Lucas Blogs About Books

Wow, name bigger than title status, nicely done, Powell. So, what's this book's deal? Embers of War  is the start of a new series by Gareth L. Powell, the British Science Fiction Award-winning author of Ack-Ack Macaque . Oh, you liked those books didn't you? I did. Did you like this one? I couldn't get into it. Sadly, this joins the " books that I didn't finish " club with Bloody Rose  and Into the Drowning Deep . So, it's not good? I wouldn't go that far. Look, I've never thought that Powell was an amazing prose writer. His style is proficient enough, but I was definitely more into Ack-Ack Macaque and its sequels because of the story and characters than because of the writing. But let's get an idea of the book's deal. Yes, let's. So it begins with a space battle over the planet Pelapatarn where Captain Annelida Deal gives an order that will simultaneously do two things: 1) end the immediate conflict and possib...

Eat yer heart out cover artist for Gordon R. Dickson's The Right to Arm Bears ! My feverish pursuit of MOAR content brought forth this feature: Simplified Series. Here's the pitch: quick synopses (I'll try and keep them spoiler-free, but, you know, most of these are past the statute of limitations on spoilers) of the entries in a series followed by the reasons you should or shouldn't read it. This week: The Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy by Gareth L. Powell Background Info: So, you may recall that in 2013  Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie won the British Science Fiction Award (and several others) for Best Novel. It was actually a tie that year. The other winner was Gareth L. Powell's Ack-Ack Macaque . As one might expect, Ack-Ack Macaque  is very different from Ancillary Justice , you may have guessed from the titles and cover art that this series has a more humorous bent than the Imperial Radch trilogy (though I will say that Ann Leckie's books do have plenty...