Goran Lowie
I wanted to love this, I really did. And I did for the first half– what a wonderful, gentle character-focused work about a THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON-esque kind leader who truly means to do good in the world. Politics, culture, identity, revolution, all interwoven in a very satisfying story of kidness and slice-of-life nothingness.
Unfortunately, it became too much nothingness. Our Kip here is so accomplished that there seems to be no real conflict or character development left to be done. The plot also, unfortunately, keeps getting more and more repetitive as it goes on– constantly Kip needs to remind people who he is in a grandiose speech, or gets upset at someone offending him and explains why in a very detailed manner, or explains to his family why he feels wronged by them, and we're reminded at all times of how amazing and clever he is. This also has one of my least favourite tropes, one I first acquired a distaste for as a kid in the prehistorical EARTH'S CHILDREN series, where the protagonist seems to invent and fix a great many important things that it just seems completely unrealistic.
I still enjoyed reading it, but was saddened to almost hate it by the end. I'd still like to give the rest of the series a try, because THE BONE HARP was truly something else, but it's with some reservations I now intend to try the others.
Some brilliant worldbuilding and character work. I was especially enthralled by the gullaime and hope to see it explored more in further instalments. Big recommend to fans of naval fantasy- this is something unique!
At some point this night I decided I'd try the r/fantasy bingo again, after getting about halfway through last year (or was it 2 years ago?). For starters, I read this one for the “Books about books” square, with “No library” hard mode.
It's a good book. It reads like a modern fairytale, but not in the way books like Patricia McKillip are (which feel out of time, ancient, “true” fairytales), instead decidedly modern and aimed at adults. It has an interesting narrative structure, an almost effortless sense of worldbuilding and charming characters.
You won't necessarily find anything new in this book. It takes some existing tropes and brings them together wonderfully. Definitely worth a read!
What a fascinating little book!
This is an atypical Clarke with a stronger-than-usual focus on story and characters. THE SANDS OF MARS reads like a non-fiction travelogue/part of a memoire of Martian pioneers. There's a lot of stuff on terraforming, Martian colonies and space trips. It feels more like Verne than Clarke, an often banal story that suddenly gets the usual Clarkian reveals and highlights.
It's a fun story where you can easily relate to the protagonist. The pacing and the way the story is told is quite well done- what starts as a travelogue turns into an adventure novel and then a full-on mystery. Would recommend to all fans of early golden age sci-fi!
3.5 stars.
“It's red versus red
And blue versus blue
It's I against I
And me against you
Violets are blue, roses are red
Living like this we were already dead”
Very well written and a nice take on the parallel universes trope, but not without its flaws storywise.
Feels more didactic than THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, a mostly fine work calling attention to schools like the Dozier School for Boys and the Canadian Indian residential schools where thousands of graves have been discovered the past few years. It's mostly a tale of perseverance, though it never manages to feel more like a history lesson. Certainly less “literary” than his other Pulitzer book.
Solid little novella but didn't exactly wow me. Wasn't a big fan of the chatty/playful/woke/cheeky/whatever writing (seemed too forced) & ultimately I feel like it just kind of fizzled out, not really doing anything with the BDO. I started disliking this book about halfway through, mainly because of the protagonist's actions. But it was still a pretty cool story, I guess.
This is an interesting take on colonialist first contact that feels like a more optimistic version of the Xenogenesis series. It tries to juggle quite a few current hot topics but never goes beyond the surface level. Part of me loves it, but at the same time I'm a bit disappointed because it feels rushed and incomplete. Nearing the end, it was clear the author still had a lot to say, but suddenly she really felt the need to wrap up and that was that.
It's still a very enjoyable read bound to resonate with a lot of people.
Quick, fun and cute book about a non-binary kid getting kicked out by their parents after coming out and going to live with their sister, coming to terms with their identity. A bit too YA at times but I bet some enby kids really loved this!
There is something about these books I really love. In some ways they're simple fun, an exciting gangster story with lots of big, dramatic moments. Yet there are complex themes of big societal change happening in real, difficult ways. The characters feel real and flawed. The worldbuilding sometimes feels a bit forced (too many times, just like in the first book, some concept is mentioned and then explained in detail), but often works wonderfully. Very eager to start the final book!
Absolutely wonderful! I didn't entirely know what to expect going in, and this was definitely not like the normal Lady Trent books, but I loved it all the same.
One of the things I liked about it the most is how it manages to handle a fair deal more topics than the other books, dealing with feminism (which we saw plenty of in the main series), racism (or more specifically in this, species-ism I guess), humanism, the importance of science, the importance of being willing to change your mind, the nature of science being ever-changing (nothing is set in “stone”), empathy, and a call for ambition in your life, a call for doing what YOU want to do, a call for passion.
All this, and it doesn't even feature a single dragon! I highly recommend this for fans of the Lady Trent series, but be warned I suppose that this one is more linguistic, less action-packed, and severely less dragon-focused.
Typical Chambers, loved it. Can't wait to explore more of this world. Hopefully this will go the Murderbot route with lots of sequels and potential full-length novels. That will depend on how succesful this series becomes, I suppose!
Read this while going through Herzog's filmography this month (vaguely up until the endpoint of this book). Interesting read!
Been a while since an audiobook did the trick for me (they always take so long compared to normal reading) but this one worked for me. Helped that it was a full cast audio production with soundtrack and sound effects. Listened to the entire book while dungeon crawling in VR, which was the perfect combination with a sword and sorcery book like this.
Fantastic book! There should be more arctic horror. If you like The Thing, At The Mountains of Madness, historical horror, or historical fiction... a must-read.
There are so many things in this book that I love.
- The fetishization of Europe by Americans (and the reality of it)
- Struggling with your sexuality
- An intense love
- A failed love
- Beautiful, poetic writing
- ...
I want to write a review and make a bigger list and tell you all the things I loved about it, but I don't think I'd do the book justice. Just read it!
Finally, after all these years, I've finished the books that came to define my late teens and early twenties– heavily influencing me with its themes and philosophy. With Firelight, it feels like a true epilogue of Earthsea. Finally we get another story from the perspective of Ged, and it's a send-off that feels befitting the likes of him.
I could've read 500 pages of this. Feels like a modern Planet of Exile.
EDIT: in fact, it feels like a Hainish Cycle/Ursula K. Le Guin book in general– short-ish, yet still packing a lot of worldbuilding/story in such few pages, and telling a vivid story about humanity and the universe.
An atypical slice of life a out people who don't fit into society, and how society treats them... A very Herzogian story.
Apparently this is the first Dutch book to ever win an International Booker prize. I read it in Dutch, but I'm guessing the translation is pretty good if it managed to win an award. Figured I had to read it now!
It was Marieke's debut. They had written some poetry before, but that's about it. I think you can definitely see their poetic past in this. In the end, I liked it mostly, even if it ended up feeling a bit too one-dimensional.