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    Taste of Marrow
    Taste of Marrow
    Taste of Marrow
    Audiobook4 hours

    Taste of Marrow

    Written by Sarah Gailey

    Narrated by Peter Berkrot

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A few months ago, Winslow Houndstooth put together the damnedest crew of outlaws, assassins, cons, and saboteurs on either side of the Harriet for a history-changing caper. Together they conspired to blow the dam that choked the Mississippi and funnel the hordes of feral hippos contained within downriver, to finally give America back its greatest waterway.

    Songs are sung of their exploits, many with a haunting refrain: "And not a soul escaped alive."

    In the aftermath of the Harriet catastrophe, that crew has scattered to the winds. Some hunt the missing lovers they refuse to believe have died. Others band together to protect a precious infant and a peaceful future. All of them struggle with who they've become after a long life of theft, murder, deception, and general disinterest in the strictures of the law.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateSep 12, 2017
    ISBN9781541482470
    Taste of Marrow
    Author

    Sarah Gailey

    Sarah Gailey is an internationally published writer of fiction and nonfiction and a winner of the Hugo Award. Their nonfiction has been published by Mashable and The Boston Globe, and they are a regular contributor for Tor. Their most recent fiction credits include Fireside Fiction and Uncanny Magazine. Find out more at SarahGailey.com and find them on Twitter @GaileyFrey.

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    Reviews for Taste of Marrow

    4/5

    153 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I think the highest praise I can give is that there are 4 main characters and I can't decide who is my favourite because I care about all of them way too much.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Irgendwie gefiel mir Band 2 besser noch als der erste Teil.
    • 5/5
      I only listened to this book because Scribd recommended it, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The world the author creates is absolutely delightful, if a bit dark at times, and the characters are equally so.
    • 2/5
      The saga continues from River of Teeth with Houndstooth and Archie trying to find their lost loves while Adelia and Hero pursue the kidnappers of baby Ysabel. This novella falls into a more “normal” story pattern with the alternate history as a support detail more than the central focus, as in the earlier novella. The novelty of referring to Hero as “they/them” has palled. This bizarre use of plural pronouns for a singular person is now annoying. I don’t care if Hero is male or female or if Houndstooth is gay, straight, or bi. Make a statement regarding gender and get on with the story. Continuing with they/them pronouns when referring to one character is no longer new; it’s just a jarring interruption in the flow as I have to stop and determine if it’s Hero or Hero and someone else.
    • 3/5
      science fiction with nonbinary gendered protagonist and diverse cast.
      the first part was better, even with the somewhat unresolved ending. The second book felt like an anticlimax, but was still decently exciting (lots of feral hippos).
    • 4/5
      The events of River of Teeth have left repercussions. Not least of which are the feral hippos! but also the Houndstooth outfit1 have been separated, those of them2 that survived the Harriet disaster that is. Houndstooth himself is driven to find Hero, obsessed even. He thinks of little else and cares for nothing else. This is not a good way to be.

      I really enjoyed the first book, but I think that they shouldn’t have been split into two novellas. The whole story would have worked much better if the reader could read straight through. As it is I had to spend time at the beginning re-sorting out everybody in my head. And I didn’t even read the first one that long ago.

      Also the plot here is looser not as action packed. It felt a little stretched in places, whereas if this had all been the one book then maybe it could have been tighter and quicker paced?

      However, I still really enjoyed it. Less hippo action than before, but more character interaction. Plus we got more Adelia, and she’s pretty awesome. I really liked the way these characters are dealing with the fact that they as people are changing. People often do throughout their lives. Some of these were changes are happening simply because characters/people adapt and change as they age, others are driven by events in the books.

      I really like Gailey’s style of writing, and the fact that her characters are diverse without feeling forced, or even worse, like box-ticking. They are characters, and like people in real life, characters come in all shapes and sizes. Two thumbs up.

