Shadow Speaker: The Desert Magician's Duology, Book One

 

My Thoughts:

Nnedi Okorafor is the best science fiction/fantasy contemporary author. That she happens to be Nigerian American, that she happens to be black, that she happens to be an Afrofuturist author in the vein of Octavia Butler has nothing to do with what makes her such a memorable storyteller. Let us not belittle her talent by calling her a Black science fiction/fantasy author. She is a storyteller that continues to both entertain and provide a cautionary tale to humanity in the same way that all great science fiction and fantasy books do. 

Shadow Speaker is book one of a duology taking place in a postapocalyptic Saharan landscape. Okorafor is very good at coming of age stories with strong female characters and this is no exception. Like her other books she also weaves in magic, technology, power struggles and war. The difference in this book is that the writing is more complex in a great way. Okorafor as a storyteller still pulls me in with the fast twists and turns, but she also takes the time to round out the characters, including Onion, the talking Camel. I dare you to not cling to Onion as a main character. 

One of the most beautiful scenes, and one that I cannot talk too much about because it is a spoiler, opens up the idea that pain and death can really just be a metamorphosis to clarity and growth. It was almost like the author, like many other science fiction/fantasy authors is starting to talk about religion in her own way (Pullman, Golden Compass and even Butler, as examples). Either way, it does not matter. As a story teller, Okorafor is getting better and better with every book. That scene earned the last star. I know that this is an expanded edition of an out of print early novel, so perhaps it is not about her maturing voice, but either way, in the order in which I have read her pieces (Binti then the  Akata series), this was is the best at character development. I definitely will read her next book, Like Thunder.

From the Publisher:

Niger, West Africa, 2074
 
It is an era of tainted technology and mysterious mysticism. A great change has happened all over the planet, and the laws of physics aren’t what they used to be.
 
Within all this, I introduce you to Ejii Ugabe, a child of the worst type of politician. Back when she was nine years old, she was there as her father met his end. Don’t waste your tears on him: this girl’s father would throw anyone under a bus to gain power. He was a cruel, cruel man, but even so, Ejii did not rejoice at his departure from the world. Children are still learning that some people don’t deserve their love.  
 
Now 15 years old and manifesting the abilities given to her by the strange Earth, Ejii decides to go after the killer of her father. Is it for revenge or something else? You will have to find out by reading this book.
 
I am the Desert Magician, and this is a novel I have conjured for you, so I’m certainly not going to just tell you here.

Publication information:

Author: Nnedi Okorafor

Publisher: DAW (September 26, 2023)

Hana Hsu and the Ghost Crab Nation

 

Publication date: Jun 21, 2022 by Sylvia Liu, Penguin Young Readers Group

My Thoughts:

This is an exciting beat the clock and the bad guys middle grades science fiction #AAPI adventure. Hana canʻt wait to turn 13 so she can get enmeshed with the webverse and finally get closer to her older sister Lina and her mom who never seems to have any time for Hana after her father died. 

Hana is a curious 12 year old who loves to make automatons by looking for spare parts at the dump. It is something that she learned from her grandmother and her father. But now that her father is gone and her Popo (grandmother) seems to be losing her memory, Hana feels lonely and misunderstood.

She meets new friends in the Start-Up school, but a tattooed hacker, Ink, who she meets at the dump opens up a new vision of technology, secret experiments and corporate power grabs.  Are all the adults hiding secrets or is Hana paranoid now? Who can she trust?

This book will keep readers hooked. If they like this book, offer the graphic novel In Real Life: IRL by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang, or even the indigenous YA sci fi Walking in Two Worlds by Wab Kinew. And of course, if they have not read or watched it, the original reality versus web fantasy is Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and Marie Luʻs duology Warcross and Wildcard. 

From the Publisher:

Perfect for fans of Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee, this thrilling, cinematic sci-fi novel follows Hana Hsu’s mission to save herself—and her friends—from a dangerous plot to control their minds.

Hana Hsu can’t wait to be meshed.
 
If she can beat out half her classmates at Start-Up, a tech school for the city’s most talented twelve-year-olds, she’ll be meshed to the multiweb through a neural implant like her mom and sister. But the competition is fierce, and when her passion for tinkering with bots gets her mixed up with dangerous junkyard rebels, she knows her future in the program is at risk.
 
