"Kill the Dawn" by Emily Hayse

It's Hamlet... IN SPACE!

The above sentence is a lie. This book has nothing to do with space. Kill the Dawn is, in fact, Hamlet... IN SCANDINAVIA!

Yes, yes, I know Hamlet is already set in Scandinavia. More accurately, it's Hamlet... IN FANTASY SCANDINAVIA! There, we went three for three and we can start being serious.

This is a fantasy retelling of Hamlet, with all the drama and bloodshed that entails. If you want a more coherent review, go here.

I've read some adaptations of the original, including the Manga Classics version, so I mostly know how the story goes. (I haven't read the original, though. The only Shakespeare play I've read in its entirety is Julius Caesar.) So I do have the knowledge necessary to... mostly figure out who people are supposed to be. There are some people in this whose counterparts I can't fathom (if anyone knows who Axel is supposed to be, please tell me) and there are some people whose counterparts I recognized instantly (I'm looking at you, Fainga/Claudius).

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for fantasy violence. It could be a pretty good videogame.

4 stars.

(Endnote: Next I'll be reviewing the sequel, No Leave The Dawn Alone You Fool What Were You Thinking You've Doomed Us All.)

"Winter's Maiden" by Morgan L. Busse

One of the promotional quotes on the back of the dustjacket says that this book "captivates from page one". And I agree. It captivates from page one until page 136.

 

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the book.

 

I only read the first half of this, which follows a fantasy!Norse warrior named Brighid as Murphy decides to enforce his Law. I liked that part and I wish the entire book was about her, because that would have meant some proper Epic Fantasy Drama.

 

But on page 136, a guy named Kaeden shows up, which is the first we've seen or heard of him this entire time; he hasn't been foreshadowed even a little bit. Kaeden is our second protagonist, and he's the embodiment of one of my least favorite main character types: the overpowered chosen one who doesn't want to be the overpowered chosen one and angsts about it despite having no real reason to do so. Like I said in my review of Steal Fire from the Gods, it felt like the story had suddenly turned into a teenager's self-insert fanfiction. The contrast of this guy's whining about his imagined problems with Brighid's bearing up under her actual problems was so jarring I stopped reading within a few pages, simply because I didn't want to have to deal with him any longer than I had to.

 

That said, I do want to provide a full review of this book. However, not having finished it, I can't write one. So I have turned to my pseudonymous relative Kittens, who actually has finished it, for assistance in this difficult task.

 

Without further ado, here's Kittens on the second half of Winter's Maiden.  

 

<kittens>

 

The second half was definitely less good, mostly due to Kaeden being less cool than Brighid. He kind of annoys me in that he's a grown man and acts like he's a teenager in the sulky phase. He has this whole melodramatic attitude toward his problems that makes you just want to shake him and tell him to deal with it and act like a man.

 

He and Brighid do eventually meet up and he does pretty much get over his problems, mostly because he's finally decided to embrace his whole 'overpowered chosen one'-ness.

 

Brighid's still way cooler and I think it would've been better if the whole thing was about her, because she deals with problems way better than Kaeden does. She takes life with a 'nothing can stop me' sort of attitude and toughs through it, Kaeden doesn't. He takes life with a 'if I don't like it, I'ma run away!' attitude - that's literally what he was doing in the beginning.

 

There are parts in Kaeden's half from her point of view, too, and those make you appreciate the personality difference more (and by appreciate I mean notice).

 

Anyhow, it was still a good book (good enough I did finish it) and I'll read the sequel when it comes out, but I feel like there was enough material for Brighid to have the whole book without dragging in Kaeden and putting half of it in his point of view. He could still've been in it, that would have been fine, but I don't think his POV was entirely necessary. 

</kittens>

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for violence and some implied sexual content.

 

4 stars.

 

(Endnote: Brighid's adopted mom is named Elphsaba, which is an unfortunate name in a world where Wicked is the whole thing it is now.)

"Among Trees" by FJRD Interactive

I first discovered this game from iBallisticSquid's series of Let's Play videos on it. It was in early access then, and it hasn't changed much.

