Posted by Hello, all. I guess it’s time for cuts on the Weatherdrifter team. I want to stress that I had a really amazing batch this year, and I’m going to have a very hard time cutting books as well as picking our semifinalists. I genuinely think this was my strongest batch (at least the one that aligns with my taste the most) that I’ve ever had as a judge. What works for me may not for you, and vice versa, so if you like the sound of these reviews, I encourage you to pick them up!
One Hit Wonder by Juan Patmos
This was a hilariously weird book.
From the opening line, you know you’re getting an MC that’s not a human, since he’s seen the Earth die almost 100 times due to one reason or another – volcano, asteroid, cow farts. Now the Earth faces devastation again, but not from where you’d think.
Here’s a brief summary via a quote from the book,
“The Big G was there, and he said that humanity was getting on his nerves. Due to his Angelic and Infernal Legal teams’ recommendation, he decided to give the world a chance to avoid destruction by fire this time. I have been selected to create a song that resonates with all humanity and tops all the Billboard charts simultaneously. Otherwise, we are all fucked sideways.”
So… “Big G” is in fact God, and he will basically kill all humans if our main character doesn’t write the best song ever. LOL. So, the only thing I could think of here is the Rick and Morty episode where giant heads come to Earth and tell Rick and Morty that Earth will be obliterated unless they win a rock band concert competing against other planets for the best song. That’s exactly what’s going on here, and the book is fast, straight to the point, absurd, and funny. That said, things were a little too loosely tied together and difficult to follow for a semifinalist consideration.
This was a fun book that definitely kept things fresh and different. If you’re someone who likes movies like Spinal Tap, books like Kings of the Wyld or Soul Music, and you’re looking for a fantasy-based “getting the band together” plotline, then this could be for you. It can be found on KU, so if you have an account, you can try it out for free!
A Comedy of Monsters by K.M. Harrell
This opens with a monstrous prince being born. The midwife got so hungry and was so preoccupied with her meal that she let a handmaid escape with the prince. The prince is an “abomination” because he is the son of the King, but the King is not human; in fact, he calls humans “Delicians” because they are so tasty to eat. That didn’t stop the king from having a son with the Delicians, and now that son is missing. I think the first human we’re introduced to is called Quick Delicious because she’s so fast that she outran the cook who was chasing her with a meat cleaver, and in so doing, she earned her life instead of being cooked.
There’s a lot of gore, blood, death, etc. This is a book written from a monster’s POV, a few of them, actually. This could have been really neat, but I felt like the characters were a little one-note; there wasn’t a lot of depth to the characters other than that they’re evil, selfish, kill without mercy or regret, and eat people. I would have liked to see a lot more reasoning behind everything.
The writing style didn’t work very well for me, either. I struggle with visualizing scenes and imagery, so I rely a lot on senses other than sight to explore a scene. The more clinical the descriptions, the more difficult it is for me to try to imagine something. For instance, if you describe a fang as being “the size of your hand”, I can instantly visualize that and move on to the next paragraph. If I’m told the fang is “four inches long and about an inch and a half wide,” I kind of spiral out trying to create that in my head. If descriptions like that are stacked one on top of each other, I find myself pausing to try and imagine it rather than having a smooth head-movie going as we move from scene to scene.
This said, I do think there’s an audience for this book who want something over the top and original. I certainly haven’t seen something like this in a while, if ever.
Death at Hallowtide by RS Maxwell
I thought, just based on the cover, that this was going to be a YA Halloween story. It was decidedly not that. This is a murder mystery that takes place near Halloween in Ireland, and with a backdrop of the modern-day ‘normal’ world. The MC, Jessica Quill, was just bequeathed a small estate in the countryside of Ireland. She lives in England, and so although she’s super into the house and the lifestyle, she feels like she has no choice but to sell it. While she was visiting, she decided to go to a birthday party of an acquaintance, but while she was there, she got tangled up in a murder mystery.
Someone dies at the party, and she thinks it’s poison based on his sweet-smelling breath. There’s a twist to the story as this house is tied to a gateway between the human world and the fae world. There’s a second POV (one of the fae) that watches Jessica as she tries to sort through this mystery. It’s a straightforward plotline, but it’s still easy to get lost due to the large number of side characters and how quickly everything goes down. The murder occurs at the very start of the book, and in order to keep things mysterious, there are many potential suspects/characters that are coming on and off screen, and it can be hard to keep track of them at first. There’s a dog companion named Pipsqueak that I enjoyed quite a bit.
Eventually, all eyes turn to Jessica as a potential suspect, and she has to play detective to prove her innocence.
I did enjoy my time with this book, and I’d recommend it to people looking for a murder mystery book with a touch of the fae. That said, based on what I’ve already read in the contest, there are other books that I know are semifinalists. Unfortunately, the bar to bump another book from one of the top spots is set very high. I have had an incredibly strong year, this year, and I’m going to have a very hard time narrowing down the six potential books I have as semifinalists down to just three to keep things manageable for Kristen when we exchange semifinalists. So, I’m saying goodbye to this one but recommend it to those who liked the sound of the review.