Hello and happy Friday, foundlings and Fomorians. Today we’re talking about a Tolkien fandom project, vampires, swordswomen, continued Avengers feelings, Nightchaser by Amanda Bouchet, and more!
This newsletter is sponsored by Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing, publishers of Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell.
In the tradition of The Lunar Chronicles, this sweeping reimagining of Les Misérables tells the story of three teens from very different backgrounds who are thrown together amidst the looming threat of revolution on the French planet of Laterre.
In the Olde-time Vampire Novels arena, there are two heavyweights: Carmilla and Dracula. I really love this take on which is better.
This week on SFF Yeah!, Sharifah and I talked about international SF/F, the Harry Potter AR game, and had some muppet arms about Time Bandits.
Calling all Tolkien fans: Marquette University, home to a large Tolkien archive, is putting together an oral history project featuring 3-minute stories from LOTR fans, and you could be one of them.
I ship it: Tessa Thompson and Brie Larson exchanging fan art of Valkyrie and Captain Marvel is the best thing that happened to my dash this week.
Do you like free books and/or Arthuriana? We’re doing a giveaway for Once & Future by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy, and you can enter through April 2.
I love a good action sequence, and therefore definitely love this round-up of swordswomen in fantasy, which has several personal favorites (Tavis!!!!!).
SF/F isn’t always subtle, so this list of films that make do without special effects is very intriguing. (Also I’ve seen none of them, how did I miss so many?)
ICYMI, the Avengers: Endgame posters have some reveals of, as io9 so perfectly frames it, who is sad and who is dead. 😭
And now, the space hijinks of Nightchaser (Endeavor #1) by Amanda Bouchet
Trigger warnings: mentions of sexual assault, medical experimentation, and child abuse
I’ve read Bouchet before, specifically A Promise of Fire (which, if you’re looking for a Greek-inspired fantasy romance with lots of magic powers and a kidnapping warlord who turns out to be the good guy, you should read), so I thought I knew what to expect when a friend send me Nightchaser. I was wrong! This is a completely different kind of book from start to finish, and I enjoyed it a lot — albeit with a caveat.
Let’s start with the good: this is a space-opera romance with a conscience. Our heroine is Tess Bailey (not her real name), captain of the Endeavor, and she and her crew have just “liberated” a government lab that is supposed to be full of vaccines. Her plan is to take them to the orphanage she grew up in to inoculate the kids, since the supply of things like medicine and vaccines is severely limited. Who can argue with that? The government, it turns out! Also? That’s not a vaccine, but a super-soldier serum.
On the run and trying to figure out what to do, she and her crew end up on the planet Albion 5 in desperate need of repairs. The shop she (un)fortunately walks into belongs to Shade Donovan, sexy repairman and secret bounty hunter. As Tess and Shade’s chemistry builds, he has to decide if he’s willing to lose the immense payout offered for turning her in, while Tess tries to figure out the ties between the super-soldier serum and her own past.
The action scenes are fun, the emotional stakes are sky-high, and the political shenanigans are tangled, all of which makes for a compelling read. Bouchet also deconstructs the Alpha Hero trope with Shade in a very satisfying way; I’m on record as Team Beta, but this I will take. It does end on a cliffhanger — consider yourself warned!
Now for the caveat, which is around the treatment of one specific character, who seems to become a punching bag for the plot. A woman of color with a traumatic past, she’s also the person the most tragic things happen to over the course of the book. However, many other characters have experienced trauma of some kind. There are also multiple other characters of color in the novel, many of whom are complete and total badasses and who experience their own triumphs, which I did appreciate.
On the whole, this is a promising start to a new series. If you like found-family stories, romance, and space opera, give this one a whirl.
And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.
Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn