2025/048: The Touch of the Sea — Steve Berman (editor)

I swim for the same reason that I sail, because I love the sea, not it loves me. Because it is dark, because it is salt, because it is deadly. Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart. [loc. 2892: 'Keep the Aspidochelone Floating', by Chaz Brenchley]

A selection of gay fantasy short stories by eleven authors, introduced by editor Steve Berman. I'm fairly sure I bought this because I'd just read something by one of those authors, but I cannot remember which or who. Here we find selkies and naiads, mermen, pirates, rig workers, fishermen... The two stories I liked most were 'Wave Boys' by Vincent Kovar (in which tribes of 'lost' boys meet, fight and part in a futuristic landless world where language has warped) and 'Keep the Aspidochelone Floating' by Chaz Brenchley (in which pirates of many genders discover a secluded island and live to regret it). I'm also intrigued by the worldbuilding in 'nathan Burgoine's 'Time and Tide': would like to read more in that world. A nice anthology to dip into.

Full list of contents here.

2025/047: The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands — Sarah Brooks

The Company had always disliked anything they perceived as superstitious or backward, but until recently an uneasy truce had existed. The crew could keep their small rituals, their icons and gods, as long as they were discreet, as long as the passengers found them charming. But now, they have been told, it is time for a change. A new century is approaching – the passengers do not want mysticism, they want modernity. There is no place for these rituals any more, said the Company. [loc. 367]

Siberia, 1899: Valentin Rostov's famous guidebook, from which this novel takes its title, begins by warning the traveller not to attempt the journey between Moscow and Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Express 'unless you are certain of your own evenness of mind' [loc. 153]. The heavily-armoured train's previous journey through the Wastelands ended catastrophically with the deaths of three people -- though nobody who was on board can quite recall what happened. 

Passengers on this new voyage, all heading for the Great Exhibition in Moscow, include a woman travelling under a pseudonym, a young girl who was famously born on the train, and a disgraced naturalist who's determined to redeem himself. There are also aristocrats and peasants, snipers and scientists, the train's Captain (who grew up in Siberia before it became Wasteland) and the two representatives of the Trans-Siberia Company, who are known as the Crows. Once the train has passed through the heavily-guarded Wall and into the Wasteland, even looking out of the window might be dangerous. For the Wasteland has, for nearly a century, been turning against humanity. And if its creatures enter the train, everyone will die.

This is a beautifully-written novel that I think I may have read, too hastily, at the wrong time. (Or perhaps my 'evenness of mind' was inadequate.) I suspect a reread is in order, so that I can soak up the atmosphere: the fluid horror and beauty of the Wastelands, the themes of evolution and of human impact on the natural world, the hints of the effects of the transformation on the wider world. 

2025/046: Icarus — K. Ancrum

“If you’re such a good thief, then why haven’t you stolen me yet?” [loc. 3002]

This is a YA queer romance: it is not -- despite the title -- a straightforward retelling of the myth of Icarus, who flew too near the sun. Ancrum has transformed the elements of that myth into something quite new, a story about a motherless boy and his father, about art and vengeance, about theft and love and being different.

Icarus Gallagher's mother died when he was no more than two years old. Since then he's been raised by his artist father Angus, who has trained him to become a thief and a forger. Their target is rich Mr Black, and their modus operandi is to steal genuine artworks and replace them with immaculate forgeries. Icarus -- a gifted artist in his own right -- has grown up being careful not to attract attention, not to make friends or excel at school or mention that he's tired because he spends his nights breaking into a millionaire's house. At the opening of this novel, Icarus is nearly eighteen, and he's making plans to leave. He wants to start afresh, 'far from his crimes and his father and this house'.

But one night he senses that Mr Black's house isn't as empty as expected -- and then he meets Mr Black's son Helios, under house arrest without access to phone or internet or anything beyond the walls of the house, effectively imprisoned. Helios is immensely lonely, and makes a deal: he won't tell anyone about Icarus's crimes if Icarus comes to visit him. Icarus, against his father's rules and despite his own reservations, does. Together they unravel the complex history between their families, and Icarus discovers that he does have friends despite his best efforts. And Icarus pulls off the most audacious theft of all.

This is an emotionally intense novel that deals with some difficult and potentially triggering issues: physical disability, abusive parenting, addiction, queerness .... It's also a joyous celebration of art and love, and a story about prisoners, and about recognising and appreciating the love and friendship that are present in one's life. Icarus is also, often, very funny, despite the harrowing elements. I liked it immensely and am looking forward to reading more by Ancrum, whose work I'm surprised I haven't encountered before.

