Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire

Sequel to Every Heart a Doorway. There's also a prequel, but since the first book already told me exactly what happened in it I haven't read it.

Despite avoiding the worst flaw of Every Heart A Doorway (focusing on a terrible murder mystery rather than on the concept of "school for returned portal adventurers") and instead actually focusing on the concept, Beneath the Sugar Sky is nevertheless extremely similar to the first book: pretty language, fun concepts, sledgehammer preachiness on worthy issues, one-dimensional characters, one-dimensional portal worlds.

One of my big problems with EHaD was that the portal worlds mostly summed up as "Everything is [X]." Everything is skeletons, everything is candy, everything is bugs. This... well... bugged me as most portal worlds in literature are not actually "everything is X." Oz does have lands where everything is candy/china/glass/etc, but Oz as a whole is partly a huge patchwork of many such lands and partly made of lands that don't fit that one-note mold. "Everything is X" is more a hallmark of allegory and thought experiment than portal fantasy: Flatland rather than Narnia.

That being said, I am currently reading a fantasy series by Adrian Tchaikovsky, "Shadows of the Apt," which really is "everything is bugs." But it's so detailed and thought-out that the overwhelming bugness becomes charming and believable rather than one-note. I was hoping for something like this in Beneath a Sugar Sky, in which the characters travel to Confection, where everything is candy. I didn't quite get it. Everything is candy, all right: a sea of soda, a farm of candy corn, a sword of sugar. But there's nothing much beyond that, and the whole book feels thin and stretched as a strand of taffy.

If you loved Every Heart A Doorway, you will love this. If you didn't, you will probably feel the same way about this.

Fantastic ebook deals

Via yhlee, an amazing sale on science fiction, fantasy, and related ebooks. https://theportalist.com/may-sff-sale. All books at 99 cents or $1.99! There's four pages of deals at all vendors; page down to bottom and click on "more deals" to get them all. It's mostly from the 70s and 80s; I have a lot of the books in paper, but bought the ebooks now, both for convenience and to give the authors some money, considering that in many cases I've read the books multiple times and may have bought them used in the first place.

A few of note:

The Road to Middle-earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology, by Tom Shippey. I loved his other book on Tolkien, Author of the Century; it was genuinely eye-opening and thought-provoking. I've been meaning to read this for ages.

Caught in Crystal, by Patricia Wrede. A charming standalone fantasy with a rickety plot but great characters and intriguing worldbuilding. As a young woman, Kayl was an adventurer in a group of four girls; now she's a middle-aged mom and innkeeper when adventure comes knocking at her door again. The only fantasy novel I've ever read where the mom is the one on a quest, and takes her kids with her. (Spoiler: nothing bad happens to her kids.)

Dragonsbane, by Barbara Hambly. A middle-aged couple with kids (she's a witch, he's a scholar) who once slew a dragon are called out of retirement to face another. (They don't take their kids). Really great characterization, a terrific love story, and a set of difficult and poignant dilemmas. This is a standalone with an extremely satisfying ending. It acquired sequels many years later that are dreadful; avoid them. Other Hambly books are also on sale. I like her fantasy a lot and enjoyed everything currently on sale.

Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler. A bunch of Butler's books are on sale, but I especially like this one. It's connected to some other books but is effectively a standalone set in Africa. Two immortal mutants, a woman who can take any shape and a man who jumps into another's body when he dies, are locked into a slow duel over a period of centuries. It's vivid and has great characters and a great setting, and wrestles with difficult choices in an interesting way. It has darkness and tragedy, but I wouldn't call it grimdark.

Lens of the World (Lens of the World Trilogy Book 1), by R. A. MacAvoy. The whole trilogy is on sale, but it's not a conventional fantasy trilogy, more the story of a life told in three parts. A really unusual, original work that deals with gender, sexual orientation, and how we perceive and construct reality; also involves martial arts, sea serpents, lens crafting, and a dog or possibly wolf that might be real or a ghost or a god or a hallucination or an aspect of the protagonist or something else entirely. I was glad to have the chance to funnel some money to MacAvoy because I think I originally bought all her books used, and I've re-read them often.

What all do you notice that's worth checking out (or worth avoiding?)