes within the fast-paced plot. The characters are witty and likable. I'm hooked!

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    Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez is the second in the duology, Secrets of the Nile.  I reviewed What the River Knows here: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2025/02/books-with-magic-and-magical-food.html. I found Ibañez to be effusive in her descriptions.  The plot moved forward, but it occasionally gets bogged down in minutiae. The world she's built contains trace magic, but it is used as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Life-threatening injury? Surprise, the main character finds a healing potion. Need to communicate with someone far away? Oh, look, someone brought a magic teacup that makes that happen.  I didn't like how it ended. It reminded me of a Mission Impossible episode.  I would read more from Ibañez because she has clever ideas and creates interesting characters. I'm betting she will improve over time. 

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    I heard a quote recently, and I can't chase it down. Still, the gist was that people sought escape when anxious, like how movies boomed during the Great Depression. I have been into fantasy a great deal lately. Hmmm. I have read everything Matt Dinniman has published--at least according to GoodReads. The Hobgoblin Riot is the second book of his Dominion of Blades (DOM) series. He wrote it before his more famous series, Dungeon Crawler Carl.  I can see the seeds of characters and plot lines being explored in DOM. It is a fascinating peek behind the creative curtain. The book ends on a cliffhanger, and I'm curious if Dinniman plans to revisit the series.  I do like things tidily wrapped up.

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🔮🪐🌟🐸🦹‍♂️🐉Childhood Classic, Fantasy, Dystopian Future, and Historical Fiction

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle was the March pick for my book club. We are having a great time reading Newberry Award Winners. Not everyone is a fan of Sci-Fi/Fantasy, so I wanted to know how this book would land with some of the others. It is over 50 years old! It has held up well. I appreciate how genuine the characters are portrayed: an angry fifteen-year-old girl, a popular athlete with a tough home life, and, of course, the beings from outer space. L'Engle has universal themes about the pain of growing up, being caught between good and evil, and the importance of love. What makes the book endure is that these topics are not dealt with tritely but sincerely and with great compassion. It's a winner.

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    Apprentice to a Villain is the second in a series by Hannah Nicole  Maehrer. Fun fact: The series grew out of TikToks Maehrer, which was made around the idea of what it would be like to be an assistant to a villain whose job involves torture and general evilness. Here is a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDoN6GpjTb8&t=187s

    The second book continues the story with some problems solved and others cropping up. Maehrer developed her characters, which grew and changed. There are many nascent romances. She leans heavily on the frenemies-to-lovers trope. I found it annoying that the main characters, The Villain and Evie, his former assistant and now apprentice, refuse to admit they love each other, but I'm also amused at the ways the author finds for them to "have to" kiss.

I'm looking forward to the next book.

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    I have seen several ads for the movie The Wild Robot and decided to read the book before watching it. It is YA fiction. The Wild Robot by Peter Brown is about a robot from a shipment stranded on an unpopulated island. The Robot, Ros, is anthropomorphized, having feelings and forming relationships. I listened to the audiobook but understood the physical book has fantastic illustrations by Peter Brown. There are more books in the series. I would file this book under heartwarming.

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    A friend recommended The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff. It is historical fiction about British female spies who aided the French Resistance in World War II. They trained for functions but primarily worked as covert radio operators. I am somewhat burnt out on World War II books, but I tried it. The story is told by three different women: two women in 1944 and a war widow in 1946. The story of the women clumsily fit around the story of actual events and felt forced, but it was still enjoyable and compelling. I'm glad I read it. 

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💀🌇🚀 A Week Where I Read Lots of Books

 

    How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler was recommended because I've read some LITRPG (Literary Role Playing Game) and liked it. This was a similar plot type of a human gamer, Davi, who has been caught in a fantasy game for about a thousand years. On this restart, instead of trying to lead the good guys to victory, she chooses to try and become the Dark Lord because that's who has won every time so far. Here is a motto I occasionally tell myself when making decisions, especially about a reoccurring issue: If you want something different, try something different. I liked the setup and the feisty lead character. The further I went, the less I liked it. The main character thinks about sex frequently--the reader is party to her thoughts-- and it took away from the story for me. What was the author's point? The story or the sex? My conclusion is the sex. I found the story anemic.

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    It has been a while since I've read a memoir. I listen to Kara Swisher's podcast, Pivot, and she frequently refers to Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. Tech business is something I know little about, so I was lost at times by the events and people she mentions. Swisher is a feisty person reporting on Tech personalities and the businesses they've started from its earliest days. I learned things.

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    The Restaurant of Lost Recipes in The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood. I read the first of the series and enjoyed it. There is a thread of magical realism that runs throughout the book. A remembered meal can restore the heart. There are compelling reasons customers come to the detectives to have them recreate meals from the past. Kashiwai describes his food so well that I come away hungry. I looked up unfamiliar dishes to see what was in them and what they looked like. Each chapter contains an entire story, making the book easy to pick up and put down. There are more in the series awaiting translation. Hurray!

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    I was not a fan of Call Me Home: A Memoir by Alexancra Auder. Auder was raised by her mother in New York's Chelsea Hotel, famous for its bohemian guests and residents. Recounting her childhood is intercut with her current life as a mother. The mother/daughter relationship is a strong theme. Viva Supreme was a Warhol model. As a mother, she vacillated between permissive and despotic. Auder relates her story with painful honesty. She recounts her struggles as a mother to a teenage daughter while still managing her mother's wild mood swings. I wanted a tidier story that showed triumph in the face of tragedy. Auder is wise to show the messiness of relationships. 

