Our Lady of Blades - Sebastien De Castell

Alright, this is a fun one. A standalone novel set in De Castell's Greatcoats universe. Our Lady of Blades is a tale of revenge, murder, betrayal, and duels, physical and mental. There is, as always, some damn fine swordplay in there as well. That said, there's darker undercurrents here, questions of identity and horrors both physical and mental are not shied away from. Because pretty much nobody in this story is a Good Person, although some (many?) of them are definitely worse than others.

Over two timelines, we track the mysterious Lady Consequence and the "mine-girl", Natazia, years before. The former is a skilled duelist, a driven killer, someone who has plans within plans and is willing to back them at swordpoint. The latter...well, Natazia is years younger than Lady Consequence, and her world is on an upward trajectory. She's brought out of the mines, brought into a noble family, and asked to train to protect them, to fight and die for that family when its fortunes rest on the edge of a blade. As the story moves forward, Natazia's tale slowly intertwines with (or becomes?) part of the one that leads to the creation of Lady Consequence. Both feel like different people, and their eyes on the world show us different things.  Consequence is thoughtful, possibly decent, but driven, pragmatically, even callously lethal. She dives off the pages like a hawk, trying to reach out and tear her enemies to shreds on her way to vengeance - but doing so behind a mask, behind wit and a whirl and subterfuge. And, at the end, the raw honesty of a blade. She's charming, funny, passionate, a creature of her convictions, and a lot of fun to watch saunter through a crowd of deadbeats, sycophants, philanderers, sociopaths and stone-cold killers. Lady Consequence has style. Natazia, on the other hand, does not have style. But she has the strength wrought form being a survivor, and a willingness to drive ahead, to commit, to keep people safe. Years before Lady Consequence and her dance of blades, Natazia is quietly stashing sharp implements up her sleeves so she can protect her new family at the breakfast table, and using the steadfast strength and tenacity from year sin the mines to push forward, always forward, never giving up. Where Consequence is witty, Tazia is plain spoken (though no less intelligent), and her endurance is an excellent contrast to the speed and fire in the older Consequence. They're both fascinating to read,both characters you can empathise with and cheer for, and they're both, in one way or another, fun. 

On the other hand, they live in Rijou, which is, basically, hell. We've seen Rijou before in several other Greatcoats-adjacent books, and it's never seemed like a fun place to live. The aristocracy own the judiciary, the aristocracy don't, quite own the common people, though they'd like to, and the aristocracy absolutely own the swords in the hands of the people who enforce the law. Each of the Houses of Rijou is an entity unto itself, rich off the backs of monopolies and client-houses, effectively above the law and beyond reproach. Beyond reproach in the sense that they can't be reproached, that is. Because all the houses are filled with byzantine schemes and schemers, with blades who are looking for any excuse to put another house down, with accountants more than happy to buy a judge a meal, or a house, to look the other way. Rijou is a city fat on the stench of its own corruption, a frenzied gala of blood and roses. Tazia stands out here as plain, independent, uncompromising. And Lady Consequence flits between the gaps, using a razor-edge blade to cut through the social niceties and iniquities. Rijou is a horror, but it's a resplendent one, one that pulls in wealth and power and feeds on it like a bejewelled tick. It's a place filled with life, even as it drains life, or at least decency, from everyone in it. If you've been here before, it's even worse than you remembered, and if you haven't...well, watch your wallet in the bright lights and parties, and watch your back, too.

The story...I don't want to get into the story, because it has, well, a lot going on. There's some especially savage twists that I didn't see coming, the kind of thing that knocks you back, and certainly made me put the book down for a few minutes to mull over. And there's the threads there, of revenge. Of trying to protect family, of trying to make oneself into something else, one way or another. Of trying to be decent, and of being willing to be a monster in the service of red-handed justice, in a city where justice is a joke between enemies. It's an adventure, often a darkly shadowed one, filled with mischance, filled with love and hope, filled with the loss of both, filled with grief and joy in, perhaps, equal measure. And it has some absolutely top notch banter and sword-fights.This is a hard read, a complicated read, the kind of story that makes you think and makes you feel, that demands, here and there, a moment of contemplation, and asks, here and there, for your attention. It's bloody and messy and horrible and kind and compelling stuff, and a damn good read.

