Valerie
This was a pretty fun book overally, though maybe not to my taste. The literary references are by far the most enjoyable part, and you can tell it's written by a book lover, for book lovers. It's a fun homage for Sherlock Holmes fans in particular. The action gets a little non-sensical at times (why would anyone use cyborg alligators for a land attack? Why? There are so many better predators for a land-based attack!), but it's a solid as a popcorn adventure romp.
I grabbed this one off the shelf because I was on my way to Comic Con and I wanted a lightweight paperback to read in and out of various queues. I first read it at least 10 years ago, and I've been a Harlan Ellison fan ever since. The way he weaves a story in a very limited number of pages is mystifying, and it's easy to see why he remains a king of SFF short stories.
The only story that really stuck with me through the years is the title one. I remember being absolutely terrified the first time, and the added years of personal experience coupled with acceleration in the field of artificial intelligence make this story relevant even long after the Cold War that inspired it. While I have mixed feelings on the way women are treated in this story and others (misogynist characters to don't make a misogynist writer, but they are deeply troubling), I think their core stands the test of time.
A common theme in this collection is death and what happens after. From the deathless prisoners in the title story, to the afterlife challenge of “Delusions of a Dragon Slayer” to the tragic tale of Maggie Moneyeyes and the men who follow her, each story shows Ellison approaching the idea of death from a different angle, no two interpretations alike. It's a remarkable degree of variation on one of the oldest themes in literature.
I've been away from Ellison for a while, but rereading this collection makes me want to dig out a few more. Summer means lots of quick trips where a good short story is the brain's best friend.
Clarke's work is fascinating both in his philosophy and his accessible style. I was most intrigued by the Utopia created by the Overlords' arrival on Earth. At first, it clashed with everything I know about my own species. Then, when I set all my what if's aside, I started to wonder if we were not closing in on this space ourselves. As a person who already finds most of her waking hours devoted to leisure, devoted to consumption, I was terrified at the idea that that might be it for an adult like me who can't evolve any further. The book seems at once pessimistic in our human limits, yet optimistic in what we might mean to that great beyond. It's not the kind of book I can write a one paragraph blurb on, but it's one that has further stimulated questions I will seek to answer in my own writing from this sentence on.
I read this book for my book club, which always prides itself on choosing SFF books from a wide range of publication dates. This month, we went back to some 80s high fantasy, and it was ... fine. In the book club, people were taking about how books are all essentially “dated” because they are written for the audience of that time, and I definitely see the point. Magician is pretty well written, but also not written for me. It's male-centric and euro-centric, the protagonist is an orphan boy with a great power he doesn't understand, it liberally uses Tolkien-esque conceptions of elves and dwarves and has evil foreigners who show up and must be kept out. The few women in the story are all extremely beautiful (even when the put on PANTS!) and exist mostly for decor. It gets compared a lot to the Belgariad, but the Belgariad had much cooler female characters.
It's also only half a book. In the US, apparently they chopped one book into two to make publication easier (Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master), but the chopping point is abrupt and apparently arbitrary. I know it feels like half a book because it is half a book, but honestly a better ending was about a hundred pages earlier when the protagonist essentially disappears from the story. Not a good move, US publishing.
That said, it is well-written and has some unique things about it (parallel dimensions in high fantasy!), but overall, I'm kind of glad it was chopped into 2 books because I don't feel obligated to read the second one. It gets a “fine” on my list.
Cary Elwes is still so dreamy.
This is a nice little retrospective on the production and history of one of my all time favorite films. Their are a few stories I'd never heard before and commentary from pretty much all the living cast members. At times, the attempts to reference the quotable lines are a little stilted as are the references to other fandoms (I don't know any Star Wars fans who refer to themselves as Star Warriors or Wookiepedias) but the stories still stand. For Princess Bride fans, it's definitely worth a read. For non-Princess Bride fans, what's wrong with you?
Well, one good part about social distancing is I have time to read epic fantasy again. The Poppy War was one of the best books of 2018. I'm glad to see the Dragon Republic staying on track. It's still brutal (it's even more of a war story than the first novel) and Rin can be frustrating sometimes, but she grows in a way that is satisfying and even inspiring. Kuang is masterful in the art of creating no good choices. Every time you think things are bad, they will get work. Not the happiest read, and not for anyone with physical/sexual violence triggers, but you know, I'm not in a happy place right now, so this worked for me. If you liked the Poppy War, you should continue the series. If you were meh on the Poppy War, know that this book doubles down on the pain.
