Feast and Famine ★★✬☆☆

 

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Title: Feast and Famine
Series: ----------
Authors: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 157
Words: 60.5K

Synopsis:

From the Inside Cover and TOC

In Feast and Famine Adrian Tchaikovsky delivers an ambitious and varied collections of stories. Ranging from the deep space hard SF of the title story (originally in Solaris Rising 2) to the high fantasy of “The Sun in the Morning” (a Shadows of the Apt tale originally featured in Deathray magazine), from the Peter S Beagle influenced “The Roar of the Crowd” to the supernatural Holmes-esque intrigue of “The Dissipation Club” the author delivers a dazzling array of quality short stories that traverse genre. Ten stories in all, five of which appear here for the very first time.

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Feast & Famine

3. The Artificial Man

4. The Roar of the Crowd

5. Good Taste

6. The Dissipation Club

7. Rapture

8. Care

9. 2144 and All That

10. The God Shark

11. The Sun of the Morning

12. About the Author

My Thoughts:

That's right, there's a reason I've been avoiding Tchaikovsky for the last year or two. While he can tell some good stories, he also really digs the knife into Christianity. Not organized religion, or Buddhism, or Islam, or any other religion, just Christianity. I “think” I could handle it if he were an equal opportunity mocker, but he's not. He really lets fly with the story “Rapture” and I realized that while the other stories might be interesting that my time with him is done for good now.

If I need any more fixes of Tchaikovsky, I'll just go and re-read the Shadows of the Apt decology.

★★✬☆☆

• All of My “Adrian Tchaikovsky” Reviews

Children of Ruin (Children of Time #2) ★✬☆☆☆

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Children of Ruin
Series: Children of Time #2
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 480
Words: 155K

Synopsis:

A terraforming ship of humans discover 2 worlds and begin terraforming one of them. Then the great catastrophe from Old Earth strikes and they barely survive. One of the scientists plays god with octopi and has them taking over one of the world. The other world ends up being the host of a organism that takes over everything it comes into contact with. It reaches the Octopi world and drives them into space.

Where a spaceship from the Human/Spider coalition find them. And everybody tries to communicate with everybody else and succeed and way in the future everyone is one giant happy family of sentient beings.

My Thoughts:

If this hadn't been by Adrian Tchaikovsky, I would have DNF'd this at the 50% mark when I made my Currently Reading post. As it is, he is now off my list of “must read” authors.

This was boring. This wasn't fun. This felt like him playing with himself and his “clever” idea about how sentient octopi might communicate. If you're into that kind of thing, then have at this book. You go play with yourself, you sicko. But for everyone else, kick this to the curb. I was severely disappointed in this even though I thought I had set my expectations to almost zero. To summarize, this was fething stupid and I hated it.

Children of Time is an excellent standalone book that didn't need a sequel nor should it have had one. This book, Children of Ruin, was a disgrace and a slap in the face. How could the same guy write this drivel AND the excellent Private Life of Elder Things? It just boggles my mind.

What else boggles my mind is praise and acclaim this seems to have accrued to itself. Doesn't anyone have standards and principles anymore? I hate the publishers for pushing for a sequel. I hate Tchaikovsky for writing a sequel. I hate the fans for enabling a sequel. I sentence them all to the eternal stygian darkness!

So there.

★✬☆☆☆

• Children of Time (Book 1)

The Private Life of Elder Things ★★★★☆

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Librarything & Bookype by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Private Life of Elder Things
Series: ----------
Editor: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 207
Words: 77.5K

Synopsis:

Publisher's Blurb

From the wastes of the sea to the shadows of our own cities, we are not alone. But what happens where the human world touches the domain of races ancient and alien? Museum curators, surveyors, police officers, archaeologists, mathematicians; from derelict buildings to country houses to the London Underground, another world is just a breath away, around the corner, watching and waiting for you to step into its power. The Private Life of Elder Things is a collection of new Lovecraftian fiction about confronting, discovering and living alongside the creatures of the Mythos.

