We Rule The Night, by Claire Eliza Bartlett

Decided I needed to start looking at the Cybils nominees for YA Spec Fic. Found this one at my library. Premise sounded interesting: Revna, a"factory worker manufacturing magical war machines," is "caught using illegal magic"; Linné is caught disguising herself as a boy so she can join the army. I could get invested in characters like that. They're sent to a "special women's military flight unit." Now I was definitely intrigued.

I took We Rule the Night home and devoured it. It lived up to its potential and then some. This is a gripping adventure with WWII-Soviet-inspired atmosphere, fascinating magic, two brilliantly flawed protagonists and a tortuously problematic friendship. Don't let the fairly generic YA cover fool you: this is different than anything else you've read.

Bartlett based her story on the little-known history of the Night Witches, an all-women unit of Soviet pilots who flew night bombing raids on German lines. They sound awesome enough to spawn a ton of novels, and I hope we get more. (Elizabeth Wein has written a non-fiction book about them which I want to read immediately: A Thousand Sisters.)

Bartlett decided to add magic into the mix, and I love the believable world she created: a totalitarian state that rejects religion and certain kinds of magic; secret police who use telepathy and can shape shift; steampunkish technology based on magic rather than electricity. Her Soviet analogue, The Union of the North, is gritty and oppressive, painted in shades of smoke and khaki. The magic-powered vehicles with their legs and carapaces, made out of living metal that absorbs and emits emotions, are fascinating and slightly creepy. It's an immersive environment with tension to spare.

Our two main characters have plenty of things to be afraid of, yet each rebels in her own way against her circumstances, and each chooses loyalty over fear—once they figure out where their loyalty lies. Revna is more immediately engaging, with her kindness and her desire to protect her family, while Linné is a prickly, arrogant stick-in-the-mud who is angry at everything and desperate to make her father notice her. Revna tries her hardest to be a Good Union Girl because she knows her very existence is treasonous; Linné is a patriot who wants to die for her country but her country won't let her. Wonderfully complex motivations; entirely convincing reasons for them to hate each other; and of course they are paired together to fly.

The flying was fun, and the magic/technology hybrid was cool, but it was the conflict between the patronizing, skeptical military men and the women doing everything in their power to prove themselves that kept me riveted to the page. I burned with anger for the way the women were treated, for the powerlessness that comes from being underestimated and ignored. I cheered the way the girls supported each other, their dogged persistence, the fist-pumping moments when they blew everyone away with their skills. Getting to the end and finding out that this was all based on real women who really did face up to that kind of persecution and kept flying anyway—that was a huge bonus!

I'm pretty sure there's going to be a sequel—not exactly a cliffhanger ending or anything, but I really hope there's going to be a sequel, because I really want to know what happens next to these girls!

The description for this book compares it to Code Name Verity—which is a stunning, brilliant and incomparable book—and We Rule the Night did remind me of it. It also has a similar feel to Wolf by Wolf. (Maybe not quite the same emotional punch as those two books, but you don't always want to be punched in the gut by a book, so that's okay!)

Definitely an excellent contender for a Cybil! Feels like some sort of hearty soup you would eat on a cold winter's night—oh, of course: borscht!

The Invisible Library, by Genevieve Cogman

The Invisible Library was utterly delightful, with huge servings of awesome-sauce on the side. It gave me the happies on almost every page. I mean, there's a Library, so, yeah. And dragons. You'd think that would be enough (that would be enough for me). But, no, there's more! There's a super-smart detective who could convincingly be played by Benedict Cumberbatch. And airships. And remotely-controlled alligators, because, every plot can be improved by the addition of remote-control alligators.

(And Cogman gets the tone pitch perfect: just self-aware enough to take itself seriously without being ridiculous.)

Irene is a fabulous character, right up there with Prunella (from Sorcerer to the Crown. This book is right up there with Sorcerer to the Crown. Possibly even surpasses it. Wouldn't want my life to depend on picking one over the other.) She's competent, firm, thinks on her feet, rises to the occasion, but she's also still a junior Librarian who doesn't have all the information or experience she needs. She has moments of panic, doubt and sheer frustration and it's lovely to watch her deal with them—actually, it's lovely to listen to her narrate how she deals with them.

