Gav Reads

A Web Log of Reading

  • Review: A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe, #1) by P. Djèlí Clark (2021)

    Title: A Master of Djinn
    Author: P. Djèlí Clark
    Pages: 416 (print)
    Genre: Fantasy
    Stand-alone/Series: Series but easily read as a stand-alone.
    Year of Release: 2021
    Publisher: Orbit

    Summary

    Agent Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities.

    When someone murders the members of a secret society, Agent Fatma’s job is to find the killer.

    Set in Cairo in 1912, where djinn walk the streets and steampunk eunuchs serve coffee.

    Alongside her Ministry colleagues and her clever girlfriend, Siti, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind their deaths and restore peace to the city.

    Comment/Thoughts/Analysis

    P. Djèlí Clark is a master of world-building. The alternative Cairo he has created is tangible. I could quite quickly be drinking Sarsaparilla with Fatma. I can imagine seeing djinn doing their daily business and buying books from them.

    He can also create a story that builds as you (the reader) and Fatma discover what’s happening. Clark shifts gears and moves things up a scale constantly. Just when you think it’s going to plateau, it jolts forward.

    It is, at its heart, a historical urban fantasy detective story. The facts are there for Fatma to follow. But it’s also a Fantasy tale with a big F. The murders lead Fatma to find beings with inhuman motivations.

    It’s also a romance. Siti always has Fatma’s back and leaps into danger. Fatma and Siti’s relationship is explored internally through Fatma’s feelings and externally through how other’s perceive them.

    And this brings me to my problem with A Master of Djinn; it’s almost too perfect.

    Clark has a cast of characters that too often pop up at the right time and place. Some readers, like me, get distracted from the momentum when they see some of the illusions’ mechanisms.

    It’s his first novel, and I found it immensely enjoyable. I got frustrated by what I thought was the big scene at almost the novel’s end, but Clark had another trick to pull out of his bag, and I enjoyed being tricked.

    He’s also used his setting to challenge colonialism and the Euro-centric worldviews. This, I think, he does with humour and panache. And is one of the other strengths of A Master of Djinn.

    I wasn’t sure there could be the potential for a sequel as the story seems so entwined into the environment. After finishing it, I’m confident that if Clark wanted to revisit this world that he’d find another angle to look at his world.

    Conclusion

    Clark has created an anti-colonial fantastical environment to tell his police procedural using an outsider’s point of view that addresses war, power and manipulation.

    As well as exploring the people’s need for a champion when they are considered the underdog, he puts a sapphic romance into the centre of this steampunk.

    Did I say it’s also a detective story? It is, and the clues are there!

    4.25/5

  • End of March 23 Round-Up

    My Book of the Year So Far

    I am starting this update on a positive note; I finished Siblings by Brigitte Reimann (trans. Lucy Jones) on the last day of February. And it’s my book of the year so far.

    There is a mini-review here:

    https://gavreads.co.uk/review/review-siblings-by-brigitte-reimanntrans-lucy-jones-1963-2023/

    Missing Mojo

    In the middle of March, I finally DNF’d (Did Not Finish) a novel that was recommended to me.

    I have to be in the mood to read, but I also need the mental capacity to process my reading. I can’t skim-read or skip sections. If that happens, it’s a sign that I should put the book down and, ideally, move on to the next one.

    Sometimes I force myself to keep going, as it might just be that book section or my mood that day. As a tactic, this can work, but often it just zaps my momentum even more if I push it too far. This can infect my motivation to read other things.

    In this case, the recommendation meant I tried past the point when I should have given up. And my mood for reading other things did dimmish.

    I put this down in the middle of March.

    I did try reading another book, which I should have loved, but it didn’t hook me, so I took some time out.

    Though I can’t entirely blame my mood as…

    I Got Distracted

    You might not have been aware, but Nintendo closed the e-shop for games connected to their Wii U and DS/3DS consoles (which they stopped manufacturing in 2017/2020. and this caused a surge of panic buying.

    I bought a Nintendo 3Ds off eBay to load it up with Pokemon games I’ve never played. The cost of physical copies of the various Gameboy games could buy a good few books, and the e-shop versions were around £8.99. So I chose the e-shop versions.

    I’ve been playing Pokemon Scarlet as my first real Pokemon Game (Let’s Go Eevee was my first attempt, but I didn’t know what I was doing, and my Team was underpowered). I wanted to have the option of going back, hence the stocking up.

    And that got me looking at retro RPGs…

    All of this is to say that much of my reading time got sacrificed for video games in one way or another.

    Collecting Books is Still a Separate Hobby

    Despite not reading, I added 23 books to the TBR in March. They were a mix of the last arrival of my now cancelled book subscriptions, a physical copy of Rachel Pollack’s run on the Doom Patrol, and a combination of recommendations from other commentators and 99p ebooks.

    Plans for April

    I’m writing most of this on Easter Monday and have yet to finish reading anything of substance, so I’d better get a wiggle on if want the April update to have content mentioning books I’ve read.

    I am, however, reading thanks to a visit to Eastercon again. It was the tonic and motivation I needed. And should mean I have at least one book to mention next time.

  • End of Feb 23 Round-Up

    NOTE: I wrote most of this at the end of February 2023.

    Welcome to my monthly round-up. I am planning on publishing them on the last Sunday of the month. They are primarily for me to look back on at the end of the year, but you’re welcome to come along for the ride.

    The Good

    I should be gentler with myself. I thought I had a terrible reading month. But I haven’t. I read Far From the Stars of Heaven by Tade Thompson and The Fifth Season (Broken Earth Bk1) by N. K. Jemisin (no review yet).

    I didn’t manage to finish anything else.

