Novella review: Kirkyards & Kindness (A Rip Through Time, #4.5) by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Kirkyards & Kindness
Series: A Rip Through Time, #4.5
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: KLA Fricke Inc
Publication date: December 2, 2025
Length: 158 pages
Genre: Historical fiction / mystery
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Mallory Mitchell and Dr. Duncan Gray take a break from investigating murder to find the most famous dog in Victorian Scotland.

A year ago, twenty-first-century detective Mallory found herself in 1869 Edinburgh, in the body of Catriona Mitchell, a housemade working for Dr. Duncan Gray, pioneer in forensic science. Shortly after she arrived, she made the unfortunate acquaintence of Catriona’s former criminal mentor, Davina, an entanglement that nearly got Mallory killed. Now she’s about to meet Davina again.

Greyfriars Bobby has disappeared. The little terrier is already a legend, and Davina has made a tidy living showing him off on graveyard tours…while picking the pockets of her guests. When the elderly dog vanishes, Davina calls in a favor from her old student. Mallory agrees to help find Bobby in return for the one thing she’s been unable to get from Davina—the mysterious Catriona’s life story.

Kirkyards & Kindness is a sweet little novella that allows readers to spend time in the world of the A Rip Through Time series — without the heavy doses of murder and mayhem that take place in the full-length novels.

Quick explanation of the series: 21st century detective Mallory ends up falling through time into Victorian Edinburgh, where she inhabits the body of a beautiful but nasty housemaid. There, she works with her employer, undertaker/scientist Duncan Gray, to solve crimes while also adapting to life in this very different era and attempting to introduce forensics to Victorian crime scenes.

In Kirkyards & Kindness, Mallory and Duncan are called upon to find a missing dog — the famous Greyfriars Bobby, beloved by locals and tourists alike. The person who hires them is an old associate of the person whose body Mallory inhabits. In exchange for finding Bobby, Mallory will finally have a chance to learn important information about Catriona’s unknown past.

The mystery has a rather jaunty tone, as Mallory and Duncan traverse Edinburgh in search of witnesses and clues. While a crime is discovered and addressed, there are also some rather sweet moments, and it all comes together with a satisfyingly happy resolution.

The novellas in the series are by necessity “extras”, in that they don’t resolve any of the central storylines of the overarching series. Mallory’s future, some abiding unresolved questions, her future with Duncan — all remain to be addressed in the main books of the series. But for reader of the A Rip Through Time books, these novellas are a nice little treat that bridges the waiting time between novels, and it’s always enjoyable to spend time with these characters and enjoy their unique predicaments.

Greyfriars Bobby was a real dog! Bobby was the beloved companion of a police constable in the 1850s. After the death of his owner, Bobby refused to leave his grave, and became a permanent, much loved resident of the Greyfriars Kirkyard. A statue in Bobby’s memory was erected in 1873, and is a popular tourist photo op in Edinburgh to this day.

For more about Greyfriars Bobby: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Greyfriars-Bobby/

Interested in this series? Here are my reviews for the previous books:
A Rip Through Time
The Poisoner’s Ring
Disturbing the Dead
Schemes & Scandals (novella)
Death at a Highland Wedding

Up next:

*An Ordinary Sort of Evil (A Rip Through time, #5) — May 2026*

23Oct2025

Novella review: Cinder House by Freya Marske

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Cinder House
Author: Freya Marske
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: October 7, 2025
Length: 144 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Library
Rating:

Sparks fly and lovers dance in this gorgeous, yearning Cinderella retelling from bestselling author Freya Marske—a queer Gothic romance perfect for fans of Naomi Novik and T. Kingfisher.

Ella is a haunting.

Murdered at sixteen, her ghost is furiously trapped in her father’s house, invisible to everyone except her stepmother and stepsisters.

Even when she discovers how to untether herself from her prison, there are limits. She cannot be seen or heard by the living people who surround her. Her family must never learn she is able to leave. And at the stroke of every midnight, she finds herself back on the staircase where she died.

