Awakening

by Lindsay Smith, Max Gladstone, Cassandra Rose Clarke

The Cold War gets magical when spies brush shoulders with sorcerers in this genre-defying serial created by Lindsay Smith and Max Gladstone.  

This is the 1st episode in the second season of The Witch Who Came In From The Cold, a 13-episode serial from Serial Box Publishing. This episode written by Lindsay Smith.

The spies and sorcerers of Prague face hard questions and increased oversight in the wake of last season’s explosive events. On the Vltava, a Flame op goes up in literal flames when a mysterious interloper joins the fray.

Welcome to Prague, 1970: the epicenter in a Cold War of spies and sorcerers. The streets are a deadly chessboard on which the CIA and KGB make their moves, little dreaming that a deeper game is being played between the Consortium of Ice and the Acolytes of Flame, ancient factions of sorcery.

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Espionage, Fiction, Short Stories

Kindle Edition

First published February 8, 2017

About the author

Lindsay is the author of multiple novels for young adults, including Sekret and A Darkly Beating Heart, as well as the comic series Black Swan. She is the showrunner and lead writer for Serial Box's The Witch Who Came In From the Cold, a Publisher's Weekly Best Book of 2017. Her short stories and comics have appeared in the anthologies A Tyranny of Petticoats, Strange Romance Vol. 3, and Toil & Trouble and on Tor.com. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and dog.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

if I had begun this serialized novel at the beginning I bet I would have rated this higher than the 2.5 stars rounded up I gave it. the fact I was lost in plot and characters is on Me. this prose almost reads like an episodic television series, and with this taste I say if was was adapted to TV I would surely watch. as it is I promised myself one day to begin at the start and read this whole intriguing tale.

thank you to the publisher and netgalley for a copy of this title to review.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of the witch who came in from the cold series. This is season 2. I think it would be an easier read if I had read previous stories. Paranormal fantasy set in the Cold War era.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great mix of urban fantasy with the spying and double-crossed machinations (and all the fun that goes with it) of The Man from U.NC.LE.. I hadn't read the first series, but it doesn't take that long to get up to speed, so I wouldn't consider that an impediment for those unfamiliar with the story line. This installment has a particularly cinematic feel that I hope continues in the next episodes; a very good time.

I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Amy Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wondering when/if Josh will get pulled into either Ice or Flame. He's the only major POV character still out of the loop.

[Charles Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awakening is the first episode of the second 'season' of The Witch Who Came In From The Cold (TWWCIFTC for short).

Written by a collective of proven authors including Max Gladstone, Ian Tregillis and, as in the case of this episode, Lindsay Smith, TWWCIFTC is produced by Serial Box, who specialise in e-publishing serialised genre fiction. A new 'episode' of TWWCIFTC, in the form of a short story, is published as an e-book every week, with 20+ episodes forming a single season which follows one single overarching story.

After publishing the highly enjoyable Season 1 in 2016, Serial Box has now begun releasing TWWCIFTC Season 2. If you haven't read Season 1, which is available as a single volume e-book, then I would not recommend tackling Season 2 until you have. Awakening picks up straight where S1 left-off, and whilst it does provide a decent refresher for those already familiar with the story, newcomers will be left scratching their heads and unlikely to return for Episode 2.

Therefore this is very much one for fans of the previous season only. As someone who enjoyed TWWCIFTC first time out I enjoyed the return to Cold War Prague and the battle between Ice and Fire. Lindsay Smith does a good job of picking up the story where S1 left it and getting it moving again, whilst refreshing the reader's memory of who's who and what happened previously. It too early to say if Season 2 will manage to correct the previous Season's flaws, such as a central plot that tended to meander in circles and lacked a truly satisfying denoument. It will take a few more Episodes from different authors to see if this Season manages to remain more focused despite being the product of collective effort.

What Awakening does maintain is Season 1's sense of time and place, and the nice mix of Cold War spy thriller and urban-fantasy. The ability to mix those two genres was one of the key selling points of TWWCIFTC, and if Lindsay, Gladstone and others can continue to do that then it will be worth sticking with the series.

I received my copy of Awakening as a free pre-publication edition via NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. This review is also reproduced on Amazon

[Larou]

I rather enjoyed the first season of this interesting mash-up between paranormal Fantasy and spy novel, in spite of its somewhat annoying tendency to pull its punches every time anything even faintly resembling a big showdown or a major reveal came in sight. In consequence, we start into Season Two with dozens of dangling threads from the previous season and, quite unsurpringly, none are taken up in the season opener. Well, almost none, for we do meet an old acquaintance which we weren't really expecting to see again, at least not this soon.... but let's avoid spoilers.

Awakening sends Seasons Two off with an explosive opening, and - as has been a constant through all instalments of this series so far - is great fun, whetting the reader's appetite for more magic and espionage mayhem in 1970's Prague.

[Jeannette · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvelous start to the second "season" of "The Witch Who Came In From The Cold". Allies-by-circumstance are now looking at each other with suspicion for a variety of reasons. One being that there appears to be a third player in the magic game, competing with both the Ice and the Flame.