J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review: This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone

Genre: fantasy – time travel

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: none

 

Review

‘Blue’ and ‘Red’ are war rivals in a tech vs. nature sort of futuristic battle situation. Really, the setting is unimportant. What is important is this phenomenally fresh take on the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope that mixes in time travel and some unreliable narration to add to the complexity. Bonus – these two are clearly both tops who are used to being the best at everything they do. Clearly they have to compete–but only one person can win in a war. Right?

Even if you don’t like time travel, read this book for the prose. It has a very Lesfic feel that Gideon the Ninth popularized (a sort of bold, mouthy writing style) but that has been in the genre for at least a decade:

Red likes to feel. It is a fetish. Now she feels fear. And eagerness.

There are fun pop culture references as well, although targeting more of a 90s demographic than anything else. I found them hilarious:

Dearest Blue-da-ba-dee,

Mostly though there’s a really great romance embedded inside tiny little details of technology and nature. I really enjoyed the following methodology of messaging (can’t imagine why):

The letter begins in the tree’s heart. Rings, thicker here and thinner there, form symbols in an alphabet no one present knows but Red. The words are small, sometimes smudged, but still: ten years per line of text, and many lines. Mapping roots, depositing or draining nutrients year by year, the message must have taken a century to craft. Perhaps local legends tell of some fairy or frozen goddess in these woods, seen for an instant, then gone. Red wonders what expression she wore as she placed the needle.

THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR packs a big punch for a novella, and is well worth the read. The prose can be dense in places, so this isn’t a book you read while a TV is on or you’re doing the dishes. Sit back, close your eyes, and join the time travel warfare of Red and Blue. Who knows? Maybe you’ll fall in love, too.

Review: High Times in the Low Parliment by Kelly Robson

Genre: low fantasy

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: none

Review

I admit, it’s been a hot minute since I last posted a review. Authors have really broken trust in the past few years, and it’s hard to continue to review when I keep getting emails from authors saying You just didn’t get it or I disagree…

That’s a lot of emotional labor, and borderline abusive, and it really sucked the fun out of reviewing. But that also wasn’t fair to the amazing books I’ve been reading, that deserve discussion (and to be fair, authors, you’re always welcome to email, just not to criticize reviews. I’m not writing them for you.)

With that said, let’s get to what is probably my favorite low fantasy to date – HIGH TIMES IN THE LOW PARLIAMENT

~~

KEEP HUMANS PASTORAL

SUPPORT FAIRY HEGEMONY

FAIRIES RULE FOREVER

Or so says the ‘pro-fairy’ graffiti in the Assembly Hall of Parliament.

Lana Baker is a mouthy scribe who loves the ladies, which ends up getting her shipped off Low Parliament for work. This is a punishment for her, absolute hilarity for us. Parliament is, of course, dysfunctional and constantly arguing, and so the real magic happens with the friends Lana makes behind the scenes, namely Bugbite, a grumpy fairy, and Eloquentia, the hot human who is clearly Lana’s destiny and who can apparently enchant bees.

Lana has to functionally flirt her way through politics, love, friendship, and maybe also saving humanity. That’s more or less the plot in this little novella and trust me it’s enough. I actually flagged page 9 on my first readthrough, as I believe this page is a better synopsis of the book vibe than anything I could write:

Lana had a connoisseur’s taste for admiration, but Cora laid it on a bit thick, leaning over the table and making admiring noises over every stroke of the pen. Lana could hardly fault her; she was awfully handsome, after all. But when Lana had finished the letter, stamped the corner with her mark, folded it close into a tight package, and addressed it with a flourish, that’s when the price came.

“Would you run it along to Ludgate for me?” Cora laid her good hand on Lana’s wrist and leaned close. “As a favor, one scribe to another?”

“Well, now,” Lana said. “I might be persuaded.”

“I’ll make it worth your time.”

Cora slid round to Lana’s side and slipped her fingers featherlight up Lana’s thigh. A lengthy negotiation followed, flavored with wine and cushioned with lips soft as promises…..

(skip a bit for brevity)

Cora pulled away. She grazed her lips across Lana’s cheek and nibbled her earlobe.

“Take it to Ludgate, yes?” she whispered.

She didn’t wait for an answer. When Lana opened her eyes, the hem of her short skirt was just disappearing out the door.

“Kisses will be your downfall,” the landlady said.

 

I mean, come on. Kisses are the downfall of all of us. The book also has Lana and a fairy getting high off of yeast, and numerous breast jokes:

Lana slapped her chest.

“Everything that matters is right here.”

“Your tits,” said Bugbite, grinning.

Indeed, Bugbite. Indeed.

I have nothing else to add. I don’t give star ratings anymore but I did, this would get them all. Crude sexual humor, politics, lesbians, and breast jokes. It’s nice that we have gotten to a point in lesbian literature where we don’t have to be serious all the time. It’s great to have fun, and that’s what this book is. Fun.

Grab a fairy, some hallucinogenic yeast, and copy of the book here.

Review: Where You Linger by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

Genre: sci fi / horror anthology

Queer Representation: bisexual, trans, nobinary, lesbian

Warnings: none

 

 

There’s no great way to summarize this anthology so I want to start off with this: I read this book around six months ago and I am still thinking about the stories in it. Even when life ate up every last second of my free time, somehow, these short stories stuck in my brain like hardening tree sap. And I’m not a big horror fan, even gentle horror like this, which I think speaks to the absolutely superb writing from Stufflebeam (what a name!) Honestly, I don’t even remember how I got this book. It’s been on my shelf, has no publicity contact form (so it wasn’t likely mailed to me like most review material), which means someone likely handed it to me at a con.

Publicists know my taste. Random people at cons do not. So to have a book land like this, is just flat out spectacular.