It gets better. There are, not one, but two really hot guys who spend the whole book being impressed by Irene, talking to her as equals and respecting her opinions and decisions. I could eat this stuff with a spoon; it's better than ice cream. There is a wonderfully complex rivalry between Irene and another woman Librarian. There's a fascinating alternate London, plausibly steampunk and infested with chaos (in the form of Fae, vampires and werewolves, among other things). And there's the Library, with its strange rules, twisted politics and mysterious purpose.

It's all fun as heck, and I can't wait to dive into the next book!

This might not technically be YA, since the characters are over twenty, but it would work just as well for YA or adult.

I'm feeling another music analogy this time: "Starlight" by Muse.

Fave Books so far in 2016

June was a reading slump for me: lots of DNFs, or finished but wasn't raving excitedly so what's the point of a blog post (FBWRESWTPOABP)(another acronym that's sure to catch on!). So maybe listing the books that stood out for me in the first half of this year will remind me of why I started blogging in the first place. (I just noticed that this is the third year in a row I haven't posted anything in June. Hmm. Must break this curse somehow!)

Unlike you more organized folks, I don't have a convenient list of the books I've read, but I can cobble something together from my library's Borrowing History (great idea, btw, if your library's website doesn't already do it),  Goodreads and my kindle.

And now that I've done that, I am greatly encouraged. Look at all these awesome books! In no particular order:

The Raven King, by Maggie Stiefvater. Loved this series; loved that I got to reread the first three before reading this one; loved this conclusion. I will write a full review of this, I promise!

T. Kingfisher, AKA Ursula Vernon. I rave about Castle Hangnail and her short adult fiction here; I've since read Bryony and Roses which is a wonderful Beauty and the Beast adaptation (my favourite one yet, I think, though I haven't reread MacKinley's Beauty in a while), and The Seventh Bride, which is a creepy sort of Bluebeard story.

The Future Falls, by Tanya Huff. Third book of an adult urban fantasy trilogy—funny, weird, crazy magic, really enjoyable. Yes, there are dragons. And pie.

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library, by Chris Grabenstein. This deserves an MMGM post. Fun adventure in a library we all wish were real, in the spirit of The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Westing Game.

Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho. Lots of you have raved about this one and I agree—Regency romance with magic. What's not to love? Although I almost put it down after the first couple of chapters; then Prunella showed up and I had no chance after that!

Kat Incorrigible, by Stephanie Burgis. Like a middle-grade version of Sorcerer to the Crown, actually. Great fun; definitely try it if you like Patricia C. Wrede's work.

Ambassador and Nomad, by William Alexander. My review here. Great middle-grade sci-fi duology.

The Adventures of Superhero Girl, by Faith Erin Hicks. Very funny comic strip collected into a book.














An Inheritance of Ashes, by Leah Bobet. My review here. Stunning, original aftermath fantasy.

Mars Evacuees, by Sophie McDougall. Another Cybils nominee and I promised I would review it and I will, because it's great middle-grade sci-fi and we need more girls on Mars. There's a sequel coming out that I have to get my hands on: Space Hostages. (But Mars Evacuees can stand on its own; no cliffhanger ending.)

A Thousand Nights, by E. K. Johnston. My review here. Sheherezade retelling but far, far more. And now there's a companion novel coming out in Dec! Called Spindle—I'm guessing it's Sleeping Beauty? Very excited! (Love the covers on these.)

Karen Memery, by Elizabeth Bear. My review here. Steampunk western set in a Seattle brothel. Great fun all the way through.

Rebel of the Sands, by Alwyn Hamilton. My review here. Promising start to a western/middle-eastern epic fantasy.

The Steerswoman series, by Rosmary Kirstein.  My review here. I gobbled up these genre-bending fantasies with awesome characters in a fascinating world.

Oh, and I have to mention a fantastic non-fiction book I just finished. (I need to read more non-fiction, and I certainly would if they were all as good as this one!) It has the best title ever: The Bad-ass Librarians of Timbuktu. You know you have to read it now, don't you!

