The Bookwyrm's Review of Crimson by Arthur Slade

Author: Arthur Slade

Length: 272 Pages/ 7 Hours, 15 Minutes (Audio)

Publisher: Dava Enterprises

Release Date: September 26, 2019/ November 27, 2019 (Audio)

Narrator: Mare Trevathan

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Buy on Amazon

I don't review a lot of YA fantasy, although that's not from a lack of enjoyment in the genre. On the contrary, I have liked YA even before it was called YA. A lot of the stuff I read as a teen would be classified as YA today, and being a kid at heart, I still have a warm spot for these kinds of books. When I was offered the chance to review Crimson, I jumped, since it had such an interesting premise. Its a good thing, too, since I had such an enjoyable reading experience with it.

PLOT SUMMARY

In the realm of Queen Servilia, who has ruled for 1000 years of peace since she cast down the evil god Mansren,  peace is maintained by the queen's guards, who ensure the queen's laws are kept at all costs. This is the setting we meet the protagonist, Fen, who lives in Village 21. When she was 12, Fen was convicted of steeling a little butterfly statue, and as a consequence, one of the Queen's Guardsmen cut off her hand. Four years later, Fen wakes up to a horrible surprise: her hair is now crimson, meaning she has wildmagic, which is forbidden on pain of death, since only the queen is allowed to use magic. When her mother sees, this, she tries to cut her hair but it can't be cut. This forces Fen to go on the run, leaving her mother and sister May behind.

Leaving the village, Fen is confronted by one of the village bullies, who looks to turn her in. Her magic manifests as vines shoot out of her stump and stop him from taking her prisoner. Escaping the village area, Fen meets Ithak, another wildmagic that can turn invisible. She discovers from him that her village has been attacked by the queen's forces looking for her. She returns to discover her village burned and her mother has been killed, while her sister May has been captured and taken to the capital. Returning to the village, she is chased by the guards, but manages to escape. She runs across some guards down the road, alone, and manages to subdue one with her magic, taking his sword. That sword draws the guard, Marcus, after her, as his honor is now at stake. 

Fen and Ithak head into the salt mire, a poisonous swamp that has unbreathable gases in it. Ithak is immune, and Fen discovers a way too use her power to breathe. The guard, Marcus, however, follows them in and is overcome by the gas. Fen saves him, and they tie him up and bring him along to their final destination, the Helwood. There, Fen meets the master of the Helwood: Mansren, who's stone body was broken apart by Servilia 1000 years prior. Mansren explains that Servilia is not the kind benevolent ruler she believes. In fact, she was the one responsible for all the other kingdom's destruction, and so much of the evil he is blamed for. He makes a deal with her that if she retrieves the last part of his body, his missing head, he will save her sister May from Servilia.

Seizing the chance, Fen, Ithak and Marcus, who realizes that he's been lied to his whole life, set out to bring Mansren his head. The journey moves along due to using the Queen's road, which creates magic speed for travelers. The Queen throws a wrench into the travel, though, causing them to crash off the road and end up separated. This leads to Fen working to retrieve the the head on her own, leading to a crazy series of events, as Mansren ends up made whole, but it turns out, the stories of what he did in ancient times had some basis, and the cure for Servilia's evil may be even worse. Fen and her allies must decide where they stand, and if they are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to stop the evil that could destroy the Queendom.

CHARACTERS AND WORLD BUILDING

YA takes a lot of criticism for simplistic, two dimensional characters who are usually created as Mary/Marty Stu's, quickly mastering their abilities with hardly any trouble, barely an inconvenience. Crimson is not in that club, though. The characters, mainly Fen, Ithak and Marcus, are well rounded characters, with strengths and weaknesses, who act in a believable fashion based on their life experiences. Fen has magic, but she both fears and struggles with it throughout the book, and it just feels so organic to her character. She just feels like a real teenage girl struggling with forces way beyond her control. Marcus and Ithak are a product of their environments, and it really shows in the way their characters develop. Even the villains are much more developed than I expected, with more than the mustache twirling evil baddie motivations. 

The world is definitely an interesting creation, being a fairly dystopian fantasy setting, but not known as such to the residents, who have a thousand years of propaganda to instill in them the idea that their world is supposed to be that way. Its an interesting method of world building, letting the backstory do the heavy lifting of creating the setting. It's definitely a bit heavier than the usual pedestrian YA world building. 

NARRATOR

The narration was handled by Mare Trevathan to good effect. She does an excellent job bringing the various characters to life, giving them each a unique personality. Her use of various tones and pitches differentiates the characters, and her pacing on the narration is excellent, never falling into a monotone, and really engaging your interest in the story. Definitely a talent to keep an ear out for.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is definitely one of those books that will have a broad appeal to a variety of readers/listeners. As far as what you can compare it to, it has a similar feel to Sanderson's Mistborn in world building, but it definitely has its own feel and flair. Fantasy fans can definitely find something to love with this one.