With stories from Adrian Tchaikovsky, Keris McDonald and Adam Gauntlett

My Thoughts:

This was a fantastic little read. I only have one quibble, which is why this got 4 stars instead of 5. One of the stories deals with a ghoul and ghouls reproduce by necrophilia. It wasn't the main part of the story and isn't revealed until the end, but it just made me go “Oh, that is disgusting!” and wonder if I'd made a mistake in picking the book up. Thankfully, nothing like that is repeated.

I'm a sucker for short story collections. Something about an author distilling a story down to just a couple of pages, or even up to 20'ish, works really well for me. Now, I can't read just ONE short story. I won't sit down and read one short story all by itself. So short stories that are online only (like the Powder Mage short stories were before McClellan put them altogether in one book) are a complete no-go for me. But give me a collection and bam, I'm eating that stuff with 2 spoons, 3 forks and a bottle of ketchup!

I also have a soft spot for cosmic horror. As long as it's done well and doesn't rely only on violence and profanity to shock the reader. The Rites of Azathoth was such a book and when I started this collection I was a little afraid that that was what I might be getting. Thankfully, I got some good writing and some excellently shivery stories. Just what I wanted and expected from a book with a title like this!

One thing to be aware of is some of the limey slang. One of the stories especially seemed to be deliberately written so as to be incomprehensible to anyone outside the shores of Albion. If I hadn't read the movie review of The Sweeney a couple of months ago, I'd have been totally lost. Gor blimey govnah, the Sweeney is doing a real snazzertowsin. Ok, I made that up, but for that one story I felt like I had to get half the story from context instead of the actual words.

If Tchaikovsky were to put out another collection like this, I'd definitely be interested. But without his name I doubt I'd try something by the other two authors.

★★★★☆

For Love of Distant Shores (Tales of the Apt #3) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: For Love of Distant Shores
Series: Tales of the Apt #3
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 364
Words: 118K

Synopsis:

Amazon and Me

For Love of Distant Shores features the exploits of scientist-cum-adventurer Doctor Ludweg Phinagler, as recorded by his (semi-)faithful assistant, Fosse.

A maverick academic, Phinagler is able to charm almost everyone he meets… except for his fellow academics at Collegium, with whom he is frequently at odds. In part to escape the resultant animosity and scandal, and in part to satisfy his own thirst for knowledge, Phinagler mounts a series of expeditions to the far-flung corners of the world (regions which the author always knew were there but which the main narrative of the novels never allowed him to fully explore). In the process, he confronts ancient mysteries and deadly dangers that the majority of kinden would scarcely believe exist.

In the first story, Phinagler and Fosse explore an underwater lake and barely escape slavery and vivisection.

In the second story they head to the Desert of Nem to find lost treasure and find a mad Slug Magician instead.

The third story has them hiking into one of the great forests to track down the Kinden who built a mysterious tower. Not only do they find the kinden, they find 8 wasps who seem to have immortality through being reborn using the aforementioned Kinden as hosts.

The final story has them crossing the Great Sea and discovering a new land where the people don't talk their language, appear to have no kinden and can apparently change shape. The story ends with Phinagler vowing to come back and Fosse retiring so she can have a polygamous relationship with 2 of the men she met.

My Thoughts:

Sadly, each of those Tales of the Apt books has been slowly going downhill for me. With the final story ending up with a menage a trois arrangement, I was very disappointed.

I liked the format of 4 novellas (they're not really short stories) making up the book. Very pulp. Definitely riffing on the 1900's Adventure Stories. Yet still fun.

Character wise, I wouldn't have minded if the main characters had died each time and been replaced. Phinagler was an egotistical jackass and Fosse was a gambling lowlife. I have to admit, there were times I was really hoping they'd die. I really didn't like them.

The stories themselves were great. I like a good Adventure Story and these were definitely that. Well, I didn't like the final story, but that is because I knew it tied into his Echoes of the Fall series and I really didn't care for that series. The other 3 though, they were cool.

There is one more book of short stories in this series and I believe it is by different authors, so we'll see how it goes.

★★★☆☆

• All My "Tales of the Apt" Reviews

A Time for Grief (Tales of the Apt #2) ★★★☆½

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: A Time for Grief
Series: Tales of the Apt #2
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 350
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

A collection of short stories about the Apt world that ranged between the opening chapters of The Empire in Black in Gold all the way to after the Seal of the Worm.

Many minor characters from the series are given more prominent roles and several characters from the first book in this series of Tales of the Apt make a return.

My Thoughts:

I did not enjoy this as much as the previous book. It felt like Tchaikovsky was simply letting all the story telling out that he wasn't able to fit into the Shadows series. Characters and situations that were important to him as the author were allowed out on the page, whereas I the reader couldn't have cared less about them all.

That doesn't mean the stories weren't interesting or were poorly written, but they simply didn't grab my attention the same the previous collection did. I think part of it was just how depressing it all was, even the authors little afterwards about the history of each story. More of these stories ended happy than not but even still Tchaikovsky just seemed to revel in writing, in the afterwards, about how depressing everything in the story is. He doesn't seem like a depressed man, but just someone who likes to tell depressing stories.

I think this is typified in the story about a fly boy. He and his parents are workers in the city of Helleron and they can barely afford to even live in the poor section of town. Then the street they live on changes hands to another gang and said gang raises the rates, hence forcing everyone to move. The fly boy tries to hire someone to fight a battle with whoever the gang chooses but being so poor, no one will even give him the time of day. Until he runs across Tisaman, who wants to die. So Tisaman takes up his cause and kills the fighter the other gang hired and so the street goes back to the original gang. The kicker? The fighter the other gang hired was a man who lived in the same building as the fly boy and who the fly boy looked up to as a hero. Every story has some depressing angle like that.

It isn't nihilism, but it is more subtle and insidious and it wore me down. There are 2 more books in the series and I'm really hoping they trend more towards the action of the first than the mentally depressing of the second.

★★★☆½

• Spoils of War (Book 1)

Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt #1) ★★★★☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Spoils of War
Series: Tales of the Apt #1
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 278
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

A collection of 8 (I believe, I didn't keep track) short stories taking place in the world of the Shadows of the Apt. However, these stories all take place before the first book, Empire in Black and Gold begins. Definitely meant for fans who have already read the entire decalogy and want more.

My Thoughts:

I am a fan of collections of short stories by a single author. You get lots of ideas and little bits and bobs without having to commit a huge amount of time. This book was under 300 pages, so each story was something I could sit down with and read in a sitting and not feel like I had started something that I needed a week to commit to. It was perfect for lunch breaks and an hour or whatever in the evening.

The stories themselves I enjoyed but none of them really stood out to me. However, that is how I usually am with collections like this so it isn't a slur on the book, but a reflection on me. While I do review every book I read, I have never felt like I needed to review every story in a collection like this. I don't like writing THAT much :-)

Tchaikovsky also gave a little note after each story with an anecdote of how it came to be or how a character tied into the Shadows series. It was enjoyable but also made me realize that even side characters who I'd completely forgotten about played a big part in the author's mind when he was writing. Good for him, I guess?

Most of the stories dealt with the 12 Year War between the Empire and the entity ruled by the dragonfly, the Commonweal perhaps? I can't remember. Thoroughly enjoyable but I'm not sure I'd recommend this for someone who hasn't read the Shadows series first. A lot is assumed here in terms of understanding the Kinden. That kind of thing is explained in the Shadows series so it's not a stumbling block coming into this, but if you were just starting out with this, I can see it being very confusing.

Final verdict is that I enjoyed the bejabs out of this and highly recommend it for anyone who has read and enjoyed the main Shadows series.

★★★★☆

• All My "Shadows of the Apt" Reviews