Em
What a surprise! I'd heard good things about this book but wasn't expecting to enjoy it just as much as I did.
We follow Lin, the emperor's daughter, unraveling the truth of her lost memories. This empire is one of islands, and the emperor creates constructs (think Frankenstein's monster but with more animal parts) powered by bone shards collected from citizens. While it took a while for me to get into the swing of things with her storyline, I immediately loved Jovis, a smuggler searching for his lost wife, and Mephi, his.... cat-otter-frog thing companion, and would be perfectly happy to read a whole book of their (mis?)adventures. Other POV characters include Phalue, a governor's daughter, and Sand, a woman on an island with no recollection of how she got there. I was less interested in these plot lines but they took up less time and certainly have implications going forward.
Overall, very impressed at this debut and will be looking forward to the next instalment!
I wanted to love this but I think it's one of the very rare occasions where the movie is much better
Stunning! I only picked this up because it was 99p on sale, not having heard of it before, and was surprised to come on here and see it well and widely reviewed and so highly rated. Apparently I've been living under a rock.
Pachinko spans four generations of a Korean family living in Japan. It is huge in scope in that respect, but has a slice-of-life approach to detailing the goings-on of these characters and we truly get to see them at their best and worst. There isn't so much a plot as there is a story.
For a novel so big (mine said 500 pages!) it flew by surprisingly quickly. Highly recommended.
This was by far my most anticipated read of the year and probably my most anticipated read of the last three years since the last Stormlight book came out and it certainly lived up to expectations. Revelations abound and we're now headed full speed ahead for the ending of the first arc!
Main characters, with the exception of Kaladin (thank god he's my favourite), begin to switch out a little here. Not too much, but enough to be noticeable. Venli is a lead and her backstory, along with her sister's, makes up the spine of the book. Shallan shares much of her page-time with Adolin on a quest in Shadesmar but even she takes a backseat this time around. And despite Oathbringer being Dalinar's book, it is his wife Navani who gets the most attention in Rhythm of War, unlocking the secrets of Urithiru. This surprised me but I welcomed it greatly. My favourite aspect remains the focus on mental illness while unabashedly being some of the most creative crazy stuff in fantasy.
What can I say? I love Kaladin. I've never been so proud of a fake man. I love the world and the characters and finding the other references to the broader cosmere and then slapping my palm to my forehead whenever a reveal happens because it seems so OBVIOUS after the fact. I don't love waiting three years to find out what happens next but I suppose three years isn't that long compared to some series one could (but won't) mention.
An easy 5 stars from me. I can't wait to dig into this again!
Leigh Bardugo's first adult novel is gruesome, turbulent and steeped in spooky mystery. Recommended to not just Leigh fans, but fans of darker urban fantasies in general!
(04/06/22) Still so much fun!
* Three Trees to Midnight 4/5
* Down Among the Dead Men 3.5/5
* The Horror of Hormak 4.5/5
* Callback 4.5/5
* Luck in the Gardens 5/5
* Hunger 3/5
* Murder by Death Mages 3.5/5
* The Streets of Minrathous 3/5
* The Wigmaker Job 5/5
* Genitivi Dies in the End 4.5/5
* Herold had the Plan 4/5
* An Old Crow's Old Tricks 5/5
* Eight Little Talons 5/5
* Half Up Front 4/5
* The Dread Wolf Take You 5/5
Yaa Gyasi is the real deal, masterfully handling heavy topics like addiction, depression, grief and science vs religion. While it's narrower in scope than Homegoing (one of the most impressive debuts I've ever read) that really works in its favour: there's so much depth here! I really anticipated this book and it was worth the wait. 4.5
brandon sanderson could write a book on washing dishes and it would still be a day one buy
Very good. Fantastic world-building and a unique setting! However I found while the beginning was very strong I lost interest in the middle but that's more of a personal preference thing rather than an actual fault; I'm not really a fan of anything that involves showing a lot of fighting so Tau's training started to lose me. Tau as a character was also quite frustrating, although I believe that was intentional. It did manage to grab me again in the end and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes next! 3.5
(05/10/22 reread) I've always had a soft spot for this story; I wrote a couple of papers on it at uni. It was nice to read it for fun (as it were) again.
The Fall of Gondolin tells of Tuor, a man, who comes to the hidden elven city of Gondolin and of the city's subsequent betrayal and fall at the tail end of the First Age. Indeed, I would consider this event to be the BEGINNING of the end as Tuor's young son, Eärendil, is a survivor of the attack and goes on to be arguably the most important person in ending the war (and thus the Age). He's also the father of Elrond (a recognisable name to most!) and Elros Half-elven. Fans of ‘The Hobbit' will also recognise the name of Gondolin, as the swords in which Thorin's Company find in the troll-hoard were forged there.
The Fall of Gondolin manages to be one of the most thrilling and atmospheric stories in the legendarium, which is quite a feat when only the first draft was finished. Even in draft form, it's great. His final attempt in 1930, and the one most in line with the ultimate state of the legendarium, ends with the arrival of Tuor to the city itself which is incredibly frustrating; the first draft, written during the First World War after Tolkien survived the Somme, tells a full story and is clearly a response to what he saw there.