 

Actually, it's in beta now, and that's not likely to change. I did a bit of digging, and it seems the developers just abandoned it. It's playable, just unfinished.

 

That said, it's a very, very pretty game. Unfortunately it's also an equally heavy one, so unless you have a rather beefy computer, you can't experience the prettiness if you want a framerate of more than 1/10th of a frames per second. Which I do happen to want, so unfortunately, I can't experience the prettiness as much.

 

In the original (as in the early access version iBallisticSquid played), the crafting system would create the items you crafted as physical (well, "physical") objects on the crafting table, and you could pick them up. I thought that was pretty innovative, as crafting systems usually have the items you made go straight to your inventory. Unfortunately, in the version I have, they just go straight to your inventory; while it's not worse than other crafting systems, it's also no longer better.

There are some changes from that version that I do like, though, and some that at least make sense. You no longer find (as many) random beets around the world; I think most of them have been replaced with burdock roots. The loot sites you find around the world no longer respawn their loot, which, while it means you can't just get infinite loot from them, makes sense; after all, who would be going around to these abandoned metal tower things and restocking the crates full of rags and bent metal pipes and stuff?

 

(My headcanon for the reason those towers are surrounded by trash and campfires [that you can search to find more trash] is that these are the places where someone once came out to burn their trash until whoever runs this forest made them stop. As for what the towers themselves are doing there, I have no clue.)

 

There's a fishing minigame in this, but it requires a framerate of more than my current 3 frames per second to get the precision needed to actually catch any of the fish.

 

This is a videogame, but it's not rated by the ESRB (you don't have to have an ESRB rating, it's just that most games choose to get one to do their part in making this not a government thing). Anyway, if I were rating this, I'd give it an E.

 

4 stars. 

 

(Endnote: I have no idea what "FJRD" stands for.)

"The Screaming Staircase" by Jonathan Stroud

Behold, it's horror with lore.

I honestly don't see that often. Most of the horror things I've encountered don't have a larger system of magic/spookiness, instead preferring to leave their monsters mostly unexplained. And I get why that is; up to a point, the less you know about the thing terrorizing the characters, the scarier it is. Like all tropes, it's a trope for a reason, and if you're good at writing it can work really well.

But, because that trope is so widespread, it's a breath of fresh air when a series doesn't do that. And yes, I said a series; this is book 1 of like 5. I may or may not (but probably will) get some of the others out of the library, because this one was pretty good.

You get the sense that the ghost lore is fully fleshed out and we're just not seeing it; the parts we do see, however, hang together and make sense. This is in contrast to those books whose lore is obfuscated and whose visible pieces don't hold together very well; the author may have it all thought out, but that doesn't come through in the narration. I think one of the main deciding factors to which kind of book you get is whether or not your main character knows and understands the lore; if the main character is confused, readers will probably also be confused. (I'm looking at you, Steal Fire from the Gods).

[EDIT, 9/20/2025: Fixed a spelling error]

I can't seem to pin down what time period this is set in. It has Victorian/Edwardian vibes, but it also has random mentions of things like televisions and washing machines. At the same time it doesn't seem modern (nobody has cell phones), so my tentative theory is that it's set in the 1950s.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for scary scenes. This is, after all, in the horror genre, even if it's closer to urban fantasy than most horror things. 

4 stars. 

(Endnote: "AAAAAAAAAaAAAAAaA!" -the staircase)

"Steal Fire from the Gods" by Clint Hall

The Prometheus reference in the title doesn't make sense until the very end.

This is set in a world after robots acquired sentience, then acquired element magic, then acquired world domination. Over the course of the story they also acquire |blood magic| (despite not themselves having |blood|; they get it from |kidnapped babies|), then finally acquire |Satan|. I thought the robots were alien robots at first; they are not.