My favorite story in this collection is The Lifespan of Shadows, in which a sentient house conspires to force its former occupants to remain there. The two soon-to-be victims grew up in the house, and story is filled with detailed memory that deeply resonates.

The house is flat out spooky, but in that highly-relatable way in which you can follow the progression from I’m lonely to I will trap these people here forever (relatable, not saying I’d actually DO that).

The house did not know the difference. The house wanted to be loved For a moment, it thought Beth would give it that without asking for something in return, But she would not. As for Jackie, her love for the house wouldn’t be enough to save it. That much the house knew like it knew it was made from pier-and-beam, from concrete and fluffy pink insulation, from wood and granite and carpet fibers. A terrible truth; it would never be skin. But it could witness skin. The house wanted Beth and Jackie to stay. Beth and Jackie would stay, if it was the last thing the house did.

I also really enjoyed The Damaged, so much so that I reread the whole short before writing this review. It doesn’t have much of an arc, this story, but it’s so engaging right from the start that it doesn’t really matter.

Robin Underwood is an engineer for Playmates, a line of artificial intelligence sex dolls. Due to some alluded to previous bad relationships and the contractual inability to own her own Playmate, Robin finds one of the homeless ‘damaged’ playmates, takes him home, and after some bathing and sex, decides to open him up and see where her programming went wrong. She ends up taking out his heart, which is beating far too fast, and examining it.

Night after night she brings home more damaged Playmates, each of which she sleeps with and then takes apart. All have a little box inside their heart and within each little box, a screw that’s coming loose. Eventually a Playmate catches Robin and works with her to solve the mystery, and we do get an answer in the end…but goodness the treatment of Robin’s serial killer nature is just so well done. There’s a lot of ‘this would be a crime if XYZ but it isn’t’ bits, and the absolute blasé nature of her shoving Playmate bodies into dumpsters, only being able to fall asleep to the waning light of a dying Playmate, is both macabre and brilliant.

I did this again and again, the next night and the next. It began to feel like part of a routine. Without it, without the dying embers of artificial life beside me, I found I couldn’t sleep.

With Halloween just around the corner, you owe yourself this book. Maybe a Playmate too? You can definitely buy them both here. And yes, there’s absolutely tons of sapphic content, and some nice nonbinary rep as well. Neopronouns ahoy!

Review: RUST IN THE ROOT by Justina Ireland

Genre: fantasy: alternate history / high fantasy (upper YA)

Pairings: f/f to f/nonbinary

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, pansexual/nonbinary/its complicated (gender/sex changing magical creature)

Warnings: none

 

 

Review

An absolute MUST read. This is one I did for New York Journal, so you can find the full review here. I hope this has multiple sequels because I cannot wait to get back into the world. Double extra bonus for a strong sapphic lead, a lady/sapphic nonbinary love interest, unicorns and dragons.

Review: OF DEMONS AND COAL by Thomas Gondolfi

Genre: fantasy: alternate history / low fantasy / steampunk (blends the three)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis bisexual/pansexual (not defined)

Warnings: none

Review

Demons power steam engines, occasionally get out of control, and rampage around killing humans. Witch Stella Ochoa and the Hellfighters are on the job, although a certain demon seems to have it out for Stella, personally. Stella, meanwhile, can’t quite seem to sort out her love life between her dead husband and prostitute/lover Karie. There’s a lot of dialogue and period scenery described, and that’s pretty much the book.

Okay, here’s the deal. While I didn’t dislike this book, it also failed to grab my attention. The premise is neat and there’s some great tension between Karie and Stella, but in the end I felt like the tension kept snapping every time we got an extended dialogue and/or description of the city. There’s a lot of over-description for a relatively short and plot-light book, although I will say for those who enjoy the nitty-gritty of how does it work in the magical steampunk subgenera, this may be right up your alley.

On the surface, interning a loose demon is simplicity itself–tease it back to where it doesn’t want to go and then imprison it. Two witches take turns baiting the fiend with mild damage spells, getting it to chase them. Three others block the demon’s view and access to anything but its tormenters. The last witch heals any of our team who is damaged in the process. In the end, he is also often the one that seals the beast in place. But for all of that, every hellfighter has to be on their toes as something always goes wrong.

And there are fun little nuggets of real life humor embedded between all the slice-of-life moments.

“So, how do I make this work, Henry?”

“First, we put this belt around your chest,” he says, lifting a belt from beside me.

“Excuse me?”

“My apologies again. I hadn’t considered women when I put it in. It buckles through the loop on the other side.”

I eye the leather belt. The height puts it right across my breasts. “Are you sure this is necessary?”

“Quite, Stella. It is essential if there are any sudden stops.”

Ahh, the joys of seatbelts and breasts.

Stella is an interesting protagonist, who doesn’t get to do a whole lot of protagging. She does have some excellent internal monologues every so often, however,

I oft wonder if I would have made Aaron a good wife. We’d only been married for a scant few months, and only weeks of that together. My cooking manages not to poison, but nothing better. Cleaning doesn’t come naturally. I can barely throw a stitch. And I dress only well enough not to be stoned by other Catholics. My only natural talents seem to be sarcastic, witchcraft, and sex.

The relationship between Stella and Karie may leave some sapphic readers unsatisfied, as there doesn’t seem to be resolution on Stella’s side (Karie is delightfully polyamorous).

In the end, if you love world building for world building’s sake and a lot of period-appropriate talk and and humor, you’ll like find yourself at home in OF DEMONDS AND COAL. If faster pacing and plot movement is your preferred MO, better to look elsewhere.

Trap a demon and maybe kiss a lady of the night by buying the book here.

Keep In Touch

Other J.S. Fields Sites

Good Reads
Patreon

Other Links