This particular book is set up in the same way as Christopher Tolkien's previous endeavour ‘Beren and Lúthien' in that it shows the development of the narrative as Tolkien went back to try different versions. The different texts are given and Christopher details information about them and gives context as to when they were written. As such, I would recommend it to people who are interested in seeing this development, but perhaps read the chapter on The Fall of Gondolin in The Silmarillion first!
Unsure if I genuinely liked this more than the First Law trilogy or if Abercrombie has finally just clicked for me. An unabashedly bloody revenge yarn with writing that is sharp as a tack. However, it is a brick, and while I love bricks, this particular brick started to overstay its welcome a little by the end. I wish goodreads did half stars: 3.5/5.
“He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”
Devastating.
A thoughtful and insightful collection of essays mainly considering Tolkien's writing and its relationship with his famous essay “On Fairy Stories”. While I didn't always agree with the conclusions drawn, the discussions were always interesting and, ultimately, is that not what these kinds of discourses are for?
(03-10-22 reread) If you visit the grave of J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife, Edith, in Oxford you will notice that beneath their names are “Beren” and “Lúthien” respectively.
Beren and Lúthien is by far the most grandiose love story Tolkien ever wrote, telling the story of an elven woman who fell in love with a mortal man so much so that she managed to bring him back from death, and gave up her own immortality to be with him. To be together, the two embark on a quest to claim a Silmaril from the crown of the Dark Lord Morgoth. The echoes of this story can be felt thousands of years later in The Lord of the Rings' Aragorn and Arwen, as well as the fact that Beren and Lúthien are the great-grandparents of Elrond Half-elven (and great-great-grandparents of Arwen herself!). As such it's a story worth reading if you have any kind of Tolkien appreciation at all, even if it's just The Silmarillion chapter.
This book is not like The Children of Húrin, in that it is not simply a full novel format of Beren and Lúthien. Charting the tale from its beginnings in 1917 to subsequent iterations, changing formats from prose to poetry to prose again, Christopher Tolkien notes similarities and differences and allows the reader to get a look into Tolkien's process of myth-making. This book is ultimately a really interesting look at the development of one of the best known but least read of Tolkien's stories.
If this sounds good to you, but you are unfamiliar with Beren and Lúthien, I would recommend at the very least reading The Silmarillion chapter on them as well as the poem about them found in The Lord of the Ring before tackling this. If you do, it's a supremely rewarding read, and is a fun insight into how such ideas and concepts change in ways large and small over time.
“Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkest of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Lúthien.” - The Silmarillion.
A western about dinosaurs? This was practically written for me!
Anyone with a more than a passing interest in palaeontology will likely have heard of the infamous ‘Bone Wars' between Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, a vicious rivalry which is responsible for the fevered discovery of dinosaurs in the American West in the late 19th century. Over 100+ new species were identified in this period, including triceratops, stegosaurus and allosaurus, as each man was determined to discover more than the other and going to great lengths to come out on top.
This novel, published posthumously, uses this as the backdrop for the story of William Johnson, a (fictitious) student of Yale College engaged in a rivalry of his own. After making a bet with a fellow student, Johnson manages to wing his way onto an expedition led by Marsh to the Badlands, in an effort to discover fossils. After being left behind, he is welcomed to a group led by Cope, following hot on Marsh's heels.
What follows has the hallmarks of all classic westerns: gun fights, saloons and vast landscapes of wilderness, all of which serve to detail one young man's experience of the feud between two figures of historical significance in what is in many ways a coming of age story. While this novel takes place in 1876, it's worth noting that the so called Great Dinosaur Rush lasted for over twenty years. Crichton acknowledges this in an afterword, advising the reader that in plenty of respects he has actually toned down the feud between Cope and Marsh.
Furthermore, unlike many novels “discovered” (but often ghost-written) after the death of a celebrated writer, this does read like pure Crichton. I've only read Jurassic Park & The Lost World, but he has a clearly recognisable to the point style, and that was present here.
Definitely recommended for anyone with an interest in palaeontology, westerns or both!
Discovered this after listening to a podcast episode on the mystery of how Homo Naledi ended up in the cave systems it was uncovered in in the first place, and finding it interesting.
Although it's said to be about the aforementioned species, only about half of this book covers that: in the first half Berger seems preoccupied with talking about his own achievements and his troubles with other scientists which, to me, read a lot like posturing, though talks about other finds are interesting.
Fortunately the last two sections are a very readable account of the discovery and recovery of the hominids found 30 meters underground in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. It's really fascinating and details not just what was found but also the intensive and dangerous process of what actually getting scientists down into the cave entailed, as well as the lab workshops that ran afterward to categorise what was found.
I was hoping this would scratch my fantasy itch until the next Stormlight Archive book comes out. It didn't.
