Tamsyn Muir

Floralinda is the type of princess who slaps a goblin in the face for biting her. Cobweb is the type of fairy who cares way more about watching the catastrophic consequences of wishes—(for educational purposes, of course)—than actually granting anything useful. The two of them make a delightful pair in this refreshing fairytale about a princess in a tower who's run out of princes to save her. It's very feminist, and a little queer too. The tone is satirical and cozy, and the stakes—while high—are not meant to be convincing, but it's not all butterflies and rainbows. The story also has plenty of horror and gore as Floralinda's imprisonment slowly turns her into something resembling the monsters (and witches) she has to face in the tower. While the narrative gets repetitive at times, it's still a real gem, great for fans of The Princess Bride (Goldman) and A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (Kingfisher).… (meer)

Tamsyn Muir, I assume, is trying to write a story where readers aren't expected to ask too many questions. I'm not supposed to worry if I forget half the characters' name, if the worldbuilding is flimsy, if the plot has holes, or if I run into an impenetrable wall of necromancer jargon. It's the kind of story that, in theory, doesn't always need to make sense in order to derive value from it. It might all be a weird fever dream, but it's fun and entertaining.

The problem is I didn't find it fun and entertaining. It's a difficult story to wade through, every sentence requiring a reread to fully parse out. The worst part is that when it finally does start to make sense, there's no amazing hidden pattern to unveil, nothing brilliant underneath all the chaos. It's just a frenetic plot with too many characters. The humor is great, but four hundred pages of it isn't going to keep me interested without something else to draw me in.

I believe the main draw is supposed to lie in the premise: lesbian necromancers in space. It sounds imaginative and intriguing, and it is. It's witty, unique, and wonderfully sapphic. Yet an inventive premise does not justify how unreadable this novel is. It might be sprinkled with queer sarcastic characters, but not an ounce of context is offered for why I should care about them or the stakes. Many of them only pop into the narrative in order to make a pithy remark before disappearing again.

At least Martha Wells understood that The Murderbot Diaries should be a series of novellas.… (meer)

Splatterpunk Dystopia
Review of the Amazon Original Kindle eBook (November 15, 2022) released simultaneously with the Audible Original audiobook (November 15, 2022)

One ghoul versus a hundred men with guns was no contest. It was like a shark going through bait. You could barely see her. You could see where she’d been a heartbeat before—a cloud of red mist—you could see where she was going, when a man suddenly exploded outward.

Splatterpunk is not my genre, but the worldbuilding of this one was really terrific. Much of this was due to the author not describing everything in detail but letting the reader fill in the blanks, a flattery of the reader, which I always appreciate. We are in a future dystopic world where a criminal empire is housed in a moving gargantuan vehicle (its caterpillar treads are described as being six stories high) travelling through a Mad Max style desert landscape. This is admittedly a bit of a steal from the moving cities of Mortal Engines, but it is only a small element.

Into this setting we meet an agent who is "undercover" and takes on the job of minding the pet "ghoul" of the criminal mastermind. The ghoul has secrets of their own which are only gradually revealed, but their blood-soaked appetite is on display quite early. Ghouldom seems to be an extension of the vampire genre into cannibal territory. Again much of the mythology is left to the mind of the reader. Gore isn't my thing, but I admired the setting and imagination of this.

New Zealand's Tamsyn Muir is a science fiction, fantasy and horror writer who has published several novels and short stories. Her most popular novel is Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) (2019).

Undercover is the fifth of seven Amazon Original Kindle eBooks/Audible Audio audiobooks released on November 15, 2022 as part of the Into Shadow Collection of short stories where "Some truths are carefully concealed; others merely forgotten. In this spellbinding collection, seven acclaimed fantasy authors create characters who venture into the depths where others fear to tread. But when forbidden knowledge is the ultimate power, how far can they go before the darkness consumes them?"

Trivia and Link
You can watch for current and past Amazon Original Kindle short stories which are usually paired with their Audible Original narrations at an Amazon page here (link goes to Amazon US, adjust for your own country or region).

Splatterpunk Dystopia
Review of the Amazon Original Kindle eBook (November 15, 2022) released simultaneously with the Audible Original audiobook (November 15, 2022)

One ghoul versus a hundred men with guns was no contest. It was like a shark going through bait. You could barely see her. You could see where she’d been a heartbeat before—a cloud of red mist—you could see where she was going, when a man suddenly exploded outward.

New Zealand's Tamsyn Muir is a science fiction, fantasy and horror writer who has published several novels and short stories. Her most popular novel is Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) (2019).

Undercover is the fifth of seven Amazon Original Kindle eBooks/Audible Audio audiobooks released on November 15, 2022 as part of the Into Shadow Collection of short stories where "Some truths are carefully concealed; others merely forgotten. In this spellbinding collection, seven acclaimed fantasy authors create characters who venture into the depths where others fear to tread. But when forbidden knowledge is the ultimate power, how far can they go before the darkness consumes them?"

Trivia and Link
You can watch for current and past Amazon Original Kindle short stories which are usually paired with their Audible Original narrations at an Amazon page here (link goes to Amazon US, adjust for your own country or region).… (meer)