“We’ve already gallivanted through medical trauma, abuse, addiction, my weird joints, extracurricular genders, almost getting off from your touching my face, a dance recital, Roman baths in the middle of Michigan—” [loc. 2800]

2025/045: Full Dark House — Christopher Fowler

May was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate on Bryant’s theories when, just a short distance from London, the bodies of so many innocent civilians were being dragged from the smoking ruins of a town. Their case seemed absurd and almost pointless by comparison. [p. 217]

First in the Bryant and May series, read for book club. It begins in contemporary London, when ageing detective John May investigates the death of his longtime colleague Arthur Bryant in an explosion. He finds himself remembering their very first case together, in wartime London, with the perils of the Blitz complicating a series of murders at the Palace Theatre. The crimes coincide with the opening of a scandalous new production of Offenbach's 'Orpheus in the Underworld' -- and the plot of that operetta may hold clues to the pattern of the crimes. Bryant's knowledge of classical mythology allows him to offer arcane interpretations of the murders, while May, more down-to-earth and empathetic, is better at talking to the performers and the theatre's staff. Meanwhile modern-day May is bemoaning modernity and the loss of the rationality he valued. He's also trying to unravel a set of clues which lead to a curiously bland (and predictable) solution.

The first victim (a dancer, dead in a lift with her feet cut off) is named Tanya, which did not endear me to this novel. Nor did the frequent changes of viewpoint (sometimes in a single paragraph) or the author's tendency to provide historical context which wouldn't have been known to the characters. ("Last month, the corner of Leicester Square had been bombed flat, and holes had been blown in the District Line railway tunnel at Blackfriars; right now the bureau would be busy suppressing the truth, retouching photographs, stemming negative information, tucking away all morale-damaging reports until after the war." [p. 130]) It's as though he needs to keep reminding us that the events of the novel take place in two different times.

All of which sounds very negative, but I think I just wasn't in the mood for Fowler's voice. Possibly I was expecting something more supernatural, something in the vein of the Rivers of London novels. Full Dark House is the first in a long and popular series, so it's possible I would get on better with later volumes. I did enjoy Bryant's bookish, classics-inflected utterances ("You’re part of the maieutic process... Socratic midwifery... You know, the easing out of ideas." [p. 280]) especially in contrast to May's mundanity and his tendency to stare at or flirt with every female character. But the sense of a budding friendship between two very different men is well done.

2025/044: Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon — Mizuki Tsujimura, translated by Yuki Tejima

"She had a hard time deciding if she should see you too. If she saw you, you would know she was dead. But she said yes... even though she wants to live inside you for ever, even though she wants you to never forget her. She knows that once you see her, you'll forget about her and move on..." [loc. 1732]

Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon, first published as Tsunago ('Go-Between') in Japanese in 2010, could be mistaken for another vaguely magical feelgood novel. The premise is that the Go-Between -- a young man, orphaned, named Ayumi -- can set up a meeting between a living person and a dead person. There are, of course, rules: the dead person must agree to the meeting, and neither party can ever arrange another meeting. The meetings take place at a five-star hotel, from sunset to sunrise on the night of the full moon. ('The more intense the moonlight, the longer they can meet' -- but still, sunset to sunrise...) 

The first four chapters, or stories, recount four such meetings. Twenty-something office worker Manami Hirase wants to meet Saori Mizushiro, a recently-deceased celebrity whose off-the-cuff comment helped her with her self-confidence; hard-boiled businessman Yasuhiko Hatade has been given the go-between's contact details by his now-dead mother, and pretends he just wants to ask her about her will; schoolgirl Misa Arashi is desperate to see her dead friend Natsu Misono, for whose death she blames herself; Koichi Tsuchiya mourns the only woman he ever loved, Kirari Himukai, but doesn't know whether she is dead or alive.

Each of the stories goes somewhere unexpected, imparting lessons about expectations, about grief, about guilt. (And yes, they do all get to talk to the dead.) But it's only with the fifth chapter of the book, in which we replay these encounters from Ayumi's viewpoint, that the stories become part of a larger narrative: the story of how Ayumi became an orphan and then a go-between, of the history behind that gift (or is it a curse?), and of Ayumi's relationship with his beloved grandmother. It's a story about family and about loss, about expectations and unspoken assumptions, and about how we deal with grief. Is it selfish to want to speak to the dead? Must we let go of those we loved? Can we forgive them, or ourselves?

