ELITIST BOOK REVIEWS

It’s not often that we here at EBR take the opportunity to review a middle-grade book. And, frankly, when we do, it’s usually Vanessa that picks it up. I mean, there are a lot of books out there, and those written for adults keep us (me) pretty busy as it is. However, every once in a while, one will pop up and tell us to give it some attention — waving its wiggly bits and cawing like a crow come Halloween.

In this case, we had some friends recently get their first contract from a traditional publishing house for a story that they’d written, taking them one step further down the road of authordom.

We were pretty excited for them.

Still are. Thus, here we are.
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Every once in a while, we’ll come across a legit publication horror story. Inevitably, these stories make us roll our eyes and gnash our teeth and reach for our bongo-drums of war. One notable author that immediately comes to mind is Ian Tregillis (EBR Archive) when his Milkweed Triptych got picked up by Tor. In that case, there was some egregious mishandling of his books.

I don’t necessarily know if Steve was gunning for top position of publication horror stories or not, but this single series of books has made the rounds with nearly a handful of different publication houses and a not-insignificant number of those actually went under. It would not surprise me in the least to find out that those who acquired his books in the latter part of the merry-go-round of exploding monkeys had actual conversations about his books being cursed.

Or hexed.

Or both.

It is this condition exactly that makes it such a terrible travesty that we’ve taken as long as we have to get this review up, but we’re ridiculously excited that he’s survived the gauntlet and these things are out in the wild.
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It seems to me that nautical tales don’t get near enough attention. At least within the fantasy genre, that is. There aren’t many that I can pull to mind. Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, Robin Hobbs’ Liveship Traders books, Tide Child books by RJ Barker. There are some really cool steampunk airship books around too — Chris Wooding’s Ketty Jay books, Butcher’s Cinder Spires — but they only kind of count. I did come across another one from Tor a while ago: The Sin in the Steel by Rayn Van Loan, that was pretty decent (review to come).

There are obviously more out there that I’m not listing here, tons of little stories from authors that relatively few have heard of and some that are just escaping my normal bear-trap of a mind, but still it seems like it takes more effort than it should to come up with any kind of significant list. Now, I’m not one that necessarily goes out looking for specific things in my fiction. The semi-recent rash of marketing efforts that I’ve seen in this vein are more than a little ridiculous. But, if you happen to have noticed the same dearth of ocean-faring fantastical tales and find yourself in the mood for something out of the ordinary, this book might be just the one for you.
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There are relatively few authors for whom I’ll buy physical copies of novellas. By and large, they end up being too short for the money they cost. Falls into the same category as Audible books that are only 3 or 4 hours long but still cost me a full credit. Not that length, necessarily, lines up with goodness, but it absolutely lines up with potential *amount* of goodness, yeah? When it came to this one, I found myself smack dab on the top of fence. After all, it was being released at essentially the same time as the next novel in the main series, and it had been forever since the last (first) book in the main series came out. What if the novella ended up being super important to the story? What if it was a connector? Gah! I just couldn’t do it. So, I bought the thing, and here we are.
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Yumi and the nightmare painter is book 3 in Brandon Sanderson’s “Year of Sanderson” and like TRESS OF THE EMERALD SEA (EBR Review) it sometimes has a fairytale quality to it, with a mind-bending setting, magic that helps the people survive a harsh world, and characters you can’t help but love despite their flaws.
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Shiori’s continuing story from SIX CRIMSON CRANES, begins in book 2, THE DRAGON’S PROMISE, as she travels with Seryu, her dragon friend, to the bottom of the sea, to meet the king of the dragons.

If you haven’t read SIX CRIMSON CRANES, then this book will not make much sense to you; it doesn’t make very a good standalone because you get a lot of important backstory, setting explanation, and magic development that will only make sense if you’ve read book 1. Otherwise what follows will be horrible spoilers. (You’ve been warned.)
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A friend recommended SIX CRIMSON CRANES, explaining that it’s a sweet story for young adults with romance and a creative re-telling of the traditional six swans fairytale.

And fortunately, that’s what it turned out to be.
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The great thing about Martha Wells is that even if you don’t read anything about the book beforehand, you can be guaranteed it is something different and unusual. And in a good way. WITCH KING is one such book.
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