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I keep hearing about books, forgetting all context by the time I have a hold of them, and then being surprised when they turn out to be for younger audiences. This one isn't bad, but despite all the violence and bloodshed and the horrors of war and whatnot (quite explicitly described, in parts), it's clearly aimed at people in maybe the 8-14 range. Given that, it's... fine? I would've enjoyed it younger and I enjoyed it now, enough to want to read how it goes on, but it's not something that's likely to really stay with me.

It does have one major flaw, which is the narration in the flashback chapters where Meela is a younger kid. It does the thing which is almost unavoidably common in children's books (and, apparently, books from children's perspectives) - the patronising, dumbed-down style of narration - and which incredibly annoys me every time I come across it because it doesn't have to be this way, some of my favourite books are for kids and they're all the better for not doing this; but apparently this is a minority opinion, given how ubiquitous it is.

There's also some weird stuff going on with the worldbuilding, ie, the modern setting and relative recentness of the mermaid threat call into question the use of crossbows vs. guns (maybe there's a good reason, but it's never explained) and the "traditional" use of sex-segregated 18-year-olds for the massacre. But, you know, it's fine. Everyone likes a good teenage-social-conflict-against-a-bloody-backdrop-of-senseless-violence book.

This book is something of a technical marvel: it does something really cool with the perspective, with several very different first-person narrators inside an (also first-person) framing narrative, with high immersion and hardly any narrative distance, and while it's really cool and works really well it's sort of difficult to explain why from the outside.

It's also sort of a sequel to Hoshi and the Red City Circuit (do HTML tags work here), though it's disconnected enough that either of them can easily be read on their own, and/or in any order. The world is the same, but the location is not, and no characters are shared. I'm not sure when the framing narrative takes place relative to Hoshi, and even less sure of the even-more-framing device that takes place outside of that, but the internal narrative in fact takes place before the events of Hoshi and the Red City Circuit: on a plot level, this is a book about what went down on Callisto with the élans vital, which Hoshi only vaguely alluded to. The plot level is not really the most relevant, though, also because it is about the élans vital. It is about feelings and resonance and hatred and hope, and it is very good.

Selling points: cool metaphysics; queer; largely neurodivergent cast (most protagonists have K-syndrome, a fictional genetic disorder distinct from, but very similar to, autism) whose neurodivergence expresses itself in very different ways, highlighted through the close first person perspectives; big high-stakes climax stuff happens through a non-violent artistic medium.

Warnings: deals with severe institutionalised ableism, self-hatred, addiction; in-world bigotry is very noticeably flattened onto this one channel, with no intersectionality.

I like this style in short stories. It definitely wouldn't work for a novel. I'm surprised to find how well it works here. Exactly the right length.

Two things that stood about about this book in particular: one is the way it finished off the series (satisfying but also super daring; to say more would be full of spoilers, but massive respect for this), and the other is a minor conversation between two characters about fashion.

It is incredibly refreshing to have a character - especially a male character, even though he's not cross-dressing - wearing a nice long full skirt, because skirts offer better freedom of motion than pants while fighting. This runs counter to so many lazy cross-dressing tropes, it's realistic, it's aesthetic, it's great. It's so great.

A thing I really liked about the first book was the way every single character was sympathetic, and I was rooting for all of them, despite the way that several of them were operating at cross purposes. This is no longer the case here. There is clear villain (several, really; one is a repeated viewpoint character). This changes the vibe. I'm already invested, but if I weren't, this would feel a bit... I don't know, not bad as such, but nothing special, either.

I really don't have much to say about this book, and that's partly because I'm barely able to string enough words together for a book review anymore, and partly because I went straight on to the next one and am regarding this more as "middle section of a whole" than as a book in its own right, but it's also partly because the whole book honestly feels more like that middle section of a whole than anything. It's not remarkable in any way the first book wasn't, and the obvious villain(s) and rising political intrigue make it stand out less from the genre as a whole, but overall it's just a solid continuation and solid step towards the end, no more and no less.

Die Serie hat durchaus ein paar Fehler (sogar ein paar recht offentsichtliche Kontinuitätsfehler), und ich bin in der Versuchung, sie aufzuzählen, aber ich verheb's mir. Insgesamt aber ist sie verdammt gut. Kan ich nur empfehlen.

