Author: Luther M. Siler

Teacher, writer of words, and local curmudgeon. Enthusiastically profane. Occasionally hostile.

#REVIEW: Of Mountains and Seas, by Emily Renk Hawthorne

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Let us take a moment to appreciate this cover, while I collect my thoughts, because I am about to write a review of this book and I’m still not 100% sure what I think of it. So I’ll start with the bit I’m most enthusiastic about, which is that if you’re going to buy this book, get the hardcover, because the paper and the cover feel absolutely amazing in the hand and it looks awesome and it’s somehow less than $10 on Amazon right now. Which … hell, less than $10 for this book may push me into enthusiastic recommendation regardless of whatever else I might think about it.

I was contacted by Emily Renk Hawthorne’s publicist and offered an advance copy of her forthcoming novel From the Depths. That book sounded up my alley, but I hadn’t read the first novel in the series yet, so she went ahead and sent me Of Mountains and Seas, with the idea that I’d read that first and then see if I wanted to read From the Depths as well. I sent a follow-up email at about the 3/4 mark of OM&S asking her to go ahead and pull the trigger on the second book. And this is the part where I want to stare at the screen for a bit, because my opinion on this book is genuinely mixed, but one way or another it’s definitely positive enough that I still want to read the sequel.

Let’s start positive: Of Mountains and Seas is a nicely complicated little novel, with multiple POVs stretched between 1932 or so and the near-present. Parts of the book are set in 1932, 1935, 1936, 1955, 1985, 1990 and 2000, with 2000 being the “now” of the book, and shut up, 2000 is so the “recent” past. There may be another couple of years sprinkled in here and there but that’s good enough for now. There are at least half-a-dozen POV characters, some of whom appear in multiple time periods and some of whom are young enough that we only really see them toward the end of the timeline. Some of them change their names partway through! It can be kinda rough if you’re not paying attention, to be honest. The main thrust of the story is that most of the characters are Shifters, shapeshifters who also possess other magical abilities, almost, but not quite, X-men style— all of them can change shape but some can manipulate rock or affect memories or various other things, and there are also a handful of magical tinctures and other objects as well. Where’s the book set? California, of course, so mostly in the real world. Shifters have their own government set up— indeed, one of the characters is running for office for part of the story— and take careful pains to avoid being noticed by the humans, who they call Statics.

Davis, one of the more important POV characters, is born to a Shifter family, but without powers. This leaves him as an exile within his own family. And then he discovers that special stones exist that will allow him to steal abilities from other Shifters, leaving them powerless (there are also special marks that can be etched into a Shifter’s skin to take away their powers, by the way) and temporarily transferring their powers to him. “Temporarily” can mean for decades or for a much shorter period of time, depending on how powerful the Shifter he stole from was and how often he uses the abilities. At any rate, that kicks off the story, as Davis goes on to make a whole lot of trouble with these stones. Oh, and he also finds a mine full of them.

On a story level, the book is pretty cool. I may actually reread it before I read the sequel; it’s fast, and there’s enough going on that I suspect I’ll need the refresher.

Unfortunately, Emily Renk Hawthorne is one of those writers who consistently violates Twain’s thirteenth rule of writing: Use the right word, not its second cousin. Opening the book to a random page, I see her use pretense when she means pretext. Opening to another, I see someone use the word apparently to describe someone losing a hand, which is not a word someone would use in this particular context. She definitely lost her hand! It’s not there! On the opposite page from that, we have a clunky bit of dialogue where someone reads a cop’s full name to them off of, specifically, their badge. First, you would not say “Thank you, Officer… Brad Smith,” because that’s not how people talk. Second, their badges don’t have full names. Police badges don’t have names at all, in fact! His name may be on his chest somewhere, but it’s almost certainly his rank and last name and maybe a first initial, and that’s gonna be it. There’s lots of stuff like this, lots of little violations of logic and words that are 90 degrees away from being the right word for the context. This will bother some of you more than others. It’s the same exact problem I have with Ryan Cahill, actually. And, interestingly, I begin a review of one of his books by praising the book for the exact same physical things I just praised Hawthorne’s about. I wonder if they used the same printer?

At any rate, this book could have used a bit more editing, so your enjoyment of it will depend directly upon how much the good story distracts you from the less-good writing. I went back and forth; I barely noticed any issues with the first half of the book, then there was one particular chapter that was riddled with problems, and after that I either got a lot more critical or the book got sloppier because I started noticing stuff all over the place. Again, I’m in for the sequel even if I end up having to buy it myself, I’m just hoping for a slightly stronger sophomore effort on the prose front.