Even scarier, she starts to notice that something’s not right at Start-Up—some of her friends are getting sick, and no matter what she does, her tech never seems to work right. With an ominous warning from her grandmother about being meshed, Hana begins to wonder if getting the implant early is really a good idea.
 
Desperate to figure out what’s going on, Hana and her friends find themselves spying on one of the most powerful corporations in the country—and the answers about the mystery at Start-Up could be closer to home than Hana’s willing to accept. Will she be able to save her friends—and herself— from a conspiracy that threatens everything she knows?

Iron Widow

 

My Thoughts:

This novel has a polyamorous love triangle, a strong-willed girl who wants to change the gender inequity in her society, a  superstar Chrysalis pilot who kills his concubine pilots without remorse, aliens, mechanical sci fi machines, Chinese historical characters, and an Emperor pilot that has been asleep for two hundred years under  the enemy hive. Add to that Game of Thrones style killings and you have an exciting ride with Zetian, historically the only female Emperor of China, now set on avenging her sister and destroying the misogyny in Huaxia.  I am beyond thrilled at all of the minority-led sci fi and fantasy coming out. Send more!

Spoiler alert - this book is a wild ride that will end with no conclusion as well as no set date for book #2. If that is a game changer, then wait on starting this book until the next book comes out. Instead read other strong willed female sci fi/dystopia like Divergent,  or Hunger Games. At least readers can devour and conclude the series. 

From the Publisher:

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
 
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​
 
To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

Paper Girls, Volume 3

 

Author: Brian K. Vaughan

Artists: Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson

From the Publishers:

The multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning series from BRIAN K. VAUGHAN and CLIFF CHIANG continues, as newspaper deliverers Erin, Mac and Tiffany finally reunite with their long-lost friend KJ in an unexpected new era, where the girls must uncover the secret origins of time travel... or risk never returning home to 1988.

My thoughts:

This is volume 3 of a series on newspaper delivery girls from 1988 who end up in different eras and need to try and find their way back to 1988. Therefore, it is a series, and I am sort of reading from the beginning/middle of it so nothing gets resolved. As the reader, you just try and absorb what is in this new place, who are the friendlies that might help them as well as who are the enemies. They seem to be in a different dimension even if it looks like they are in the past because of the cavewoman-ish indigenous warrior girl with the baby. I say she is in a different dimension because she is wearing technology and it is not unusual for this technology to come through a "poop" hole. There is also someone from the future (or at least after 1988). 

This is a series for girls who love comics, and not the cutesy ones. This is actually a real niche and I have seen just as many females reading graphics series than males so if readers are interested in sci fi/girl power adventures, this series is for you. 

My one gripe that makes this a 2-3 star (kind of ok, I read it, probably not going to get the other volumes) is that it seems obvious by the voice of the characters that this series is written by males who do not quite understand the female voice nor what makes them tick. Perhaps getting a female graphic series, sci fi, met her at a panel in comic con collaborator next time would have been nice. 

Akata Witch

From the Publisher:

    Sunny Nwazue lives in Nigeria, but she was born in New York City. Her features are West African, but she's albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing—she is a "free agent" with latent magical power. And she has a lot of catching up to do. 
      Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But as she’s finding her footing, Sunny and her friends are asked by the magical authorities to help track down a career criminal who knows magic, too. Will their training be enough to help them combat a threat whose powers greatly outnumber theirs? 
      World Fantasy Award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor blends magic and adventure to create a lush world. Her writing has been called “stunning” by The New York Times and her fans include Neil Gaiman, Rick Riordan, John Green, Ursula K. Le Guin, and many more! 

My Thoughts:

Nnedi Okorafor is the fantasy, science fiction writer who uses minority YA characters and weaves in Indigenous technology and magic (in this case juju). She is the author of the Binti trilogy that is another girl power Afropolitan character in a space and ethnic/race drama. Even in her fantasy world there is still hegemony, racial cleansing, colonization and oppression which makes for an exciting trilogy.

But this is about this book/series. It has been called the African Harry Potter, and while I can see that, what I was missing and wanted to see was the actual schooling, studying and struggle of these young magicians (similar to what Rowling did in Sorcerer's Stone). There was not enough time spent on their learning together. I also wanted to see the mentor's come in and do more with the young students.

I think it has potential to be good. I was just missing some of the work on character development so that these characters could be more rounded and I could root for them. 

In other words, it was ok. I will definitely read the next one, but I am going back to the Folk of Air series first.

Incubation (The Incubation Trilogy Book 1)

Description:

Bio-chemistry whiz Everly Jax wants one thing: to know who her parents are. Raised with other repo kids in InKubator 9, she has pinned her hopes on Reunion Day, the annual event where sixteen-year-olds can meet or reunite with their parents. When her Reunion Day goes horribly awry, she and her pregnant friend Halla escape the Kube, accompanied by their friend Wyck who has his own reasons for leaving.

In a world where rebuilding the population is critical to national survival, the Pragmatist government licenses all human reproduction, and decides who can--and must--have babies. The trio face feral dog packs, swamp threats, locust swarms, bounty hunters looking for "breeders," and more dangers as they race to Amerada's capital to find Halla's soldier boyfriend before the Prags can repo her baby and force the girls into surrogacy service.

An unexpected encounter with Bulrush, an Underground Railroad for women fleeing to Outposts with their unlicensed babies, puts them in greater peril than ever. Everly must decide what she is willing to sacrifice to learn her biological identity--and deal with the unanticipated consequences of her decisions.

My Thoughts:

This was a free book on Kindle, but this sci fi thriller that takes on very political issues about women's rights, food sovereignty, and ecological collapse is a fast paced action book that can easily become another YA book to movie choice. The book starts with locusts and ends with locusts, similar to some of my favorite authors who have also used this technique: S.E. Hinton  The Outsiders, Sandra Cisneros House on Mango Street. 

Yes, this book is free, but it is still a worthy weekend read and I definitely want to read the next book. 

Binti: Home

This is the second novel on Binti, the Abroriginal-ish science fiction story about cultures colliding and melding through one indigenous girl. As a powerful harmonizer, Binti is just about to learn really important things about her identities and her role in keeping the peace, but then the books end. Gah!

Noble V.1: God Shots

Author: Brandon Thomas

Illustrators: Roger Robinson, Jamal Igle +

About:

In this first series of Catalyst Prime superhero world, Astronaut David Powell is one of five astronauts sent by the Foresight Corporation and CEO Lorena Payne to save the world from annihilation by a massive meteor plunging to Earth.

Within the first two pages something goes wrong and his wife, former agent Astrid Allen-Powell sets out to not only hold her family and her two sons together, but it seems a year after the accident, Astrid finds out that David is still alive and she is not the only one trying to get him back.

My thoughts:

This will appeal to the new X-Men generation and the readers who liked the movie Logan and are currently watching the TV series Gifted. Granted the characters are adults and we need more teen characters just finding their powers and having to use them to get away from those people who either created and/or want to control them, HOWEVER, the appeal in this first volume is the identity issue.

David, who insists that is not his name, gains powers but loses his memory so he does not know who this David is. What he does have is sudden flashes of a child calling him daddy and glimpses of what happened to him. He remembers Lorena who seems to have implanted some of his powers but when Astrid tracks him down to try and bring him home, he does not remember her at all.

Like all first volumes in any series, the author uses the short chapters to give multiple background stories "to be continued," and this one has potential to hold readers and keep them coming back. 

Fuzzy

From the publishers:

From the minds of Tom Angleberger, the New York Times bestselling author of the wildly popular Origami Yoda series, and Paul Dellinger, an adult science-fiction writer, comes a funny middle school story with a memorable robot title character. Reluctant readers and robot lovers in elementary and middle school will enjoy this fast-paced read that shows just how strange a place middle school can be, particularly when the new student is a state-of-the-art robot.