    I did try. I DNF’d my first book of the year. I am sure the book is fine, but I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough. What should have been a romp was an anxiety-producing misadventure. I haven’t mentioned the title, as I may try it again.

    I am currently reading Siblings by Brigitte Reimann. Fifty years after it was first published in German, Penguin Classics has translated it into English for the first time. It’s only 129 pages long, but I have to pause to add tabs to the pages and write notes in my reading-focused notebook. It is a powerful meditation on East Germany at the time.

    Both of these caused my reading to slow down, and I didn’t have the mental space to read any short fiction.

    I’m reading A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files as my ebook. It’s 275 pages long and could technically be described as short fiction. But it’s not what I meant when I said I wanted to read more short fiction.

    The Bad

    Just because I wasn’t reading didn’t slow my acquisition of new books.

    I picked up some £0.99 ebook bargains, including The Kaiju Preservation Society, This This, Juniper & Thorn, and Now She is Witch.

    I grabbed some anthologies: Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology and Unthinkable: A Queer Gothic Anthology from proud-geek.co.uk. I also purchased The Devil and the Deep, Far Out: Recent Queer Science Fiction and Fantasy and Isolation: The Horror Anthology.

    I bought the entire series (so far?) of Wayfarers by Becky Chambers. I picked up the first book of The Founders Trilogy (Foundaryside) by Robert Jackson Bennett & The Outside Series (The Outside) by Ada Hoffmann.

    I also picked up a few standalone titles: Masks by Fumiko Enchi trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter, Lanny by Max Porter, Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher and Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner 

    That is not all of them. I’ve logged all the books I’ve bought this year and know exactly how much I’ve spent. I need to calm down!

    I am going to cancel my book box subscriptions. I have never been a hardback reader, and I know these are stunning, but they are expensive shelf-space-reducing objects.

    This was ‘The Bad’? What is the ugly?

    The Ugly

    Chasing new shiny isn’t good for me. New shiny is where most of the book talk is aiming towards. I thought about ramping up my reading and reviewing again. I imagined chasing the waves alongside other book influencers. Realistically, it’s not going to happen. I either can’t or don’t want to devote time to keeping up with the field and reading the required work.

    I must remember that I have moved on as much as the book-o-sphere has.

    I will sit back and enjoy the content of those with energy and joy.

    What’s the plan for March?

    I’m writing this on the 12th of March. I have finished Siblings. I am still reading A Book of Tongues. I have eighteen days left of the month. The plan is to read an additional novel. That’s the plan.

  • Review: Far From the Stars of Heaven

    The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having travelled light years from home to bring one thousand sleeping souls to safety among the stars.

    Some of the sleepers, however, will never wake – and a profound and sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel. Its skeleton crew are forced to make decisions that will have repercussions for all of humanity’s settlements – from the scheming politicians of Lagos station, to the colony planet of Bloodroot, to other far flung systems and indeed Earth itself.

    Blurb from Far From Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

    I’ve chosen to share the blurb as that’s more information than I had going in, and if you’re curious, I’d suggest going in coldish…

    I will say that what sold it to me was being told that it’s a horror in space, which it is. It also starts as a locked room mystery.

    Far From the Start of Heaven has many elements to enjoy, like the characters’ backgrounds and how they interplay, but the construction and the layering let it down.

    There are jolts in the narration to move it along rather than slick reveals. They felt jarring, and I was expecting better. The writing had me speeding along, and then a choice was made, and I got mentally shifted in a huh rather than an ahh way.

    There were some nice ahh moments too. That’s what makes this a complicated book to explain. It’s great until it’s not. It’s satisfying until it isn’t.

    Towards the climax, something about the writing shifts from clear to vague. This gave it an unfinished and dissatisfying quality.

    I did feel connected to the central character and her journey and got unexpectedly teary at the end.

    Overall, this felt like an undercooked and failed experiment.

    I really wanted it to be better than it was.

    As the author is a Clarke Award Winner, I’d still like to read Rosewater and/or his shorter works to see how he handles stories in general.

    Rating: 3.5/5

  • Review: Alien: The Cold Forge by Alex White

    Alien: The Cold Forge by Alex White

    I read the complete Salvagers Trilogy (A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe/A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy/The Worst of All Possible Worlds) by Alex White last year.

    I also read my first Aliens tie-in novel (Alien 3: The Unproduced Screenplay from William Gibson by Pat Cadigan). 

    And as I enjoyed both separately, I thought I’d combine the author and franchise in the form of my next Alien book. 

    [Spoiler]I was so gripped by this Alien story that, whilst reading it, I hunted down a great deal on a seven-book-set of other Alien tie-ins. Then when I fished The Cold Forge I ordered  Alien: Into Charybdis, which continues the story in some way. [/Spoiler}

    The Cold Forge starts when a callous auditor from Weyland-Yutani is sent to a secret space lab to assess the profitability of the various research projects on board. It ends with shock and horror. 

    I wasn’t expecting how much horror White weaved in. Their style for this story is dark. They managed to build a tension that made me want to know what could happen next to the scientists.

    The reader knows how dangerous the xenomorphs can be even if the scientists think they are safely caged up, but what becomes clear is that the Aliens aren’t the only thing to fear. 

    You can tell White is enjoying themselves. They go deep. There is no sugarcoating here. They also made a disabled character one of their main focuses. I wish more books would include disabled rep and make the characters part of the ordinary course of the story. 

    I am excited to read the post-2014 batch of Alien novels from Tim Lennon, James A. More, Christopher Moore, Keith DeCandido, Tim Waggoner, and others. White has set a high bar to reach. 

    Rating 4.5/5