In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns by Elizabeth Bear

This one was included in my Audible subscription, and I appear to have given it a spin out of order – I listened to book 2 not so long ago. This is book 1. In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns by Elizabeth Bear is part of the Sub-Inspector Ferron Mysteries and offers listeners a somewhat quirky dive into an India of the future, where virtual and augmented reality blend seamlessly with real life, and humanity deals with the challenges of climate change in a technologically driven society.

Genetic manipulation is par for the course in this setting, and designer pets are de rigueur – so if you want to meet a talkative parrot-cat called Chairman Meow, who is the only witness to what at face value appears to be an utterly bizarre murder, then step right this way. Actually, I was sold by the fact that this story has a talking cat.

Narrated by Zehra Jane Naqvi, this is a short escapade of two hours (unlike the 20+ hour beasts I tend to download) which I admit took me ten or so minutes to get used to Zehra's voice. I don't know why, but I seem to inadvertently mostly listen to audiobooks narrated by British men, so hitting a woman-narrated work was a bit of an adjustment – especially with her accent being on point in terms of the setting. But once I was used to her voice, I was fine, and Zehra oozes quirk in abundance.

There's much to be unpacked in this setting, and my only real complaint is that it's too short! I'm definitely going to keep a lookout for further titles, should these be rolled out. It's great to have a story that's not the usual western-centric fare. If fun, light mysteries, with unexpected twists are your jam, then this one is the cat's whiskers. Oh dog, I shouldn't mix so many metaphors.

Ash Kickers by Sean Grigsby

Ash Kickers by Sean Grigsby is another casualty of my vain attempt to tame my TBR pile. The book was out in 2019. It's 2023. Go figure. But anyhoo, better late than never, hey? In this action-packed caper we meet Tamerica Williams right in the midst of dealing with a dragon. She and her team, garbed in mech suits and armed with laser swords and other, assorted gadgets and weapons, are the thin wedge standing between humanity and certain extinction, now that the dragons have returned and weaponised human wraiths to do their bidding.

In a nut shell, I'd describe this book at Ghostbusters, by way of Reign of Fire, with light sabres. 

Tamerica is a smart mouthed, kick-ass heroine who doesn't take flak from anyone, least of all her boss, veteran fire-fighter Cole Brannigan. But even she feels way out of her depth when a new beastie arises from the ashes – an honest-to-goodness phoenix that noms on dragons. Surely that would be a good thing, right? Nope, it's not, for Reasons I'm not going to go into for fear of spoilers.

Grigsby's prose is sharp and quick, his dialogue is snappy, and he delivers a fast-paced, no-punches-pulled, high-octane race against a big bad to end all big bads. He doesn't give readers time to get too comfortable, but foregrounds teamwork, camaraderie, and doing what's right, even if it means upsetting authority figures. And might just get you killed in the process.

I did find the world building to be completely bonkers, but if you can dive into genres such as Ghostbusters and suspend disbelief, then you shouldn't have a problem with this setting. I'll admit I'm always a sucker for dangerous megafauna, and dragons, fire-breathing or not, are most certainly my jam.

I'll close by saying if you're looking for a measured, sedate story that unpacks gradually, with nuanced layers, this is probably not going to be it. This one's all about kicking scaly posteriors and slaying one heck of a nasty bird.

Die Drie Lewens van Hannli Human deur Connie Luyt

Elke nou en dan tel ek spontaan 'n boek op, en Die Drie Lewens van Hannli Human deur Connie Luyt is een waaroor ek glad nie spyt voel nie. Ons leer Hannli ken, van kleintyd af in Kenia, waar sy en haar familie moes wegvlug gedurende die MauMau-aanvalle, en hoe haar familie toe na Suid-Afrika kom. Hannli is baie na aan haar ouma Hannie, wie die gawe van voorkennis besit. Hannie vertel haar dat sy drie lewens sal hê, en die storie ontwikkel ook in drie dele. Ons sien hoe 'n ramp Hannli tref terwyl sy op universiteit is, maar haar ouma is daar vir haar, al is dinge baie hartseer.

Later trou Hannli met 'n man wat, kom ons wees eerlik, is nie die beste ou nie. Maar sy byt vas sodat haar dogtertjie Nell ten minste nie 'n gebroke huwelik moes ondervind nie. Nadat Buks oorlede is, verhuis Hannli na KwaZulu-Natal, en 'n heel ander deel van haar lewe begin.

Oppervlakkig is hierdie roman maar net 'n lewenstorie, maar dis ook meer – dit is 'n verhaal oor familie, die wat met bloed verwant is en die wat gevind word langs die pad. Connie skrywe diep uit haar hart, en al is Hannli soms 'n onbetroubare verteller van haar eie storie – daar is dinge wat sy nie direk in die gesig tuur nie – is haar storie ook boeiend. 

Daar is nie groot avonture nie, nie enige enorme dinge wat gebeur nie, maar tog is dit 'n verhaal wat deurdring na die kern van 'n mens se lewe. En dit was vir my pragtig hoe al die los toutjies aan die einde van die storie bymekaar gebring is – op die drumpel van te gerieflik, maar inderdaad op 'n manier wat vir my 'n bietjie beter oor die mensdom laat voel.

This Is My World: The Life of Helen Martins, Creator Of The Owl House by Sue Imrie Ross

For those who read my blog, now you know where I get its name. The first time I seriously studied Helen Martins' Owl House was when I was still doing art classes in high school. Later, we had the Athol Fugard play The Road to Mecca as part of our set reading. During university, I studied a module on Outside Art, and a few years after that, went back to university where I did a few literature modules – a reread of The Road to Mecca was part of this, again. In my opinion, I think it's safe to say that Helen Martins' Owl House, a work of Outsider Art situated in the small Eastern Cape town of Nieu Bethesda, is an important part of South Africa's cultural landscape and heritage, and her influence is felt to this day.

I'm not going to reinvent the wheel and go into Helen Martins' history exhaustively – that is beyond the scope of the review – but I am going to talk about one of the important written works that explore Miss Helen's world and life – that of This is My World: The Life of Helen Martins, Creator of the Owl House, by Sue Imrie Ross, which was, sadly, published posthumously. 

I'll start by saying, that if you ever run across this book in a second-hand bookstore for anything less than R1,500, snap it up. It's been out of print for years, and if you're passionate about art and the life of this remarkable woman, This is My World is a serious collector's item. Within its pages, not only does Sue gather many important primary sources, but she offers an incredibly detailed study of the materials, themes, people, and era that came together when Miss Helen embarked on her work. So as an important resource for research for future writings, this is invaluable, especially now that the people who knew Miss Helen personally are all passing from this world.

Supplemented by beautiful photos, this in-depth work frames the Owl House and its attached Camel Yard sensitively, and from a Jungian perspective that offers deep insights into this amazing work. I realise in hindsight that although I'd taken this book out at the library many years ago, I had not finished reading it. At the time, I'd had the Anne Graaff book, which although as thought-provoking and inspiring, does not go into quite as much exhaustive detail. I now own both, I am proud to say, and look forward to being informed by the work. During December 2022, I had another 'pilgrimage' to Nieu Bethesda, and stayed at a friend's cottage where they had This is my World on their shelf – and I finally had the time (and quiet) to read the book cover to cover, something which most certainly informed my two visits to the Owl House during our stay.

If you do find yourself wending your way to the Eastern Cape with a visit planned to Nieu Bethesda, this book will provide you with far more than just a glimpse into the inner workings of this important part of our cultural heritage. Many of its details will be brought to vivid life and make your visit all the richer. It gladdens my heart to see how, today, the Owl House is now the reason why many tourists visit Nieu Bethesda. From the work of one woman and her assistants, this has truly become a work that offers a vital lifeline to a small, isolated community and to South Africa at large.

New Moon (Luna #1) by Ian McDonald

New Moon by Ian McDonald is one of those titles that I'm not quite sure how I feel about, even weeks after having finished the read. At first it reads like a series of loosely linked vignettes detailing the lives of the Corta family, founded by Adriana who was one of the first to settle there. Moving to the Moon is a one-way ticket for those who wish to make a life of it, since certain physiological changes make it impossible to return to a life on Earth. And depending on where you live, every breath, every drop of water is precious – and those who supply you with the credits to continue with your vital functions are very powerful individuals indeed.

We discover all too soon that politics on the Moon would put Machiavelli to shame, and conflict is resolved in how much blood is spilled.

What I liked about this novel was how Earth cultures are all smashed up, and the norms that we are accustomed to in present times are blatant non-issues. It does make the Moon brutal, but also a space where people are consciously alive – with a deeper understanding of the ephemeral nature of life. Take the moon run that the kids do every once in a while – naked and on the surface of the moon and exposed to a deadly environment. It's a rite of passage and darned dangerous, but they do it anyway. Because they can.

And like the theme of people running, the book itself carries itself at a breakneck pace, with multiple points of view that can make it a difficult read to get a handle on. This is both its strength and its weakness. Look, McDonald can write, and tells a cracking story often with lyrical, tactile prose, but I feel almost as if we don't fully immerse in the characters themselves – perhaps a side-effect of packing so much story into so many different characters. 

Violent and exultant, at times festive and over the top, New Moon is definitely thought-provoking, and will stay with me for a long time. I'm just not sure if I have stamina for the stories that follow.

Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead by Nick Drake

This is another one of those secondhand bookshop finds. I'm always curious to see how ancient Egypt is portrayed in fiction and take great delight in deciding for myself whether the author has nailed the setting ... or not. Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead by Nick Drake takes us to ancient Egypt during the reign of the heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten, and offers us a spot of a murder mystery untangled by one Rahotep, a chief detective among the Medjay. He is called to Akhetaten, Akhenaten's new city, to discover why Queen Nefertiti has vanished. Of course, it's all very hush-hush. No one can know that the beautiful, enigmatic queen has disappeared. Especially not days before a massive festival. The pharaoh cannot be seen to lose face among his people nor the foreign emissaries who have descended upon the city for the celebration.

And, although the city is fair of face, Rahotep soon realises that behind the pretty façade lurks an uglier, darker shadow that will threaten to overwhelm him. As a stranger in this society, he must race against the clock or stand to lose everything that he holds dear. When in service to the ruler, failure is not an option, even when there are forces putting obstacles in Rahotep's way at every turn.

It's not often that I read crime/mystery novels, and will admit freely that the primary reason I picked this up was because of the setting. And, while I feel Drake does a credible job with the setting, there were often moments where I feel he doesn't quite hit the mark with the tone or mood of the culture. Granted, not that I'd know exactly how ancient Egyptians would have thought and behaved but there were moments where things felt a trifle too ... contemporary. For instance, a function where servants were moving between guests with what amounted to trays of canapés. Also, the police work felt more like something modern, straight out of a contemporary setting. Not that the idea of an ancient detective who's struck upon 'modern' methods doesn't have appeal. It's just that here it didn't quite gel.

The novel itself chugs along merrily, but then about halfway through it shifts, and I'm not quite sure what the plan was. The writing is certainly poetic and lyrical, but then the payoff with a tension-filled mystery/thriller plot just falls flat, almost as if Drake couldn't quite figure out where he wanted to take the story past what proved to be a promising start. Characterisation felt a bit flat, even if the setting was well considered, and there were moments when young Rahotep has some enjoyable introspection. Don't get me wrong, this is a well-written novel – it's just that the story seems to suffer a bit of a polarisation at its midpoint, and the tension that should have been there just fizzles out. Nice concept, not so much on the execution.

The Veiled Flame by LR Eldr

Every once in a while I'll run full tilt into a review book that makes me ask myself what on earth I just read, and unfortunately this is one of those titles. Look, I'm one of those reviewers who'll read traditionally and self-published works with equal enjoyment, and in general my spidey senses don't often let me down when it comes to saying, "hey, I'll read this" – because I can usually tell if the cover is awful, ten to one the author hasn't bothered to spend money on an editor. Here, they didn't have a half bad cover, even if the typeface is one I'm heartily sick of seeing. EVERY self-published fantasy novel (and some trad-pubbed, too seems to have a wet one for this font. Author LR Eldr clearly blew their budget on the cover that they slapped on this rather unfortunate manuscript that wasn't ready for publication. Not by a long shot. In fact, I would compare it favourably to the immortal The Eye of Argon by Jim Theis. If you know, you know...

I've been agonising for weeks on how I'm going to explain The Veiled Flame to other people who might stumble upon this review, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't really have words. This document needs a developmental editor. And then a thorough bunch of copy editing. And line editing. And proofreading. The whole nine yards, and then some. That's possibly the kindest thing I can say. Beyond the crunchy (and not in a good way) dialogue and the random, inexplicably weird stuff that is weird ... And a story that reads like some sort of gothic psychedelia with rare bursts of half-all right prose, I persevered to the end much in the same way we sometimes rubberneck at a car crash. There really isn't a diplomatic way to express my horror that this manuscript ever saw publication in the first place. 

Generally, I sandwich my reviews, and try to find light and bubbles to lighten the negative, but here I was left utterly gobsmacked. Read this book at your own peril. Or turn it into a drinking game.