When Max—Maxine Zealster—befriends her new robot classmate Fuzzy, part of Vanguard One Middle School's new Robot Integration Program, she helps him learn everything he needs to know about surviving middle school—the good, the bad, and the really, really, ugly. Little do they know that surviving sixth grade is going to become a true matter of life and death, because Vanguard has an evil presence at its heart: a digital student evaluation system named BARBARA that might be taking its mission to shape the perfect student to extremes!

With a strong female main character who will appeal to all readers, Tom Angleberger and Paul Dellinger's new novel offers readers a fresh take on robots. Fuzzy will find its place in the emerging category of bestselling books featuring robots, including Jon Scieszka' s Frank Einstein series and James Patterson's House of Robots.

My thoughts:

This just screams of a great summer book - eases the boredom of long days with a fast-paced, funny adventure through middle school.  Vice Principal Barbara is determined to send Max to reform school and Fuzzy, her best friend is just as determined to save Max. It makes it even more exciting because Barbara and Fuzzy are both robots who can learn and adjust and react like humans with their own "fuzzy logic" or artificial intelligence. Can Max gain the trust of her parents again? Will she be able to save Fuzzy? Will she ever get through a whole week without flunking a test or getting detention?

Fun end for a fun book. Will there be more?

Publication date: August 16, 2016

Dystopian Sci-Fi: Transient City

Publisher: Bundoran Press Publishing (May 17, 2016)

What it's about from the publishers:

On a distant mining colony at the far reaches of a galactic empire, vast cities crawl across the surface of desolate planet looking for valuable minerals while their citizens struggle to survive. Victor Stromboli, a professional crime scene witness is nearly crippled by the brutal memories he can't control or forget. 

Now, he has to solve the mystery of a missing corporate executive. The only trouble is: the man is the husband of the love of his life. Stromboli has to overcome rogue miners, corporate intrigue and a pair of vicious psychopaths. Or die trying.

My thoughts:

This book, coming out in May, is a page-turning detective mystery, taking place in the dystopian future. It took me a little bit of re-reading to get into this world. It feels like a combination of Water World and Mad Max. Like Mad Max, the main character, Victor Stromboli, is sometimes overshadowed by over the top villains (politically connected Blaze and psychopath Chill) as well as minor characters who play large parts in keeping the "hero" alive. Stromboli is not the typical hero. He is neither young, stunning or physically strong. He is forgettable and powerless for most of the book and is often the unwilling pawn. His underdog status, though, are what make him so cheer-worthy. This will be a great summer read.

An advanced reading copy provided by NetGalley.net for an honest review.

Age of the Aura Phase I: Champions of Power giveaway

Age of the Aura, Phase I: Champions of Power (SYNOPSIS)

Genre: Science Fiction (Space Opera)

The Blessed Galaxy has no other name. After being gifted with the Auras—five great powerhouses of celestial creation—the title was a suitable fit. For millennia, the governing bodies have ruled their respective reaches of the Galaxy while harnessing the might of the Auras. But now they face the threat of a calamity, from an unlikely source, that could shake the lives of all.

Lowen Sars, a devout man of science, decides to take on the burden of saving the Galaxy’s people once he learns of the calamity. But he soon realizes that the role of a hero was a calling not meant for him, even with his sudden promotion. In his process of self-discovery, Lowen begins the fateful saga of not only the Blessed Galaxy, but also the kingdom in possession of the corrupt Aura.

Read more behind the story! http://ageoftheaura.com/universe/

Download Phase I for FREE on Amazon! (June 24^th-28^th ONLY!)

http://amzn.to/M8k1vf

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Goodreads Book Giveaway

Champions of Power

by Samuel Odunsi Jr.

Giveaway ends July 24, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Book Reviews for Phase I

The Indie Book Review

A Book So Fathomless - "3.5 out of 5"

Beth Art From the Heart - "4 out of 5"

Voracious Reader - "3 out of 5"

Sadie S Forsythe - "3 out of 5"

Nik's Picks - "4 out of 5"

Dee's Reads - "3 out of 5"

My Cozie Corner - "5 out of  5"

Confuzzled Books - "4 out of 5"

Cheryl's Book Nook - "4 out of 5"

The Guide to Good Books - "5 out of 5"

Paranormal Sisters - "3.5 out of 5"

Books With Leti Del Mar - "3 out of 5"