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    Matt Dinniman is the author of the Dungeon Crawler Carl(DCC) series, which I have enjoyed, so I'm reading his backlist. Dominion of Blades predates DCC. It contains seeds of ideas that have fuller expression in the DCC. The characters aren't as flamboyant as those he later creates, but he still has a group of unlikely heroes who fight for one another. If you want more Matt Dinniman, this is almost OK.

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🫐😘⛪️ Fantasy and Romance AND Theology!

 

    I have fallen hard for the romantasy genre. The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst is a solid writer of the marriage between fantasy and romance. This book is appropriate for anyone--grandma to tweener--not too spicy but interesting with likable, honorable characters; a confident and surprising plot; and a delightful mish-mash of creatures.

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    A writer I've especially enjoyed lately is Katherine Center, defender of the Romance genre. I am working through her backlist as they become available. This week's reading was Happiness for Beginners. I first watched the movie of this not knowing it was based on Center's book. A woman has gone through a recent divorce and decides to join an Outward Bound-type hiking trip to reset her priorities. She has never hiked before. Her much younger brother's good-looking friend is on the same journey. She is not pleased. What will happen? I've read enough of her work to detect a pattern: a woman in a life transition (i.e, divorce, career change, big opportunity), someone with a medical condition, past demons will be faced, and there will be kissing. It is a formula Center does well. 

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    To those who think I only read fiction, not only, just mostly. I didn't read John M. Frame's Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief, a book of 1220 pages, in a week or even a year. It took me three years to get completely through it, listening off and on to the audiobook. It is intended more as a reference book than a straight read-through. It covers theology like the Doctrine of God, Man, the Church, and more. Frame's work is balanced and understandable. It has an excellent index (I also own a hardcover copy for looking up topics). Frame is a Reformed theologian (if you know, you know), but he fairly examines all sides. I did not understand everything he discussed, but it has expanded my understanding of the basics of Christianity. It is a solid resource, and if you're ambitious, you could read the entirety of it, like me.

✝️ ⛪️ ☦️

🪄🐊🪼 🍱 Books with Magic and Magical Food

 

Enjoyed the spirit and intent of the book. Lovely characters. Worthy quest. Fun magic.

    Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong is a book about being transplanted from your native soil to a new home. Tao discovers she has the gift of seeing the future, and many want her to use it for them. She chooses to travel alone and tell small fortunes but finds she can't escape the pull of human connection. I liked this lovely YA book. It's a good story, well told, no matter your age.

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    What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez rides the line between fantasy and magical realism. There is magic in the world, but it is unacknowledged and ignored. The magic is fading away and resides in ancient objects. Inez Olivera receives a magic ring from her father in Egypt. This is followed by news of the death of her parents, making Inez the recipient of their considerable fortune and the ward of her mother's mysterious uncle, an Egyptian Archeologist at the height of the age of discovery in the late 19th century. She travels by ship from her home in Buenos Aries to Egypt to find answers but is thwarted by her uncle's handsome assistant. This book reminded me of adventure stories like The Mummy, with lots of twists and turns, kidnapping, and dark secrets held by almost everyone.

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    Like many people, I enjoyed Matt Haig's book The Midnight Library and eagerly looked forward to his next book, The Life Impossible. A strength of Haig is his ability to create fantastic premises to give his characters unique opportunities to confront their pasts. The Life Impossible is the story of 72-year-old Grace Winters, a retired math teacher who is done with life. She unexpectedly receives the gift of a house on the island of Ibiza in Spain. Some books are quirky, and some are weird. This book is a weird one. The plot is a little too crazy to feel coherent, but I found it interesting because weird is my jam.

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    I have discovered a type of genre from Japan that is whimsical and poignant, like Toshikazu Kawaguchi's Before the Coffee Gets Cold, We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, and The Cat Who Saved Books by Susuke Matsukawa. I was talking with friends about how much I liked those books, and they recommended The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai. Here is the premise: a retired, widowed police detective runs an obscure, hard-to-find diner with a thirty-year-old daughter. They also run a food detective agency helping customers find the recipe that holds a significant place in their heart- the soup their dead mother made, a restaurant meal from when a lost love proposed, or a special dish enjoyed with a grandfather who now has dementia. These recipes are like keys to unlock a better understanding of the past that, in turn, makes the future brighter. This book will make you hungry!

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🦖😺🦶Another Week of Fantasy and Romance--Win!

 

    I'm obsessed with the Dungeon Crawler Carl Series and was ecstatic that book #7 dropped this week on Audible. This Inevitable Ruin, written by Matt Dinniman and read by Jeff Hayes, is a fantastic series. I always worry. I just do; I'm a worrier. But I especially worry that the next book in any series will disappoint. Book #7 is a terrific addition. Dinniman continues to expand the story beyond the dungeon without losing sight of the book's heart: Carl and Donut's relationship--the Frodo and Sam of this universe. Crawlers have reached the 9th floor of the dungeon, where they face mega-rich aliens from around the galaxy who pay for the sport of killing crawlers. This time it's different. Carl convinces the AI running the dungeon to remove the safeties that keep the warlords from dying for real. The stakes are high for everyone.  

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    I was surprised to find that What You Wish For is the fifth book by Katherine Center that I've read. At the core, her books are romance novels, but she infuses them with joy and triumph, making them brighten my day whenever I read one. Her main characters, Samantha and Duncan, have past traumas that are currently influencing their present lives. Center paced the novel well, dropping revelations in a timely way that kept me engaged. 

  Other reviews of books by Katherine Center: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Katherine+Center

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