In the British military, Sunray was the radio code (technically the Appointment Title) used to refer to the boss -- the OC or unit leader. The second-in-command is Sunray Minor; if clarification is needed, the first-in-command maybe referred to as Sunray Major.
Sunray is complimented by Moonbeam, the Chief of Staff. While the titles were not especially sky-themed, they also included Starlight for medical, and Skypilot for…
Piranesi
by Susanna Clarke
2020, Bloomsbury
Piranesi is a fantasy novel of the literary bent, by the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. This novel has much the same overall tone, although it has a very different setting.
Piranesi lives in a strange dreamlike world, a world consisting entire of an endless house -- or possibly temple -- surrounded by and partially submerged in…
I can't add much to the writeups above. However, I feel that I should chime in with additional positive review, simply because I generally don't much want to read a dark, violent, gothic, science fantasy novel. A ghost in space is not generally attractive, and a skeleton army in space is just dumb. The adjectives used in the book jacket blurbs are uninspiring -- 'pulpy', 'heart-poundingly epic', 'sharp as a broken tooth, 'goofy and gleaming' -- basically no one knows what to say about it, and most…
I really was not sure I was going to like this book. Of late I have been deep in a pit of historical fiction, so deep that I had pretty much forgotten that I like other genres. But a chance encounter with an author on Twitter nudged me to buy a series of fantasy novels, which I enjoyed, and then when I recommended them to a friend, she recommended Gideon the Ninth in kind.
“Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted castle in Space” she said, quoting the review on the cover. I…