MMGM: Oh, yeah, the Cybil's winners!

How is it already the end of February?? Happy Leap Year, by the way! What are you going to do with your extra day?

It's kind of old news by now, but in case you missed it, the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards winners were announced a couple of weeks ago. I was on the panel that had to pick the Middle-Grade Spec Fic winner, and it was a difficult task, let me tell you! Just take a look at this shortlist! I'm going to highlight each of the books on the shortlist in coming posts, because I loved many of them and liked them all.

But to begin with, the book everyone on the panel agreed was a sure-fire hit, with lots of kid appeal, an original premise, great characters, and a fascinating speculative world that says a lot about our own world: The Fog Diver.

Imagine we came up with a way to get rid of all our pollution by building tiny self-replicating robots to eat it. (Nanites! They're going to solve everything! A great sci-fi trope that I haven't yet seen in children's fiction.) Of course, something goes wrong, and now there's a toxic nanite fog covering almost all of the earth's surface, and humans can only live clustered at the tops of mountains.

So, of course, they get around in airships. (Airships! Inherently awesome! Especially if they look just like pirate ships, because (physics aside) of course we would build airships that look like pirate ships.) Since there aren't too many resources available at the tops of mountains, people have to dive into the toxic fog to find food and other useful stuff down on the surface. But they can only do it for so long before they get sick and die. So, of course, it's poor orphans who do most of the diving, because they have no choice.

I love the socio-economic commentary that underlies the world-building here and ties in with the plot. We have a group of poor orphans—excellent protagonists for a middle-grade adventure—facing off against exploitative land-owners (poor people don't actually get to live on the mountaintops: the slums are floating rafts that collect all around the land. If people don't pay their rent, the slum landlords cut their balloons so their shack falls to the earth. A great metaphor for the precarious position of the poor.)

Then there's the hero, Chess, who doesn't get sick when he dives into the fog. What makes Chess different is one of the mysteries that propel the plot—protagonist with a secret, another excellent trope well-used here. And Chess's crew is a great team: the book blurb almost makes them sound like caricatures, but they are all well-developed characters whose interactions were fun and believable. (They reminded me of the Firefly crew, actually, and that's high praise.)

The action is fast-paced, the stakes are high and plausible, all the characters develop over the course of the book. One plot arc comes to a satisfying close, but there is more story to be told, and I for one am eagerly anticipating the second book coming out this year. It's a world and characters I want to return to.

For more Marvelous Middle-Grade selections, every Monday check out Shannon Messenger's magnificent blog.

MMGM: The Ashtown Burials, by N. D. Wilson

Nooooo! It's not a trilogy. You can't leave me hanging like that!

I picked up The Dragon's Tooth at my library after loving Wilson's 100 Cupboards trilogy.  I devoured Dragon's Tooth and couldn't wait until the library opened again to get The Drowned Vault and Empire of Bones, so I bought them on Kindle. Then I got to the end of Empire of Bones and . . . the story's not over, and the next book isn't out yet! *Insert appropriate devastated GIF*

The Ashtown Burials series is what you'd get if H.G. Wells, Mary Shelly, and Jules Verne traveled forward in time (because they could do that) and collaborated on writing a cross between Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. With consulting help from Neil Gaiman and Garth Nix. Have we invented a genre name yet for steampunk based on 1920s technology and aesthetics? That's what this is. Percy Jackson meets Indiana Jones is a pretty good tagline. (Also some homage to Robert Louis Stevenson.)

Are you intrigued yet?

Wilson is awesome at creating detailed, grounded real-world settings and then springboarding out of them into vast imaginative landscapes. The Dragon's Tooth starts in a dingy motel in the middle of nowhere, MidWest USA. We meet Cyrus, Antigone and Daniel Smith, siblings trying to hold it together after the death of their father while their mother is in a coma. We spend just enough time to start really caring about these people when Boom! (literally) we're off on a mad chase to get to the Ashtown Estate, where Cyrus and Antigone have to join an ancient order of explorers who are their only hope of saving Daniel, who was kidnapped by some seriously strange henchmen (they have gills). And it just gets crazier from there.