I think there's a reason this book has been so widely praised outside of fantasy circles, but inside barely caused a ripple. It wasn't bad, I'd just seen it all before and done much better. There's nothing wrong with re-treading well-known tropes but it was just done so blandly here. The characters were boring, and I found them relatively interchangeable. One aspect constantly praised is just how diverse this book is and on that front it's fantastic. It's refreshing. But unfortunately this feature alone does not necessarily make your story, or your characters, interesting. Maybe Shannon should have picked one or two point of view characters and developed them further, or kept them all and simply made this one novel a duology/trilogy. Maybe that way they would have felt a bit more dynamic, a bit less two-dimensional, and improved the pacing.
Nevertheless, I can see why people love it. Genuinely. But I rate books based on personal enjoyment and for better or worse I'm somewhat a fantasy snob at this point. It takes a lot of world-building and something new and truly spectacular to excite me. This didn't deliver that, and that's a shame. I really did want to love it.
“They will commit me to the earth, [...] Yet I also commit them to the earth. There is nothing else by which men live. Men go and come, but earth abides.”
For the last five or six years I have been making my way through the things that inspired Neil Druckmann when writing The Last of Us series of games. Some I had already seen/read such as The Count of Monte Cristo (not apocalyptic but thematically relevant) or the 2006 film Children of Men. Some I had heard of and have since read (ie. The Road) and others I hadn't heard of before. Earth Abides, a 1949 novel by George R. Stewart, was amongst the latter.
The novel follows Isherwood “Ish” Williams (the tlou fan in me was already pleased) an ecologist who emerges from working on his graduate thesis in isolation to discover civilisation has collapsed after much of humanity has succumbed to a plague. What follows is an exploration of an earth without humans; not only what it looks like across Ish's life as the survivors cope, but also how without the influence of civilisation the remaining plants, animal and nature are free to adapt and flourish.
Ish travels coast to coast, California to New York City and back, eventually building a community of survivors and struggles reconciling ideas of the old world with the new. What things that were once so important remain so? What does it mean for Ish to be, in the end, the Last American?
Needless to say, I loved this book. Haunting, evocative, but despite it all containing a ribbon of optimism, it's one I'll look forward to reading again in the future.
“...if they looked down upon the earth that night, what did they see? Then we must say that they saw no change. Though smoke from stacks and chimneys and campfires no longer rose to dim the atmosphere, yet still smoke rose from volcanos and from forest-fires. Seen even from the moon, the planet that night must have shown only with its accustomed splendor—no brighter, no dimmer.”
Absolutely sublime. A really powerful story set in 1870s Texas about an ageing Captain tasked to take a little girl, raised by the Kiowa, back to her birth family and the bond they begin to share on the long journey. Jiles' writing transports you and you'll wish it was longer than 200 pages. I'd give it 6/5 if I could; it's just that good!
First of all, this is an absolutely beautiful book. I have the 2022 re-release. The cover is stunning and the internal contents is presented so clearly and in such an aesthetically pleasing way. Truly gorgeous on the shelf, coffee table, desk, wherever.
Now, if you're a massive Tolkien reader, you may not learn anything new from this book. However, it covers just about everything, with sections on Tolkien's life, his influences from the Middle Ages, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and others, on top of the critical response to his writings, a section on media and adaptations, as well as Tolkien culture (and counterculture). Such a huge amount in a relatively short book! 350 pages including an extensive bibliography and index. It's engaging and while informative and educational, it doesn't get bogged down in academia or specialist lingo (as it it were).
If you're looking for a place to start learning about Tolkien and the legendarium on a deeper level, this would absolutely be the book to do it. And while it's not necessarily for specialists, it's a lovely book that is jam-packed with information from every corner of Middle-earth.
This and Ancestors are both so morbidly fascinating. Roberts discusses funerary and death rites in the Roman, Dark Ages and Anglo-Saxon eras of Britain, using a selection of archaeological finds to lay out history and educated guesses. These books are readable and informative, and cover a multitude of supposed genders, ages and cultures.
“We should treat adaptations of Tolkien in the same way that we would of a production of a Shakespeare play[...] all of these adaptations are simply ‘versions,'” has been a near constant refrain of mine for years!
A good read regarding Tolkien's writings, his process and his continued influence on our culture in a post-pandemic world. Nick Groom covers Tolkien's life as well as adaptations of his works both contemporary to him and those that are more modern, exploring music, radio and film. A generous section is devoted to Peter Jackson's movies, though a walkthrough of the infamous 1970 John Boorman script is also provided which is very entertaining. Nothing is given to stage productions, though the 1980s BBC radio play is discussed which is a favourite of mine. I would love for more interest in video game adaptations, as I believe The Lord of the Rings Online is ridiculously underrated. Groom remains very much aware of the fact he cannot talk about everything, however, and what he does choose to delve into is well researched and well presented (though, again, perhaps the Jackson sections are overlong).
Overall this is a worthwhile read!
[read 27/09/2024] My sister has been telling me to read this for about 7 years, and I can see why. I'm 7 years too late!