      But it really isn’t as good as the first. That being said, the first was pretty damn good, and not many books are that entertaining, so it was a high standard to live up to. I’ll certainly read more by her, but if you haven’t tried her yet then I think that the two stories that make up are going to be released as one, called American Hippo, I think they should have done that from the start.
    • 5/5
      Swamp cowboys on hippo mounts volume 2, the queer love story continues. No, really. That should be an alternate title. I would read that book. I did read that book, and I loved it. I feel exactly the same about this book as the first one, I'm disappointed that there wasn't more.
    • 5/5
      Taste of Marrow continues the story of the hop riders (hippo riders) and the plot twists, characters, and feral hippos is an amazing story line! I think this series is great!
    • 3/5
      “And not a soul escaped alive, and not a soul escaped alive, hi-ho hop-whoa! And everybody died.”Not everybody, asshole, she thought tartly.The devastation may have been severe, but our ragtag bunch of hoppers did, in fact, survive despite the songs now sung about the Harriet catastrophe. The only problem is, they’ve been split up and remain uncertain about who survived and where they could possibly be. Houndstooth and Adelia remain together and are both searching for lost loves. Archie and Hero have remained together despite Archie’s attempt on Hero’s life. But the explosion at the Harriet changed much more than the situation of the hippo population, it changed the surviving individuals too and their emotional advancement is the primary focus in Taste of Marrow.‘Alone and lonely ain’t the same thing at all,’ Hero said, shaking their head.”Taste of Marrow certainly lacked the focus of its predecessor, since its focus was on a group of individuals that had lost their own focus in life. Emotions were all over the place and it often felt like a bit of a scatterbrained read. The heart of this alternate history, the hippo population, took a bit of a back seat to focus more on the hoppers themselves. Also missing was the excitement of the caper/operation. While I felt this was definitely lacking when compared to River of Teeth, it still had its own individual charm and was a satisfying conclusion to the stories of these colorful individuals. Sarah Gailey is definitely one to keep an eye out for.
    • 4/5
      Taste of Marrow is the sequel to Sarah Gailey’s gloriously hippo filled alternate history romp, River of Teeth. While Taste of Marrow has it’s own plot line, it builds on the back of the first novella, so I suggest you pick up River of Teeth before submerging yourself into this one.Also, spoilers for the first novella are pretty much unavoidable for the rest of the review. Read at your own caution.A couple months ago, Winslow Houndstooth and his crew blew open a dam on the Mississippi river and let feral hippos into the Gulf. Now the crew has fractured. Winslow has become obsessed with finding his lover Hero, whom he refuses to believe is dead. Only Archie’s presence reminds him to do trivial things like eating and bathing. Meanwhile, Hero is with Adelia, who may have stabbed them but left them to live. Hero still doesn’t know why, and they are about to tell Adelia it’s time for them to go, when Adelia’s newborn baby is kidnapped. Someone wants Adelia, the famous assassin, to come out of retirement, and he won’t take no for an answer. Oh, and of course there’s all those pesky ferals who are now roaming the Gulf, eating people at will.This world Sarah Gailey’s created is just so massively fun. She never ceases to leave me with a huge grin on my face. Fantasy and science fiction often have monsters dwelling on the edge of the page, waiting to come onto the scene and wreck havoc. Think White Walkers or any zombie novel. That’s the sort of treatment Gailey gives her feral hippos. Is that ripple in the water only a fish… or is it something else? It’s just so wild and wonderful that it can’t help cheer my spirits.I actually enjoyed this one even more than the first book. At times, I found the plot of River of Teeth a bit obtuse, but Taste of Marrow was more easily comprehensible. Plus, I always love stories about a badass woman coming out of retirement for one last job. They get me every time. I also liked the comparison between Hero and Adelia and how both find themselves lonely and tired of their deadly occupations.I love both Houndtooth and Archie’s character, but their story lines this installment weren’t as interesting as Adelia and Hero’s. I also liked the inclusion of a new, morally ambiguous female character who’s got her finger in all sorts of pies. This series is just so much fun. I hope there’s a third installment on the way!Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
    • 4/5
      The hippos are back! Our favorite alternative history series continues with book 2 which follows up River of Teeth. Yes, you do need to read the first book to know what is going on here. We pick up shortly after the last book as the characters deal with the fallout of that explosive ending. Expect more humor, action, adventure, and of course hippos with just enough of an open ending to give us hope for more stories to come!