fantasy

Texture Like Sun – Ils Greyhart

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Texture Like Sun CoverCollection: Solitary Travelers
First Published: 21st March, 2016
Genre: Fantasy Romance / Novella
Available: Out of Print

Liang is a painter who can pull colours from the world around him. Xerxes is an incubus, who visits people’s dreams to feed off their sexual energy. When Xerxes visits Liang’s dreams, he’s confused. All Liang wants to do is give him a comfy sweater.

Liang has been kept a prisoner for several years while he finishes a large commission. The early part introduces that situation, along with his gift of making paints from nature. But the painting plotline fades into the background most of the time. It’s mainly about his discussions with Xerxes, until it’s time for him to escape. I can’t say much about the setting as a result. The person hiring Liang is described as a Sheik. The guards wear veils. Liang comes from a country to the Northeast. There’s not a whole lot more depth to the setting, as it’s mostly glossed over and not described.

The potential unfortunate implications of the setup are mainly avoided. Incubi don’t aim to kill people. They visit dreams, have consensual dream sex for the energy, and the person wakes up tired the next day. So Xerxes isn’t running around mass murdering when he’s not visiting Liang. Xerxes also doesn’t try to force his interest after the initial advances are rejected. Once he decides he’s going to keep visiting, he accepts that it’s not going to be sexual as part of the deal.

Using exact labels won’t always come up in a story, but it would have been a lot less convoluted in this case. They have a discussion where Xerxes says he’s an incubus and explains it. Liang vaguely refers to people like him and explains it. Labelling the incubus and not the asexual person came across oddly.

It was a premise with potential, but I don’t think it hit it. I’d have liked the painting plot to have more development, including a little more action in the escape scene. The relationship was generally as cute as dressing an incubus in a sweater so he doesn’t get cold suggests it will be. But the initial humour of that imagery isn’t enough to carry a whole story.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]

The Honey Mummy – E. Catherine Tobler

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The Honey Mummy CoverSeries: A Folley & Mallory Adventure, #3
First Published: 1st March, 2016
Genre: Steampunk / Novel
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Smashwords

Eleanor Folley and Virgil Mallory travel to Egypt to assist their friend Cleo. There’s a mystery surrounding a set of unusual iron rings and a sarcophagus that may hold answers to Cleo’s accident.

There’s a lot going on, as this is the third in the series. Virgil is a werewolf and Eleanor can turn into a jackal, due to being a daughter of Anubis. She’s still getting used to this, as well as her romance with Virgil. She’s also in the process of cataloguing the archives of Mistral, a society that’s been gathering artefacts from Egypt for study.

All of that is thrown into confusion when someone attacks the archive, leaving one of the rings. They travel to Egypt to attend an auction with Cleo, hoping to find out what’s going on. Also accompanying them is Auberon, who had been on the verge of a romantic relationship with Cleo before her accident.

I felt the book did a good job at recapping what needed to be recapped. The recaps weren’t confusing or overly longwinded. They were spread where needed through the story.

Cleo’s accident involved being pinned under a statue. Her arms had to be amputated below the elbows, and were replaced with steampunk mechanical arms. Some of her recovery is shown in flashbacks and letters, as she learns to use her new arms, and comes to terms with the loss of her old ones. I was a little concerned at first that it’d be a story about someone deciding life wasn’t worth living with disability, but her reasons for pushing Auberon away are not directly about her arms.

A large theme is the handling of Egypt’s history and property. This is a steampunk version of the era when Westerners raided Egyptian tombs, damaging much of the archaeology out of greed. Eleanor pushes back against this to an extent, as she believes in properly cataloguing finds, and wants to keep things safe. She finds mummy unwrappings repugnant. But she still believes that removing things from Egypt is a good way to keep them safe, as they can be returned later. An opinion that is only directly challenged by people who are either villains or not entirely trustworthy. I wasn’t comfortable with that, given that in our history, most of those items still haven’t been given back. It would have been nice if someone who wasn’t shady had wanted to keep the items in Egypt, and away from Mistral, as a counterpoint to Eleanor’s optimism about it.

For that matter, it would have been nice to see more Egyptian characters. Eleanor and Cleo have some Egyptian ancestry, but the Egyptians without European ties don’t have big roles.

I did like the interaction between the characters, as this was about strengthening relationships, rather than starting fresh. I also liked that Anubis acted in ways that didn’t always make sense to Eleanor, as he’s a god and has a rather different perspective on things. It’s an interesting story, and took some turns I wasn’t expecting. It mixes together steampunk with Egyptian tradition and time travel, in a way that works. I just couldn’t really get on board with the idea that Mistral were the good guys.

[A copy of this book was received from the author for review purposes]

Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi – Cindy Neuschwander (author), Wayne Geehan (illustrator)

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Dragon of Pi CoverSeries: Sir Cumference Series, #2
First Published: 1st February, 1999
Genre: Children’s Fantasy / Picture Book
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Charlesbridge

Radius accidently turns his father, Sir Cumference, into a dragon. As the other knights get ready to vanquish the dragon, Radius needs to solve a mathematical riddle to figure out how to de-dragon Sir Cumference.

This is part of a series of maths adventures, intended to introduce mathematical concepts to children. In this case, it’s all about pi (and dragons).

The book does a good job of making maths more interesting. Radius learns about circles and pi through practical things, such as seeing spokes on a wheel, decorating pies, and measuring round everyday objects. It makes it clear how pi is relevant to real things, as well as reinforcing what it is and how it’s calculated.

