The Shadow Threat

[cornerofmadness]

The Shadow Threat by Claudia Gray

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Another tough one to rate. I gave it what I thought the story deserved vs my actual feelings on it because I don't think the art nor the storyline is bad. The story just isn't for me. I admit it, I was never big on Supes as a solo hero (or any solo hero, I was always about group dynamics) and I know that Kryptonian scientists missed out on their world dying but before the TV show Krypton were they depicted as horrible caste-bound jackasses?

I didn't like the TV show and I didn't honestly like this much either for that reason. Eugenics is gross and that's the crux of this story. Zahn Re is a Re i.e. genetically engineered to be the best/smartest etc. Sera is an Ur developed to die as a soldier, no fear, unable to NOT follow orders etc. Lara and Jor-El are working to save the planet but have been listed as near radicals.

Zahn is also going radical because the ruling tribune are lying to the people and getting them killed. Sera is being sent off world repeated to terraformed worlds the tribunal are pinning their hopes for the future on but it's failing.

The solution to all this? More eugenics. And yeah with that I'm tapping out. I don't like caste systems and there is just something gross about all of this.



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Murder in Old Bombay

[cornerofmadness]

Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This came close to a five star for me but it tried to do a wee bit too much and that's understandable in some ways for a first novel. There's no guarantee that there'll be a book two so the romantic subplot was forced to completion instead of leaving a little for next time (though in how this was concluded it's easy to see that wouldn't have worked.)

I will say it did what a good book should: got me researching things. I know very little about the Parsee and Zoroastrianism and that was core to this. There is also a bit of brutal Indian/Colonialism history that I don't want to say much about as it ties into the plot.

Jim Agnihotri has mustered out of the army and is recovering in an army hospital, bored when he comes across a news article about two women, Bacha and Pilloo who have fallen from a clock tower. A criminal case failed so it was written up as a suicide which their family, especially the young man, Adi, husband to the former and brother to the latter, rejects. His letter to the editor struck a nerve with Jim who decides he wants to emulate his literary hero Sherlock Holmes (who would have been written almost contemporary with this time period) and offers his services to Adi.

Jim finds himself stirring one hornet's nest after the other in his pursuit of what happened to these two women who most assuredly did not commit suicide. Into this mix is the strong willed younger sister of Adi, Diana, who wants to be his Watson but is constrained by the time period's mores for women. Add into this the complex culture to be found in India. It's not all one thing. There is Zoroastrianism, Hinduism and Muslim (not to mention the Christians). THere are differing caste systems and even talking to a man too familiarly could cause an entire family to lose caste. Then you have the Rajas and the Brits and all the various warring factions.

Jim has to sort through it all with further complications of him being biracial and illegitimate. He couldn't have rose further in the army but he's apparently light skinned enough to pass as British. He and Adi become close like brothers but it is Diana who is the issue. Falling in love won't work because he is not Parsee and apparently they didn't convert others then (I see that they do now). If they marry the whole family would be ostracized.

And the thing that bugged me about the mystery is that it does go on a wee bit too long and the romance same deal. That said I really liked Jim and Diana not to mention Adi. There is some level of violence in this including human trafficking so heed that as a trigger warning. I am looking forward to book two.



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