jaelynx's reviews
248 reviews

I Want That Twink OBLITERATED by Trip Galey, Robert Berg, C.L. McCartney

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This is a hilarious anthology of queer and camp pulp short stories. I came across this as I was previously writing some pulp trans scifi in a similar vein to some of these, notably the story "Dotch Masher and the Planet 'MM'" but also a few others in here. The styles and genres vary so it can be hit-and-miss depending on your tastes of course but I adored the camp silliness of many of them. It's maybe a bit biased towards cis dudes compared to most of my reading - as you'd expect from the title - but there is still a diversity of characters within. If you're looking for an OTT and slightly horny gay anthology, ripped from the 50s but without the ingrained bigotry of the era, then this is a good call.
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This is a cyberpunk noir novella about a trans woman who returns to her anarchist commune in the decaying remnants of Kansas City. Dora is as unwelcome as her parting shots were when she stormed out years ago, but now she's the only one who can solve the murder of her ex. Caught between two warring pharmaceutical companies, Dora faces shadows of her past.

I thought this was a lot of fun and really had a good noir vibe to Dora's perspective. Given it's quite short, I think there was an opportunity to add a little more to make her a little more well-rounded, flesh out the supporting characters a bit and add more dynamics to the commune (as much as I feel this with every novella, I'm starting to like the simplicity that comes with brevity). I did nevertheless enjoy it and it was paced well for its length. Avoiding spoilers here, but I also liked the trans take on a particular old sci-fi trope and how it played into a good discussion about the nature of identity. 
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

In an alternate 1883, The Veil between the living and the dead thinned and purple-eyed mediums speak with the dead under the auspices of the Royal Speaker Society. That is, male purple-eyed mediums; women born with those spiritual eyes are barred from spirit work and are treated as nothing more than breeding stock for the Speakers regardless of their age.

Enter 16yo Silas, to be married off by the end of the year. Despite having those valuable purple eyes, Silas isn't a perfect daughter, or even a daughter. A lifetime of being bullied into masking his autism, his transness and his proficiency in surgery has left him desperate to escape. But when his attempt to flee is uncovered, he is thrown into a brutal asylum for women suffering from a vague "Veil sickness". There, the spirits of women murdered within its walls beg for help, and for Silas to run before it is too late.

Despite the fantastical elements, all of this tracks very closely to the brutal Victorian practices on surgery and mental health. Despite a lot of horror around beatings and vivisection, I felt most chilled by the constant thread of helplessness. The helplessness that comes from never being believed simply for who you are, of having everyone you could turn to being complicit in your horror, and being constantly weighed down by a lifetime of abuse for who you are.

I felt deeply for Silas and the women imprisoned there and the book expertly conveys Silas' internal doubts and fears. I felt trapped alongside him which perhaps also shows how deeply personal some of these themes can be.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Becky Chambers makes me cry again, this time in a hope punk novella about existence and purpose. Long ago, humanity's Factory Age ended when robots suddenly gained consciousness and decided to leave. Humanity respected their agency and choice, allowing them to leave into the wilderness and legend while restructuring human civilization into a sustainable, solarpunk society.

Sibling Dex is a tea monk, going from town to town offering people their ear, their counsel and the perfect cup of tea to soothe their worries. But Dex themself feels an emptiness and pain; they feel guilty for not being happy in a life which - on the face of it - gives them everything it should. This inner conflict they keep from those they help really resonated with me from the very start. 

Hoping to find an answer in anything but their routine, Dex goes off track into the wilderness. There, they bump into the first robot to meet a human in centuries, Mosscap. Through its wide-eyed excitement at learning about humanity again, seeks an answer to a query the robots have about humans: what do people need? In such a short space, Chambers beautifully cuts through to our inner conflict and need for purpose and how to simply find joy in simply existing.
A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

An Edwardian murder mystery set aboard a ship crossing the Atlantic while a magical MacGuffin goes missing. As Maud is thrown into tracking down the killer and retrieving the MacGuffin, she is thrown into the arms of a scandalous magical actress. 