#REVIEW: The Door on the Sea, by Caskey Russell

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I’ve not had any diversity-related reading goals for several years now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not constantly on the lookout for books by authors from underrepresented groups, so when The Door On The Sea was represented to me as “a Tlingit Lord of the Rings” I bought it damn near immediately. And, in the way of such things, it perhaps lingered on my Unread Shelf for too long— most books linger on my Unread Shelf for too long nowadays— but now that I’ve read it, I’ve pre-ordered the sequel, and it’ll be devoured quickly once it shows up.

Forget the Lord of the Rings comparison, by the way; the books have little in common other than being journey-focused and party-based fantasy, and Door mostly takes place in an outrigger canoe rather than on foot and horseback, and there’s a clearly identifiable main character instead of LOTR’s omniscient third person. There’s a shapeshifter and a foul-mouthed talking raven, though, and that’s cool.

The main character is Elān, a young Storyteller— basically a bard and a scholar— who is dispatched along with several warriors to recover a lost weapon belonging to an immensely dangerous invading enemy race called the Koosh, who are posing a threat to everything and everyone Elān knows. If you’re wondering why a bard might be put in charge of such a journey, don’t worry; Elān is too, and everyone constantly questions his leadership despite him ending up being fairly level-headed and good in a tight situation. Elān is the grandson of a legendary warrior and he secretly wishes to be a warrior himself, but the others on the journey with him constantly call him a Bookeater, which seems to more or less be warrior slang for “nerd” despite being an objectively badassed thing to be called. It’s not entirely clear what the Koosh are; sometimes they come off as basically orcs, but they may actually be from another dimension, and the one Koosh that gets some dialogue and page time turns out to be really fascinating. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes here, and I’m really looking forward to learning more about this world in future books. This isn’t exactly a YA novel, but there’s definitely some coming-of-age stuff going on with Elān and his youth and inexperience and, well, softness are an ongoing theme in the book.

Speaking of “a lot going on,” the book is told in the style of an oration around a campfire, and there are even some hints that the teller— probably not Elān, but who knows— knows that people on Earth in 2026 are reading the book. I can’t find the passage to quote it directly, but there’s a bit where the narrator refers to an animal by its indigenous name, then a brief aside something along the lines of “in your world, you’d call it a moon jellyfish,” which … well, I also don’t know what a moon jellyfish looks like, but whatever.

A quick word about the language in the book; you may have noticed that diacritical mark on Elān and wondered how it was pronounced, and unfortunately I have to tell you I haven’t the slightest idea. Russell doesn’t hold anyone’s hand with spelling, and there’s no pronunciation guide in the book. On top of that, there are diacritical marks in this book that I’ve never seen in any other context, and I feel like I probably have more experience with languages than a lot of people do. There’s a character named Snaak, for example, and yes, that K is underlined on purpose, and I don’t know why. Or, just to pick a couple more words, xaax’w or ax xoonx’iyán, which means silence-sharing friend, or Kusaxakwáan, which is the land of the cannibal giants. Yeah, there are cannibal giants. They may not be cannibals, though. There’s a whole thing. Word meanings are always clear from context, but man, I feel like the audiobook narrator might have gone through hell on this book, and I almost want to listen to it just to find out how to pronounce some of this stuff.

One way or another, though, big thumbs up. Check this one out.

Oops

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I wasn’t intending to skip posting for the second night in a row (Wednesday doesn’t count, that shit was funny) but I got home and fell asleep in a chair and that was it for the night. Good news, though: I successfully went to a full day of work for five straight days this week! Unbelievably, this is the first time this has happened in 2026. There are twenty-eight days of school left.

Also, Caskey Russell’s The Door on the Sea is really damn good and I should write a full review of it. Maybe tomorrow? We’ll see.

All right

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I’ve been sitting at my desk and idly websurfing for a good hour now and haven’t come up with anything that seems to really need saying, so I’m going to call it a night. I’ve got a book I was sent to review and I’d like to actually find a way to get into it tonight; we’ll see how that goes.

A real thing I was asked at work today

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“Mr. Siler, can you help me find vagina?”

I declined.

I will not be providing any further explanation.