Until she forges a wary friendship with a fairy charm-seller, and makes a bargain for three nights of almost-living freedom. Freedom that means she can finally be seen. Danced with. Touched.

You think you know Ella’s story: the ball, the magical shoes, the handsome prince.

You’re halfway right, and all-the-way wrong.

Rediscover a classic fairy tale in this debut novella from “the queen of romantic fantasy” (Polygon).

Cinder House by Freya Marske is a magical, memorable novella-length retelling of Cinderella, and it includes a haunting unlike any I’ve read before.

Cinder House starts by killing the main character:

Ella’s father died of the poison in their tea. Ella drank less and so might have lived, and not turned ghost at all, if the house hadn’t shrieked for its master’s murder in the moment she stood, dizzied and weak, at the top of the stairs.

Ella is dead… but that’s not the end of her story. As she comes back to consciousness, she finds herself tethered to her home, visible to those who live there — her stepmother Patrice, and her two stepsisters, Danica and Greta. None of them care about Ella in the slightest, but they do come to realize that she’s convenient.

Ella is not just an airy, incorporeal ghost floating around a particular place. Instead, she truly becomes the spirit of the house — she feels the house, as if it’s an extension of her own body.

How does a house, lacking flesh, feel fury? With the fire in its hearth and in the wide black stove.

She’s aware of the mice in the walls, the water in the pipes, the heat in the stove… but she’s also aware of anything wrong or out of place, and she can interact physically with anything that belongs to the house. She has an obsessive need to clean anything messy, to mend anything broken. For Ella’s stepfamily, it’s handy to have a ghost around to do their bidding, and it’s even economical! They’re able to dismiss the servants, and have Ella at their beck and call. Worst of all for Ella, when her sadistic youngest stepsister realizes that Ella feels what the house feels, she’s able to use pain — like sawing away pieces of woodworking or breaking windows — to coerce Ella into obedience.

Ella is trapped, until she discovers a trick for leaving the house — but no matter how far she wanders, she snaps right back to the staircase where she died at the stroke of midnight. Years pass, until finally, events in the world outside the house affect Ella and her family.

The Prince invites all the young unmarried women of the kingdom to a ball, during which he’ll choose a bride. Of course, most people suspect that there’s already a betrothal being arranged for political purposes, but that doesn’t stop the eligible women of the kingdom from dressing up and hoping for attention — including Ella’s stepsisters.

As the story progresses, we see Ella find a magical means for attending the ball too, thanks to her friendship with a fairy she meets in the marketplace. There are conditions, of course, and nothing goes quite according to plan — but she does meet the prince, and discovers that he’s dealing with magical complications of his own… and that the two of them may be able to help one another in ways that no one else can.

Cinder House is such an inventive retelling! I loved the details around what Ella feels and goes through as a house ghost, and the encounters with the prince, and the details of his curse, are fascinating too. The plot is tightly woven, yet never feels rushed, and the overall tone is full of magical, fantastical elements that create an atmosphere of surprise and delight.

The ending does get surprisingly… well… kinky, in a certain way, but it’s not terribly explicit (and definitely is not your typical fairy tale ending!)

Overall, I thought Cinder House was great! I’m so glad I saw so many positive reviews and decided to check it out for myself. Cinder House is a terrific example of what a novella can be: It tells a full story, provides characters to care about, and wraps up a compelling plot with just enough storytelling.

I’d never read anything by Freya Marske before, but now I’m eager to explore more of her books. I know people love the Last Binding series — adding to my TBR!

Purchase links: Amaz o n – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

12Oct2025

Novella review: The Summer War by Naomi Novik

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Summer War
Author: Naomi Novik
Publisher: Del Rey
Publication date: September 16, 2025
Length: 131 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Library
Rating:

In this poignant, heartfelt novella from the New York Times bestselling author of Spinning Silver and the Scholomance Trilogy, a young witch who has inadvertently cursed her brother to live a life without love must find a way to undo her spell.