There's so much to say about these books I don't even know where to start. They are stuffed full of action, danger, cool settings, weird magical powers, ancient monsters, secret inheritances, creepy villains, colorful characters of all sorts, even mythological ones (he uses a lot of Jewish mythology, which is fun and different).  Each book is a roller-coaster ride (sometimes literally) of fast-paced adventure, but there is depth to the characters, an underlying theme or moral centre grounding all the excitement.

I cared deeply about Cyrus and his family. I loved the relationship between Cyrus and Antigone, and the loyal band of friends that joins them. Cyrus has a pretty serious hero's journey to go through; there are times when I didn't quite believe in the sheer intensity of what he has to face. But his companions are always there to make a wisecrack and pick up the pieces, bringing it back to the real. Lots of sometimes painful explorations of trust and loyalty, and in the end love is the only reason that makes sense, the reason Cyrus gets through.

Not unscathed, however. These are quite dark, fairly violent books. People die, sometimes in quite horrible ways. I would still call it middle-grade, but definitely the upper range. The villain of the third book is horrible in a particularly grotesque way. Wilson keeps upping the stakes, and I have no idea what he's going to do to top that nastiness!

I can't find any information on when the next book will be out. There will be a next book, won't there? Because these three were published 2011, 2012, 2013, and then in 2014 he put out Boys of Blur, which is not related. He can't possibly think it's okay to leave Cyrus and his friends where they were at the end of Empire of Bones!!

Ahem. I'm fine. But seriously . . .

These books are a smorgasbord, a cornucopia, a feast of all the things you can think of, like the buffet at Club Med!

For more marvelous middle-grade suggestions, visit Shannon Messenger's blog every Monday.

The Enchantment Emporium, and The Silvered, by Tanya Huff

I missed the deadline for MMGM again this week; I'll have one next Monday for sure! Instead, I'm going to veer slightly away from YA in order to plug another Canadian author. Canada has some great names in sci fi/fantasy that you may or may not have heard of or known they were Canadian. Julie Czerneda I've reviewed here, and need to read more of. Tanya Huff I'm just beginning to discover.

Here's part of my Goodreads review of The Enchantment Emporium, a fun urban fantasy/paranormal romance (whatever you want to call it) about a girl who moves away from her very magical family to inherit her grandmother's junk shop, which is definitely more than it seems:

Funny, sexy, intriguing, fast-paced, and, oh yes, very, very funny. The aunties try to manipulate people by sending them pies. I mean, that's what aunties do, isn't it? The fact that they're scary magical aunties and magical pies is just icing on the cake, so to speak.

Loved the characters, loved the family dynamics, loved that everyone behaved within the parameters of the magical system--it was weird and it took a long time to understand, but it was consistent. Loved the magic mirror. Loved the dragons. Loved that it was set in Calgary! (Great line about the Calgary Tower (Allie arrives from Toronto): "As freestanding phallic symbols went, it was smaller then the one Allie was used to, but maybe Calgary felt it had less to prove.")(It's funnier if you're Canadian.)

And there's a pretty steamy romance. Did I mention the dragons? In Calgary. In a country-western bar. Love it. There's a sequel I haven't read yet, but the story is self-contained. (If you've read the book, then read the rest of my Goodreads review, which has spoilers. I'm curious to know what you think.)(If you haven't read the book, don't read the Goodreads blurb, which is both terrible and spoilery!)

The Silvered is a mix of traditional fantasy, paranormal and steampunk, with a bit of regency romance thrown in. It's set in a world where a science-based empire is trying to take over a country governed by shapeshifters and magic users. It's the coming-of-age story of Mirian, a young, not-very-skilled magic user who sets off with the equally young werewolf Thomas to rescue five Mage-pack women from the clutches of a very evil emperor. Points of view include the implacable Captain Reiter who is pursuing them, and the courageous mage Danika, doing her best to free herself and her fellow mages even though most of her magic has been disabled.

I loved the Aydori society, with werewolves at the top and upper-class mothers parading their daughters at fancy-dress events, hoping someone from the Hunt Pack will catch their scent. I loved the developing relationship between Mirian, just learning to use magic she didn't think she had, and Thomas, trying to be the protector and leader his Pack leader brother would want him to be. Captain Reiter really grew on me. And Danika was so strong and wise in a terrifying situation, I was rooting for her all the way through.

Both of these books could work for an older YA audience. Emporium has more sex (all of it PG (ie: not explicit), though the variety of it could be more eye-opening than younger teens might want), and Silvered has more violence (the emperor is evil like Hitler, so there are a few disturbing scenes of torture/experimentation). But their stories of strong young women finding their place in the world will resonate with older teens.

The Enchantment Emporium has to be a pie: a big, flaky, juicy bumbleberry pie, served warm with ice cream. The Silvered is a little more epic, with more depth, maybe a roasted pumpkin soup with creme fraiche and cilantro.

These are books 5 and 6 in my Canadian Book Challenge. Seven more to go before June 30! Be sure to visit John Mutford's blog for more great Canadian reads.

The Cabinet of Wonders, by Marie Rutkoski

All you have to do to get me to read a book is set it in Prague. There's something so . . . storied about the city: mysterious and old and intricate and artistic and layered . . . Endlessly fascinating!

When I visited Prague several years ago, we went to the famous astronomical clock in Old Town Square. We were told a legend that the prince who commissioned the clock then blinded the creator so he would never create anything so wonderful again. It was a pretty cool clock (though I don't seem to have taken a picture of it; here's a blog with a pic and some description), but the story was what I remembered.

So when I read the description of The Cabinet of Wonders, and found out it starts when the clockmaker returns home without his eyes, and there's something magical about those eyes (and about the clock he made), so his daughter decides to go get the eyes back and stop the prince from doing something nefarious with the magical clock--well, I had to read it. And the book is every bit as cool and wonderful as I could have hoped!

It has fun magic and fascinating gadgets, an intrepid heroine and a useful sidekick with a conflicting agenda, a creepy nasty villain, gypsies (the Roma), a pet tin spider, and the odd real historical detail to give those in the know a little thrill of recognition (John Dee, anyone?). It's not exactly steampunk but it has everything I like about steampunk (did I mention gadgets? and alternate history?).

It's middle-grade so it's short and fast-paced, but the plot is intricate and the characters are well-developed. And I just loved the world!

I'll definitely be looking for the next installment in the Kronos Chronicles.

The Cabinet of Wonders is these delicious pancakes that I invented: slice up a pear, fry it in butter, make your favourite buttermilk pancake batter and pour it on top the sauteed pears (be careful when you flip them over; the pears tend to fall off). Absolutely delicious, totally easy, and makes me feel terribly clever for having invented them!

For more Marvelous Middle-Grade books to muse about this week, mosey over to Shannon Messenger's magnificent blog.

Canadian Book Week: Kenneth Oppel

It's day three of Novel Writing Month, and so far so good: I have written something every day. Not much (I'm at about 4 pages longhand), but I'm getting to know my characters and setting and getting closer to figuring out my plot. (I think.)

This blog post has been sitting half-finished for weeks, now, so I figured I could procrastinate today's writing and finish it.

I have not forgotten my promise to focus on a Canadian author once a month, and this month it just has to be Kenneth Oppel, because his latest book has just come out, and it's awesome!

 That is an amazing cover, is it not? It gives you setting, mood, character; it reaches out and sucks you in; it promises you will be transported into the world beyond the keyhole. But really, all you have to read is the subtitle and you know you have to read this book. I mean, "The Apprentiship of Victor Frankenstein": how audacious is that?

But if anyone can tell a convincing story about fiction's most famous monster-maker, it's Kenneth Oppel. He's a versatile writer with a sure sense of story. He's written picture books, early readers, middle-grade and YA novels, all with strong characters and lots of action but also thematic depth and real emotion.

Does This Dark Endeavor live up to its cover? Yes. I had my reservations, because I wasn't sure I would like the character of Victor, but by the end of the novel I was convinced. If you have any interest in the Frankenstein story, if you love secret libraries and alchemy and finding impossible ingredients for the elixir of life, (and who doesn't?) then you have to read this book.

