Reviews and Comments

Kelson Reads

KelsonReads@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 7 months ago

Techie, software developer, hobbyist photographer, sci-fi/fantasy and comics fan in the Los Angeles area. He/him.

Mostly reading science fiction these days, mixing in some fantasy and some non-fiction (mostly tech and science), occasionally other stuff. As far as books go, anyway. (I read more random articles than I probably should.)

Reviews are cross-posted on my website and I have a blog dedicated to Les Misérables.

Fediverse Main: @kelson@notes.kvibber.com (GoToSocial) Websites: KVibber.com and Hyperborea.org

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Minor Mage (Paperback, 2019, Argyll Productions) 5 stars

Oliver was a very minor mage. His familiar reminded him of this several times a …

By turns melancholy and creepy, with a dash of sarcastic armadillo

No rating

Minor Mage is firmly in the "kid goes on scary quest and comes back stronger" genre. The 12-year-old protagonist is cast out to complete a nigh-impossible quest alone (aside from his armadillo familiar), facing ghouls and starvation and bandits and ghosts and murderers. He's a wizard, yes, but he's barely half-trained and only knows a handful of spells (though his herbal lore is pretty strong). Like the young heroes of A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking and Illuminations, he has to learn how to make the most of his limited abilities in order to survive -- only this story takes place not in a city but mostly in wilderness an abandoned farmlands.

From an adult perspective, Oliver's constant lamenting that he's "only a minor mage" starts to grate after a while. But that's not the perspective it's written for: it's a kids' book, and operates on kids' fantasy logic. …

Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Three Complete Novels of the Hainish Series in One Volume (2016, Orb Books) 4 stars

Worlds of Exile and Illusion contains three novels in the Hainish Series from Ursula K. …

Interesting to see Le Guin as she's developing her craft.

4 stars

This collection of three early novels in Le Guin's Hainish series initially looks haphazard, as if they were only collected because of writing order and not being as well-known as her later works.

  • Rocannon's World is a serviceable fantasy quest wrapped in sci-fi trappings.
  • Planet of Exile is a tighter story of isolation and people forced together by an invasion.
  • City of Illusions involves a stranger seeking his identity in a post-apocalyptic Earth controlled by unseen alien masters.

But common threads tie them together. Not just her frequent themes like culture clashes, critiquing colonization, challenging racial stereotypes (both in-world and real), and just getting people to communicate. The second and third novels form a thematic duology:

  • A single city of Earth colonists struggles to survive and adapt to a primitive world.
  • A single city of alien colonists controls a primitive Earth they've adapted to their own desires.

And you can …

San Diego 2014 (EBook, 2012, Orbit) No rating

A Newflesh novella from the New York Times bestselling author that brought you Feed, Mira …

Yes, I read this on the train and later in line for a panel at Comic-Con the year it was released.

That made it a bit weird when I stumbled on the California Browncoats' booth.

Plus I kept looking around for exits wherever I went the next day...

Starter Villain (2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Inheriting your mysterious uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might imagine.

Sure, there …

A fun, fast read, parodying the James Bond Villain archetype. With talking dolphins and typing cats.

4 stars

A fun, fast read, parodying the James Bond Villain archetype. The main character is dropped into the deep end of supervillain society, complete with double-crosses, triple-crosses, assassination attempts, blackmail, framing...and of course the secret volcanic lair, superlasers, talking dolphins (who are really unpleasant and cranky) and a management layer of typing cats (who are much less so, depending on how well you feed and pet them).

Everyone knows he's way out of his depth and wants to take advantage of him. But he knows it too -- and between a background in business journalism and a willingness to listen to people with expertise (always considering that they have an agenda that might not be his own), he's able to manage better than anyone expects.

Of course, the skills that get you to the top of the backstabbing, chaotic world of villainy...aren't necessarily the best for financial stability. Or stability of …

The Daughter of Odren (EBook, 2014, HMH Books for Young Readers) 4 stars

The Daughter of Odren is a short story of betrayal and revenge set in the …

Like one of Earthsea's folk tales

4 stars

...only told by people who were there when it happened. Betrayal and revenge drive the plot, but underneath it all are themes of kindness, power, of living your life as best as you can under circumstances you can't change, and the cost it sometimes takes to change them. And sometimes, figuring out what your best life is.

Originally posted on my website

"Send the Black Throne to dust; conquer the Black Ones, and bring the Daughter from …

Standard fantasy rescue-the-princess adventure with sci-fi trappings

3 stars

Reading People of the Crater I had to remind myself that if I'd been reading it when I was, say, 12, in 1950, I might have devoured it. It's a fairly standard fantasy adventure that drops a random guy into a fish-out-of-water quest to rescue a lost princess and fight off an army. There are vague sci-fi trappings with nods to Hollow Earth, hidden ancient cities in Antarctica, the various species living there being from another planet. The Ancient Ones and unfortunately named Black Ones are conveniently humanoid enough that the hero and villain both lust after the princess. And the hero fights his way through weird challenges and weirder people, and the villain might as well be twirling his mustache, and it's all very Post-WW2 Tough American Manly Man Doing Manly Hero Things(tm).

But I'm not 12, it's not the 1950s, and while I still like a good adventure …