I put off reading this book for a really long time. I wanted to finish the OMW series, but honestly I liked each book a little less than the previous one, and seeing as this one was a retelling of my not so favorite installment told in the first person from the perspective of a teenage girl, a Chosen One teenage girl no less, I didn't think it would be my favorite in the series.
It's my favorite in the series.
Scalzi pulls off Zoe's voice with a skill I honestly didn't know he had in him. I think the fact that our narrator is a teenage girl and thus does a lot of internal monologuing helps limit his tendency to over-speech tag that that usually gets on my nerves. Zoe's Tale cleans up a lot of dangling plot points from Last Colony and adds an extremely different perspective on the events we do see. Scalzi has used Zoe as a tool and a plot point in this series as much as the Obin do, and this volume really gave her a chance to become a real character.
The real reason I'm giving this book a five though is that it dragged my emotions in every way possible. Maybe it's just that I'm having a rough week and kinda ready to cry on a dime, but I cried twice in this book during events that didn't make me bat an eyelash on Last Colony. The funny bits were hilarious, the sad bits were gut-wrenching, and the exciting bits were heart-pumping. There were some notable moments of cheese (Singing...? Really...?) but I have a deep abiding love of cheese, so I'll let that go.
If Last Colony disappointed you, definitely give Zoe's Tale a chance to make up for it. It is well worth your time.
At first I wasn't sure how this had not made as big a splash as Cloud Atlas. Mitchell is a very skilled writer, and in this spiraling series of interconnected narratives, he does an incredible job crafting voices and characters, and enjoyed it so much. However, I think the further the timeline stretched into the future, the less I enjoyed it. It's dangerous writing a novel in 2015 and making predictions for 2025. The ending too was a little too hand wavy, and I found it pretty hard to believe Hugo Lamb's motivations. That said, the writing is so good, I still enjoyed this one and am glad that I finally got around to it.
I'm a huge fan of the Expanse series, but this is the first time I've read Daniel Abraham's work outside of his co-writing. I'm happy to say that the sense of scale and depth of characters is as strong in this fantasy setting as it is in space. Abraham is a master of writing complicated characters with complicated relationships, and it shows. It's also a magic system that I've never seen done before. My only quibble is that the world-building as a whole seems so directly pulled from Japanese history as to feel a bit appropriation-y. It's not offensive (at least not to the white woman writing this), but I'd be curious to here what a Japanese person thinks of it. On the whole, I enjoyed it and plan to continue the series.
Having finished all four volumes in this section of the Urth Saga now, I'm ... well, I'm still very confused, but in a good way. I'm just going to lock everything here under spoilers because I don't think I can talk about it without spoiling something.
I listened to an old podcast discussing this series which said that the enjoyment came not from any depth of character development or action in the plot, but from unravelling the puzzle of the world. I don't think I can say it any better. Wolfe has this sprawling fantasy setting with dozens of little science fiction clues in every chapter. I'm sure I caught less than half of them. I don't know where the line between magic and science is, which is likely the whole point.Things I think I enjoyed and maybe even understand: * I love how Severian becomes this Autarch and we then realize that these multiple presences have been influencing the telling all along. Somewhere in the fourth book, the voice shifts and its one of the biggest reveals in the story. The falling action of the fourth book was one of the most engaging pieces for me as I fit this new narrator into the scheme of the whole.*I like that Severian grows up a bit, and now I'm convinced that the apparent sexism of the first half is that of the character, not the author. By the end, Severian is no longer sleeping with every woman that comes his way (though he still does appraise and compare each one to all those who've come before), but he also spends a lot of time clarifying the women in his life, figuring out what drew him to people, what is missing in his own life. At least, I didn't get so distracted by his obsession with round thighs this book. *Dr. Talos may be my favorite character, and I like that he made it into his own role at the end. He's a sort of chaotic neutral force in the story, and I enjoy listening to him talk. I don't quite understand Baldanders or his relationship with the undines, but Dr. Talos is that survivor trickster who is always my favorite archetype.*The use of time is emphasized though never clarified, and leaves dozens of theories for readers to play with (and judging from the internet, they have). This would really fall into things I like but don't honestly understand. From the jungle room in the Botanic Guardens to the Last House, its clear that this universe is thin and overlapping, and the uncertainty this places on the reader always keeps you guessing. I love the Heirodules as these strange others, and I like seeing Master Malrubius and Triskele appear to guide Severian on his way. I am a sucker for a good dog story where the dog doesn't die, okay?Things I probably need to re-read to understand: *Abaius, Erebus, and the Undines. Nope. No idea.*Who is Valeria? Why is her time/universe so important? I assume I need to keep reading to learn this.*What is the Claw? Severian posits several theories and ends up not choosing any of them. Perhaps its a combination, a magic (or tech/genetically-altered plant sufficiently advanced so as to appear magic) object that channels Severian's natural gifts for time-warping.*Is Severian his own grandpa? Not literally, but what if Ouen is Dorcas' son and also looks like Severian... does that mean Dorcas was Severian's mother or that she had his son in a different time or that she and Ouen have Severian or... incestuous time-travel paradox ack! That's the worst kind of paradox. *Why does Agia let Severian live? I like that she took over for Vodalus as that symbol of not-so-noble revolution as it suits her perfectly, but I can't quite figure out why she doesn't kill him all the time. Maybe the Green Man informed her of something... don't know.*How does that Jonas/Miles situation work? I miss Jonas.
