Continuing to play review catch up! Today I have four reviews: two fantasy books with wolves and GLBTQ elements, a m/m fantasy romance with a dragon!, and an epic scifi with aliens and uncomfortable threesomes.
A Companion to Wolves – Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette ★★★★½
The Tempering of Men – Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette ★★★½
I read these two books because a) I love Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear’s books and b) Memory told me this series was good. And it is! It’s set in a pseudo-Scandinavian fantasy world world where (some) men bond with wolves, and they fight trolls! And work through really uncomfortable feelings and situations about masculinity, love, family, sexual orientation1, personhood, life/death/etc., and more. I desperately wanted it to end on a different sort of romantic note than it did2, but the non-romantic story was nevertheless extremely satisfying and I’m very excited to finally have the time to read the third book in the series which just came out recently.
The World Before – Karen Traviss ★★★½
This is the third book in the Wess’har Wars series, and it very much feels like a “middle” kind of book. Lots of things happen, including the appearance of more aliens, including some fun new secondary characters. Both character and plot develop heaps, especially since Shan accidentally becomes queen of the aliens for a hot minute. Unfortunately, I didn’t take very good notes so I don’t remember much more about it EXCEPT that I was very happy that a polyamorous relationship (slowly) develops! (I would be even happier if it were an equal triangle, actually. And if any of the people in the threesome had actually wanted to be in a threesome before accidentally bonding themselves to each other.)
A Boy and His Dragon – R. Cooper ★★★
The second book in the Beings in Love series and it’s just as cute as the first! Even cuter, if that’s possible. It stars a dragon (Eastern, not Western), an archival studies student (huzzah!), a house full of interesting antiques, and many awkward feelings.