This follows on from A Marvellous Light, but with a different location and cast. To be honest I forgot large chunks of the first one but followed just fine. While Marvellous Light focused a lot more on romance between Robin and Edwin than the broader plot, this also focuses on Maud and Victoria. Although I feel it held its pacing for the plot a little better as they slowly unravelled the mystery trapped at sea for the voyage. Oddly enough keeping it in a tin can seemed to help the world building a bit more than the first. 

I certainly enjoyed the constant ribbing at the endless spectre of societal scandal (excellent pillow talk with “I should have looked into this debauchery business years ago”), the history of the secretive magical women’s Forsythia Club and the relationships between most of the main characters. That said, I found the villains of the plot to be incredibly lacklustre and unmenacing which undercut a fair bit of drama along with the stakes being quite hypothetical.
Loka by S.B. Divya

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The sequel to Meru, about humans being limited in their activities due to their destructive past by their genetically engineered offshoots (the Alloys), follows Akshaya - the human-Alloy hybrid daughter of the characters from the first book. 

Akshaya was always destined to live on Meru, her parent's dream for a human colony free from Alloy interference and an atmosphere perfectly suited for people like her - with sickle-cell. But as Akshaya comes of age, she resents the imposed destiny of living on a lifeless world and embarks on the Anthro Challenge - a circumnavigation of Earth only reliant on old human technology - to prove she's strong enough to stay on Earth. 

This book covers areas I wish we saw more of in the first book; how the tamed humans live in the approved, safe areas of Earth and those exile areas at latitudes that are yet to recover from the catastrophe that human ambition wrought. Yet I did feel that their trip across continents and oceans progressed with such speed it missed any opportunities to really learn how these different human communities (those living under Alloy guidance, and those lost in the wilds) really lived; especially culturally.

Instead, it very much focuses on the journey, the various perils they face along the way, and the doubts they have about the challenge as the losses mount. In the background, those following their trek mount movements both in their favour and against both human ambitions like the challenge.

It chimes with the original in being a very human and hopepunk-focused vibe. The beauty and dangers of humans as individuals and a collective. It's a fundamentally optimistic story with some great reflection. 
The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch

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funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Holidays apparently have royal families so obviously when the Prince of Christmas gets thrust into an arranged marriage with the Princess of Easter by his asshole dad, Santa, he’ll instead fall for the Prince of Halloween and stage an anti-capitalist coup against the commodification of Christmas. 

So, I’m back reading queer Christmas romcoms again and this one is a mixed bag I feel. It’s funny and cute but the characters didn’t quite work for me, that might be a lack of tension between the love interests. The world of holiday royals, politicking and paparazzi was different but maybe distractingly crazy if you’re not invested in the chaotic cheese.

Lastly, the broad message about the dominance of Christmas and how it becomes about cheap plastic gifts was good for the large part. But it got a bit focused on telling us how it should be rather than actually living up to it.

So on the whole, a cute romp with some fun themes but I felt like it needed a lot more polish behind its structure and messaging.  

Random quote: “I do not BLAST ICE when I orgasm!” 
The Edge of a World by J.D. Rivers

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.
I found the prose far too dry and plodding. I can barely tell you anything about these characters and world, let alone enjoy reading about them.
Otherworldly by F.T. Lukens

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

A small region is stuck in a perpetual winter. Offerings from locals to the goddess to bring spring have gone unanswered. Ellery, no longer believing in the gods, leaves his family’s frozen farm to work in a city diner to help support his family trying to scrape by with greenhouses to grow crops.

When Ellery meets Knox, a runaway familiar from the Other World, his understanding of the world and the perpetual winter is thrown upside down. Ellery helps protects Knox from the shades who seek to drag him back in exchange for finding out the truth about the winter. But as Ellery helps Knox experience more of human life, they both begin to feel more than they bargained for.

This is a very cute YA romance with an enby protagonist, an adorably OTT sapphic couple and contemporary magic with goddesses and underworlds to boot. The characters are lovely even if Ellery has that teenage insufferability sometimes (just stop antagonising demigods for once, please).
The Municipalists by Seth Fried

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3.5

An adventure story with a bureaucrat at the United States Municipal Survey and his alcoholic partner who also happens to be the agency’s supercomputer investigating a terrorist threat to the gleaming Metropolis City.