All said and done, though, the things I didn't understand just made me want to try harder to be a better reader. It's true that the quality of this book is in the puzzle and active readership it can't help but bring out. Wolfe is a master of slow reveals and epic time twists, and I would recommend this series if you A) have time to take on a few thousand pages and B) want to spend that time moving over those pages with a fine tooth comb.
I had very mixed feelings about this book. At the beginning, I loved it. I'm a little sad that I went into already knowing the sci-fi background to this fantastic world. I can only imagine how mind-blowing it must be once the pieces start coming together on their own but even still it was so much fun watching the slow reveal. Really, I enjoyed Shadow of the Torturer a lot for both the vivid language and the slow-burn of the puzzle. It's so full of mysteries that I enjoyed solving or not solving as they came along.
Sometimes, the dreamy nature of the prose made me get a bit lost, and I often found myself having to go back and re-read. This didn't necessarily hurt my enjoyment, but I found myself attacking the book with a very analytic bent, and that made it harder to hold on to the story. There is so much to this world that I probably should have read it with a wiki open, but I was afraid of spoilers.
The world is without a doubt the best part of the book. It's intriguing and mystical, but there are layers upon layers for anyone paying attention. I think I really started paying attention when Jonas (probably my favorite character) starts taking stage in the second book. Jonas is a fantastic outside perspective, and his twist is the one that blew me away. I'm hoping he comes back in the next book. In any case, the Wolfe has such a clear concept of a dying Earth that the book deserves to rank in the top of fantasy charts for that alone.
This doesn't make it perfect, at least not for me. My issues come, as they so often do in classic works, with the treatment of women. Actually, with Severian's treatment of women. I started off really liking the guy, torturer or no. He was naïve, yes, but he had a way of thinking and an attitude which read very real to me. His relationship with Thecla is unique, confusing, and tragic. Actually, that can be said of his relationship with Vodalus, his guild, and many of the people he meets on his journey.
However, it can't be said for all of the women, save Thecla. His first foray outside the Citadel, and he meets Agia for whom he has almost uncontrollable lust. Then there's Dorcas, who despite being described as childlike in every way, he also has uninhibited desire for. Dorcas herself is a problem for me in that she just randomly pledges herself to Severian, and neither book explains who she is or why she does this. Hoping that gets clarified later in the series. Then there's Jolenta, whom he essentially rapes while she's unconscious even though he says again and again that he doesn't much like her and prefers Dorcas. He looks at every single woman as an object of desire first. I don't know yet whether to interpret this as an intentional characterization of Wolfe's 1st person narrator or as genuine failure in the treatment of women. Either way, my opinion of Severian kept plummeting as the story went on. I guess this is what happens when you lock a kid in a tower without exposing him to women until puberty, then buy him a prostitute.
Neither book really stands on its own, and I know they were intended to be one gigantic volume, so I think I'll just dive into the next one while I still remember who all the characters are. Maybe a few hundred more pages will either make Severian a better person or at least make one of the women slap some sense into him.
