Strange Bedfellows, by Rusty Rhoad

I read Strange Bedfellows some time ago, and for whatever reason did not publish a review of it.  The following review is also posted on the Amazon page linked above.  I did in fact read it when it was free.
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Walter is a numbers guy, an accountant who numbs himself to the dreary misery of his life with attention to meaningless detail at work and random internet surfing at home. Watching him leverage a break in his life will take you from pity to envy to admiration, with a side of Morgan Le Fay. You can practically hear the sultry contralto as you read Le Fay's dialog. It's a great romp that leaves you with a smile. And pirates. There are definitely pirates.

Rhoad has a real sense for what heroism means when the protagonist doesn't wear tights and a cape, literally or figuratively. Look for more from him for characters you'd be lucky to have as friends in the world we actually live in.

The Life and Adventures of Sir Kay, by Rusty Rhoad

I have recently caught up with an author friend's new novel, The Life and Adventures of Sir Kay (draft serialized here).  Rusty Rhoad writes "romantic Arthurian fiction" with an interesting twist--the stories are told from a man's point of view.  The stories center on men on paths of self-discovery, overcoming challenges and winning women's hearts along the way.  They are eminently likeable fellows, the kind of men a guy would like to have as a friend, and any gal would want to marry.

Sir Kay definitely fits into this mold.  Rhoad's other published novels, Strange Bedfellows and Return from Avalon, are set in the present day, with Arthurian influences coming from the past.  This novel is set in the time of King Arthur, and aims to give some attention to a character one can tell Rhoad believes has been shortchanged.

Sir Kay, like Walter and Arnie Penders, is a nerdy numbers guy.  Unlike the other two, he's seen plenty of combat and is really a pretty competent fighter and soldier--unless you are comparing him to other Knights of the Round Table.  In that company he doesn't measure up as a warrior, but has earned the respect of Arthur and others as an excellent seneschal--manager of the King's castle and attendant logistics.  Now that Merlin is gone, he is "the only person in the kingdom who can do long division".

But he yearns for adventure and true love, so he takes on a squire (the redoubtable Oswald--you'll like him, everyone does) and asks his king for knightly quests.  Along the way he is challenged with a Grail quest, and meets the lovely Elaine, sister to Morgan le Fay and Morgause.

All of Rhoad's work is helped by a familiarity with Arthurian literature, but this one is the most directly dependent on that history.  If you spend a lot of literary time in Camelot, you won't want to miss this one.  Four stars in that genre.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler

Karen Joy Fowler writes very literary speculative fiction--heavy on character development, speculation to enhance it.  This is the pattern in We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves as well. 

The narrator, Rosemary, takes us through her life, which is challenging but not particularly extraordinary until she reveals that her sister was, in fact, a chimp.  Taken in as her psychologist father's experiment.  Her complex relationship with her sister and mostly absent brother carries us through the book.

We get to know Rosemary awfully well.  She's not a particularly colorful person--not close to anyone, not violent, not...really very much.  Her life is a reflection of the people (and primate) around her, and she pretty much knows it.  Rosemary seems a familiar sort--a rather dry person who simply never expects to be happy, and made peace with that a long time ago.

It's pretty challenging to make an interesting story out of such a person, with no gunfire or magic to sustain it, but Fowler manages it pretty well.  The book is entertaining and satisfying in a personal sort of way.

I'm not sure how I feel after finishing--not exhilarated, or bored, or intrigued.  Just there.  Rosemary and her ape sister Fern make their animal rights point fairly gently and move on.  Read this as an interesting side track.

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie

Distributed consciousness is probably an underutilized  trope in SF--it's a lot of fun if done well.  The best example I know of is Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, which included a doglike species where an individual was a pack. Ancillary Justice is centered completely on this concept, taking it to another level and exploring it thoroughly.

The novel is pretty much straight up space opera.  There's some interesting social speculation here--the protagonist is a citizen (sort of) of the Radch, a galactic civilization that until recently was completely devoted to expansion.  They are pretty ruthless about the process, but direct and fairly honest.  At the time of the novel they have been stopped by the Presger, and our protagonist is working on the last colonizing "annexation".

The protagonist herself (gender is not a factor in the Radch, the default is "her") is an Ancillary, a person whose individuality has been removed and is now part of a group consciousness, usually a part of a Ship.  Our protagonist is the sole survivor of this Ship's disaster.

I'd say the work is a little subdued for a space opera, but the exploration of distributed consciousness and imperialist social structures is worth the read.  Have fun and think a little.  Three stars from me.

The Ink Readers of Doi Saket

I rather enjoyed the first story of Heuvelt's that I read, The Boy Who Cast No Shadow.  This one, The Ink Readers of Doi Saket, not quite so much.  It's written as a very light and fun tale, set in Thailand in order to allow a sort of quaint rendering where everyone has a nickname and a descriptive adjective that follows them everywhere.  But that's not the point of the story.  The people of Doi Saket grant wishes as part of an annual festival.  But Tangmoo does not wish for anything--apparently having achieved enlightenment.  The story rolls along in a droll sort of way, with various coincidences described in that quaint dialect.  I was perhaps too tired when I read it, but just couldn't get into it.  Two stars, but you might like it.

The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere, by John Chu

Gay and lesbian romance is now finally getting its day, so pretty much all the romance in SF is actually bromance or girlmance (I made that last one up.  Slightly lame).  But SF has never been great at romance, so the GLBT versions give it a chance to go back and get that more right.  Would that it didn't feel so fashionable.  The Water... is a story of coming out to an unsupportive family, with the SF twist that no one can get away with lying anymore.  Why?  Instead of noses growing like Pinocchio, people get drenched with water. 

So there's a lot you could do with this premise as social experimentation.  What really counts as a lie?  And that's explored here, but pretty much purely through relationships.  It's the trickiest case for the omniscient water-dousers to handle, but handle it they do.  Or it does.  The source of this new permanent polygraph is not clear.

The story is much more serious than the review.  The SF is really window dressing for the fraught family situation, but given the power of the speculation that's kind of a waste.  On the other hand, it's a well written story, so 3 stars from me.

The Lady Astronaut of Mars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal has nice range as an author.  She can do an effective hard SF story, and also does well in fantasy.  The Lady Astronaut of Mars falls on the hard SF side, but it is really more of a human relations story.

We have an alternate history element--in this history Washington, D.C. was obliterated by a meteorite strike early in the space age (insert politician doom joke here).  Earth was thus energized to pursue space travel in self defense, trying to start colonies elsewhere in order to ensure continuity of the race.  We thus went to Mars with technology similar to that which took us to the Moon.

Our protagonist is one of the first (and very few) female astronauts.  She has both taken advantage of this, and been held back by it.  But she was one of the most popular figures in the space program.  She is now 63, and her husband, who did (and sometimes still does) programming for the space program is in very poor health.  They live on Mars.

She is offered the opportunity to travel to a nearby star with an inhabitable planet.  Near light speed, but she will still be gone three years.  Her husband will die soon.  Should she go, or not?  That's the frame in which the emotions play out.

It's a good story, and worth the time to read.  3 stars from me.