I appreciated the geometry puns (other characters include Lady Di of Ameter, and brothers Geo and Sym of Metry), though the medieval fantasy theme is the real lure for the target audience. It means the story can be fun for children who don’t really understand the maths. In terms of reading level, it requires being able to handle short paragraphs, though would also be a good one for adults to read aloud.

For those who do understand the maths, there are some problems they can solve themselves and a recap of what pi is at the end. My main issue with it is that pi as a decimal is only introduced as a very brief mention in the end summary. It’s described as three and about one seventh throughout the main story. This could create the impression that pi is exactly three and one seventh, as well as not being clear that the part after the decimal point continues on.

The artwork is an old-fashioned painting style. This works with the general medieval theme. There’s a little black cat in a lot of the images, which gives something else to find. It’s a decent book for introducing pi to young fantasy lovers. It can also be a bit of fun on pi day, as it ends with a pi celebration.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]

Pumpkin – Ines Johnson

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Pumpkin CoverSeries: Cindermama, #1
First Published: 10th March, 2015
Genre: Romance
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

Pumpkin is a single mother, who has given up on fairytale happy endings. Manny is from a rich family and running for mayor. When they meet, Manny knows Pumpkin isn’t the one, because all his family have a gift where they see a golden aura around their true love. But whatever the magic may be saying about it, both of them have other ideas.

This is a contemporary romance retelling of Cinderella, with light magical elements. Basically the ability to see auras taken to a more magical level. I liked the idea of subverting destined magical soulmates, and that is the general direction of the book. Love is something that takes work and there are no guarantees because the golden aura said (or didn’t say) so.

The writing was generally conversational and easy to breeze through. There are some things that worked well, like Pumpkin having to realise she couldn’t force people to be like a movie script. Some of her people predictions are very wrong, because she’s more caught up in stories than reality. The mayoral campaign worked well enough as a plot to tie things together.

My main issue is it wasn’t quite the book I expected it to be. As it starred a single mother, I wasn’t expecting so much hate to be piled on single mothers. Pumpkin is only okay because she’s the idealised single mother, who has a day job, and hasn’t dated since her husband walked out. Her cousins (the ugly step-sisters of the tale) are horrible welfare queens who take food stamps when they don’t need them, and purposefully try to have children by lots of men to get child support. It’s frequently laid on how terrible they are. Empathy is for Pumpkin, not single mothers as a whole.

In Pumpkin’s own words about welfare: “I think the flaw with social programs is that the poor start to believe they can’t do for themselves without it and the rich believe the poor can’t act without their help.” This doesn’t match my experiences at all, where it’s more that poor people wish they didn’t have to rely on it, and rich people wish they could stop paying out because they’d have more money if they let people starve. But the narrative proves Pumpkin right. After all, people collecting food stamps are like her horrible cousins.

It turns out the golden aura is because Manny and his family are gypsies. There are certainly times when Roma people might reclaim that word, but a book where it’s the source of fairytale magic, because Roma are like magical fairytale people, is not one of those times. There wasn’t any other cultural connection, outside of golden auras and fortune telling.

I can see this romance might appeal to some readers, given its fairytale themes. For me, I couldn’t really get past the policing of what makes someone a respectable poor person.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]

Camp Midnight – Steven T. Seagle (writer), Jason Adam Katzenstein (artist)

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Camp Midnight CoverFirst Published: 3rd May, 2016
Genre: Middle Grade Horror / Graphic Novel
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

Skye doesn’t want to spend the summer with her dad and step-mother. It turns out they don’t want her around either, and send her to summer camp. A confusion means she ends up at Camp Midnight, where everyone is a monster. Except for Skye and possibly her new friend Mia.

This is a fun graphic novel, dealing with some difficult issues in an accessible way. Skye has been hurt by her parent’s divorce. She reacts by lashing out at everyone, without considering how her rudeness and sarcastic responses might hurt people. Something she has to face at the camp is how throw-away comments can end up hurting people, no matter what the intent.

The story runs through the whole time at the camp, from getting her choice of bunk on arrival to taking part in special events. The main focus is her friendship with Mia, though she also has to deal with the popular girls and a crush on a cute boy. The latter two aspects are nothing new, but the friendship with Mia is great. I was rooting for them both to find their place at the camp and beyond.

I liked the handling of consent issues. Mia doesn’t like being touched. Though she might sometimes be okay with it, sometimes she doesn’t want to. Skye accepts this and finds a touchless alternative to shaking hands. It’s nice to see a clear statement that if someone says no to something, you respect that, no matter how snarky you are.

I’m rather lukewarm on depictions of witches as fantasy monsters, but I don’t have any specific criticism here. The witch in charge of the camp is shown as a person and obviously cares about the campers. It’s not bad as such depictions go.

Each page has a limited colour palette, apart from an occasional frame intended to stand out. For example, one page may be greens and blues, and another page may be in oranges. This adds to the spooky atmosphere. The composition hints at monsters, with backgrounds forming faces and monstrous shadows. It’s well spaced, with a few panels on each page, and writing at a comfortable reading size. The art is a perfect match for the story.

This book is on the borderline between upper middle grade and lower young adult. The main themes are friendship and dealing with family issues, but there is some early teen stuff like her crush. It’s ideal for readers in that middling area.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]