The Last Contract of Isako - Fonda Lee

The Last Contract of Isako is a standalone sci-fi adventure from Fonda Lee, also known for her brutal, emotional and very kinetically involved Jade City. Isako is a hired gun on an extraterrestrial planet; a contractor brought in to execute corporate warfare with a mixture of charm and lethality, bringing a rather more martial tone to the phrase "corporate takeover". And Isako is also, to some extent, getting older, getting slower, using experience and a history of influence with those who shape her world to balance out slowing reflexes, and a sword-arm that isn't quite as fast as it could be. 

 Because this is, one way or another, Isako's story. We can feel her past in the way she moves, each survived engagement leaving a mark, each cut from her blade backed by years of fights just like the one that you're currently losing. Because Isako is a killer, and Isako is also the best at what she does. Now, having said that, Isako isn't just a killer. She's a wartime concierge, someone who can commit a bit of light corporate espionage before lunch, and read off discrepancies in the opposition's P&L reports with one hand while dealing with an assassin with the other. But she's also a woman with a lot of old friends in interesting places, someone who has made connections wherever she's gone, and has, somewhere in there, built a family, a family which isn't just blood and bone, but shared truth and shared horror and shared love. Isako is getting a little tired, and she has quite a bit to lose, but she's not out just yet. Which is just as well, because her brand of weary, slightly cynical, backed by genuine emotional weight for her friends and family...makes her the kind of protagonist who strides confidently off the page, smacks you upside the head and tells you to keep reading, because she's not dead yet.I'm always a bit reluctant to use the word, but as a protagonist, Isako is fierce. She gives approximately zero fucks, and, given a mission she cares about, is an undeniable force of nature. 

Mind you, there's some other stuff on the page here. It's not all Isako doing backflips, complaining how much they hurt, then sinking a short-blade into the neck of some mook. It's that, oh absolutely, but not just that. We can see how she struggles to connect with a daughter lost to her through time and the vagaries of work, estranged through chance more than outright neglect, we ca see how her friends are...well, they're hired guns as well, with a gendas of their own, and how those agendas make everyone involved step carefully around each other while they try to find a way through, off the back of older, bloodier, simpler times. 

Isako is the heart of this story, that's a fact - but the supporting cast of professional "Contractors". limpidly malevolent corporate aristocrats and scrabbling underclass...they give Isako the heart of her own that makes the story work. 

And the story works because Isako's world is very odd indeed. An airless rock, slooooowly being reclaimed by terraforming. A population living under domes, walking out into the uncovered desolation when they can't bring in resources any more, hoping for a better world centuries down the line. Corporate departments trying to shape a planet, city districts controlled by the departments that employ them divergences in direction by vice presidents backed by blades and knives in the dark. It's a dystopia, yes, but a frighteningly plausible one, where most people don't even know what they're missing, or might think it's worth it. This is a company town, fallen into navel gazing whilst heavily armed. Where employment guarantees resources, and where the social safety-net...really isn't. This is Isako's world, where the bosses run things more literally than ever, and where everything may be about to change.

That#s...well, no spoilers here. But the paradigm on which this place is built, absolute corporate sovereignty traded for the chance one day at a better world...may be out of date. There's rebels, of course, but that's not all that's going on, not all that Isako will have to investigate, while she tries to work out who knows what, and what they want to do with the information. Whether the old order is worth preserving, and if she's willing to be the one to do it. Because this is a thriller, a conspiracy of moving parts and silent pawns and quiet people in back rooms making deals that they sign in someone else's blood.

