Book 29-30
Together We Burn by Isabel Ibañez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This one was another of the hard to rate because there was a split between my own reading interests vs how well I thought the book was written. I read this as an arc from Netgalley which didn't influence my review in any way. While I did really enjoy the book I did have some quibbles about the world building and my own broken expectations.
I do however like Zarela, our point of view character very much as well as the surly dragon hunter Arturo Díaz de Montserrat but it was probably a 3.5 read for me because of some of Zarela's choices. SHe's a flamenco dancer, daughter of a Hispalia-famous flamenco dancer and a dragon fighter whose family dragon fighting lineage goes back centuries. Zarela lost her mother to a dragon a few years back and the story opens with a horrible accident in the dragon fighting ring (yes this is a bull fighting analogy) that nearly kills her father and disgraces the family. Learning Dad has squandered all their money, Zarela desperately tries to save their business and home even though it seems like someone has purposely ruined them and the dragon master couldn't care less because he hates her dad.
That's how Zarela meets Arturo, disgraced dragon fighter now hunter. From the first moment we meet him I thought this is going to be a more adult How To Train Your Dragons and I wasn't wrong. As I said I liked the characters but the story does in fact move on very predictable rails. He trains her to fight even though he doesn't want her to and he's very much Hiccup (movie Hiccup not the books) studying the dragons. You expect the love story and in spite of that it works.
What didn't work as well for me is Zarela knows someone did this and for a little while it looks like she's going to investigate who nearly murdered her father, did murder a bunch of people in the stands when all their dragons were released and killed one of their tamers but then she doesn't. She has two possibilities, an anti-dragonfighting protest group and the dragon master himself but it just fizzles out and that was disappointing. Even a line or two saying she had to choose between justice and training to save the business would have helped. I think it might have been to have the bittersweet ending but that still could have happened easily.
The world building fell over itself a few times. Hispalia is obviously Spanish speaking but we see no other countries so why are we lapsing in and out of Spanish (I suspect to remind us we're in Spain) this is generally something we see when people are speaking the native tongue of the country they're in and speak the language of where they are from. That was a little odd but no real big deal.
The thing that bothered me about the world building is we have all these different kinds of dragons with different powers and we hear Hispalia is the only country still capturing, tormenting, fighting and killing them. Unlike bulls, dragons at least make a little more sense in a ring because they can destroy swaths of the city and do. But if Hispalia is still the only country doing this, what is everyone else doing? Suffering and dying? Have they found a better way? I really wanted Arturo to mention this since this was such a big deal to him. And really if the dragons are this dangerous why are they not summarily killed. Why would you bring them to the heart of the city and store them in cages to fight in a ring where they can literally fly away if they get loose? I wanted a better explanation and didn't get it.
That said, I did enjoy it and rated it up a bit because I thought it was well written over all.
View all my reviews
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Another one of suffering from broken expectations. I got it from a Tor giveaway and I didn't really read the blurb because I had heard so much about it. I was like lesbian librarians in the weird west? Yes please. But that isn't what it actually is exactly. It wants to be a cautionary tale ala Atwood but I hate those. I can easily imagine the worst of humanity. I would like to see some joy to aspire to but that is definitely not this story.
For some reason, America has broken apart into horribly misogynistic/homophobic states. Esther is running away from a forced marriage after her authoritarian father managed to get her girlfriend Beatriz hung for possessing 'Unapproved Materials.' Esther has stowed away with the Librarians as she wants to be them, to have their freedom to move around the country.
They are not thrilled to see her but she manages to convince them to take her to Utah where lesbians can live free but the librarians are not really there for books. They're to help sneak strong women, lesbians and one assumes other rebellious people (no men that we see) to safety.
The world building in this long novella/short novel leaves a lot to be desired. We don't need to know what happened per se but why do some have horses and six shooters? Why do others have drones and cars? Why are they talking like it's 1876? What is this generations long war? Just what the hell is happening? Several others have mentioned in their reviews some of the characters (Leda and Bet for example) seem to be a little light in development and I was also bothered that in a matter of a few days/weeks/however long we're traveling, it's not that long, Esther goes from mourning her hanged lover to being all about Cye, a non binary librarian.
It's not a bad story but it honestly felt like a set up for something coming down the pike with Esther and Cye. That said I'm so tired of fantasy stories where women being reduced to broodmares is thing. It's starting to feel like no SFF author thinks women have any other future.
View all my reviews