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 Stalking Tender Prey by Storm Constantine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This novel has all of the characteristics that make Storm Constantine such a compelling author. The world she creates is conflated from the Sumarian creation myth of Enlil and Ninlil with the ancient Kabbalah and more recent Christian Cabbalistic apocryphal influences, especially the myths of Shemyaza and the Grigori and even Enochian magic. Without any knowledge of these myths, the world seems real and almost likely. It would make a great neo-pagan spiritual system! With basic knowledge of these myths it is an amazing accomplishment bringing them alive in modern Britain.
Her characters are delightful and most could easily find one or more to identify with. The prose or word-smithing it typical of Storm, that is flowing, exciting, well-paced and with enough esoterica to allow for googling and wiki-ing for those so inclined. It works on multiple levels and can be read as a great story, as a great story with allegorical themes or—This 1st book of this trilogy can open an entire new world for you to explore from our historical and mythic past, right back to the beginning of human writing. Best, IMO, to read it all all levels.
I had trouble genre-izing the novel. It typically falls into fantasy or dark or gothic fantasy. But I think it more than those so included it as mythic fantasy where I think it best fits. It is very much about our historical and mythic basis.
I’d suggest that at he very least one read a translation of Enlil and Ninlil— http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1… —look up Grigori and Shemyaza
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 Solar by Ian McEwan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I was disappointed and surprised with this novel. I was disappointed since I expected much more from McEwan’s prose and because this novel spent so much time on Beard’s love life and gluttony, which bored me. It surprised me as the science and the problems of a scientist’s career peaking early were done so well by someone with McEwan’s apparent background. This was the 1st of his books I’ve read, but was familiar with his reputation.
The book has 2 threads—anthropomorphic climate change and Beard’s trivial human life (all individuals are trivial in Nature’s face). About three quarters of the book was concerned with Beard’s activities of daily life, the rest about climate change and his attempt to create a new system of clean energy beyond nuclear. The latter is most important, the former is least. Yet McEwan did a much better with his ecoFIction, than with his human relationships fiction. The latter seemed like a B-romantic comedy,
Perhaps the point of the book is that in the face of catastrophic climate change, catastrophic for human civilization, humans remain most concerned with their little lives, comforts, eating, screwing… sleeping, showering… playing political games, messing with lawyers and bureaucrats… As Beard’s hope of re-achieving breakthrough science fails, so does humanities hope of avoiding the climate catastrophe. It will be too late when the problem becomes short term.
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 The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
An endgame in progress forever awaiting resolution, the trap of beliefs, The Yid is fucking brilliant. It’s a mystery that’s solved about a mystery whose solution forever remains elusive. It’s an alternative history that’s is more real than history. It’s not Sci-Fi in any sense I can find. So how did it win a Hugo? I can see another Pulitzer for Chabon or a Rhor but never a Hugo. I guess the Hugo Yids were campaigning for a literary sense in SF. I don’t consider Alt-His to be Sci-Fi per se. It can be, but this isn’t. Maybe it’s all considered high fantasy by the Hugo-goys.
And it’s a comedy, black for sure, but for me there many LOL moments and would probably have been many more if I understood all of the allusions. Having Wikipedia at hand and an Yiddish-English dictionary is almost essential (try nechvenin). You do want to know whose real and who’s fictional, no? Emanuel Lasker, eg. I didn’t use these references, but will for the next read.
And it has so much to teach. The Tzadik Ha-Dor, eg, a phrase I had never heard, but being a Sci-Fi master myself thought immediately of the Kwisatz Haderach. And, the concept of The Tzadik Ha-Dor helped me understand The Golden Path just a bit better and why 10,000 years later humans were still trapped my their mythology in Dune.
I give this a 9.7 and not a 10, only because I found Kavalier and Clay more fun and personal.
This pix is a clue:
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 Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
IMO, this is the best book so far of the Dune prequels or expanded universe, whichever you prefer. It is a nexus in the Dune universe, a node from which many branches remain to be explored. I wanted to give it 5*, but only Dune gets that in this universe. It approaches 4.5*.
The book is about beginnings—beginnings of the major powers of Dune. The title is somewhat deceptive. Though it does explore the Bene Gesserit’s beginnings (here called The Sisterhood) and the 1st Reverent Mothers, it gives almost equal time to the beginnings of the Mentats, the Suk doctors and hints about imperial conditioning, the Emperium, The Laandstrad, the Thulaxu, The Navigators, the Fremen and Spice Mining, the Atreides-Harkonnan feud… All of these join in this nexus and I can imagine each being explored in more depth in further novels. It is quite an exciting prospect.
