Alex Wells (1)

Give me union politics in a corporate dystopia and set it on a low-tech planet with conflicted fire witches and you're off to a good start. Add in found family, with a focus on healing an estranged sisterly relationship and I've poured a cuppa and settled in for the ride.

And what a ride it is. Because space westerns are fun, dammit. It’s a joy to see familiar Wild West tropes repackaged and served up as the plot careers from one set piece to the next: expect a doctor to be snatched (bonus: show more he’s actually a trainee horse doctor vet), a train job to be staged, and lawmen with a secret agenda. About the only thing that was missing was a high-stakes card game (but hey, I’ve not read the sequel yet).

This could be a pitch black tale – not least because our protagonists are anti-heroes at best, who aren’t above doing objectively terrible things – but it’s told with such panache it feels more like a romp.

Full review show less

THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD I WANNA SCREAM

Seriously. SERIOUSLY! My 2018 reading has started with a GIANT AMAZING BANG.

I picked this book up on a whim and I'm so glad I did. This book is EVERYTHING I LOVE all at once, a SciFi/Western/Fantasy romp through a strange and fascinating world where labor, politics, bandits, technology, and found family all intersect.

Hob, the MC, is AMAZING. She is a powerful, reckless woman who never once demeans other women. She has a deep and abiding friendship with show more another woman, Mag, who is also powerful in a different but no less important way. There's very little (almost no) romance. Violence against women is threatened but it's never graphic, never violent-just-for-shock-value. The characters are all treated with an immense respect by the author; they act in ways that make sense, and even when they screw up it's real and you understand why. There's grittiness here but it's balanced by a tough, deep-running love for family, friends, fellow workers, and the planet itself.

I can't recommend this book enough. If you like westerns, sci-fi, weird worlds and weirder magic, found family, complex and compelling women characters, and a galaxy of mysteries and conspiracies, this book is for you.

NOW I NEED THE SEQUEL show less

I really loved Alex Well’s space punk, biker, science fantasy novel Hunger Makes the Wolf. It was truly one of a kind, involving so many different elements yet forming a seamless whole. I’m happy to say that Blood Binds the Pack is a fitting sequel.

Note before I dive into the review — this will contain spoilers for Hunger Makes the Wolf. Also, the books are best read in order and I don’t recommend reading Blood Binds the Pack first.

Hob and Mags have dealt a blow to TransRift, show more destroying one of their Weatherman. Of course, the next one is now bound for Tanegawa’s World along with orders from corporate HQ to throw everything they have at obtaining more of that strange blue mineral found by Mags’s father. And as always, TransRift sees the miners as tools to be used and disposed of in pursuit of the profit margin. Hob and Mags may have won the last battle, but the war is just beginning.

However, they may have some possible help. Shige’s received word that a government inspector is being sent to Tanegawa’s World for the first time ever. His orders are to make this as bad as possible for TransRift… of course, Shige’s general approach is “the ends justify the means,” so it’s questionable whether or not he’ll be helping or making things a heck of a lot worse for Hob, Mags, and the workers.

At the beginning of each chapter is a number counting down how many days until the inspector is supposed to arrive on the planet. As the number drops, tensions rise. About half way through the book, I was having serious trouble putting it down. Mags and the miners start organizing a strike and TransRift is NOT taking it well.

Labor rights is an issue threaded through the book. While science fiction takes place in the future, it of course tends to reflect the problems of our present and past. The dire future laden with corporate abuse Wells creates is hardly unimaginable (or even that original when it comes to sci-fi futures), but Wells gives it an unique flavor. For one, mercenary bikers! Hob’s biker crew is pretty great, ya’ll.

I want to reiterate how much I love Hobs and Mags. Hobs is that tough-to-the bone sort of female protagonist, no nonsense, a straight forward badass. It’d be easy for her to be a stereotypical Strong Female Character, but Wells gave her enough development to be well rounded and distinct. It helps that Hobs (and the other characters) all have such distinctive voices. Mags is a quieter sort of character but no less memorable or powerful. Something happened to her in the TransRift labs last book, and she’s beginning to experiment with her own witchiness. Also, I was totally right! Mags gets a romantic subplot with another female character. I was thinking it would happen, and I’m so glad Wells proved me correct.