The plot follows a guy named Gunnar Graves, who's initially rather angstily self-centered and doesn't grow out of it for much of the book, not helped by everyone telling him he's some sort of chosen one. That usually tanks my enjoyment of a book (the "overpowered chosen one who angsts because he doesn't want to be the chosen one" trope is one of my least favorites, because it almost always feels like an emo teenager's self-insert), but in this case, it's redeemed. Mostly by the very end.

Speaking of which, ENDING SPOILERS. |The last two chapters elevate this from a kind of mediocre book to a pretty good one. The main character, Gunnar Graves, who's somehow acquired the title "The Immortal Gunnar Graves" over the course of the book... kinda dies. And by "kinda" I mean "permanently". This marks the first time I've seen any book do that; there's a couple famous series I've read that kill off their main characters, but both of them get brought back.|

|In my eyes, this makes up for the self-centeredness of the main character, as he goes from "it's all about me and my personal angst war against the robots" to sacrificing himself so everyone else can have a shot at the robots. The telepath kid NPC, who the main character had spent half the book being mad at for no good reason, proves to be quite good at his job. I like the telepath kid.|

The magic system in here isn't very explained. Possibly because the main character hates his magic lessons. 

This is, uh, sort of Christian magical realism? It's implied the magic is from God and the robots are just misusing it (this is possibly |Satan's fault|), and the book is written by a Christian. Eh, it can have the tag, it's better than A Song Called Home was.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A strong T for violence and harm to children.

4 stars. 

(Endnote: I have no idea what the promotional quote means by "compressed-epic".)

"Away" by Megan E. Freeman

Any y'all remember Alone way back in 2023? I do. This is the sequel slash companion novel.

It follows four random kids caught up in the evacuation, including one of the members of Maddie's aborted secret sleepover from Alone. Unlike in the first book, they're not alone for the entire thing; they get stuck in a refugee camp.

Oh, we also get more context for the backstory behind the "imminent threat" in this book. |It's California's fault.| They're having a |chronic drought| because they decided to |cram far too many people into a literal desert|, and for some reason they thought the best course of action was to |pipe the entire Eldorado River out of Colorado into California. Instead of doing sane things like, y'know, building seawater treatment plants or not having so many people in a literal desert|.

|While the plan is completely and utterly ridiculous, at least it makes more sense than "oh the government wants to steal a bunch of land that it then doesn't do anything with."|

(The |Eldorado River| is a real thing, by the way. I looked it up. Unlike in the book, however, it's |not in Colorado at all; it's in Alaska|.)

I have no idea why the cover is a guy in a Spiderman hoodie standing on a car. It doesn't have tons of bearing on the story.

The characters range from 12 to 15ish, a nice change from the Eternal 12-Year-Old Syndrome in most middle-grade fiction. Another nice change is that it explained why none of the adults are taking action against the evacuation or |noticing the signs that it's not real|.

I was not immersed in this book as much as I was in Alone. This is my own fault; I purposely held myself out of the story somewhat because I wasn't in the mood to wander around remembering the book for days afterward. That said, this book is also probably not as intrinsically immersive as Alone is; the viewpoint jumps around a bit (did I mention there are four main characters?) and, because there are actual conversations thanks to having more than one character, there's some prose. Well, sort of; it takes the form of film scripts. Though it's still mostly in verse, the inclusion of dialogue made it less... impactful, somehow? Or maybe that's just my experience differing because, as mentioned, I intentionally prevented myself from getting fully immersed.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for some mild violence.

3 stars. Would have gotten 4, but there's a woman pastor who features semi-prominently in one of the characters' lives, and I happen to believe that's unbiblical.

(Endnote: |And California would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.|)

"Breath of Bones" by Tricia Goyer & Nathan Goyer

This book asks a very important question: What was the Golem of Prague doing during the Holocaust?

(Disclaimer: I know the Golem of Prague was probably not real.)

Anyway. This book revolves around what the Golem of Prague was doing during a fictionalized, steampunk version of World War Two. Also an angry resistance guy who builds things like flamethrower hammers (that eventually get reworked into |rocket hammers| because he |made the fire bit too big|) and a reporter girl who keeps trying to secretly expose the Nazis' evil deeds, only to |get shut down| by her father every time |for her own safety|.