Celia discovered her talent for magic on the day her beloved oldest brother Argent left home. Furious at him for abandoning her in a war-torn land, she lashed out, not realizing her childish, angry words would suddenly become imbued with the power of prophecy, dooming him to a life without love.

While Argent wanders the world, forced to seek only fame and glory instead of the love and belonging he truly desires, Celia attempts to undo the curse she placed on him. Yet even as she grows from a girl to a woman, she cannot find the solution—until she learns the truth about the centuries-old war between her own people and the summerlings, the immortal beings who hold a relentless grudge against their mortal neighbors.

Now, with the aid of her unwanted middle brother, Celia may be able to both undo her eldest brother’s curse and heal the lands so long torn apart by the Summer War.

In this fairy tale novella, a younger sister’s hurt feelings lead her to cast a terrible curse. At age twelve, Celia’s beloved oldest brother informs the family that’s he’s leaving for good. In her fury, she wishes upon him a life without love… and realizes too late that her sorceress powers have awakened, turning her childish wish into a spell with power.

As she grows up, Celia becomes a pawn in her father’s schemes within their kingdom, threatening the hard-won peace that ended the hundred-year Summer War between the mortals and the summerlings. When a betrayal leaves her in the hands of the kingdom’s enemy, the love between Celia and her brothers may be the only thing that can save her and her people.

The Summer War is at its best when we see the world around Celia, her experiences within her family, and the ways in which love and expectations can have lasting consequences. The writing can be truly lovely, casting a magical spell of sorts as we follow the story of revenge and magical consequences and betrayals.

I especially liked learning about the dynamics between Celia and her brothers, but felt less interested in the history of the Summer War. When the plot takes us into the Summer Lands, there’s an added edge of enchantment and danger, and the stakes become very high for Celia and everyone she cares about — and her actions can determine whether the peace between the kingdoms will be shattered once again.

The ending didn’t feel especially clear to me. The dramatic events are compelling, yet I didn’t quite see how the curse was broken, and we don’t really get to see Celia’s sorcery in action. The resolution seems muddled, but perhaps this is due to the novella length. The Summer War feels like a story that could have used a bit more breathing space. Maybe a fuller-length novel could have expanded the action and helped it make better sense. As a novella, it all seems a bit too condensed.

Overall, I enjoyed The Summer War and I’m glad I read it, even though I was left feeling like a bit more storytelling was needed to tie all the pieces together.

9Mar2025

Novella review: Murder by Memory by Oliva Waite

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Murder by Memory
Series: Dorothy Gentleman, #1
Author: Olivia Waite
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: March 11, 2025
Length: 112 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A Memory Called Empire meets Miss Marple in this cozy, spaceborne mystery, helmed by a no-nonsense formidable auntie of a detective.

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.

Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…

This short, sharp novella presents a murder mystery on board a generation ship — a spaceship a few centuries into a millenium-long journey to a new planet. In the world of the Fairweather (referred to as Ferry), passengers can more or less live forever, by recycling their minds through a series of new bodies once their current body reaches its natural end. Minds are uploaded into the ship’s vast library, and when a new body is needed, the saved memories from a person’s memory book are downloaded and installed into their newest living vessel.

It’s all pretty perfect, except for the day when Dorothy Gentleman, ship’s detective, wakes up in a body that’s not her own. She’d placed herself into a years-long sleep after her last body’s death, but hadn’t intended to come back to life so soon. Now, though, she’s in someone else’s body, with no idea why.

It turns out that her memories have been transferred into the body of a woman named Gloria Vowell, and that Dorothy’s own memory book had been erased, something that shouldn’t have been possible to do. Luckily, there was a backup, but still… something doesn’t add up, and in her role as detective, Dorothy is determined to figure it out.