I don’t think I talked about it enough in my review of the first book, but I love the strength of Hobs and Mags’s friendship. It’s undoubtedly the most important relationship in a book, which makes a nice change from the preponderance of romance being put on a pedestal about friendship. It’s unfortunate that female friendship is so rare in science fiction and fantasy, but I’m planning to recommend Hunger Makes the Wolf to counteract that.

Blood Binds the Pack is a fantastic follow up to Hunger Makes the Wolf. I think there’s room for a third book if Wells ever wants to write one, but the two books could also stand alone as a duology. Regardless, I’m going to read whatever Alex Wells writes next.

Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.

I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review. show less

I’m not sure how I found this book, but I’m so glad that I did. It’s a kick ass science fiction story with a great world and two female leads who are both strong in their own way.

Tanegawa’s World is a company planet, controlled by TransRifts Inc, which has a monopoly on interstellar travel. Those blacklisted by the corporation tend to wind up dead. Yet some resist the might of TransRifts. Hob’s a Ghost Wolf, a mercenary biker troop that does what TransRifts won’t. They’ve run show more under the radar of the corporation, never directly challenging them. Then Hob finds the body of her adopted uncle out in the desert, shot in the back. The reasons are unknown, but the culprit is clear. And worse than that, his daughter and Hob’s best friend, Mags, is missing.

I’m going to start with my favorite thing about Hunger Makes the Wolf: the ladies. I live for SFF books where there’s multiple, well rounded female characters who work together. Mags and Hob give me all this and more. They’re best friends and sort of adopted sisters, but their relationship has been strained the last few years, with Hob refusing to talk to Mags. Despite that, Hob immediately leaps to rescue Mags when she discovers she’s missing. And while Mags may start out as a damsel in distress, she quickly proves she’s much more, all without picking up a weapon.

I love Mags’s characterization so much, and I’m so happy that Hunger Makes the Wolf shows that there’s multiple ways for a woman to be important and interesting besides the mold of Hollywood’s Strong Female Character. She succeeds based on grit, intelligence, and empathy, not based on physical prowess. While I love a good Action Girl, I love it even more when we get a diversity in roles for female characters. Plus, I get the feeling Mags might be queer! I’m not willing to call it canon quite yet, but I sense romantic potential between her and another female character…

As it currently stands, there’s no romance in this series. However, I’m betting that both Mags and Hob will gain romantic plot lines in the sequel (tends to be true for most books). I already talked about Mags, but I also get the feeling that Wells is building up to something between Hob and a character called the Bone Collector. Which brings me to another point…

Hunger Makes the Wolf might be most accurately described as science fiction fantasy. You see, it’s got magic. Or, well, witchiness as it’s called in the book. Over the years that TransRifts has controlled Tanegawa’s World, they’ve periodically instituted witch hunts, and they continue to turn the residents against anyone who shows signs of being a “witch.” Hob knows she’s a witch — she can make fire burn from her hands, and she’s had visions of a phoenix. But what does being a witch mean? What can she do with her power? And what’s so special about Tanegawa’s World that makes people develop witchiness?

There’s clearly something special about Tanegawa’s World, something that makes TransRift care a whole heck of a lot about keeping it under tight control. As a setting, it worked wonderfully. So vivid that I was immediately transported and with plenty of mysteries to keep me reading. I really enjoyed the feel of the gritty, corporate run mining towns, which had more than a little Western vibe to them. Western/Fantasy/Science Fiction mashup would be an apt description of Hunger Makes the Wolf! Putting it like that, it sounds like the book could be clunky or overwhelming, but it never was. Hunger Makes the Wolf is a seamless whole.

I had a hard time putting this book down, and it made me stay up later than I’d intended! At heart, this book was just a ton of fun, and I can’t wait to read the sequel. I’ve already started recommending it to friends, and I’m sure that I’ll continue to do so. This series needs more love!

Originally posted on The Illustrated Page. show less