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. 

A Coup of Tea - Casey Blair

This one is something a little different, or at the very least, a little different for me. A Coup of Tea fits the mould of cozy-fantasy, giving us a protagonist who, really, just wants to live their own life, without huge amounts of hassle from the world at large. It does diverge from that theme, as she's repeatedly forced up against wider issues, from exploitative employers to that most dread of foes...gentrification. But at its core, this is a book about family, about finding yourself, about kindness and the ripples that kindness can cause in the world. Less "swords and dark magic" and more "learn to be a decent human and also occasionally some magic!"

 Miyara is a princess. Notably, she's a princess in among a gaggle of other princesses, all of whom are smart or athletic or political or responsible or some combination of all of the above. Miyara doesn't know what she is, exactly. But she's trying to figure it out. And the pressure from her family, to fit into their own expectations of who they think she is or could be, is, well, rather intense. In the end, Miyara decides that whoever she is, she isn't Princess Miyara. And disappears, to go find herself, doing, well, something else.  The story follows her struggles as she tries to figure out what that Something Else actually is, partially through the medium of tea; the centre of the narrative is Miyara's struggle for personhood outside of the institution formed around her like a shell. Smart, thoughtful, kind, anxious and a little sharp, Miyara is someone whose head it's a pleasure to spend time in - which is just as well, because she does have a penchant for analysing how she's feeling in real time. As our view into the world, her exisitng privilege is helpful - becausue she's as confused as we are about why people are doing things the way they are, how society is set up, how the less fortunate live, how the more fortunate live rather well, how magic and power and social privilege intertwine, etc. Her insulation from the Real World (tm) lets us lift our ignorance of the world along with her, which makes for a decent read.

And what a world it is; one part steampunk insanity, with cooking appliances powered by magic and wizard-enforcement, and one part just people going about their day, going to cafe's and trying to pay the rent, and complaining about the fact that paying the rent keeps on getting harder. There's a contemporary strand running through this universe of wonder, a strand that worries about people getting priced out of neighbourhoods, worries about the cost of groceries, worries about  friends and relatives and how theyre making ends meet. There's a thread that wants to attack power and systemic repression and bigotry in there too, and a thread that looks at economics and power and what the cost of doing business means on the ground. It's a vibrant, colourful world, filled with quirks, and, yes, filled with magic. But it also looks quite a lot like our own, in ways that matter - a tale that resonates is built from a world whose details feel real, feel like they matter, feel genuine and true. And Blair builds that world for us through Miyaras's eyes, leaving behind a living tapestry of joy and sorrow, and...again...tea,

The story...well, it starts fast, then gives you a view into the quieter universe that Miyara can use to build herself up, and find her own truth. But it doesn't flinch away from high stakes. It wants to use fantasy to talk about big issues, and it achieves that, in a gentle way that seeps off the page and into your bones. It's a story that I found myself unwilling to stop readiong, because I wanted to see how it would play out. Whether Miyara would find a version of herself she wanted to be, whether a Princess could become a Tea Master. Not whether the world could be saved or not, but if a person could be, if a neighbourhood could be, and how that could happen. 

In short, it's a good time - a warm, emotional book that serves as a paean for empathy and kindess, families (found and otherwise), and more than a splash of magic. Give it a whirl, possibly with a blanket and a cup of tea of your own!