 The Last Contract of Isako is beautiful and brutal and bloody. It's heartfelt and messy and thoughtful, a story of kindness and killers, and a story of how far people are willing to go for the truth, or for the lies wrapped around it. 

It's a fun book, an emotional book, a book that sneaks off the page like a stiletto, that will leave you feeling, one way or the other. It is, basically, a damn fine story. 

Daughter of Crows - Mark Lawrence

Daughter of Crows is the start of a new series from Mark Lawrence. A dark, bloody, violent work of fantasy, with a compelling protagonist steeped in the blood of her friends as well as her enemies, in a world that manages to be rich and vibrant and alive whilst also being wondrous and horrifying in...I'm not going to say in equal measure, okay? But the world has weight to it, a depth that sucks you in like an undertow, even if there's times when you'd rather not be there. Lawrence has written...well, at this point lets just say quite a few books, and I've enjoyed them all. And, as always, this series brings us something new, a different way of looking at the world, a different way of appreciating the people and the spaces and the things happening around us.

And, you know, there's more than a fair share of action and adventure here, too.

Because this is a story about Rue. Rue is a lot of things. Loyal, certainly. A steadfast friend, one who holds a quiet, absolute commitment to her found family quite deep down in her heart. Someone who has tried to make a life away from the things that shaped her? Absolutely. We see Rue in two timelines, intertwined, her past and her present, and in each she's a builder and a survivor, someone who is willing to do a lot of things to live - and wants to remake herself in her own image, given the chance to do so. And Rue is traumatised, oh, in so many ways, across all of her pasts, pushing back against horrors nearly unfathomable with both hands. Rue is a pragmatist, a woman who wants what she wants, but is willing to settle for whatever she can get - or, more typically, what she can grab hold of with both hands and get away with.

Both Rue of the past and Rue now are lethal, sharp-edged killers, of course. Survivors of the sort of school where making it out alive is very much not a part of the curriculum. But Rue is thoughtful. Kind, where she can be. A woman who has spent a long time searching for, and getting away from family. Hers is an emotional journey, and it says a lot that her emotions are often incorporated into the deaths of others - be they friends or enemies. And...you know what, I like Rue. The older Rue, the one tired of all this nonsense, the one who's a bit slow off the mark, the poisonously ironic and straightforward Rue is a great, entertaining read. And the younger Rue, the one struggling to find herself or her voice, fighting every inch of the way to make herself a lethal instrument without losing herself, the Rue who reaches out and finds solace and survival in the friends she makes and the enemies she despises...she also kept me turning pages well into the night.

And this is Rue's story, make no mistake. Daughter of Crows is a character study outlined in carmine, a biography etched into the graves of everyone around her.

And it's Mark Lawrence at his absolute best. Rue's time in a school for killers is expertly crafted, from the murderous, mutilated staff to the horrifying, esoteric mysticism which also, you know, works, to the seething jealousies and alliances that put the sheer youth of its students into perspective...this is Dark Academia if Dark Academia was handed a stiletto, a grudge, and a nemesis tied to a chair.| And the world outside Rue's school isn't much better, filled with dubious monarchs, murderous mercenaries and other factions who seem to have a less than savoury interest in our protagonist. This is a world that has a history, though we only catch pieces of it from the corner of our eye. This is a world of refugees and rebuilding and long, long crafted plans for vengeance. But it's a world, true enough, where people live and get their meals and pop down the pub and are, you know, real, even if they're a bit more concerned about social collapse or the blade at their throat than I am.

The story is often grim, with twists and turns that will keep you guessing - I thought I'd figured out what was going on several times, only to have my carefully crafted theories thoroughly upended. But always, always it manages to come back to telling us about people, about Rue and her loves and her fears and her family and her friends, and what they want, and how they might get it. It's a story with a sparkle, even if the sparkle is the shine of a blade bouncing off the eye of a recently deceased guard. It has a power to it, a kind of honesty between the pages that meant I couldn't put it down - and in that, it's vintage Lawrence.