Everyone talks about how wonderful N.K. Jemisin is at writing brilliant speculative fiction that addresses all too prevalent issues of racism and classism still pervading modern society. Everyone knows she is a goddess of world-building and creates perfectly formed, minutely nuanced cultures and societies. What people don't talk about enough is how well Jemisin writes FOOD. This short story collection features multiple food fantasy stories and guys, they were so vivid I fell right off my diet. The collection also features shorts stories in the worlds of the Dreamblood Duology and the Broken Earth Trilogy which were amazing to revisit. My favorite is probably her response to LeGuin's “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” It's stunning and brilliant and I really wish I'd written it. If you've never read Jemisin before, go ahead and read one of her novel series, but if you're already a fan, these works are bite-sized versions of her usual brilliance.
I had a good time reading this book. It's a romp of a space opera with some fun hooks for the series, interesting aliens, and a cinematic cast of characters. It honestly feels like reading a movie. I would probably rate it a little lower, but it stands out to me for A) Not cramming in a romance plotline where one doesn't belong and B) pretty great world building that never feels like an exposition dump. I'm not sure that I loved it enough to continue the series, but if you are looking for something fun and action packed but where things just keep going wrong (Coen Brothers do space opera?) this one will work for you.
I had to read this book for a staff book study, and I went into kind of feeling that old annoyance I get when someone tells me what I have to read. However, I ended up devouring it in two days. Mindset is a very accessible text about a very intriguing theory. Dweck uses easy to follow, real world examples with which the reader can identify pieces of themselves. The idea centers around two core mindsets - fixed and growth-oriented - and what that means for the people who are set in them. From the book's perspective, America is extremely fixed in its cultural mentality, and that's not a good way to live long-term.
I'm eager to discuss this book with my school's actual psychologist and mental health professionals in my life to see how much of it is solid science and how much is just good writing. As a teacher, though, I can definitely see ways to apply these ideas in my classroom.
If you like hearing Neil DeGrasse Tyson's voice wax poetic about space and our species' place in it, this is a great read even if it is now somewhat dated information. It's a collection of speeches, essays, articles, and interviews mostly from the Obama era of the US space program. It suffers a little from the repetition I often find in essay collections which were meant to be taken individually as opposed to read through all at once, but that repetition also kind of drives home Tyson's thesis that we as Americans and as humans have an obligation to keep exploring space, and it provides some great evidence if you are having a conversation with someone who says, “Why are we wasting billions of dollars on space when we have enough problems here on Earth?”
Oh, Ann Leckie. You are so very very good. Ancillary Justice was one of those mind-blowing books that changed the way I looked at the world around me. Ancillary Sword continues the tale, and while my brain is now better adapted to deal with the twists and turns it is forced to make, that doesn't make the style any less interesting to read. I loved being with Breq again and learning a little more about what life as an AI is like. Moving Breq into a position of power makes the book very different from A.J. and lets us see the character in a new light.
If I have any complaints, it's that we didn't get enough time with Breq and Seivarden together. Actually, not enough Seivarden at all. I really enjoyed Breq having to give Seivarden The Sex Talk concerning ancillaries as well as Seivarden's dashing Han Solo style rescue at the end. I could have used a lot more of the Buddy Drama dynamic and the humor it always provides in this book.
The actual plot is a political thriller, but not as interesting as the character exploration and cultural immersion which is really what I'm in this series for in the first place. The Radch really reminds me of my time in Japan with the emphasis on tradition, the necessity of having good tea sets to impress company, and the social stratification. It's an impressive world and one I just don't get tired of learning about through Breq's distinctly unimpressed eyes.
I can't wait for Ancillary Mercy to come out and will definitely be continuing this series. Fans of science fiction with a psychological bent should also get into this amazing soon to be trilogy.
Sword and Laser picked this book this month, and it's the first time since I joined that the choice was a book I had already read and loved. Instead of reading it again, I opted for the audiobook, a very different experience from reading it, but a pleasant one nonetheless. The reader is brilliant and does his best to capture the oral storytelling tradition in which the story is meant to be told.
Earthsea is one of my favorite series of all time, and while the first installment is not my favorite, it nevertheless remains a brilliant introduction to the world. I've been hearing a lot of people compare this work to Harry Potter and the like, but for me the comparison doesn't stand. LeGuin's prose is elevated far above Rowling's and most every other book classified as “children's” or “YA.” A Wizard of Earthsea is the type of story people used to tell their children, an uncluttered parable about the follies of youth, the truth of Self, and the dangers of shadows and dragons. It's a story children should be told and adults should be reminded of.
