Welcome to the Escape Velocity Collection!
We are an opinionated group of friends reviewing all sorts of fantasy and science fiction media. Don’t forget to get to know the curators and visit our curated Collection, where we discuss the stories that never cease to transport us to another world.
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LATEST POSTS:
- Book written by Ransom Riggs
- Published in 2011
- Part 1 of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children
Using spooky vintage photographs, Ransom Riggs tells the story of a teenage boy, Jacob, who travels to a small island off the coast of Wales to learn about his grandfather’s childhood. Here, he finds the ruins of an orphanage, Miss Peregrine’s home for Peculiar Children. Who were the children who lived in the home? What was so peculiar about them? And why were they hidden away on the island?
This book series has a wonderful premise and especially the first half of the first book truly delivers. However, as with any mystery book, eventually some of the mystery is gone. Riggs still manages to tell a compelling story with interesting characters and a setting that is pretty haunting, but it doesn’t quite live up to the eerie cover.
I still thoroughly enjoyed these books and would recommend them to both young and older readers. It’s not typical fantasy but blends elements of (mild) horror and urban fantasy in a way that works rather well.
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- Book written by Robin Hobb
- Published in 2011
- Part 3 of The Rain Wild Chronicles
In part three of The Rain Wild Chronicles, the Dragons, their keepers, and the rest of the crew of the Tarman have finally found the legendary city of Kelsingra. Captain Leftrin has returned to the city of Cassarick to collect their rewards. Meanwhile, Elderlings Malta and Reyn Khuprus are expecting a child, but Cassarick isn’t as safe for those with scales as it once was.
After two installments where little of note happens, I was glad to see that City of Dragons brings back both some plot as well as beloved characters from the Liveship Traders trilogy.
I found this book significantly easier to get through, and I listened to the audiobook, so that’s saying something (not sure what though, perhaps just how much of a drag Dragon Haven was, or else that I’m glad that this book was much shorter).
Malta is one of my favourite Robin Hobb characters of all time, so I was absolutely delighted to see her return to star in this book.
This book features significantly less of the dragons, as the story is spread out over more characters, both because the characters are in different places, but also because Hobb brings back characters from previous books (in particular Malta and Reyn, and Alise’s husband Hest). It also means we spend less time with individual characters, which was quite a relief after the last book, which at times felt more like a reality TV show than a novel.
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- Book written by Robin Hobb
- Published in 2010
- Part 2 of The Rain Wild Chronicles
In the second installment of the Rain Wild Chronicles, we follow the dragon keepers, their dragons, and the rest of the expedition on their search for the ancient City of Kelsingra, where Dragons and Elderlings once lived in harmony. As they journey on, romances develop and plots thicken as the Chalcedeans need Dragon parts to cure their dying Duke.
This is the second part of the Rain Wild Chronicles, and honesty: not a lot happens. That is not to say that I did not enjoy the book, however. Sometimes a book can be more of a companion than something you get drawn into completely – I suppose it helped that I listened to the audiobook of Dragon Haven, meaning that the time I spent on it felt less precious than it might have had I read the physical book.
This book is very clearly a leadup to the following two books in the series. Very little of consequence happens.
Standout characters were Carson the hunter and Sedric. I find that Hobb writes very good redemption arcs, giving obnoxious characters growth that turns them into my favourites (like Malta in the Liveship Traders). However, her main characters in this series bore me. Alise in particular has little to nothing going on in this book, and Thymara’s entire story focuses on how all the Dragon Keeper boys want her so, so badly. Everyone in this book just wants to get it on, and I honestly feel like this novel could have been a lot shorter, and better, if this had been largely condensed.
I still enjoyed it! Hobb’s style flows nicely and I am intrigued by what the rest of the series will bring.
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- Book written by Robin Hobb
- Published in 2009
- Part 1 of The Rain Wild Chronicles
Dragons have hatched in the Rain Wilds, and they are nothing like the elegant creatures the Rain Wilders expected to crawl from the cocoons they had tended for so long. The Rain Wilds Council decides that they have to be escorted somewhere they can thrive. The destination is the legendary City of Kelsingra, where Dragons once lived in harmony with the Elderlings, who groomed and praised them.
Among the travelers we find Thymara, a young girl who is recruited to care for the Dragon Sintara, as well as Alise Finbok, a wealthy woman stuck in an unhappy marriage to a cruel man. Their journey is just beginning, and many hardships lie on the road ahead.
I am a big fan of Robin Hobb’s characters and style of storytelling. This book, however, is a little slower than her previous trilogies. I’ll admit I wasn’t a huge fan of the characters. Alise is a little annoying, and the Dragon Keepers are all basically children so that gets a little exhausting after a while. However, Hobb’s style of writing is pleasant, and the investment I have already made in her world by reading the last nine books made me more willing to invest my time in this series.
I would absolutely recommend starting The Rain Wilds Chronicles if you are a big fan of Robin Hobb’s books and have read the previous trilogies. In this book we get another glimpse of parts of Hobb’s world that we have not seen before, and the series will likely shed some light on its history, which I find really exciting.