In short, this is the good stuff - go give it a read.

On holiday - back soon!

 We're on break for a short period - we'll be back momentarily!

Children of Strife - Adrian Tchaikovsky

We've been talking about Adrian Tchaikovsky for years. He's one of the most prolific authors in the British science-fiction scene today, and one of the most consistently good in terms of both execution and interesting ideas. And his Children of... series has always had interesting, big ideas. Children of Strife is no exception. It's a sprawling story, happening across three separate time periods, in different locations, with different casts, whose actions slowly intertwine until you see how the whole thing fits together seamlessly. It's smart, and it wants the reader to follow along, to understand, to think big alongside a story that isn't afraid to ask questions and maybe even supply an answer or two. It is, in short, a bloody good book. 

Part of what makes it so great are the characters, who, for all their various sins, do a great job of appearing human, or, well, other-than-human. One of the key strands here focuses on a small clique of uber-wealthy terraformers, prior to the collapse of Earth civilisation. They're hiding out in the hinterlands, building their own private salvation, building somewhere where their acolytes and sycophants can run to when things go horribly wrong. And they're all...broken. Sadists and yes-men, schemers and narcissists, all deeply high on their own supply. Watching them trying to build a reality that isn't just a reflection of their own neuroses is delightful, especially as a couple of the marginally more normal, self-aware ones give us a good view of the others. honestly, these entire sections feel like a darkly savage critique of the tech-bro-billionaire ecosystem, and the kind of people who end up squeezed all the way to the top. Their mishaps, misadventures and vicious, spiteful rivalries are all darkly funny and laced through with venom.There's a poignancy to some of it as well, at least from our viewpoint character, looking out at a space station filled with people she hates, wondering if perhaps she could be someone else somewhere else. In a lot of ways, the selfishness of this group is what ties them together, their inability to think beyond themselves.

Then, as a contrast, there's the ark people. They're building a dream, a dream some of them may not live to realise, on the scarred bones of an earth broken by people quite a lot like the ones mentioned above. The best of the surviving populace are going to be trying to keep themselves alive, get through space, and find, somewhere, a world that survived, is terraformed, and isn't Earth. It's a brutal journey, a constant balance of survival of the crew and the cargo of cryo-sleepers...and whether they'll end up anywhere sensible is very much an open question. We get to see the scattered remnants of a shattered world, and the dreams that, misguided or otherwise, shape those who want to start something new somewhere else. 

And then, down the line, there's the pan-species diaspora, The folks who now make up a semi-galactic federation of sentient uplifted creatures (and  uplifted humans, heh). Who are also digging around in corners of space where they haven't recently swept the dust out, seeing what turns up. And this they do with a shipload of mavericks, including a murderous mantis-shrimp, a shard of sarcastic AI powered by ants, and a woman who can't remember who she is or what she's doing there.

There's...look, I don't know what to tell you, there's a lot going on in each of these narrative strands. And each of them shapes its own world in its own terms, and feels real. The characters make it work. And as a consequence, the spaces they inhabit - decaying space stations, bedraggled ark-ships, strangely verdant worlds and weird, high-future spacecraft...all feel real as well. Because the people in them (some of whom are, yes, shrimp and octopus and spider and AI) have depth of feeling and a theory of mind which works. They feel, if not human, still like people. Which is Tchaikovsky's trademark, I think, helping us build empathy toward the non-human (or, perhaps in the case of those rich sociopaths building a world, the worst-human). The worlds he builds are rich, diverse and real, and they'll draw you into their truths and show you what they're about, one sarcastic aside, one fraught, raw emotional moment at a time.

This is a book about survival. About broken people figuring out how to look past themselves to build something better than themselves. It's about terraforming, about legacy, about family, and about how you can't trust a tech oligarch to do anything right. It's a thoughtful book, but also one so eminently readable that I found myself up far too late in the night trying to finish just one more chapter. It's great, is what I'm saying, and you should read it!