What follows is a tightly woven tale of a murder investigation, made distinctly odd by the fact that murder isn’t actually permanent on board the Fairweather. Since memories are saved in the library, even a murder victim gets a chance to return to life. Meanwhile, as Dorothy digs, she discovers an intricate pattern of crime going back centuries, along with flaws in the system that Ferry will need to fix if the ship’s way of life is to be maintained.

At just over 100 pages, Murder by Memory is a quick read. It’s written with a nimble touch, immediately immersing the reader into the strange new world of the ship and its way of life (and death). The concept of the memory books and the library is terrific, and the mystery as a whole provides entertainment and food for thought. It did lose me a bit when the focus shifts to unraveling financial records, but fortunately the story moves on quickly and the exact details don’t matter a great deal in the overall scheme of things.

Murder by Memory is apparently the first story in an expected series about Dorothy, and this may explain why it feels like there are several loose threads left dangling at the end of the story — people, concepts, groups that factor into the plot, but seem like they have secrets yet to be revealed. But since there’s more to come, I’m guessing these hints of open questions are intentional, and I already know I’ll want to continue.

Dorothy is a great character, and the fluid concept of age is a piece of what makes her so fascinating. I can’t wait to see what future adventures await her!

31Oct2024

Novella review: Schemes & Scandals (A Rip Through Time, #3.5) by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Schemes & Scandals
Series: A Rip Through Time, #3.5
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Publication date: October 31, 2024
Length: 176 pages
Genre: Historical fiction / mystery
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

It’s Mallory Atkinson’s first Christmas in Scotland. Victorian Scotland, that is. Also, as the twenty-first-century detective learns, Christmas really isn’t a thing in Victorian Scotland. It’s all about Hogmanay. But her boss, Dr. Duncan Gray, treats her to an early gift of tickets to the event of the season: a Charles Dickens reading. There, they bump into Lady Inglis—the lovely widow who has sent Gray sexy letters trying to entice him back to her bed.

Lady Inglis introduces Mallory to Dickens—the meeting of a lifetime—but in return she wants their help. She’s being blackmailed. Someone stole letters she wrote to another lover and is threatening to publish them.

Mallory isn’t sure what to make of Lady Inglis, but no woman deserves that, so she insists on taking the case with or without Gray’s help. Growing tension between them soon tells Mallory that Gray is hiding a secret of his own. She has until Hogmanay to uncover the blackmailer…and, hopefully, to put things right with Gray so they can enjoy the holiday together.

Schemes & Scandals is a holiday treat that ties in perfectly with the A Rip Through Time series. In the series, 21st century detective Mallory ends up falling through time into Victorian Edinburgh, where she inhabits the body of a beautiful but nasty housemaid. (Trust me, it makes sense if you read the series from the beginning).

Here, following the 3rd full novel in the series, Mallory is well-established within the Gray household, working as an assistant to undertaker/scientist Duncan Gray, who has a side gig consulting with the police force. Duncan and his sister Isla know the truth about Mallory, and value her modern knowledge of forensics and police procedures as they apply science to Victorian crime scenes.

In Schemes & Scandals, Mallory and Duncan agree to help thwart a blackmailer who threatens a former lover of Duncan’s. The case is clever, and provides plenty of opportunities for Mallory to explore new aspects of Edinburgh society.

As a novella, Schemes & Scandals must fit a full detective story into a condensed amount of pages, and it succeeds admirably. The mystery/crime story is lots of fun — and since this novella is holiday-themed, the mood stays mostly upbeat, without endangering our heroes or involving them in anything too sinister.

The Christmas and Hogmanay elements are nice touches, and the encounter with Charles Dickens is a highlight — especially seeing Mallory’s expectations bumping up against the reality of a sold-out Victorian-era author appearance.

I am treated — if that’s the word — to the most gonzo reading a A Christmas Carol ever.