However, if you have never read a book by Robin Hobb, I’d strongly recommend you start by reading Assassin’s Apprentice.
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- Book written by Becky Chambers
- Published in 2018
- Part 3 of the Wayfarers series
“From the ground, we stand. From our ships, we live. By the stars, we hope.”
When the Earth became uninhabitable, what was left of humanity sought refuge on the ships of the Exodus Fleet and left their solar system behind. Hundreds of years later, many of those humans and their descendants have settled on different planets throughout the galaxy and live there alongside other sentient species.
But some have remained on the Exodus Fleet, choosing to spend their life in space rather than on a planet. As more and more people decide to leave the fleet, the people who are left behind will have to decide what it means to them to live their life as part of this community.
I am a big fan of all of Becky Chambers’ books, but this one might be my favourite so far. As with the second book in this series, it is not a sequel to one of the earlier books, but it takes place in the same world and features one or two cameo’s from characters from the earlier books. It is similar in tone to the first two, but the narrative is very different.
Like all of Chambers’ works, this book considers the question of what it means to be human, while showing a deep belief in the ultimate good of humanity. Record of a Spaceborn Few looks at the traditions and beliefs that constitute a community and what these mean to the people in that community. It features a range of fantastic characters, whose experiences complement each other to form a picture of life on the Exodus fleet. The book is very wholesome while also managing to make you think. Definitely one to (re)read on a day when you’re feeling a bit down.
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- Book written by Christopher Paolini
- Published in 2020
- Stand-alone
During her work as an exobiologist on a newly colonised planet, Kira Navárez makes a discovery which accidentally sets off an interplanetary war. This is the beginning of a long journey for Kira as she desperately tries to minimise the damage her actions have unintentionally caused.
On the whole I quite enjoyed this book: it is pretty fast-paced and it has a cast of likable characters. However, there were a number of areas where the book fell short for me. None of the characters (except Gregorovich) are very original and the story on the whole did not particularly stand out to me either. With 800+ pages, it went on a lot longer than I felt it needed to. Especially the ending was drawn out far too much, becoming overly sentimental in places.
Pick this up if you feel like reading something engaging and easy to read (despite its length), but don’t expect too much from it. That said, Jennifer Hale does a very good job narrating the audiobook, with an impressive range of voices for the different characters. I would definitely recommend going for the audio version if that is something you enjoy.
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Review: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing – Hank Green
April May – an otherwise unremarkable girl – runs into an immovable statue on her walk home one night, standing unmoving on a sidewalk in New York. April shares a video of the statue online, dubbing it ‘Carl’. The video goes viral and April becomes a celebrity overnight as Carls appear in cities around the world. April is dragged into the world of internet fame and even politics as the Carls turn out to be much more than they initially appeared, and she suddenly has a voice in an emerging global crisis.
Review: Exit Strategy – Martha Wells
Part 4 in the Murderbot Diaries – The Murderbot reconnects to the feeds when it returns from its self-imposed intelligence gathering mission to find that one of its favourite humans has become caught up in inter-corporate politics, and the Murderbot may have accidentally played an important part in the corporate anger against her. When the Murderbot figures she may have been kidnapped, it reluctantly turns off space-Netflix once again to save the day.
Review: Assassin’s Fate – Robin Hobb
Fitzchivalry Farseer’s daughter Bee has been kidnapped, and is presumed dead. Fortunately, Bee is very much alive, but unfortunately, she is being held captive by a group of white prophets, who intend to bring her back to their home in Clerres. Meanwhile, Fitz and his companions go on a journey to Clerres to kill all whites, to punish them for Bee’s alleged death.
Review: Antarctica – Kim Stanley Robinson
When the last wilderness on Earth is threatened, what do we do? Antarctica follows some of the continent’s inhabitants in a future that feels like today: Val, an experienced mountaineer who guides tourist following in polar explorers’ footsteps; X, a general field assistant doing general field assistance; and Wade, aide to a US Senator looking into some mysterious disappearances near the South Pole. Their lives in the icy cold seem tough enough as is, until suddenly disaster strikes…
Review: Red Country – Joe Abercrombie
When Shy and her surrogate-father Lamb return home from a trip to the village to sell the crops, they find the farm burned, Shy’s brother and sister gone and their caretaker hanged. A determination and a flicker of wrath stir in the otherwise placid Lamb, and they set out to chase the perpetrators. Elsewhere in the Near Country, Temple, chief lawyer and secretary to the washed-up mercenary captain-general Niccomo Cosca, has seen enough of the company’s ‘heroics’.
Review: Fractal Noise – Christopher Paolini
After the traumatic death of his wife, xenobiologist Alex Crichton joins an expedition that brings him and his fellow crew to Talos VII. They detect an anomaly on the planet: a giant hole that seems to have been created by intelligent life. Alex and three of his fellow shipmates descend to the planet to discover what the hole is, who made it, and why.*
*As they journey closer to the giant pit, Alex is forced to confront not just the idea of there being other life in the universe, but also his own demons.
