Starbreak by Phoebe North

This is the sequel to North’s debut, Starglass, and picks up right where the first book left off. Terra and a few other humans flee the chaos of the ship and make it to the planet below, which they know by now is already inhabited. Much to Terra’s surprise, they run into Aleksandra, the captain’s murderous daughter, who leads the rebels. They’re all eventually captured by the aliens that live on the planet, and Terra finally gets a chance to meet the alien boy she’s been literally dreaming about for months – it turns out he’s the translator between humans and aliens. The culture clash between the humans and the aliens is as fractious as you’d expect. It’s unclear whether the aliens will allow the humans to live on the planet – or if they’ll exile them to space once more.

I’ve long wanted more alien books where the aliens are less humanoid and more…something else. Starbreak fulfills this desire and tells a fascinating story to boot. While the first book was relegated entirely to the ship of humans, the sequel takes us onto an alien planet peopled with two different species of sentient creatures. They’re somewhat humanoid in that they speak through their mouths and walk on two legs, but they’re plant-based rather than animal-based. The idea of sentient plants is so cool to me, and I loved seeing how North built upon it. For example, one species of alien is carnivorous, like a Venus fly trap, whereas the other subsists on sun and water alone. The two species of aliens also have a unique relationship with each other, unlike anything on Earth (at least among humans). Of course, this story is also about human Terra, and it is in this book that she truly finds her voice and comes into her own. It’s a love story as well, a sweet one and a weird one.

All books about humans meeting aliens can be read as a metaphor for different human cultures first interacting with each other, and Starbreak is no different. It would take a shallow reader not to note the parallels, but this is not a message-driven book that wants you to Learn a Lesson. It’s a character-driven story imbued with human truth and a lot of creativity, solidly science fiction but always relatable. It would be a great readalike for fans of Beth Revis’ Shades of Earth (the best book in that trilogy, in my opinion) or perhaps Cecil Castellucci’s Tin Star, another book where a human finds herself alone among aliens.

Promise of Shadows by Justina Ireland

Zephyr is a harpy, and she’s been banished to Tartarus (sort of like Hell) for exacting revenge against the god who killed her sister. The thing is, she shouldn’t have been able to kill a god in the first place. This ability indicates that Zephyr may be the long-lost Nyx, able to use dark magic and protect the harpies and other half-god beings from gods like Hera who mean to wipe them out. First Zephyr has to escape Tartarus, which she does with the help of a long-lost (and hot) childhood friend. Then she has to accept this destiny, not an easy thing to do for someone who is a coward (a refreshing character trait. Being brave is hard and doesn’t come easy for most of us).

Ireland’s writing is smooth and easy to read – and I mean that in a good way. I read this book coming off a string of duds and it was so refreshing to finally read something well-written and competently structured. It’s not hugely different in premise or plot from the scads of other mythology-inspired paranormal reads out there, but it’s done quite well and features a black protagonist, helping to diversify a genre that is too often lily white. Zephyr feels like her own person, not an everygirl – she’s not very brave, tends to run from fights, and is pretty bad at school. This makes for a satisfying character arc when she finally does learn how to be the Nyx (because you knew she would, right?). Ireland takes traditional Greek mythology and builds on it, weaving many different elements together into an interesting whole. The story is action-packed with a side of romance (rather than vice versa). Ancillary characters are well-drawn as well. It’s just a good book in every way. I can see it having lots of appeal for readers who can’t get enough of Greek mythology; it would be a natural next read for fans of Percy Jackson who are ready for something a little older.

Talker 25 by Joshua McCune
Melissa lives in a country much changed from the one we know. Dragons have terrorized the people for years, but humans have finally achieved a tenuous peace – they’ve hunted the most violent dragons to their deaths or exile, and have put the rest on reservations. When Melissa and her friends go to one of these reservations as a prank, it sets off a chain of events that will utterly change her life. For starters, she learns she can talk to dragons with her mind. Then a terrible dragon attack destroys Melissa’s town, and she’s rescued by dragon sympathizers, usually called terrorists by everyone else. This encompasses the first part of the book, where Melissa realizes that a lot of what she’s been told about the dragons is wrong. The second part involves Melissa being captured by the government and exploited for her telepathic abilities. She’s forced to trick dragons to their deaths, and sometimes she’s forced to kill them herself.

I wasn’t crazy about this one. I’ve always been a bit tepid toward dragons. I loved Pern, but nothing dragon-related since then has really grabbed me. The premise of Talker 25 – that some humans can communicate with dragons telepathically – is interesting, but the execution was pretty jumbled. I never got a clear idea of what exactly the dragons had done to start such a war, which meant I had no context for the humans’ fight against them. It seems like McCune just assumed that we’d know humans and dragons had been locked in a deadly fight for years, but I never figured out why. There’s some stuff about a reality show thrown in that feels odd and out of place, too. I read the whole thing feeling a little lost. The first part of the book I mostly felt mystified; the second part, where Melissa is in captivity, I mostly felt ill. It’s quite violent, with several scenes of dragon torture, some committed by Melissa herself under duress. There’s one scene in particular where McCune details just how many strokes it takes to decapitate one of Melissa’s old dragon friends (hint: it’s a lot). It felt too drawn out and a little lurid. Recommended for readers who can’t get enough of dragons – and can stomach a lot.

All books borrowed from my library.

Dissonance by Erica O’Rourke
Del is a Walker, which means she was born with the ability to travel to parallel worlds, each one formed when a person made a choice. The choice they made belongs to the Key world – the main world. All other possible choices spiral off into infinite echo worlds. When these echoes become unstable, it’s the job of the Walkers to cleave them. Unsurprisingly, the regimented world of the Walkers isn’t as it seems, and Del becomes caught up in a conspiracy that could have ramifications throughout the entire multiverse.

Longtime readers of this blog may know I have a particular fascination with alternate/parallel worlds. Dissonance is a special treat for readers like me, since it focuses so much of the story on the specifics of the parallel worlds – how they’re created, how they relate to the Key world, how Walkers can travel to them, how they can be destroyed. It’s fascinating. Each chapter opens with an excerpt from what looks like a Walker-in-training textbook, and I wish I could read that textbook in its entirety. What’s more, it all makes sense. If parallel worlds exist, they probably look like the ones from O’Rourke’s imagination.

Sometimes in books where world-building is so comprehensive and so detailed, plot and characterization suffer, but that’s not the case here. The plot is smart, complex, and hinges both on this huge concept as well as the unique characters O’Rourke has created – rule-breaker Del, her strict sister Addy, and their senile-but-maybe-not grandfather Monty. Good speculative fiction is still character-driven, no matter how high the concept, and Dissonance fulfills this requirement. While it wouldn’t interest readers who need something fast-paced to stay engaged, I have no doubt it will more than satisfy those who can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to visit an alternate world themselves.

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
This is such an odd little book, one that doesn’t feel much like YA. It’s short and reads more like a novella, with sketchy world-building, a small cast of (rather thin) characters, and a single, focused storyline. Ceony Twill has just graduated at age 19 from the Tagis Praff school for the magically inclined. She wanted to be a Smelter, a magician who works with metal, but she’s been forced into an apprenticeship as a Folder – a paper magician – under magician Emery Thane. One she’s bonded to paper, she can’t work magic with any other material. Ceony is heartbroken, but it’s a career as a Folder or a career without any magic at all. She decides to make the best of a bad situation.

This one drew me in initially with its oddness. I enjoyed reading about the tricks paper magicians could do, such as making stories written on paper come to life for a time by reading them aloud, or animating folded shapes by commanding them to breathe. Thane is suitably strange, obviously hiding some secrets. It lost me about a third of the way through, when Thane is attacked by his ex-wife, who rips his heart out of his chest. Ceony replaces his heart with a paper version, which will sustain him for a time. All this intrigued me; it’s when Ceony sets off to find his real heart and somehow gets caught inside it that made me scratch my head. From that point on, the book is a journey through the different parts of Thane’s heart (metaphor!) and life. We see flashbacks to his time as a child, marrying his wife, becoming estranged from his wife. We see his hopes, his dreams, his doubts, his fears. I’ve never been one for flashbacks and dream sequences, much less prolonged ones that encompass almost an entire novel. Characters should be built from their actions, not their dreams. Give this one to readers who delight in the odd and don’t share my aversion to flashbacks.

A Girl Called Fearless by Catherine Linka
Avie lives in an America where almost all women who consumed a deadly hormone in beef have died of cancer. Only the very old and the very young lived. It is now ten years later, and America has to come to terms with its decimated female population. The Paternalists have taken power, restricting women’s and girls’ freedoms in order to “protect” them. They can’t go to college, and they’re married off at a young age (such as sixteen) to much older men, told they must dedicate themselves to having a lot of children. Avie’s father has always promised she could go to college – even if it has to be in Canada – but in order to save his struggling business, he sells her to a rising Paternalist star. This man is 35 years old and it quickly becomes clear that Avie will be his prisoner. She decides to run.

This is another dystopia by way of The Handmaid’s Tale, albeit a well done one (though with much less nuance). It’s fast-paced and focuses mainly on Avie’s escape and its aftermath, plus a few scenes clearly meant to horrify (such as when Avie’s intended “sticks his tongue down her throat,” always a phrase guaranteed to elicit shudders). The plot crumbles a bit at the end, with the less-than-surprising revelation/twist that the Paternalists aren’t actually trying to protect women and girls, but rather disenfranchise them. (Most readers will be shocked that the characters are shocked; preventing women from going to college and marrying them off to 35 year old men at age 16 was never about protection in the past.) This would be a good pick for readers who aren’t yet burned out on this particular sub-sub-genre (dystopias where women are subjugated) or who perhaps haven’t read much of it before. Readers who enjoyed Kristen Simmons’ Article 5 would probably enjoy this one as well, as the two seem almost identical in execution.

Dissonance and A Girl Called Fearless borrowed from my library; Paper Magician provided by the publisher.

Burn Out by Kristi Helvig
Part of the reason I love SFF so much – and always have – is how fun it can be. Authors can really let their creativity fly and not worry so much about trivial things like “Could this actually happen?” Burn Out is probably the most fun Cybils nominee I’ve read so far. It’s set 300 years in our future, after an asteroid that was heading for Earth was deflected and hit the sun instead, causing it to advance much more rapidly through its life cycle. It’s now a red giant, all the oceans on the planet have dried up, it’s too hot to go outside for more than a minute or two at a time, and most humans live underground or in protected pods, using a machine to drag the last bit of moisture out of the air in order to survive. (You could ask me if this could actually happen and I could honestly say I don’t know, but my first guess would be “probably not.”) Tora lives underground, alone, after her mother and sister were killed by the sun and her father was murdered by the people he worked for after he refused to hand over the powerful weapons he built for them.

Tora has resigned herself to probably ending her own life eventually. The air soon won’t have enough water left in it and she figures it will be less painful to overdose on pain pills than die of dehydration. Then an old family “friend,” Markus, comes knocking on her door. He says the Earth’s leaders have found another planet where humanity can live. He can take her there. The price is her dad’s weapons, left in Tora’s safekeeping. Tora knows they were made to be used on other humans, which is why her father refused to give them up in the end. Tora says no. Markus leaves, but he returns, and he brings friends. Not the nice kind.

This is an action-packed story, told in Tora’s funny, sarcastic voice that kept me flipping through the pages. The plot has a hole big enough to drive a truck through, but that didn’t dampen my enjoyment. The setting is unique and the futuristic concepts are interesting, including a gun that can be keyed to a person’s particular vibrations, allowing only that person to use it. Each of the characters have ulterior motives, and Helvig teases these out over the course of the story, providing the plot with plenty of twists and turns. Some questions are answered by the end, and some aren’t, clearly leaving an opening for a sequel. You can bet I’ll be reading it.

The Truth Against the World by Sarah Jamila Stevenson
Olwen Nia Evans, Wyn for short, is moving with her family for a few weeks to Wales, to a little town called Cwm Tawel. The trip is her great-grandmother’s dying wish. She grew up in Cwm Tawel and wants to die there, among the peaceful scenery and familiar surroundings. Before the move, Wyn starts to have strange dreams of her great-gran and a little girl, which she blogs about. Another boy, an English boy with his own family ties to Cwm Tawel, stumbles across Wyn’s blog after a recent visit to his great-grandfather in Wales, where he found a headstone bearing Olwen’s name – and had his own run-in with a strange little girl. The two eventually meet up in Cwm Tawel and set about solving the mystery of the ghost Olwen Nia Evans, which involves digging up painful family history that some residents of the town would prefer stayed buried.

Stevenson’s book is unique for its setting; Wales doesn’t get a lot of love in the YA world, especially compared to its UK counterparts. I can easily see the descriptions of the country’s natural beauty encouraging readers to seek out more information or dreaming about visiting themselves. This is a gentle story, perhaps too gentle, as the stakes never seem very high. The solution to ghost Olwen’s mystery is too simple and will be easily deciphered by readers familiar with ghost stories. This would be a good pick for younger, patient readers who may not guess the connection between the ghost and Wyn’s great-grandmother from the start. (A pronunciation guide would have also been helpful for the nerdy readers.)

Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant
Grant’s latest is a series opener, though it stands on its own easily. Mara wakes up without any knowledge of who she is, other than her name. (Yes, it’s another amnesia book.) She’s greeted by someone who tells her he is the Messenger of Fear, and that before she lost her memories, she agreed to be his apprentice. Their duty is to confront those who have done wrong and present them with a choice: play a game, win it, and go free; or refuse or lose the game and face their worst fear. Messenger starts by showing Mara a teenage girl’s suicide, then rewinds time and shows her the events leading up to it. None of the events can be changed, but they must learn from what happened in order to present an appropriate game – and mete out the appropriate punishment if the wicked person loses.

This is not as much of a horror novel as the title or the cover would have you believe, despite a scene where a person is burned alive (described in detail). Fear is not really its goal. Instead, it’s more of an exploration of guilt and atonement, of the choices we make and how – if – we can make reparations. The idea behind the Messenger is to restore balance to the universe. Those who have not been punished by a human court must suffer a visit from the Messenger of Fear, in hopes of preventing the wicked from committing the same actions in the future. The situations Mara and Messenger view are realistic and presented with shades of grey. More often than not, multiple people are at fault rather than a single individual. It is left up to the reader to determine if the wrongdoer’s interactions with Mara and Messenger have set the balance right – if such punishment is justice or if it’s merely cruelty.

There’s a twist to the story that sharp readers will see coming, though the hints sprinkled throughout start light and grow heavier as the story progresses. It will take a truly eagle-eyed reader to spot the truth from the beginning, keeping tension high through most of the novel. Picking out the twist before the end isn’t always a bad thing, provided it doesn’t happen too soon (as I think it would in the book above). There’s a certain satisfaction in putting the pieces together yourself over several chapters and then learning you were right in the end. At times gruesome, the book is also thought-provoking and smoothly written, easily absorbed in an afternoon.