Overall, I think the idea of a steampunk / urban fantasy version of WWII is pretty cool. "Fantasy but in a non-medieval time period" is such an underused genre, and it's also one I really enjoy (to the point that I actually wrote a couple things with that premise). Or, honestly, a different location as well; I get that the standard fantasy setting being medieval Eurasia is because it works well, but medieval Africa and the Americas also have promise and their own legends, as do most other time periods. Why can't we have the Civil War with dragons? Native Americans fighting the orc armies? Mayans and Incas and all their... actually let's not go there.

Anyway, that was a tangent and I should talk about the book itself.

The writing was good, except when the two leads were in proximity to each other and cognizant of the fact that the other one was attractive; one of the authors is a married woman (her co-author is her son) so I'd assume she knows something about love, but it read like she didn't really have much experience and was just writing what she thought it would be like. It was clunky. (Now, granted, I also don't have any romantic experience so I haven't got much idea either, but I've read less clunky 'wait a sec that person is hot' things.)

I really liked the golem itself. He's clearly just trying to protect the Jews in the city, and doesn't want to hurt anyone, but people keep telling him to murder Nazis. (Granted, the Nazis could use a little murdering, but it's really sad to see this really nice robot-clay-person just sort of... snap and go on an killing spree. I get that that's how the original legend kinda is, and it makes sense here, but still.)

Oh yeah, this is also Christian fiction! Sort of. One of the main characters is Christian and one is Jewish, and the writer seems to be a Christian as well.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A stern T for graphic violence and prominently involving the Holocaust.

4 stars. Ends on somewhat of a down note, but since that's also a hook to draw people into the next book in the series, I don't fault it too much.

(Endnote: I was hoping the later books in this series would feature similar little-considered legends and not-really-understood historical stuff and urban-legendy stuff from the countries involved in WWII, like the Antikythera Mechanism or Baba Yaga or Britain's Angels of Mons or that thing with King Arthur and his guys coming back in Britain's darkest hour. Unfortunately, from reading the synopsis of book 2, that doesn't seem to be the case.)

"The Looking-Glass Illusion" by Sara Ella

Behold, the sequel to The Wonderland Trials. Actually, it's the second in a duology, so I'm not sure if it counts as a sequel.

While the last one was focused on the first three Wonderland Trials (the Club, Spade, and Diamond Trials), this one is solely focused on the final Wonderland Trial, the Heart Trial. It mostly does away with the "team competition" aspect of the first one, instead moving more toward a "survive the weirdly chess-themed and dangerous trial" aspect.

Speaking of which, this one seems to be more inspired by Through the Looking-Glass, what with the chess motifs and all. And the |mirrors that turn to liquid when Alice, and only Alice, touches them|. Those bits were described in a rather surreal manner, and it reminded me of Superliminal.

My main quibble with this book is that the Ivory King, the book's MacGuffin, |isn't actually a person. It's hyped up to be a person, but it's actually sort of like a codeword for Wonderland itself|. That kind of annoyed me.

You may (but probably won't) notice this post isn't tagged "Dystopian"; that's because the book spends pretty much no time in dystopian England. Most of it is in Wonderland, which is appropriately weird and confusing.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for scenes of peril.

4 stars.

(Endnote: The Queen of Hearts analogue in this duology is named Queen Scarlet. My brain, in a lovely moment of word association, came up with the crossover idea "What if Queen Scarlet (from The Curious Realities) met Queen Scarlet (from Wings of Fire)?" I will probably never write that, but I have it stored in my document of fanfic ideas.)

"The Walls Have Eyes" by Clare B. Dunkle

Series summary: A boy and his dog, but they live in a dystopia and the dog is a shapeshifting robot |who's also the President|.

The boy and his shapeshifting robot dog go back to the dystopia to get his parents out of it. Said parents do not react well to leaving the dystopia. They set up rules, complain about not having all the modern dystopian conveniences, and generally annoy the main character. While this was the expected outcome, it still irritates me; I'd rather the parents had been some semblance of competent.