Schemes & Scandals is a great addition to a terrific series. I suppose someone could pick up this novella as a stand-alone and enjoy it, but they’d be missing a ton of context and character development. My recommendation? Start at the very beginning, with A Rip Through Time. Trust me — you won’t want to stop.

6Jan2024

Novella review: The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Tusks of Extinction
Author: Ray Nayler
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: January 16, 2024
Length: 192 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

When you bring back a long-extinct species, there’s more to success than the DNA.

Moscow has resurrected the mammoth, but someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out, again.

The late Dr. Damira Khismatullina, the world’s foremost expert in elephant behavior, is called in to help. While she was murdered a year ago, her digitized consciousness is uploaded into the brain of a mammoth.

Can she help the magnificent creatures fend off poachers long enough for their species to take hold?

And will she ever discover the real reason they were brought back?

A tense eco-thriller from a new master of the genre.

The synopsis kind of says it all, yet doesn’t do justice to the weirdness and wonder of The Tusks of Extinction.

The main plot points are as described: A scientist who devoted herself to studying elephants, and lost her life in the doomed fight against poachers, is returned one hundred years after her murder to a new life thanks to the digital brain mapping made before her death.

Damira’s driving passion was to save the elephants — a passion that failed. Elephants are now extinct in the wild, with only a few specimens still living on in captivity. But a team of scientists has reconstructed mammoths through the wonders of genetic technology, and new herds wander the Siberian steppes. The problem, though, is that the mammoths were gestated and raised by captive elephants. They have no social structures with species memory, and lack the skills needed to survive and thrive in the wild.

Damira’s conciousness, transferred into the brain of a mammoth matriarch, has the ability to change all that. She understands elephant dynamics better than anyone, living or dead. With Damira leading the herd, the mammoths finally have a chance to reclaim their place in the world, and perhaps reclaim space for other resurrected species as well. But poachers are still as ruthless as ever, and the black market value of mammoth tusks can make people unimaginably wealthy. It may not be enough for Damira to simply teach the mammoths the ways of elephants — she may also have to teach them to fight back.

Giants may walk the earth again, but for how long? The problem you are trying to solve — how to bring animals back from extinction — it’s the wrong problem. Extinction has only one cause, and that cause is older, even, than the wheel. That cause is human greed.

As I said, this is a weird concept and a weird story, and yet, I really loved it. We learn about Damira through flashbacks and scenes of her present life, and the author presents mammoth thought processes in a fascinating way. At the same time, we follow poachers and hunters with varying motivations, learn about what their purposes are, and follow them to their fates.

Power was the ability to destroy without needing to. To do it not out of necessity, but as an act of pure excess. To do something to someone else simply because you could. And this was perhaps the greatest power of all: to kill something that no one else could kill.

To have a miracle resurrected — and then destroy it.

The writing is beautiful, with harsh truths about humanity’s future and the future of life on the planet. Through Damira, we’re shown reflections on the role of our pasts and how they shape our present. Damira’s thoughts flow across time, weaving together the disparate threads of her life to see the patterns that brought her to her new existence:

Whoever can remember is real. A being that remembers is alive, and authentic. I am here. That is enough.

The Tusks of Extinction is sad and awe-inspiring and thought-provoking. It’s definitely unlike anything else I’ve read. I’m looking forward to reading this author’s debut novel. The Mountain in the Sea, with my book group later this year.

4Nov2021

Book Review: A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Spindle Splintered
Author: Alix E. Harrow
Publisher: Tordotcom
Publication date: October 5, 2021
Length: 128 pages
Genre: Fairy tale/ fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

It’s Zinnia Gray’s twenty-first birthday, which is extra-special because it’s the last birthday she’ll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no one has lived past twenty-one.
Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia’s last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.
USA Today bestselling author Alix E. Harrow’s A Spindle Splintered brings her patented charm to a new version of a classic story.

THIS is the way to write a novella — short, sweet, spare, and totally on point.