The Silverwing trilogy could be thought of as a middle-grade Watership Down, starring bats. It has animals that behave like animals, a mythology that makes sense and resonates with the story (Camazotz, the vampire bat-god, and an underworld, and possible apocalypse), and a very cool bat super-power that allows Shade to save the day more than once.  I'm making it sound more like fantasy than it is: most of the adventures are real-world/real-bat encounters with owls and humans and big nasty bats and suchlike. But the fantasy elements add that extra zing. I haven't read them in a while,  but these are books I reread happily because there's so much to them. A good choice for boy readers. I haven't read Guardians of Ga'hoole, but I'm betting if you liked those books you'll like these.

The Airborn series is for slightly older readers, and the airships and goggles on the covers do not lie: this is classic steampunk: an alternative history in which zepplins become the transportation of choice. (To be perfectly correct, I'm not sure it is steampunk, because I think the airships are powered with combustion engines, but I don't really care.) This is great fun: adventure, romance, pirates, young man proving himself, hitherto undiscovered flying creatures, ghost ships, a ladder into space. All that good stuff. Fast-paced and imaginative with characters you really care about. Highly recommended.

I also have to mention Oppel's two picture books about Peg. Peg and the Whale and Peg and the Yeti are so cute and upbeat and Peg is such an awesome heroine. Every young girl should have these books on her shelf. (And note the illustrations for Peg and the Yeti: Barbara Reid is so cool!)

Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 1, The Foundling, by D. M. Cornish

Imagine a world where the oceans are vinegar, the wilds are infested with monsters of all shapes and sizes, and chemists are people who develop monster-killing compounds. It's a world that has elements of 18th century Holland and a hint of steampunk and a great deal of adventure potential. Cornish is brilliant at world-building, endlessly inventive in his details and gorgeously evocative with his language. A vinegaroon is a sailor, one who plies the vinegar seas. A lahzar is a person who has had their body surgically altered to give them unusual monster-fighting powers, like the ability to throw electricity. A monster blood tattoo is an image of a monster that you killed, using the monster's blood as ink. That is just . . . wicked.

Now into this world throw an orphan boy with a girl's name: Rossamund, the Foundling of the title. He is earnest, bookish and sensitive, but eager to go out into the world and find his place in it. His straightforward plans get derailed, of course, and the rest of the book is one adventure after another as he tries his best to get where he's supposed to go. Some fantasy novels (particularly those written by artists (Cornish began his career as an illustrator)) have characters and plots that are merely an excuse to go wandering around the wonderful fantasy world. Not this one. Rossamund is a compelling protagonist and we are completely invested in his story. The world, rich as it is, unfolds as the necessary backdrop to Rossamund's trials, not as the primary interest of the novel. The supporting characters are all complex and fascinating, and there are mysteries yet to be explained.

Cornish's illustrations are wonderful, conveying a sense of both the characters and the atmosphere.

This is the cover image I found on the web; not the cover of the book I bought, which is dark red-brown with several character portraits. This one is the new North American edition of the series, which, if you look closely, is now called The Foundling's Tale, not Monster Blood Tattoo. I suppose that since librarians and parents are the most likely purchasers of the books, the publishers thought Monster Blood Tattoo might be too off-putting. (If it were 12-year-old boys with the disposable income, there's no question which title is more appealing!)

I'm trying to think of something comparable to Monster Blood Tattoo, but there really isn't anything else like it. You might enjoy it if you like steampunk, even though it isn't steampunk. It's probably the same reading level and similar adventure-style as the Septimus Heap books. There are horror elements, but I was never biting my nails in anxiety. Although it is a dark world and a dark story, there is a certain humour underlying it all. Cornish might just be doing a little satirizing here and there.

I'm going to call this book a thin-crust wood-oven pizza with spinach, garlic, roasted red peppers, pineapple, and feta. Original, multi-flavoured and quite delicious. (Feel free to substitute your own gourmet pizza combination if you don't like mine. Just don't make it pepperoni green pepper extra mozza.)