The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

The Incandescent Emily Tesh, 2025 Premise: In an alternate present where some schools teach magic, Doctor Walden is teaching teenagers how not to get eaten by demons while dealing with constant bureaucracy and her own nonexistent love life.  I really, really liked this book. I'm not sure I loved it as much as the author's first novel , but that one was a truly unique experience. The two stories are different beasts, although there are commonalities, like occasionally unreliable narration and sapphic relationships. I liked the characters a lot, and I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the kind of nonsense that any elite school deals with - teenage drama spilling into the classroom, teacher infighting, the tension between kids from rich families and the handful of kids on scholarships, etc. - and potentially life-and-death magical incursions by extradimensional forces. As a stupid American, I did sometimes have trouble following the British school terminology (how old is a what number...

Death of the Author Nnedi Okorafor, 2025 Premise: Zelu is struggling. Struggling with her career, with her body's limitations, with her family and her art. She decides to write a new story, and everything changes. First, I loved this.  I loved Zelu and all her complications. She's a young woman disabled by a childhood injury, but that's only a part of who she is. She's the product of a complex, demanding Nigerian-American family, but that's only another factor. She's an author, but when we meet her, she's struggling with that. The book flips between Zelu's life in the near future/alternate present and excerpts of the sci-fi novel that makes her famous. It's impressive that I liked both sides of the narrative. I wasn't skimming through the "real world" parts to get to the more overtly sci-fi sections or vice versa.  I really, really liked the characters and the story and the themes. It explores the relationship between art and the public...

Some Desperate Glory Emily Tesh, 2023 Hugo Winner - 2024 Premise: It's not easy being the last outpost of humanity. You have to give up a lot. You have to be committed to the cause. You have to not listen to the propaganda that says that maybe you're actually in a cult... What a book! It might have first gotten on my radar for winning the Hugo, but I had forgotten that by the time I read it, so I was unexpectedly delighted with this.  At least a few SPOILERS must follow here, but before we get there, I'll say that I recommend this for anyone who likes complex/morally messed-up protagonists and some heavy topics in your sci-fi adventure.  I've seen it recommended for fans of the Locked Tomb (not just for the blurb from Tamsyn Muir on the cover), and I agree with that. It starts from a place where you don't know what the protagonist doesn't know about the world they live in, and discovering the truth behind their home is incredibly compelling. (The author's n...

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution R. F. Kuang, 2002 Premise: Robin was rescued from death in China as a boy, and he loves so much about his new life in England, especially the chance to study, to perform the translation that underpins the magic that runs the world. But what is the cost of the system? What if Robin isn't willing to pay it anymore? I'll admit that this book first got on my radar as "the book that should have won the Hugo for Best Novel" if not for bad behavior on several fronts. [ https://www.npr.org/2024/02/23/1233355111/the-hugo-awards-scandal-has-shaken-the-sci-fi-community] And it would have been a worthy winner. A tour de force combining fantasy and history to focus an intentionally painful spotlight on the global and personal impacts of colonialism and privilege, it was both compelling and horrifying. In the character of Robin, the tension and inner moral struggle between accepting som...

The City We Became N. K. Jemisin, 2020 Premise: A city is more than a collection of buildings and streets. It's more than its people and cars. When a city grows large enough, sometimes it... wakes up. Would this book make sense to someone who never lived in NYC?  I'm glad that I'll never know. Reading this book reminded me of everything I loved about my time in the city that never sleeps.  That is, when it wasn't giving me almost-literal nightmares about everything I hate about modern-day America. The City We Became takes place in an explicitly Lovecraft-adjacent world where when a city is large enough it incarnates into a person who is literally the spirit of the city. But this is a process, and there are beings from outside this dimension who want to destroy and consume the cities before they fully wake.  Because New York is New York, it isn't one person, but multiple - one for each borough. They are all fascinating complex characters who exemplify aspects of the...

Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, Book 3) Tamsyn Muir, 2022 Premise: Sequel to Harrow the Ninth. Nona doesn't know who she is, but she lives with people who love her and look after her. There are many things she doesn't know, but she doesn't worry about it too much. However, time is running out for a little makeshift family running from the Nine Houses. I loved this book, once I realized it was book 3 of 4, and not the end of the series. I somehow missed the fact that the planned trilogy turned into a 4-book series while this one was being written, so as I approached the end of the book I was seriously confused for a few minutes.  Independent of that, this is a delight. First, we're switching subgenres yet again. Gideon the Ninth is murder mystery/science fantasy adventure. Harrow the Ninth is more horror/sci-fi with a lot of psychological-thriller twistyness. Nona the Ninth is mostly dystopian slice-of-life, intercut with the backstory/exposition I've been waiting ...

The Angel of the Crows Katherine Addison, 2020 Premise: You've probably heard this story. An injured doctor returns from the war and meets an eccentric detective in need of a roommate. You've never heard it like this.  I honestly forgot this was a Holmes pastiche in the time between putting it on my to read list and starting to read it. So it was rather delightful to realize that I was reading a most unconventional reinterpretation of one of my favorite things, by one of my favorite authors.  Dr. J. H. Doyle (Watson) is our narrator, as usual. The plot is strung together from variations on multiple Holmes tales, adding in a throughline about Jack the Ripper and some other original elements. For me, the repetition of familiar scenarios felt cozy, not like I was cheated at all, plus the old stories are all new again as we hear from characters who had little or no time to tell their stories in the original or find unexpected solutions to the mysteries. Plus, it's set in a del...

Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, Book 2) Tamsyn Muir, 2020 Premise: Sequel to Gideon the Ninth . Harrow has survived the trials of Cannan House. Sort of. Now she must train to fight a monster that can kill the God-Emperor of the Nine Houses... unless nothing is as it seems. Man, this book is awesome, but it asks a lot of you.  The first time I read it, it was like a fantastic psychological horror movie. The book switches back and forth between the present-day Harrow and flashbacks. Only the flashbacks don't match what happened in the previous book. You, the reader, know that something is wrong. Something is askew. Is it in Harrow's mind? What does this mean? What actually happened then? What is happening now? The answers are wilder and weirder than I initially could have imagined. It's fantastic. The third time I read this book, it was as an audiobook, which made me slow down and really appreciate all the details and character beats. The emotional payoffs in this one are...

The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance, Book 2 and 3) Naomi Novik, 2021, 2022 Premise: Sequels to A Deadly Education . El and her friends cook up an audacious scheme to get out of high school alive, only to discover that life outside the Scholomance is stalked by deadlier dangers.  (Thematic spoilers for this series below, but no explicit plot spoilers except for the one implied by the title of book two.) So I liked book one, right? And from the title of the second book, I was pretty sure our heroes were going to find a way around the whole "every group of kids has to run this deadly gauntlet to escape the high school" status quo.  And they did, and it was awesome. However, it was really in the third book where this series shifted gears and revealed its heart. It isn't just about characters growing up. It isn't just about kids with magic in a dangerous world. There's no big bad guy to fight, although there are dangerous power players.  It'...

Mammoths at the Gates (The Singing Hills Cycle, Book 4 Nghi Vo, 2023 Premise: Follows Into the Riverlands, although these books can mostly be read in any order. Cleric Chih is finally headed home after many adventures, only to run into trouble at the abbey's very doors. Like each of the preceding novellas, this is both an entertaining fantasy adventure and a beautiful meditation. In this case, the deeper meaning is focused on memory.  When Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey, they discover that most of the other inhabitants are off on a special investigation and their beloved mentor has passed away. This would be stressful enough without the mentor's granddaughters, their soldiers, and their very large mammoths demanding the elder cleric's body, contrary to Abbey tradition.  That's the surface story. The real story is about remembering someone who is gone, and all the stories, contradictory and complex as they may be, that make up a life. It's also about ...

Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, Book 1) Tamsyn Muir, 2019 Read to the end...  Premise: Gideon has been trying to escape the Ninth House since she was a child. Now her only way out might be to accompany her nemesis Harrowhark in her quest to become one of the Emperor's chosen necromancers. But the trial to become a lyctor is far from safe for necromancers and their bodyguards. I know, I know, I'm late to the party here.  I can nitpick about some intentionally anachronistic word choices that were a smidge too tone-breaking for me. I could point out that at the end of the book I still understand almost nothing about the structure of this Empire, how big it is, what it means that the Emperor "resurrected" the Houses, how the Houses are even supposed to work.  But little of that matters.  Gideon's sarcastic, hilarious voice carries you through the beginning and the light exposition about the bonkers uber-goth-necromancers-somehow-built-a-society setting, and then t...

Nettle & Bone T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon), 2022 Hugo winner - 2023 Premise: Marra was a mediocre princess and an average nun, why does she think she can rescue her sister from a prince?  Of course I grabbed this from the library as soon as it won the Hugo (this review may be delayed). I was a little unsure when I got it. I knew the author also writes children's books, and I had the impression her other work was more YA. This isn't YA. At all. It's not inappropriate for kids, but it's a fairy tale for grownups, for people still finding themselves in their 30s, for adults struggling in a society set against them.  In short, it's spectacular, absolutely worth picking up if you have any love for fairy-tale-inspired fantasy.  I loved all the characters, I loved Marra's narrative voice, and I loved the magic. I loved how dreamy everything felt while also seeming completely grounded and tangible.  The writing is gorgeous. Lovely, creative descriptions that te...

A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore Ursula K. LeGuin, 1968, 1971, 1972 Premise: The boy Ged becomes a wizard, becomes a man, then continues to shape the destiny of Earthsea.  I read A Wizard of Earthsea years and years ago but had no real memory of it. I picked up this trilogy cheap at some point, so this post is another in this year's "reading the unread books on the shelf" project.   I deeply respect LeGuin, and I knew these were beloved, but for some reason, I didn't expect the books to be awesome. But of course, they are.  From the start, this is a cool world. A complex area of islands and archipelagos bounded on all sides by the unknowable seas. Steeped in myth and mystery, but still grounded with the everyday details of farming, fishing, sailing.   All three books have cool stories. They are often marketed as YA; the first one in particular is accessible to young readers without pandering to them, and it's not limited to their...

Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries) Martha Wells, 2020 Hugo winner - 2021 Premise: Murderbot's relationships with both humans and AIs are tested in a dangerous new adventure. After four exciting and intriguing novellas, the Murderbot series continues with this full-length novel. It really does feel like a suitable continuation, one which takes all the themes of the shorter pieces and creates something bigger that feels like the right next step without feeling forced or overlong.  It combines all the best of the series so far: touching, subtle, exciting, and laugh-out-loud hilarious. There's more exploration of AI autonomy as well as human moral codes, especially as the people of Preservation who gave Murderbot sanctuary have to deal with people who live in the Corporate Rim.  It's a great example of how effective it can be to come at topics sort of sideways. Murderbot denies having soft emotions, but we see its reactions and can fill in the blanks. Murderbot also never ...

A Memory Called Empire Arkady Martine, 2019 Hugo winner - 2020 Premise: The new ambassador from Lsel Station steps off of her transport and into more intrigue and moral conundrums than expected.  When was the last time I read something this fun, this exciting, this thoughtful, this inventive? It's been a while. This is an absolutely stellar sci-fi, complete with great characters, fascinating setting, and deep thoughts about identity (personal and political); in short, a classically great work of science fiction.  I loved all the characters. Mahit is smart, relatable, overwhelmed by the situation, insecure at times, and wrestling with the tension between her principles and her practical position. Just a great main character. The mysteries around the previous ambassador and the internal empire politics kept me guessing in the best way. A lot of the plot tension in the book concerns internal Texicalaan star empire politics and how they affect both the desire for Mahit's home stat...

The Calculating Stars (The Lady Astronaut, #1) Mary Robinette Kowal, 2018 Hugo winner - 2019 Premise: Elma York is a brilliant mathematician and a skilled pilot. But it's 1958, and the powers that be aren't ready for women to become astronauts until the space race becomes necessary for survival. Oh, how to talk about this book? The beginning is brilliant and the ending is brilliant, but some of the parts in the middle gave me anxiety. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it just made it a bit harder to read. Elma herself has severe anxiety from past traumas after years of trying to exist (attend college, serve in the military, etc.) around men as a smart, strong-willed woman. And I ached for her even as, from my position in the future, I was sometimes frustrated with her too. In this case, that just means she was realistically written. The writing is compelling, the historical research thorough, and the characters wonderful. Elma and her husband (also a rocket scientist) hav...

The Stone Sky N. K. Jemisin, 2017 Hugo winner - 2018 Premise: With the full history of the orogenes and the Earth revealed, Essun and her daughter each have the power to save the world, or to destroy it.  Powerful and beautiful and sad and hopeful. Yup, the end of this trilogy brings it together and brings it home.  We return to a triple narrative in this. First, Essun's story of survival without access to her full power (as using her power is now destroying her body and she needs to survive to finish the plan) and her attempts at reconnecting with the fractured community around her before she tries to change the world. Second, her daughter Nassun's story of trauma and how an abused child hated by her society might use unimaginable power. Third, the new story thread is Hoa's, flashing back eons to the creation of the stone eaters and the destructive Seasons, and the history of racism and genocide they are rooted in. The deadly geologic upheavals are in some ways just the ab...

The Grief of Stones Katherine Addison, 2022 Premise: Sequel to The Witness for the Dead . Thara Celehar thinks his life in Amalo is becoming routine when he is presented with a possible murder, an unexpected assistant, and a secret message asking for help.  A few days after I finished this book I went back to the beginning and read it again. It's been a while since I liked a book enough to do that.  I love this world and these characters and this style. What a fantastic series. And this one adds just a touch of subtle pining. Thara is still too raw after his personal tragedy to think of pursuing any kind of romantic entanglement, but surely his friendship with the flamboyant and brave opera director, one of only a few people who seem to care about Thara for himself, will remain only friendship... so our protagonist tells himself, anyway.  There's a moment that's going on my list of top all-time emotional literary moments, is all I'm saying.  More tangled plots and su...

The Empress of Salt and Fortune When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain Nghi Vo, 2020 Premise: These lightly linked novellas follow Chih, wandering cleric from the Singing Hills, in their capacity as collector of histories, stories, and the space between the two.  Perfect. Divine. Breathtaking. If you love fantasy, if you love stories, stop what you're doing and read these.  They can be read in either order (and there are more to come in the series), although I think starting with the first ( The Empress of Salt and Fortune ) might give a better introduction to the world.  And what a world! Deeply fantastical and deeply Asian-inspired, it's a marvelous place to visit, if dangerous to live there.  Each novella includes a frame story about Chih and a secondary story being told by one or more characters. In The Empress of Salt and Fortune , an elderly handmaiden cleverly reveals to the cleric the secrets behind recent power struggles in the empire of Anh. In When the Tige...

Among Others Jo Walton, 2011 Hugo Winner - 2012 Premise: Mori was a twin. Mori lived in Wales with her mother and her relatives and the fairies. Now facing boarding school in England due to the demands of her father's family, she must navigate her family, the world, her responsibilities, and first love—alone. This shouldn't work. It's a fictional diary chock full of references to novels from the '60s and '70s. The fantasy is delivered mostly with an incredibly light touch.  It's amazing. I adored it. I love the voice. She's authentically a bookish teenager who can debate the morality of a sci-fi novel in one breath, make fun of an adult's fashion sense in the next, and despair both over a cute boy and a deep family trauma. The magic she's experienced is explicitly vague and coincidental, raising all sorts of fascinating questions both about reality and about ethics.  The narration even felt just potentially unreliable enough to keep me guessing throu...