Back next week!

 Sorry everyone. We're under the weather this week but should hopefully be back soon!

Alphabet Squadron - Alexander Freed

A long time ago, and far far away, I spent a non-zero amount of time reading the X-Wing series of Star Wars novels. The combination of tight plotting, complex, grey-edged characters, and some bloodily kinetic space dogfighting was compelling stuff, and at the time I couldn't put it down. Alphabet Squadron carries the flame on from that series, gifting the reader with a veritable rogues gallery of pilots, each laced through with enough grudges, secrets and trauma to keep any psychiatrist happy. And it lets them loose on the margins, dealing with pirates and scoundrels and defectors and traitors. And that's the good guys. It does so within the frame of the Star Wars universe, but gives that universe a coat of grit, exhaustion and blood over the shiny paint of X-Wings. It is also, and I can't say this enough, really a very good book. 

Yrica Quell is probably the closest thing to a protagonist we have here; though the book does split into multiple viewpoints within the pilots of what becomes Alphabet Squadron, Quell's is the first, and I think the one with the most page time. And when we meet Quell, she's in a Republic prison camp, being given therapy by an ex-torture droid, trying to get back into the cockpit of a starfighter, trying to prove herself, because she's a defecting Imperial pilot. Quell is someone who always seems one hammer blow away from breaking, often unyielding, always trying to get the best out of her fellow pilots, but not always bridging the gap between what she thinks they should be and who they actually are. Her paradigm is rooted in the model of order, of a galactic superpower speedrunning repression, of a military that requires unified models of conduct and thinks its hardware is worth more than its pilots. The New Republic, with roots in a guerrilla insurgency, doesn't have those institutions, doesn't operate the same way, and Quell is less a fish out of water and more a fish rapidly descending into an acid bath. Still, she's trying her best - and watching her work with agency and intentionality to change who she is, and who she is perceived as, is a joy. That said, there are hints, even as the story opens, that Quell has some secrets up her sleeve. In this, she's by no means alone, but hers may be the most impactful. Still, as I say, she isn't alone, surrounded by a squadron of malefactors, malcontents, iconoclasts and outright pirates. Each of them has time to come up onto the page, and each of them takes that time to let us know that they're real, that their actions matter, and each aside and each small story (or...lie) tells the reader a little more about the folks we're dealing with. They're people. Not always people we'd like, but always people we can empathise with, people we can understand. Interestingly, this is true to an extent when we're occasionally shown the perspective of the antagonists, the generally malevolent Shadow Wing. We know them a little from Quell, but the Imperials have their own perspectives as well, their own truths. Victims of a war they can't bring themselves to walk away from, and perpetrators of sufficient horror that they don't know if they can or should. They're given humanity, but not excused. 

Because this is a story that wants to talk less about the glory of war, though there is some of that, too, in the graceful dance of fighters in the black, and more about the consequences, about the costs. About people making decisions that they regret (or don't) for the rest of their lives. About friendship, about what people owe to one another. About the price of rebellion, the price of moral clarity, and the price of acquiescence in the face of atrocity. Alphabet are on a mission, but it's not entirely a mission of justice, being just as much one of revenge. They all have their reasons, and as they come to know each other and be honest with each other about why they are where they are...we stand alongside them. 

 I'm not doing a great job of selling this, but let me say this. It's possibly the best Star Wars war story I've read, including those original X-Wing books that I loved so much I almost wore the pages out. It's bloody and brutal and ambiguous and messy and heartfelt and true. And every so often, there's a space battle that makes you sit up and feel that tightness in your chest as you wait to see if everyone survies. It's a story with teeth - emotional and otherwise. It's a story that wants you to think, that wants you to feel, that wants you to fall into it. And it is, at the end of the day, a bloody great story - I went off to read the sequel immediately, and I hope that you do as well.