In A Spindle Splintered, we meet Zinnia Gray on the cusp of what she’s sure will be her last birthday. Thanks to her rare genetic condition, her death is inescapable, and as she explains to people who ask her about future plans, she’s just running out the clock.

Because of her condition, Zinnia has tried to accelerate as much of her life as she can, finishing high school and then college early, getting a degree in folklore, never forgetting that for all her life, she’s been in the process of dying. And maybe because of that, fairy tales in general and Sleeping Beauty in particular are her obsessions.

Even among the other nerds who majored in folklore, Sleeping Beauty is nobody’s favorite. Romantic girls like Beauty and the Beast; vanilla girls like Cinderella; goth girls like Snow White.
Only dying girls like Sleeping Beauty.

In a moment of utter weirdness, Zinnia pricks her finger on the spinning wheel her best friend Charm (short for Charmaine) has set up for her birthday. Suddenly, Zinnia finds herself between worlds, finally landing in one in which an impossibly beautiful princess is calling for help. Primrose is a more traditional version of a Sleeping Beauty, cursed at birth to fall into a 100-year slumber on her 21st birthday — but thanks to Zinnia’s intervention, her doom seems to be avoided, yet she’s left to face a different sort of doom, getting married off to the perfect prince, much to her dismay.

Primrose and Zinnia set off on a quest to break both their curses, but nothing is really as it seems. The story culminates in a terrific action sequence and ends with plenty of surprises, while also leaving the door open for further tales.

I love the writing, the characters, the inventiveness of the storytelling, and the overall attitude and tone. I don’t always get along with novellas, often feeling like I’ve been left without the full picture and that I’ve read a synopsis rather than a full story. That’s not the case in A Spindle Splintered.

This novella reads just like a fairy tale, plus the modern elements make the characters relatable and bring humor even to totally grim (Grimm?) situations.

“Well, Harold,” I say gently. “They’re lesbians.”

(I’m not going to provide any context for that quote — just know that it’s perfect and made me laugh.)

The book has beautiful woodcut illustrations from the traditional Arthur Rackham versions of the story. You can see some of these here — scroll down to get to the woodcuts. These illustrations enhance the magical fairy tale elements of the story, and make the entire book feel classic, even in the more contemporary scenes.

I loved A Spindle Splintered, and can’t wait for the next book in the author’s Fracture Fables series,:

A Mirror Mended
To be released June 2022

A Spindle Splintered is a delight. Don’t miss it!

**********

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19May2019

Novella Review: The Undefeated by Una McCormack

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

She was a warrior of words.

As a journalist she exposed corruption across the Interstellar Commonwealth, shifting public opinion and destroying careers in the process.

Long-since retired, she travels back to the planet of her childhood, partly through a sense of nostalgia, partly to avoid running from humanity’s newest–and self-created–enemy, the jenjer.

Because the enemy is coming, and nothing can stand in its way.

What a cool story!

This brief sci-fi tale follows writer Monica Greatorex, a worlds-famous journalist who’s spent her life on the front-lines of inter-planetary battles for conquest, as the Commonwealth expanded and expanded to take over and absorb the planets on the periphery.

Now in her 60s, Monica heads back to her home planet of Sienna, going against the tide of desperate humans fleeing the outer planets for the supposed safety of the Commonwealth core. Monica is accompanied by her companion Gale — a jenjer, a genetically engineered human whose people were originally created as an indentured servant class.

And now, the jenjer are ready to rise up, and it’s becoming clear that nothing can stand in their way.

In The Undefeated, Monica’s trip to Sienna brings up memories of her childhood, and in particular, a key occurrence that led to her family’s flight from their home to the structured, wealthy, bland life of the Commonwealth. Her reminiscences about her youth and everything that came after are fascinating, and are key to understanding the fear and inevitability of the story’s main sequences.

This is a short piece, but really captivating, with excellent world building and character development. Highly recommended!

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: The Undefeated
Author: Una McCormack
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: May 14, 2019
Length: 112 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased