2021 is almost here. The new year promises to be one of change, but here at Primmlife, I’ll be up to my same old, same old. I have plenty of fantastic books to review for the coming year. The list leans heavily toward science fiction and fantasy, but politics and history make the list as well. See below for how the 2021 year will start for Primmlife reviews.
The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes
The Last Watch is a space opera debut from J.S. Dewes. I’ve been looking forward to this one. A band of misfit soldiers at the literal edge of the universe. What’s not to like?
From the Publisher:
The Expanse meets Game of Thrones in J. S. Dewes’s fast-paced, sci-fi adventure The Last Watch, where a handful of soldiers stand between humanity and annihilation.
The Divide.
It’s the edge of the universe.
Now it’s collapsing—and taking everyone and everything with it.
The only ones who can stop it are the Sentinels—the recruits, exiles, and court-martialed dregs of the military.
At the Divide, Adequin Rake commands the Argus. She has no resources, no comms—nothing, except for the soldiers that no one wanted. Her ace in the hole could be Cavalon Mercer–genius, asshole, and exiled prince who nuked his grandfather’s genetic facility for “reasons.”
She knows they’re humanity’s last chance.
Russia Resurrected by Kathryn E. Stoner
Russia has fascinated me since I was a teenager. Reading old Tom Clancy books and loving Cold War spy novels kept my teenage years going, but living through their transition to democracy beats any novel. A book on Russia retaking its place on the world stage is right up my alley.
From the Publisher:
- Argues that Russia is more than a regional power and that its international reach and influence, while in no way as extensive as that of the Soviet Union, are far more significant than often realized
- Includes extensive primary data evaluating Russia’s politics in order to show its political, economic, and social development
- Shows that we too often underestimate Russia’s varied abilities and intentions to influence global politics because we do not understand its purpose in doing so
The Black Coast by Mike Brooks
I enjoyed Mike Brooks’ Keiko series of books, and I’m interested in seeing what he’ll do with fantasy. War Dragons. Fearsome Raiders. A Daemonic Warlord on the Rise. If these things don’t kick up your curiosity, then we might have different reading tastes.
From the Publisher:
Epic world-building at its finest, in an upcoming author’s fantasy debut. The Black Coast is the start of an unmissable series filled with war-dragons, armoured knights, sea-faring raiders, dangerous magic and crowd-pleasing battle scenes.
War Dragons. Fearsome Raiders. A Daemonic Warlord on the Rise.
When the citizens of Black Keep see ships on the horizon, terror takes them because they know who is coming: for generations, the keep has been raided by the fearsome clanspeople of Tjakorsha. Saddling their war dragons, Black Keep’s warriors rush to defend their home only to discover that the clanspeople have not come to pillage at all. Driven from their own land by a daemonic despot who prophesises the end of the world, the raiders come
in search of a new home . . .Meanwhile the wider continent of Narida is lurching toward war. Black Keep is about to be caught in the crossfire – if only its new mismatched society can survive.
Master of the Revels by Nicole Galland
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. took office politics, time travel, witches, and persistent chats, mixed them up, and turned them into a fantastic novel. Of course I’d have to get the sequel. The first book was filled with compelling characters, and I look forward to returning to their world.
From the Publisher:
In this brilliant sequel to The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.—an enthralling, history-bending adventure traversing time and space, fact and fiction, magic and science co-written with #1 New York Times bestselling author Neal Stephenson—a daring young time traveler must return to Jacobean England to save the modern world.
This fast-paced sequel to the New York Times bestselling near-future adventure The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. picks up where the original left off, as Tristan Lyons, Mel Stokes, and their fellow outcasts from the Department of Diachronic Operations (D.O.D.O.) fight to stop the powerful Irish witch Gráinne from using time travel to reverse the evolution of all modern technology.
Chief amongst Gráinne’s plots: to encrypt cataclysmic spells into Shakespeare’s “cursed” play, Macbeth. When her fellow rogue agents fall victim to Gráinne’s schemes, Melisande Stokes is forced to send Tristan’s untested, wayward sister Robin back in time to 1606 London, where Edmund Tilney, the king’s Master of Revels, controls all staged performances in London.
And now Gráinne controls Tilney.
While Robin poses as an apprentice in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Mel travels to the ancient Roman Empire and, with the help of double-agent Chira in Renaissance Florence, untangles the knotted threads of history while the diabolical Gráinne jumps from timeline to timeline, always staying frustratingly one stop ahead—or is it behind?
Historical objects disappear, cities literally rise and fall, and nothing less than the fate of humanity is at stake. As Gráinne sows chaos across time and space, the ragtag team of ex-D.O.D.O. agents must fix the past—in order to save the future.
Critically acclaimed author Nicole Galland brings her deep knowledge of history and signature wit to this gripping romantic adventure.
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine
A Memory Called Empire made a big impact in 2019’s SFF circles and rightly so. I loved this book, and I’m looking forward to its sequel. Any return to the Teixcalaanli universe will be a trip I want to take.
From the Publisher:
A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to Arkady Martine’s genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire.
An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.
In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire—face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.
Their failure will guarantee millions of deaths in an endless war. Their success might prevent Teixcalaan’s destruction—and allow the empire to continue its rapacious expansion.
Or it might create something far stranger . . .
The Helm of Midnight by Marina Lostetter
Marina Lostetter is also making her fantasy debut. Her Noumenon series made me a fan of her work, and I look forward to reading about this fantasy serial killer.
From the Publisher:
A legendary serial killer stalks the streets of a fantastical city in The Helm of Midnight, the stunning first novel in a new trilogy from acclaimed author Marina Lostetter.
In a daring and deadly heist, thieves have made away with an artifact of terrible power—the death mask of Louis Charbon. Made by a master craftsman, it is imbued with the spirit of a monster from history, a serial murderer who terrorized the city.
Now Charbon is loose once more, killing from beyond the grave. But these murders are different from before, not simply random but the work of a deliberate mind probing for answers to a sinister question.
It is up to Krona Hirvath and her fellow Regulators to enter the mind of madness to stop this insatiable killer while facing the terrible truths left in his wake.
Ages of American Capitalism by Jonathan Levy
The word’s “economic historian” hooked me. I requested this book for those two words alone. Any look at U.S. history through the lens of economics piques my curiosity, and the way Jonathan Levy chose to structure the book as four ages intrigues me. This is a huge book at 900+ pages.
From the Publisher:
A leading economic historian traces the evolution of American capitalism from the colonial era to the present—and argues that we’ve reached yet another turning point that will define the era ahead.
Today, in the midst of a new economic crisis and severe political discord, the nature of capitalism in United States is at a crossroads. Since the market crash and Great Recession of 2008, historian Jonathan Levy has been teaching a course to help his students understand everything that had happened to reach that disaster and the current state of the economy, but in doing so he discovered something more fundamental about American history. Now, in an ambitious single-volume history of the United States, he reveals how, from the beginning of U.S. history to the present, capitalism in America has evolved through four distinct ages and how the country’s economic evolution is inseparable from the nature of American life itself.
The Age of Commerce spans the colonial era through the outbreak of the Civil War, a period of history in which economic growth and output largely depended on enslaved labor and was limited by what could be drawn from the land and where it could be traded. The Age of Capital traces the impact of the first major leap in economic development following the Civil War: the industrial revolution, when capitalists set capital down in factories to produce commercial goods, fueled by labor moving into cities. But investments in the new industrial economy led to great volatility, most dramatically with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. The Depression immediately sparked the Age of Control, when the government took on a more active role in the economy, first trying to jump-start it and then funding military production during World War II. Skepticism of government intervention in the Cold War combined with recession and stagflation in the 1970s led to a crisis of industrial capitalism and the withdrawal of political will for regulation. In the Age of Chaos that followed, the combination of deregulation and the growth of the finance industry created a booming economy for some but also striking inequalities and a lack of oversight that led directly to the crash of 2008.
In Ages of American Capitalism, Jonathan Levy proves that, contrary to political dogma, capitalism in the United States has never been just one thing. Instead, it has morphed throughout the country’s history—and it’s likely changing again right now.