The Bookwyrm's Review of Dreamsphere: The Day We Stopped Dreaming by Samson Tonauac

Author: Samson Tonauac

Length:  143 Pages

Release Date: September 23, 2019

Rating:4/5 Stars

I usually have a format I use for my reviews, but after reading Dreamsphere, I realized that wouldn't work, since this book has such an unusual format. This being the case, I'll try and just give a summary and some thoughts about the book. 

The story basically bounces between various characters starting in 2017 and continuing in various scenes through 2399, going from a current world that looks like ours through to a dystopian cyberpunk future of immortal modified humans who have to reset their brains every 120 years with memories stored on the future cloud to keep their immortality going, along with nanite body enhancements. 

The story skips around with various characters progressing through the years, as they change with the massive changes in society, as mortality is "cured" , but the cost of that cure is people's freedom, as the source of the immortality requires submission to him if people want to live forever.  It definitely leads to a dystopian view of the future, which for most will go on for as long as they want it to. 

This book is definitely out of my normal wheelhouse, but was still an interesting read. It has some definitely humorous aspects, while also waxing philosophical and nihilistic by turns.  It raises some interesting questions about what really has value to someone if they know they can live forever, and what will they be willing to sacrifice to gain that longevity. All told, its a well written exploration of a future with darkness and potential all at once.

The Bookwyrm's Review of The Fall of the House by C. T. Phipps & Michael Suttkus

Authors: C.T. Phipps & Michael Suttkus

Length: 267 Pages

Publisher: Crossroad Press

Release Date: April 18, 2020

Series: Red Room, Book 3

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

This book was a long time coming, being the third book in a series started with a publisher that went under, and a bit of a struggle to get the rights sorted for the first two books. The authors then decided to do a soft retcon to align the timeline of this trilogy to their United States of Monsters series, and have seamlessly added a richer backstory to the several characters series.

PLOT SUMMARY

The story picks up with Derek Hawthorne, Council member of the Red House and still sometime field agent, reeling from the events of Eldritch Ops, including his role in the death of his sister Rebecca, who was working on a plan to mind control all the supernatural creatures of the world. Derek is now dedicated to exposing the corruption of the Red House, and bringing it down from the inside. Unfortunately, he's not the only one with these plans.

The story starts with Derek reliving a memory of his first partner, Ashley Morgan, a powerful psychic, who he helped escape the House's clutches with the help of another agent who was his partner, Christopher, who would become a vampire afterwards. Awaking in the hospital after barely surviving his sister's end, Derek's current partner and lover Shannon, his Uncle Talbot and Christopher come in and let him know moves are afoot to destroy the House, and that Ashley has disappeared. This is immediately followed by an attack by an unknown force of mercenaries, who turn out to be elves, which shouldn't be possible, since elves no longer live on earth's plane. 

Dealing with the elves with extreme prejudice, they let the House cleanup crew deal with the fallout while they try to determine who is plotting against them. What they discover is that their past is coming back to haunt them, as Derek's ex brother-in-law, Roland, now head of the Pantheon Corp., the House's weapons supplier, is gunning to take Derek's seat on the council. The problem is, that's not all that he's up to, and he has unexpected allies in a plan to bring about a world ending horror from the past back to the world, all while bringing down the House and exposing the world to the truth that the supernatural exists. Its up to Derek and company to try and stop Roland and his allies, and save the people in Derek's life that it would crush him to lose. Oh, and maybe save the world while they are at it. Derek may have to make the ultimate sacrifice if the world is to survive.

CHARACTERS AND WORLD BUILDING

Anyone familiar with the authors' work knows they are extremely character driven. They spend a lot of time fleshing out the various characters. this includes all the familial and romantic relationships, some of which are just oddly funny, sort of like real life. Derek is such a tragic character, raised to be something he has fought against being for years not to be. His beliefs are the exact opposite of what he has been trained to believe, and his relationships feed off that. The various other characters also get their moments throughout of character development, and they never feel like cardboard cutouts, but fully realized characters. The villains are unexpected and have interesting motivations, feeding into the theme of the book, which is change on an unprecedented scale for the whole world.

The world building is solid, helping to create a solid foundation for various other parts of the series. The supernatural world has been slowly approaching exposure to the mundane world, and this story ties the pre-reveal world to the post-reveal world, creating a bridge between the story arcs. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

The idea of merging this series in with The United States of Monsters world was an inspired choice, taking the fairly undeveloped backstory of the post-reveal world and adding some rich layers of occult spy action leading right up to the reveal. It is definitely some of the authors' best writing, and is a fitting end to this arc, while adding to the various future arcs. I'm hoping to see a few more of these characters in future installments of the various series.