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Blog Archive
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2025
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July
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- Book review: Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
- SPFBO Champions' League: By Blood, By Salt by J.L....
- Review: The Nightshade God by Hannah Whitten
- Superman Movie Review (by Mihir Wanchoo)
- COVER REVEAL: SHATTERED: A Sanguine Stars Novella ...
- SPFBO Champions' League Review: The Thief Who Pull...
- Review: The Two Lies of Faven Sythe by Megan E. O'...
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July
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ling Ling Huang is a writer and violinist. She plays with several ensembles including the Music Kitchen, Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra, Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra, Shattered Glass, and Experiential Orchestra, with whom she won a Grammy award in 2020. Natural Beauty is her first novel.
Published: April 4, 2023 by Dutton Page count: 272 pages Formats: audiobook, ebook, hardback, paperback
Published: May 14, 2024 by Azimuth Length: 374 pages (Kindle) Formats: audiobook, ebook, paperback Literary awards: SPFBO Award for Best Fantasy Book (2024) Series Land of Exile #1
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: With Lore and her allies scattered across the world, all hope seems lost. King Bastian reigns under the influence of an evil god, making deals with despots and undoing the reforms made in the last few months. But destiny has its own plans. Even scattered, Lore and her friends have one last chance to thwart the god trying to reshape the world, one last chance to steal his power back. It may just unfortunately take their own lives to pull it off.
The Nightshade God is the kind of finale that lands the plane competently, but without much pizzazz. It isn't a BAD book, but it lacked tension and failed to make me invested in the personal stakes for the characters. As an example, look no further than the central plot of the story. Book two ended with our characters scattered across the world for various reasons, and early in The Nightshade God, they all learn of objects that have been hidden for centuries that are important to defeating the central villain. Rather conveniently, there's one of these hidden objects in each of the locations these scattered characters ended up. While there's some attempt to explain this as destiny, it felt instead like it was giving the characters a thing to do before bringing them all together for the finale.
The characters themselves also really have very little growth to go through. There's still pining and angst between the characters but nothing that we hadn't seen previously. The one new romantic pairing that was introduced honestly left me baffled. Worst of all, the finale felt like it betrayed the themes of the entire series and the very lessons that the characters were supposed to be learning.
CONCLUSION: All that being said, I was never in a place where I was hate-reading The Nightshade God. It was simply that I was never excited to pick the book up, never dying to know what could possibly happen next. Every plot point was simply a hurdle to overcome fairly quickly in the journey to the inevitable conclusion. It's a book that I can honestly say I walked away from simply....whelmed.
Say one thing about James Gunn, the man truly know how to write characters and dialogue. From David Corenswet’s Superman to Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane to Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific to Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor to Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner to the CGI-Krypto. These were the main highlights for me but there’s so many more like Wendell Pierce’ s Perry White to Skyler Gisondo’s Jimmy Olsen to Taylor Pruitt Vince’s Pa Kent whom I would have liked to see more of. I honestly think I would have loved to watch a 5-6 hour version of this movie wherein I had gotten to see more of the character cast and their interactions. Such is the richness of these characters, that one can feel bad that there’s not enough time for everyone.
This film has the typical James Gunn humour however the crass jokes thankfully were tamped down. I don’t know if that was something that the Studio enforced upon Gunn or James himself course corrected. Lastly there were three cameos which I was pleasantly surprised with. Two characters were from upcoming projects and man were they hilarious. The third character was from Gunn’s TSS and it was cool to see where they were considering what happened to them in TSS.
Going on the shortcomings of the movie and it’s in this regards, I’ll have talk through some mild spoilers. So if you wish to stop here then I won’t mind it. For those who wish to read ahead in spite of some spoilers, kudos to you brave sports.
Because of the movie's pace and several cuts, this movie definitely felt as if there were quite a few connective tissue scenes missing and I really wish that Gunn is able to release the extended version on HBO Max wherein we can get to see more. Because I would have loved to see the dynamic between the Daily Planet crew. Maybe even more of Lex and his henchfolks.
Another aspect which didn’t work for me, was that the Superman introduced in this movie acted a bit dumb. In the opening sequence, after the Hammer Of Boravia leaves, Superman isn’t concerned to trace him. He also doesn’t try to find out how Lex and his minions gained access to his Fortress given how the condition its left in. Maybe because he's still a younger Superman, given that its only his third year. However it was a tad surprising given how well-written Supes was otherwise.
CONCLUSION: Overall I liked this movie and it was a good start to the DCU. I’m very much excited for Supergirl & Clayface on the movie side. Even more enthused for Peacemaker S2 & Lanterns on the TV side. I really hope that we get more DCU movies, characters & TV shows as I think there's a genuine newness to this universe but I would like to see other creators also get to work their magic within.
