Book Review: Saint Death’s Herald by C. S. E. Cooney

Picking up immediately where book 1, Saint Death’s Daughter, left off, Miscellaneous “Lanie” Stones is hot on the trail of the necromancer ghost of her great grandfather Irradiant Stones. “Grandpa Rad” headed north, possessing the body of Cracchen Skrathmandan. With the help of Duantri, Lanie needs to put her grandpa’s spirit to rest and fulfill her promise to bring Cracchen home. But Lanie isn’t the only one hunting her grandpa. The spirits of the long dead Northern sky wizards he trapped for a century are after him too. And they have a worse fate in mind than releasing the spirit into his god’s rest. 

If you haven’t read book 1 in a while, I highly recommend skimming or reading it again before picking this up, as there’s no recap and little to remind you of what’s happened thus far in the story.

The book has plenty of adventure. There’s the hunt, several dramatic fight scenes, and more magical experimentation. We get to learn more about the world, looking at Leech and Skakmaht. The skinchangers and their form of changeling magic was fascinating, especially how their explanation of the world was subtly different from that of the humans.

I was a bit disappointed by some of the characters who had very small rolls. Makkovian and Datu only show up in a few chapters and Lir is mostly forgotten. I did appreciate that Makkovian has his own quest to perform, showing his life isn’t on hold while Lanie is off doing her thing. 

The middle of the book felt a bit slow. There’s a lot of great action and fun new world building and then things sort of pause for a while.

I thought the last third of the book, in Skakmaht, was fantastic. Learning more about the sky houses and the wizard magic was very interesting. I also thought the book had a fitting conclusion.

If you liked the first book this one builds on what was accomplished and fleshes out more of the wider world. Lanie keeps learning new ways of using her necromantic powers, and grows as a person. It’s a worthy conclusion.

I'll be posting here less and not accepting review requests going forward

As you may have noticed, there hasn’t been much activity on my blog in recent months. I’ve been doing several hardcore research trips to Europe the past few years that have required an intense amount of research. As a result, the number of fiction books I’ve been reading has been drastically reduced. I’m mostly reading history and art books related to the regions and specific churches I’m travelling to see.

I’ve been reluctant to accept review requests as a result. I’ve still taken on a few books, mostly continuations of series I enjoy. As I get older my reading tastes have shifted somewhat and I’ve become a lot more picky and critical about what I read. I stop earlier if I’m not enjoying a book.

I’ve been thinking about this for several weeks now. While I’m not going to close this blog, I won’t be updating it with new content very often. I still have one review I accepted for a book coming out in April (Saint Death’s Herald) that I will post, and I’ll probably continue to post the occasional history book review here. But don’t expect regular content here for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, I occasionally post about medieval history and book reviews I’ve written on Bluesky, where you can find me as jstrider66 (@jstrider66.bsky.social).

Book Review: Medieval Cats: Claws, Paws, and Kitties of Yore by Professor Catherine Nappington

This is a cute adult picture book that showcases images of cats from medieval and later manuscripts. It’s organized into 10 chapters plus an introduction. There are a lot of great colour images of rather bizarre looking cats and mice (medieval artists weren’t always skilled at depicting their subject matter). Between pictures there are humorous modern comments on the photos, quotes from various ages (mostly medieval), and cat facts.

Some of the comments use terms that are out of style in medieval circles, like ‘dark ages’ or are inaccurate, like calling the middle ages ‘prudish’ (fabliaux anyone?).

I learned some new things and discovered some sources and manuscripts I’d like to learn more about.

If you know a cat lover, it’s an entertaining book and fairly quick to flip through.

History Book Review: Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year by Eleanor Parker

The book details the seasonal beliefs and festivals of the Anglo-Saxons by examining each season and some of its special aspects. After the introduction each season has 3 chapters breaking down it’s most important aspects, followed by references and bibliography.

This is a fascinating book. It’s interesting seeing how daily life changed with the season but the author does so much more. She examines how the Anglo-Saxons FELT about each season, like how winter ice kept them landlocked and trapped. She goes over various terms they used for the seasons and holy days, if and how those changed with the coming of Christianity. To the extent that the primary sources allow, she also details how various holy days were celebrated

There are lots of quotes from various Anglo-Saxon works. I learned about a few new sources I’d like to look up. There are no illustrations in the book, but it doesn’t really need them. This isn’t a visual tour, it’s an intellectual and emotional one.

I found this an interesting book that taught me a lot about how Anglo-Saxons thought about the world and how they lived and celebrated throughout the year.

Book Review: Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire

Pros: great characters, thought provoking

Cons:

Nadya was abandoned to a Russian orphanage on birth, having been born without a right hand. She never considers herself lacking something until a Christian American couple adopts her and gets her a prosthetic. Unsure of her future, she falls through a door into a world with giant talking turtles.

This is book 10 of the Wayward Children series, but it is an origin story novella, so while Nadya is a main character in Beneath the Sugar Sky (book 3), you don’t need to read that to understand her story here. Nor do you need to have read any of the previous book to have a full understanding of this book.

McGuire is a master of creating empathy with her characters. Her clear but lyrical prose allows you to follow Nadya’s thoughts regarding her missing hand - how she doesn’t feel its lack, nor does she feel it needs replacing to be ‘whole’. Too often books align with the parents in this situation, expecting gratefulness from the recipient of their ‘aid’, unwanted and unnecessary as it may be.

It’s a thought provoking read, not only for the prosthetic, but also about Nadya’s adoption and some reasons why families choose that option and how it can affect the child in question.

I loved Nadya’s spirit and cleverness. Her kindness. Her resilience.

Belyyreka’s a challenging world to get your head around. I loved the giant turtles and how they were used in the story.

The ending, as usual for the origin novellas in this series, has an abrupt ending. We do know what happens to Nadya next, after this story ends. Strangely, that knowledge left me with more questions of how things go after the end of Beneath the Sugar Sky. Maybe those will be answered in a future novella.

If you haven’t read any of the Wayward Children books, this is another entry point that requires no previous knowledge, and it’s a great little story.

Merry Christmas

Wishing a Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it.

Book Review: Providence by Max Barry

Pros: interesting characters, asks some interesting questions

Cons: standard aliens, not the most charismatic crew

Jackson, Gilly, Beanfield and Anders are the human crew on the 5th Providence AI ship sent to battle against the alien “Salamanders”. But as their 4 year mission drags on they realize just how little the ship needs them, and how much the aliens seem to be learning from their encounters.

The chapters are told from the point of view of different characters, mainly Gilly, their Intel officer, and Beanfield, the Life officer (whose job it is to keep everyone sane). Things on the ship aren’t as they anticipated, and the characters have personalities that clash more than they complement.

I didn’t really like any of the characters for the first half of the book. Gilly seemed the most relatable, in certain ways. But as the story changed and you got POVs from all of them, their quirks became more understandable as you learned more of their histories and why they act the ways they do.

A lot of emphasis is put on manipulating people on Earth to pay for the war effort. Making videos showing how heroic the Providence crews are, risking their lives. I appreciated the extent to which psychology played a role in the book. There’s so much behind the scenes manipulation that the crew only become aware of as time passes.

The aliens, called Salamanders by the army, are the standard ‘bug’ that comes up in SF a lot. They have hives and appear somewhat intelligent, even if they mostly swarm ships en mass.

It’s an interesting read, with some good commentary on war, AI, and how humans manipulate each other.