The translation was mostly smooth, though there were a couple of points where an explanation of a Japanese term felt laboured: I assume that the nonchronological flow of the stories was the author's own. This was a sweet and thoughtful novel, and I think it would be an interesting book club choice: plenty of material for discussion!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy! UK publication date is 3rd April 2025.

2025/043: And the Ocean Was Our Sky — Patrick Ness, Rovina Cai

"We fight so that we may stop being devils!"
And at this, I could hold back my anger and confusion no longer, even if it killed me. "But what if it's the fighting that makes us so?"
... "And there at last, my dear Third Apprentice," she said, "is the adult question." [p. 102]

This short, gorgeously illustrated novel is a physical and allegorical inversion of Moby Dick. Captain Alexandra leads her crew against the ships of men, determined to avenge the insult inflicted on her years before. The harpoon embedded in her head means she can no longer echo-locate, but has to rely on her crew, including our narrator ('Call me Bathsheba') to direct her. The whales' Above is the men's Below: they dive towards the Abyss -- the border where sea meets air -- to capture men's ships, and to breathe. For all their fearsomeness, they are still mammals, and they need air: but they have developed 'breather bubbles' to minimise these necessary trips to the Abyss. And when a single survivor, with a message for Captain Alexandra from the whale-slaughtering Toby Wick, is discovered on a wrecked ship, he can be kept alive with a breather bubble, to tell the whales what he knows.

Captain Alexandra's obsessive search for the white-hulled ship of Toby Wick is as driven as that of Melville's Ahab, but the ages-long confict between species is a more solid grounding for her emotions, and those of her crew. Bathsheba has seen her own mother butchered by men: she has every reason to continue hating them. Her own grandmother has prophesied that she will hunt, and she is immensely loyal to her Captain and her crew. But Demetrius, the shipwreck survivor, imprisoned in the whales' ship and without hope of reaching land again, makes Bathsheba question the prophecies and the nature of evil.

This may be aimed at a younger audience, but it isn't soft or sentimental. It's a story about war, and hatred, and justifying evil, and about how devils are made. Ness's prose is vivid and unflinching. Rovinda Cai's illustrations (see some here) begin in monochrome, shadowy and sleek, but towards the climax of the novel there is colour, and that colour is red. I was fascinated by the evocation of whale society (cities in the deep, coral engravings, harpoons, heating crabs, scars adorned with jewels), and the war between whales and men, depicted as a more equal conflict than the historical whaling industry, felt queasily satisfying. Such a beautiful book in many ways, with a sense of hope despite the horrors it reveals.

2025/042: The Tomb of Dragons — Katherine Addison

A Witness for the Dead, said the dragon. How ... appropriate. Will you witness for us? We need a witness, and we assure you we are dead. [loc. 1307]

At the end of The Grief of Stones, Thara Celehar lost his Calling, but was promised 'an assignment that is uniquely suited to your abilities'. Unfortunately, that seems to involve a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy. His days are not without incident, though. Though his apprentice, the excellent and determined Velhiro Tomasaran, is answering the few witnessing requests that come in, there are other matters that demand his attention; a murder at the Vermillion Opera, demesne of Celehar's friend Iäna Pel-Thenhior; an escaped political prisoner; and a group of miners are keen to have someone talk to the unseen horror that lurks in the depths of a mountain.

This is as much a novel about friendship and support as it's about paperwork, mines or murders. Celehar has always battled feelings of inadequacy and self-worth (he doesn't even think he deserves a decent coat, let alone a better stipend from the city treasury) and he doesn't seem to recognise friendship when it's offered. But it is offered, and reciprocated, and sometimes Celehar even manages to trust those friends: Tomasaran, Pel-Thenhior (who has, to be fair, shown signs that could be interpreted as something more than friendship), Azhanharad the subpraeceptor, and even some individuals in the distant capital.

Given the publisher's blurb ('deftly wrapping up The Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy') I'd expected more of a conclusion here. The finale of this novel feels more like the beginning of a new phase than an ending to Celehar's story -- or the stories of his friends. Yes, he's grown and changed across the course of these three books, and his personal relationships are in considerably better shape than they were at the start of The Witness for the Dead; yes, he's overcome the lingering grief of events that happened well before even The Goblin Emperor. But there is so much more possibility in his life now -- perhaps even romantically -- and I'd love to see what happens next.

In preparation for this long-awaited novel, I reread The Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones, the first two books in the trilogy... I found I liked Stones rather better this time around, as more happens to Celehar in it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my advance review copy! UK publication date, at least for Kindle, is 13th March 2025.