Official Author Info: Nicholas W Fuller has been writing all of his life. He began writing his first novel while still in fifth grade—a science fiction story featuring an alien race inspired by his neighbor’s basset hounds. While that work remains incomplete, Nicholas has worked on various blogs and stories over the years, including publication in JCM Berne's Grimdwarf Magazine and earning an honorable mention from ElegantLiterature.com. Nicholas also started a youtube channel in early 2023 where he posts videos talking about books and other fun nerdy things as well as his interviews with authors and other creatives.
When he is not writing or making videos, he’s probably thinking about writing, maybe playing video games with his brother, possibly tickling one or both of his two children, or perhaps traveling with his wife… but likely also pondering writing. He hopes to continue to make things up and put them on paper for an ever wider audience.
OFFICIAL BLURB: Shattered is the story of doing the right thing... And the consequences of those actions.
SPFBO Champions' League Review: The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids by Michael McClung
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael McClung was born and raised in Texas, lived in Southeast Asia for twenty years, and currently resides in Poland. He has published nine novels, a novella and a short story collection. His first novel was published by Random House in 2003, and in 2016 he won Mark Lawrence's inaugural SPFBO contest with The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids. He goes by @mcclungmike on Twitter, but doesn’t do the Facebook anymore, because reasons. He occasionally talks about stuff on his blog at somethingstickythiswaycomes.blogspot.com if you're interested in, uh, stuff being talked about.
Published: November 28, 2012 by Michael McClung Length: 208 pages (Kindle) Formats: Literary awards: SPFBO Award for Best Fantasy Book (2015) Series Amra Thetys #1
Buy The Two Lies of Faven Sythe
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Faven Sythe's mentor is missing. Her only clue to her location? A starpath leading to the Clutch, a floating graveyard of ships, full of dangerous debris, supposedly haunted by a mysterious ship known as the Black Celeste. With seemingly no one else concerned about her mentor's absence, Faven has no choice but to investigate the Clutch herself. Fortunately, she knows just the pirate for the job: Bitter Amandine, one of the few people to have ever visited the Clutch and survived. Unfortunately, Bitter has also sworn never to return there. But when Faven makes an offer too good to refuse, Bitter and her crew buckle up for a daring trip across the galaxy. They'll soon discover, however, that some ghosts are best left undisturbed...
The Two Lies of Faven Sythe is a delightful mashup of classic pirate tropes and fresh sci-fi ideas. The pirates running around this story are very much direct descendants of their eighteenth century brethren, from the way they talk (savvy?) to their weaponry (shotguns apparently are much better at getting past shields than modern laser guns). And yes, there is a main port of call that all the pirates like to go to, a futuristic hidden station in the vein of Tortuga, where all pirates can resupply, make deals, and generally hide away from the law.
But all of these familiar elements are nestled together with original sci-fi elements. First and foremost of these are the crystborn. This species is essentially an offshoot of humanity created when some humans centuries in the past volunteered to blend with ancient alien tech so that they could interact with the lightdrives that allow faster than light travel. Crystborn are capable of weaving a starpath into a lightdrive, essentially giving it a safe route to travel from one point to another. But every path woven shortens a crystborn's lifespan, making the starpaths extremely hard to come by, frequently costing a fortune.
Of course, where did that ancient alien tech that created the crystborn come from? What caused them to die off? That's just one of the mysteries to dive into this book, as Faven tries to look for her lost mentor. Being a standalone book, you'll have the answers you're looking for by the end of the tale, making this a nice contained swashbuckling adventure into mysterious ruins at the edges of the galaxy.
I will say, The Two Lies of Faven Sythe is definitely a plot-forward book. Faven Sythe, with her mixture of naivete about how the galaxy works but her daring to keep asking questions and plunge into the unknown, is definitely a standout character; pirate Bitter Amandine is also fun to watch, strutting about with her larger-than-life pirate personality. The rest of the supporting cast, however, is fairly forgettable. I couldn't tell you much about the crew to differentiate them from each other, aside from remembering that one tends to sport a very cool pair of sunglasses. This book may be a fun ride, but it is not particularly packed with memorable characters.
CONCLUSION: The Two Lies of Faven Sythe is definitely an adventure worth checking out. If you're looking for a thrill ride close to a summer blockbuster, this is the book for you. An engaging mystery, seedy pirate dens, high stakes adventures at the fringes of the galaxy, it's all here in one nice neat standalone package.