When I found out I was pregnant, I immediately googled all the best books out there. This one is unique in that it focuses primarily on the mom's mental health. I wish it had an appendix for “what to do while pregnant during a global pandemic,” but a lot of the advice is applicable, and there's good information for specific problems like situations that arise with partners, family, and friends during this time. There's a lot of “This is a normal feeling” commentary that bears repeating. Recommended if you are looking for some anxiety-calming narratives during pregnancy.
G. Willow Wilson is really a master at culture weaving. How many fantasy novels set in 1491 at the during the annexation of Muslim Granada into Catholic Spain featuring an Eastern European protagonists in a platonically romantic relationship with a gay Muslim protagonist and also a Djinn do you know? History and fantasy are woven together in a truly inspiring tale about self-worth, freedom, and love. If you enjoyed Alif the Unseen, there is a very important crossover character, but otherwise this contains the same emotional tones in an entirely different setting. I was lucky enough to see Wilson's book launch at the Boulder Book Store, and would also add she is a charming and fascinating human.
If there are two subgenres I usually avoid, they are military sci-fi and time travel. There are exceptions here (mostly John Scalzi and Connie Willis), but as a whole, I find the former boring and the latter frustrating and convoluted. Hurley has really done something here. I think I enjoyed it because it's a solidly anti-war story that is all too timely and the time travel elements fit neatly into the theme, the disjointedness serving as much to compare to the trauma of war and violence as to the progression of the plot. I enjoy Dietz as a protagonist, especially towards the end. It's complex, gripping story. Probably avoid if you have any triggers around war or graphic violence (there are no punches pulled here), but otherwise try it out even if you don't usually bend towards these subgenera.
I got this as an ARC ages ago and decided to give it a read in my quest to actually read the books on my shelves. I enjoyed the political intrigue and magic system, but there was something in the writing that just didn't connect with me, and the ending brought it from a book I mostly enjoyed to a book that just annoyed me. First off, if I'm going to invest in over 500 pages of a book, even if it's part of a trilogy, I prefer it to be a complete story in itself which this most definitely is not. It's more of a really lengthy prologue. Secondly, vague it ends with the kind of random character death popularized by GoT that now feels more narratively unfulfilling and stupid than shocking or intriguing.
I think I picked this up off a 2.99 sale just because it was Terry Jones. Since one of my reading goals this year is more nonfiction, I finally got around to reading it. It's a very quick read and yet full of trope-destroying information each chapter of which could fuel a unique novel in its own right. Did you know monastic orders forbid eating meat except in the infirmary, so all the monks started taking their meals in there? Did you know Shakespeare's Richard III is almost entirely drawn from Tudor propaganda? Maybe you did. Maybe you read about medieval history all the time. But if you don't and would like an easy to read dip in archaeological records of the middle ages, I definitely recommend this one.
I ended up with very mixed feelings on this book. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the idea of “re-sleeving” and the transfer of consciousness across worlds. The ways society has made use of this technology, the way not everyone can afford it, the use in military form, all that was interesting, thoughtful and often just downright cool.
A lot of the rest of the book got on my nerves though. It's written in noir style, and there seems to be an inherent sexism in the genre. Morgan uses the “I'm so angry with you, let's have sex!” trope that I hate more than anything. The sex scenes themselves were way more graphic than I was anticipating and honestly pretty awkward. Some on the S&L forums described the book as “harem anime” and that isn't too far off. Still not sure what Trepp's deal is, which is a shame because she was the most interesting character for me.
I'm leaving it at three stars because it's not badly written. It just makes use of a few tropes and tricks that do nothing for me. If you're very into noir sci-fi and don't mind the occasional X-rated incident, give this book a try. I think I've just read a bit too much in that style lately to really enjoy this one.
This is probably the favorite graphic novel of my students. It's visually stunning with characters to which just about every kid can relate even if some of them fall a little flat at times. That mom is ... extremely trusting. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more trusting than I would be of bunny robots and anyone who lives in a Cloud City.
The full page spreads in this volume outdo the other five. They are just gorgeous. Chronos, man. Chronos is awesome. I'm not a huge fan of portal fantasy, but this series is really delightful and one I would recommend to get young readers into the genre or as a fun fantasy for any comic fans. The main issue is it took so very long for vol. 6 to be released and who knows when we'll have vol. 7. Write, Kazu, write like the wind.