There's a lot of complexity here. The worldbuilding is top-notch, without many shortcuts: social strata viewed from more than one side, foreigners from all over with culture and languages and everything that feel consistent and realistic even when they're only mentioned in passing. Honestly this feels like a technical masterpiece in so many ways: there are a lot of moving parts and they all meet up like some sort of complex knotwork; lots of characters, with proper arcs and everything, but introduced at a rate and in a manner that keeps them easy to keep track of; some of the best-done character voices I've seen; perspective-hopping showcasing things (characters, situations, social classes, privilege) from different sides in a way that feels easy and natural. It's just... really well done.

It's also just a fun read. Engrossing, left me wanting more.

Selling points: fun, fast-paced, great worldbuilding, casual bisexuality with no one making a big thing about it, technically excellent, high-class person realising their privilege without it feeling like proselytizing

Warnings: sacrificed friendship

Das Buch hätte wirklich Inhaltswarnungen brauchen können. Es gibt anscheinend auch welche auf der Website der Autorin, leider aber nicht im Buch selber. Daher erstmal ein paar Warnungen: Sex, explizit; sexuelle Übergriffe bis hin zur Vergewaltigung, auch von Kindern; grausamer, sexuell übertonter Mord; fehlende Autonomie; Misbrauch von Kindern; Krieg; Inzucht (unbewusst).

Ich hab das Buch trotzdem genossen, aber wahrscheinlich hätte ich nicht, wenn ich mich nicht besonders für Märchen interessieren würde. Es war auf jeden Fall interessant zu sehen, wie jedes Element von Rötkäppchen eingebaut wurde. Und es hat auch etwas zum nachdenken angeregt. Schwierig war es aber doch, und ich hatte auch ein bisschen das Gefühl, dass es Vergewaltigung etwas verkleinert - dadurch, dass sie fast wie Shock-Value aussah, anstatt ernsthaft thematisiert zu werden. Der eine Täter kann irgendwie nichts dafür, gegen den anderen kann man sich relativ leicht wehren, und die Häufigkeit, mit der sie vorzukommen scheint, lässt alles irgendwie verblassen. (Das fällt besonders auf, nachdem ich gerade The Bayou von Arden Powell gelesen hab, in dem die Vergewaltigung und Mord eines einzelnen Kindes solch weitreichende Nachwirkungen hat - nicht nur für das Kind selber, sondern für das ganze Dorf - dass das gleiche hier fast überflüssig scheint.)

Ein paar komische Ideen über Wolfsverhalten sind auch dabei, aber Märchenwölfe sind halt anders. Da kann man nichts sagen.

I have to say, Eugene might be the single most passive protagonist I've ever seen. Not a flaw in the writing: a deliberate character choice. There's depression and all-pervading anxiety, yes, but the level of passivity here - of learned helplessness - was deep enough to be engrossing, to have me wondering: what caused this? How did he get to be this way?

The question is answered. It is one of many questions raised and answered, or first answered and later raised: as short as this novella is, there's a many-layered depth to it that rises the more I think about it.

There's also a very consistent atmosphere to it - thick, oppressive, uneasy; dread so creeping that it feels more like depression than fear. Might be a hard read, if it were longer. Though, again: there's more to it than its length implies.

Selling points: gay, hella atmosphere, depth, for all the purported supernatural horror villains the true horror is what lies in humanity

Warnings: suicide (on page, moderately intense); child sexual abuse; sex (tasteful but explicit); sex used to shut someone up; sex used to secure binding promises from someone without their necessarily noticing; homophobia (especially internalised and religious homophobia, period-typical); gun violence; religion (Christianity (Catholic) as an authoritarian institution and a social force).

Possibly because it's the only one featuring an underdog, and actually - to an extent - addressing the incredibly White American Male viewpoint that pervades the series (as, in fact, it does a lot of Scalzi's writing). This book was interesting, but still ultimately centrist, and of course the premise of the series - which this book can't really help, being a sequal - is still kind of weird and nonsensical. I guess The Power of Colonialism is so great that it is an important goal in and of itself, not even because resources or population exploring or whatever else: all of these are explicitly mentioned as being unimportant. War for war's sake, colonialism for colonialism's sake. It's not even about expansion.

Again, though: this book was interesting and had a better perspective, so I can't complain all too much.

(Goes for the entire series.)

Do you enjoy reading about super-rich assholes posturing at each other, engaging in dominance displays, threats, murder, and saying one thing but meaning another? If so, this is the book/series for you! (If not, you will probably be bored. There's technically some worldbuilding and characters and whatnot in here, but they're pretty much buried under the scheming and power grabs.)