I need an intervention

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Three Billy bookcases from Ikea showed up on my front porch today.(*) I’m not sure at the moment where the third is going. My wife said she had “bookshelf fatigue” a bit ago when I called her into the bedroom to ask for opinions. I don’t blame her; I have Me Fatigue, which is a close variant. I have Entirely Too Much Shit, and I keep acquiring more shit, and I looked at those filled bookshelves (which won’t look like that forever, as they’re going to be organized better sooner or later) and started musing about how my house burning down might solve some of my problems.

Not all of the books in the picture are mine, for the record. But enough of them are, and when you widen the scope to the whole house, I’m not exactly a hoarder, because I’m too organized for that, but Jesus, I have a damn problem.

Also, I need a second Spring Break where all I do is read. Like, 24/7, without breaking for food, bathroom, or sleep. Either that or I need All the Writers to take, like, a year off. I understand that writing is how they feed themselves but if everybody could just take a little hit on behalf of my mental health and the success of my marriage I’d appreciate it.

(*) Initial review is that at their price point they are excellent bookcases, which is basically what everyone I’ve ever heard mention them has said. We’ll see how well they hold up; that shelf on the far left is effectively made of cardboard and probably ought to go as soon as possible, so what might happen is I get rid of it, slide the other tall one down and stick the third Billy in between it and the two that are already on the wall. We’ll see.

Not tonight

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Tonight was actually a really nice first day back, but in the way of every First Day of School, I have a sore throat; spending all day projecting my voice after over a week of talking 1) normally and 2) much less can be kind of brutal. I also don’t have a ton to talk about, so I’m just going to vaguely wave hello in everyone’s direction and go read a book or something.

(Actually, quick question: anyone familiar with Sentrel Bath Systems? If you are, mind dropping your thoughts on the product into comments?)

#REVIEW: Macbook Neo (2026)

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I’m not going to pretend to have super unique insights here, but I figure if anyone is in the market for a new laptop, hearing from an actual person and not a tech website might come in handy. Honestly, the biggest question for me is what color the Citrus version of the MacBook Neo actually is. I’ve been thinking of it as green, but I’ve heard people call it yellow? So naturally my picture of it is directly underneath a red monitor which is throwing the color balance all off. One way or another, the Citrus color is really pretty and it’s not picking up fingerprints or anything annoying like that.

At any rate: I went with the slightly more expensive version of the laptop, with twice the storage space and a touchID button for an extra $100. I mostly need the extra storage space for my music collection, which mostly lives in the cloud right now anyway, but $100 for an extra 256 GB isn’t bad one way or another. I’d say unless you have a reason to upgrade you probably don’t need to, but either way you’re getting a deal.

Here’s what I use a laptop for: web surfing, watching videos, writing, lesson planning, listening to music. Any video editing is going to be done on my (much more powerful) desktop, and the main reason I went back to a laptop is that the iPad I bought a while ago actually proved to be too big for, well, lap use. At 13″ this is the perfect size to balance on one knee in one of my comfortable chairs while I write, which I couldn’t do with an iPad even with a more laptop-style case on it.

And here’s the verdict: buy one if you think you want one. There are a couple of shortcuts taken to get this thing down to $600 or $700 for the higher capacity version: the touchpad is physical, so you will actually be clicking on things rather than Haptic Touch feedback, and it charges via USB-C and not MagSafe. It comes with a nice, braided USB-C cable– at some point, I’m not sure exactly when, Apple decided to upgrade their cables so they aren’t breaking off at the plug-in point any longer, which is awesome. I don’t love the touchpad but it’s fine, and the Neo battery lasts long enough that I can’t really pretend that the port to charge it is a big deal. I’m recharging it right now for, like, the second time since I’ve bought it. The keyboard is snappy and responsive– I type fast, so keyboards are important to me, and this one passes all of my tests– and the monitor is bright and clear.

It’s not the fastest laptop in the world, of course; it takes a little longer to start up than my desktop, but once it’s running, again, my computing needs aren’t currently anything that are going to challenge it so it’s fine. If you’re doing something complicated with your computer– or, if, in other words, you need to worry about how fast it runs– it might not be the best one for you. It’s not slow, by any means, it’s just not touching the Speed Force like some of my other devices. But the fact of the matter is I interact with my computing devices mostly as a writer and not as, say, a programmer or a gamer or a multimedia person. Lesson planning doesn’t exactly tax the CPU either, y’know?

It goes without saying that the build quality is solid as hell; it may be a budget Mac item but it’s still from Apple. It does not in any way feel cheap.

So, yeah: if you think you’re the target audience for a $600 MacBook? Go forth without fear. I’m happy I picked this little computer up, and I’ll likely be using it for quite a while.