Further, the book is about the Butlerian Jihad, not against the Thinking Machines, they’re dead and gone, but against humans who would use any technology to enhance their lives. In exploring this thing, the authors create a scathing polemic against the forces of fundamentalism, conservatism and theocracy that plague our own civilization today. They show that exploring the future can be like exploring the past, that humans will always be doomed to destruction and chaos by the righteous.
Many give short shrift to the Dune prequels by Brian and Kevin. I have enjoyed them, agree they have not maintained the literary quality of Frank’s seminal novels, but I most strongly recommend this novel to Dune lover’s, even if one has not read the other prequels. The Sisterhood of Dune can stand on it’s own with perhaps a little help from The Dune Wiki
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 Between Dances by Erasmo Guerra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the story of Marco and his friends/lovers Chris and Jaime, all three erotic dancers and call-boys in NYC at some recent time, I’d suggest the late ’90s. Though some of the plot concerns their ‘jobs’, the novel is really about Marco and his life “between dances” shown by his interaction with Chris, Jaime and a few johns.
There are sexual encounters in the novel, but not explicit, and actually episodes telling us more about Marco. I like this approach. One gets bored with descriptive sex scene after sex scene common to so much m/m fiction. If it were a movie, I’d rate it PG depending on how much d&a are shown.
The author seems an experienced craftsman. The prose has a literary bent, reminding me somewhat of Counterpoint: Dylan’s Story. My main problem was some dialogue in Spanish which I did not want to look up for disturbing the flow of the prose. Sometimes the meaning was clear, most often not.
The novel is compared to Genet’s The Thief’s Journal and Rechy’s The City of Night. I think this comparison comes from the novel being about a seedier sides of Gay life, but I see a big difference. Genet’s autobiographical work and Rechy’s novels tend toward protagonists who are stuck in their lives and one expects then to go on behaving in the future as they have in the past. Marco makes me want to try to save him from his physically and psychologically destructive life. And, I think there is a good chance he could be changed and so saved. He’s likable though I don’t think I’d have sex with him.
I liked the book a lot and would like to see more novels come from the author’s pen. He has published short story collections, but no other novels that I can find.
The only real negative I found were a number of typos in the text, most minor. In one place it seemed a paragraph was out of place and I lost the flow of what was going on for a bit.
Recommended!
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 The Jewels of Aptor by Samuel R. Delany
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The novel describes a post-apocalyptic civilization a number of centuries after an atomic “big fire”. The action occurs on two islands or continents, one with a dark age civilization. Leptar, where the highest technology are sailing ships and swords; the other the radioactive island Aptor populated by mutant flora and fauna as well as humanoid ‘scientist’ populations who have kept or rediscovered the old knowledge and technology, two opposing groups forming priesthood like enclaves, keepers of tech and science. The Jewels of Aptor are high tech devices that give absolute power to their wielders. The story involves a group of fantasy like adventurers from Leptar tasked with collecting the jewels and figuring out what to do with them.
The theme of the novel is summed up, “And that’s what we saw, or the experience we had when we looked at the beach from the ship this morning; chaos caught in order, the order defining chaos.” The experience being a religious experience. The novel is a simplistic, brief exploration of Western dualistic thinking: dark vs light; knowledge vs innocence; good vs evil, order vs chaos, baji-naji, etc. The last few pages, explain this. The action tries to illustrate it.
Knowing other Delany work’s, I certainly have a compulsion to read between the lines looking for secrets, deep meanings and meta-fictional ideas. I don’t think they are to be found in this immature, 1st Delany novel.
It’s an easy read. The prose flows and in places is remarkable for an inexperienced writer. Be sure to read a later edition like this which is include much that Ace editors had cut and is revised by Delany.
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 ‘Salem’s Lot: Illustrated Edition by Stephen King
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The only other King I’ve read is The Stand which I enjoyed as a dystopian Science Fiction. I liked the plot, the characters, the prose. I was bored by ‘Salem’s Lot and almost gave it up several times. The short stories at the end of this edition were far more interesting.
So, why didn’t I like it. To paraphrase Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus, “Too many words!” and a lot of them in the wrong place or completely unnecessary. I did not find the story very interesting. Though a vampire story, it had not horror for me. I found the characters flat with no one I could identify with. King writes easy, flowing prose, making for a fast, if long, read. But, many ideas are repeated ad nauseum. King can write clever bon mots, but he did nothing to illustrate such, unless he was too subtle for me, which I doubt. King is just not that deep. The best thing about the novel was building the world of a small rural town in the USA. King got that right. Others, many others have done it better.
I doubt I will read more King.
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 The Rylerran Gateway by Mark Kendrick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I vacillated too long over 3 or 4 stars for this novel. I decided it is 3 stars for SciFi and 4 stars for Gay SF, going with the latter since there is a dearth of good, fun Gay SF novels. I hope the higher rating will encourage more people to read it.
The story is plot driven, like most space operas. The characters are interesting, but not well-developed like most space operas. The book is very well crafted and is a page-turner. I stayed up too late 3 nites in a row, because I didn’t want to stop reading.
The protagonists are 2 Gay guys, one in the space military, the other a scientist (paleo-microbilogist) who fall in love after a few dates. The military/science personality-type conflict is mentioned, but not developed in any meaningful way. There is a tiny homophobia thread which would be interesting to develop in a sequel. Sex per se is minimal. The novel is not for someone looking for a traditional m/m romance.
The SF part of the novel is well done, but is derivative, my main complaint about this novel. There are no new SF ideas I discovered. The multiplanet politics has been done. The gateway built by ancient unknown aliens has been done. Even the tech terms seemed all to be taken from Star Trek—warp drive, inertial dampeners, quantum signatures, interstellar conduits (think Borg)… I would have liked some originally.
So we have a Heechee + Union-Alliance + Star Trek space opera. Still it is an entertaining story, positively Gay and IMO well worth a read.
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 The Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The best thing about this novel are the Tine, a fascinating alien species, telepathic and with an individual existing as groups of individuals with a sense of immortality. Vinge explores the possibilities of such group minds quite well. Humans provide a foil which helps us understand the nature of the Tine. He does an adequate job, but throughout my read I kept wishing CJ Cherryh had written the work. She is The Master of alien/human interactions.
My main problem with the book was the plot or story. I just did not find it very interesting and derivative (same-o, same-o). It was not a page turner for me, but neither did I have to struggle to read the book. The political machinations were trivial and primarily human oriented.
One thing bothered me. Essentially, all the main character bad guys are male, the good guys female. An appropriate balance would have changed this sex discrimination.
It is obvious that a sequel is in the works. The main conflict other than Tinish vs Human sensibilities concerns those who believe in the Blight vs those who do not. Though the book can be read as a standalone, I strongly suggest reading the prior novels in the Zones of Thought series.
I am hoping this is a bridge work to the final novel(s) in this series. Given that the 1st 2 books won a Hugo for Vinge, the series in toto my be superior to this novel alone. We have much yet to learn about The Blight and about the Choir of Tine individuals.
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 Children of Tantalus: Niobe and Pelops by Victoria Grossack
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a pleasant surprise! Though originally published in Greek by a major publisher, this 1st book of a trilogy has been self-published in the US. Do not let that put you off. The novel is the best written, edited and produced such book I have read. I only found one possible typo in the entire book, unusual even from top publishers.
The book is a novelization of the myth of Tantalus and his children Pelops, Broteas and Niobe. Pelops and Tantalus are father and grandfather of the great House of Atreus, so important in ancient Greek literature. The myths are relatively straight-forward, though of course there are variations and name confusions. The author has chosen the currently most accepted forms of the myth, eg placing the kingdom of Tantalus in Lydia. It will be interesting to she what choices Grossack makes in the following novels, eg who does Niobe marry, what happens to her children, will Pelop’s curse come true, etc.
The 1st novel is basically a retelling of Pelops death and resurrection in Lydia, his obsession to build an empire of his own, his banishment from Athens, and the events surrounding his marriage to Hippodamia. A possible foretelling of events to come in the sequels concerns the curse of Myrtilus, food for tragedy. Additional subplots involve Pelops intimacy with a certain older ship captain and Niobe’s fascination with a handsome bard. What does the future hold?
Trough all of this Niobe provides a firm foundation on which Pelops can stride and in many ways the novel is the telling of Niobe’s story, much neglected in ancient literature. The author creates a compelling character in Niobe and believable additions to the myths. I am looking forward to the sequels.
Children of Tantalus: Niobe and Pelops is a novel all lovers of mythic fiction will want to read.
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