Orbit – Carol's Notebook

The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan

June 10, 2024June 10, 2024 by CarolNo Comments

The Justice of Kings is a compelling mix of fantasy, mystery and legal thriller. The novel follows Sir Konrad Vonvalt, an itinerant Justice of the Empire of the Wolf. His job, and life's purpose, is to fairly uphold the empire's laws and mete out justice as appropriate. He is accompanied by his taskman and friend, former soldier Dubine Bressinger, and his clerk, Helena Sedanka, a 19 year old woman who was essentially rescued by Vonvalt from a life on the streets. The three travel to Galen’s Vale where Vonvalt takes on an investigation into the murder of a noblewoman, but the case has Empire-wide ramifications. The story is told through the first-person perspective of Helena. We’re hearing, since I listened to the audiobook, Helena’s recounting of the past, which worked well. It showed us Vonvalt's actions and his reasoning as he discusses things with Helena, but also lets us know that he's not infallible, that Helena can't always agree with him. Vonvalt protects...

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North

August 18, 2021August 18, 2021 by CarolNo Comments

Notes from the Burning Age takes place in a time after the world burned. The kakuy, spirits of earth, sky, water, became so enraged at our destruction of the environment that they burned and drowned us. Those who survived became more careful of how they use resources and honor and fear the kakuy. Some people, like Ven, study ancient texts, learning from them but also labeling violent and earth-damaging knowledge as heretical. But a war is coming, when some would use the secrets of the past for their own gain. Yes, this is speculative fiction, but at heart it's a spy thriller, a tightly plotted novel with memorable characters and plenty of twists and harrowing situations. The information is being gathered from the past, leading to translation issues, research espionage, and a situation where knowledge is power, and the war rests on who can control the most knowledge and use it most effectively. The relationships in the book are believable...

The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North

November 21, 2019November 21, 2019 by Carol2 Comments

I am a huge Claire North fan. Regardless of topic, her writing is lyrical and vivid and, at times, graphic. The Pursuit of William Abbey begins in the 1880s and continues into the first World War, while taking us around the world. North brings the era, the people, and the places alive for us, through her characters and descriptions. William Abbey is cursed. He watched a boy be tortured and burned without doing or saying anything- this scene is devastating. As the mother kills her child to end his suffering, she sends out her curse and it lands on Abbey. As the blurb says, the shadow of the dead boy starts following him and when it catches him, the person he loves most will die. The person he loves most, not the person he should love, not the person he pretends to love, the person he truly loves most. Using modern transportation, he can stay ahead of the relentless, shuffling...

Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe

August 8, 2019August 8, 2019 by Carol2 Comments

Velocity Weapon is really entertaining - a bit long perhaps, but a lot of fun. So why have I been sitting here looking at this blank review on and off for days now? I don't want to give away any of the plot points and those are what make the book interesting. The blurb above gives you the basic setup. Sanda is awesome, tough, resourceful, vulnerable. She was clearly the strongest of the characters and the parts from her point of view were the most compelling. Her brother Biran is a politician, but he still has some hope in the system, even if his faith is stretching thinner and thinner. I like that he doesn't give up hope, ever. There's a third character whose point of view we see the story from, but she's not mentioned in the blurb. Jules is in a different system. She's a thief whose last job went wrong and she is in major trouble. We don't know...

Mailbox Monday – 7/8

July 8, 2019January 6, 2020 by Carol6 Comments

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. Tell us about your new arrivals by adding your Mailbox Monday post to the linky at mailboxmonday.wordpress.com. Velocity Weapon was a win from Orbit Books US on Instagram....

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

July 7, 2017July 7, 2017 by Carol4 Comments

Six Wakes is one I picked up based on the blurb - a locked-room mystery in space, a sci-fi mystery. The sci-fi hook this time around was cloning. The laws around cloning are strict, but basically, we have figured out how to make mindmaps, putting all of a person's memories, thoughts, personalities into a code that can be transferred into that person's cloned body, making an individual practically immortal and able to inherit their own belongings/money. There's some philosophical discussion about what makes a person a person, what is a soul, etc., but it's not really dealt with in depth. The mystery set up is great. Six people wake up in fresh clone bodies, with the clear evidence that their previous bodies had been murdered, obviously by one of them, since everyone else on the generational ship is in "storage." One or more of them is the killer, but no one knows who - their memories from the last 25 years have...