We also learn the reason for the robot dog's abnormally high security clearance: |He's the President|. Well, actually, he has |a special chip that makes him parrot robots' individual identification codes back to them during the "ok bot who are you" phase of robot communications, so they think he is them. He was ordered by the actual President, who's also| a robot, to |get rid of the Secretary of State (the sole human left in the government; everyone else is robots) so he stops making things dystopian|.

This book also answers the question I always have with non-worldwide dystopias: what's going on with the rest of the world? In this case, the U.S. (well, former U.S.) is basically |a giant testbed for various consumer products. The popular ones get produced by the robot factories and exported to the rest of the world|.

 

My brain keeps insisting that "The Walls Have Eyes" does not naturally follow after "The Sky Inside", and the order of the titles should be reversed. Speaking of which, the title refers to a bunch of spy cameras some government robots are setting up on people's walls. 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for threats of violence.

3 stars. Less cloney than the last one, but the parents bit leaves something to be desired.

Oh, and here's a picture of Mettaton NEO, Spamton NEO's counterpart from Undertale. He doesn't show up in the book, nor do I imagine anybody as him, but I had a picture of Spamton NEO last post so I decided I should complete the set.

Mettaton NEO.

(Endnote: Are you tired of using the same two senses to spy on your dystopian subjects? Walls with eyes and ears just not cutting it any more? Have we got the thing for you! Introducing the SpySniffer: the Nose Your Wall Could Smell With.)

"The Sky Inside" by Clare B. Dunkle

A boy and his (robot) dog. In a dystopia.

The boy is mad about getting a robot dog, because he thinks robot dogs are for little kids. Then a product recall notice is issued on all the kids under the age of like 10 (not for anything they have, for the kids themselves); shortly thereafter, an incredibly shady guy shows up and declares that he's taking the kids to a special school where they'll be cared for.

Plot twist: |the incredibly shady guy is doing exactly what he says he's doing. He's actually a good guy who's taking the kids to safety before the evil government can get at them and, uh, kill them or something|.

The main character |doesn't know that, however|, so he leaves the dystopia and goes on an epic quest to find the quote-unquote "school" the kids were taken to. With his shapeshifting robot dog, who also has an inexplicably high security clearance.

There are a few plot details left hanging in this one, most notably "Could we maybe do something about this dystopia hanging over our heads?" and "Where the nouns did the dog get its security clearance?" Those do get explained in the sequel, though, so the book's rating won't get tanked because it didn't explain a bunch of stuff.

(Side note: My brain refused to picture the incredibly shady guy, named "Motley" because that's what he wears, as anyone other than the boss Spamton NEO from the video game Deltarune. He looks like this.)

Spamton NEO.

There are also a lot of not-really-elaborated-upon lore details that the book mentions as almost an afterthought. Some people don't like those, but I honestly don't mind them; the main character wouldn't really think to explain them because he's lived with them his entire life, and they're mostly there for flavor. Except when they set up stuff later in the story.

The title refers to the fact that the suburbian dystopia is housed in giant domes that display an artificial sky, in order to protect the people inside from the apocalyptic outside world (which, in a plot twist so incredibly unoriginal it's no longer even a plot twist, is actually perfectly fine). When the main character leaves the giant domes and goes into the actual world, he gets a sunburn (having never been exposed to actual sunlight) and freaks out because he thinks the sky is trying to kill him.

Speaking of unoriginal plot twists, |Motley/Spamton lying about taking the kids to a school would have been one. We pretty much expect the agents of the dystopian government to be lying when they say stuff like that, so when they aren't is when we're like "Wait, what?"|

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for veiled sexual references (the main character being told that having them genetically engineered and delivered to you is not, in fact, the only way to make a baby).

3 stars. It's a good example of what it is, and what it is is a depressing corporate dystopia and somewhat of a clone of The Giver.

(Endnote: At first, I misread the author's name as "Clark." It's not.)