Books shelved under “Alternate History”

Somehow I’ve never heard of the “weird west” subgenre and now it’s everywhere on my book social feed. So it goes. It’s not my usual niche, but Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger, by K.C. Grifant, looked interesting enough to branch out. I received a review copy via NetGalley.

The eponymous Melinda West is, as the title suggests, a monster gunslinger. That is, she is a gunslinger who kills monsters, not a monster who slings a…

If my reading lately has a theme, it seems to be stories about storytelling. Or in the case of Babel: An Arcane History, stories about language. The power of words. Writers are so meta sometimes, eh. In this alternative history, R.F. Kuang confronts the very real-life history of British colonialism and imperialism and asks us to consider how our relationship with language affects our willingness to participate in—and perhaps even incite—systemic change.

Newly orphaned…

This was one of those cases of the cover truly attracting me while in my local indie bookshop. I hadn’t read anything by Alix E. Harrow previously, but the title, description, and cover sold me on The Once and Future Witches. And, given the climate of hostility towards women and people of marginalized genders in the United States in 2022, this book set in 1893 feels oddly, uncomfortably familiar.

Taking place from the spring…

Although I read fewer murder mysteries these days than I did in my youth, I still have a soft spot. Add in the allure of an alternative world in which Europeans never colonized what we call North America, and … yeah, I’m into it. The Peacekeeper is both a satisfying mystery and a thoughtful work of science fiction, and as such, it works for me on multiple levels.

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher 47North for…

This was a lot of fun in exactly the way I needed right now. Books about books and libraries are, of course, like catnip to a reader like me—yet at the same time, they can often be a letdown. Not so with The Invisible Library. Genevieve Cogman understands how to take the premise of an interdimensional library and wrap it up in enough mystery and intrigue to keep a story going.

Irene is a…

If there is one thing I can say about Jo Walton, it’s probably that her novels never fail to surprise me in various ways. Some of her novels I have loved—years later and I still can’t stop thinking about My Real Children, whereas others I only tolerated or didn’t quite enjoy. The more I read of Walton’s work, the clearer it is she has certain motifs she likes to return to time and…

Oops, I am only now realizing as I sit down to write this review that I read Empire Games, the first book in this trilogy, but not Dark State, the second. When Invisible Sun came out earlier this year, I was just so excited to get back to this story that I forgot to check if I was caught up! Turns out I was not. So, if you are wondering if you can…

Did Kara read this book totally unaware that it’s the middle of a trilogy? Absolutely I did that. I picked this up for $5 from a used bookstore because it’s a Jo Walton novel I haven’t read, and I really like Jo Walton’s books. Even when I don’t love them, I like them, which is the case here. Honestly, you couldn’t tell from this book that there was one previous—obviously the first book would have…

From women writing subversive TV now to women inventing time travel! The Psychology of Time Travel is a quirky part mystery, part love story. As the title suggests, Kate Mascarenhas focuses more so on what it would be like to be a time traveller rather than on the social, historical, or future repercussions of mucking about with a timeline. Along with bringing up the usual questions of free will versus determinism, etc., this book seeks…

I didn’t realize until I started reading that The Relentless Moon, while technically a sequel to The Fated Sky, is more of a spin-off in the series. Mary Robinette Kowal writes from the perspective of Nicole Wargin, a white woman who was a side character in the first two books. She is one of the original astronauts (or astronette, ugh) alongside Elma York, the Lady Astronaut and narrator of the first two books,…

So here we are, over 2 years after I read Blood of Tyrants: the last Temeraire novel!

It’s times like these I always want to take a deep breath before I dive into writing this review.

Let’s get the verdict out of the way: League of Dragons is a good conclusion to the series, but it is not without its strange elisions. Naomi Novik proves up to the task of wrapping up her sprawling…

If it feels like just yesterday that I read The Calculating Stars, that’s because it practically was! I seldom read sequels so close together, but once in a while I manage to buy them at the same time. In this case, I rushed out and bought The Fated Sky the weekend after I finished the first book and very deliberately made this my first book of 2019—I like to start my reading year off…

How much did I love The Calculating Stars? When I picked this up at Chapters, I didn’t realize that its sequel was already out! So when I finished this on the evening of December 28, I was very tempted to rush out and buy that sequel right away. But Chapters was closing in 20 minutes, so I waited until the next day, and then I bought The Fated Sky with the intention of…

OH. MY. GOD. WHY DID NONE OF YOU MAKE ME READ THIS BOOK SOONER???

I’ve previously read two of Jo Walton’s books. The first, Among Others, was a Hugo-nominated, Nebula-winning novel that I enjoyed but didn’t love. The second, Tooth and Claw, was a more straightforward story which was basically “what if Regency England was intelligent dragons” and, as such, was a delightfully clever romp of a book. My Real Children is a …

So I read this book nearly a month ago but am only now getting around to writing a review, because I have literally spent all my free time knitting a SEKRIT PROJECT because I want to give it to my friend Amanda, who has been away and out of contact for a month. Project is almost done, and so now I can resume my regular reading and reviewing, just in time for summer! However, my…

I’ve finally figured it out: this is a buddy cop story.

Wait wait wait wait wait—it makes total sense! Think about it. Laurence is the by-the-book, hardnosed detective who has been on the job for years when, one day, out of the blue, this smartass rookie with a talent for learning languages and blowing hot air waltzes into his life. The two become partners and start working cases together, and Temeraire keeps getting Laurence in…

After over a year, I stumbled across the last three Temeraire books while browsing Chapters and realized the time has come to pick up this series and put it to rest. Crucible of Gold, the seventh instalment in these adventures, sees Laurence and Temeraire reinstated in the Aerial Corps for an urgent mission to Brazil. Napoleon has a shaky alliance with the Tswana, and they are raiding the Portuguese colonies there for their enslaved…

A Criminal Magic hooked me from the start. A friend gave this to me for my birthday (apparently it was on my to-read list, not that I’d remember). I started it on Saturday, and 25 pages in I texted her to let her know she had picked well. Lee Kelly’s story of sorcerers labouring under a magic Prohibition in an alternative 1926 is just captivating. From parallel plot-lines to a careful, judicious use of magic,…

It always tickles me when people criticize progressive portrayals of social justice in historical settings as being “unrealistic” even when those books have magic in them. Leaving aside the fact that there have always been radicals in every era, if you can stomach sorcerers and fae in your story, you should be able to accept that some men in Georgian England might want women to be educated.

I’ve had an ebook of Sorcerer to the…

My one-sentence review might be: if you liked Leviathan, then you’ll like Behemoth. It’s a worthy sequel that notably doesn’t suffer from the dreaded “middle book syndrome” of a trilogy. Once again Scott Westerfeld plays fast and loose with the events leading up to World War I, and it pays off with an intense story in which our two protagonists have to decide what to prioritize: their duties, or their friendship. It’s the…