Fantasy with Friends: Real Things

Posted October 19, 2026 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Monday means Fantasy with Friends time! All the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is about whether fantasy is about “real things”:

Some people argue that fantasy isn’t worth reading because it’s not about real things. What is your response?

Mostly, I think that if fantasy isn’t for you — if you can’t suspend disbelief, or you argue too much with basic premises, or can’t keep the worldbuilding straight, or whatever it is — then… don’t read it, that’s no skin off my nose!

But I do think fantasy is still about real things. It’s written by people, and inevitably it’s about people, even if those people have pointy ears or fangs or transform into werewolves or have implausible monarchies or whatever it is. I think there are probably some exceptions, because there always are, but we’re a pretty self-centred species and I think it’s often about us, really, and the themes and plotlines are generally things of interest to humans — just wrapped up in a fantasy setting.

And like I said, I can get if that’s not your jam, absolutely, but I don’t think it’s factually correct to say that “fantasy isn’t about real things”. On a superficial level, sure, it’s about potions, spells, fantastical beasts, transformations, fairies, etc, etc. But that’s just the way we dress it up; it isn’t just about that. Even the simplest fantasies aimed at kids get at real human things that kids are interested in!

Tags: books, discussion, SF/F

Review – Murder in the Maze

Posted October 19, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Murder in the Maze

by J.J. Connington

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 240
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
When twin brothers Roger and Neville Shandon are murdered by poisoned darts in Whistlefield's famous hedge maze, Sir Clinton Driffield arrives to restore order. He finds two terrified witnesses - visitors to the estate - and clues aplenty in this brilliantly conceived and meticulously realized country-house mystery.

J.J. Connington’s Murder in the Maze is the second book I’ve read by him, if I recall correctly, and I admit I’d expected slightly better from what I remembered of The Ha-Ha Case — though admittedly that was a later book. This is the first one featuring Sir Clinton Driffield, and it suffered from both culprit and detective being incredibly obvious.

There are a few efforts at misdirection that just don’t come off because they’re incredibly obvious. I think the story does try to lampshade this a bit by the “Watson” character realising what Driffield’s up to belatedly, but… the reader understood chapters and chapters ago, and much of what’s coming up is obvious too. I could almost predict every step, from the fake attacks to a side character’s romantic feelings, and it was clumsy as well that several characters (like the two who find the bodies at the start, along with the man they find in the maze) simply slip out of sight.

The whole thing isn’t particularly ingenious, in part because it relies on ye olde exotic poisons (curare, in this case), which immediately narrows the field due to access. It’s never pointed out that, for example, it rules out a particular character — but where would he have got curare from?

I don’t want to spoiler people who might be interested, so I won’t go into too many specifics — suffice it to say, I was disappointed with the quality of this one, and it wore out its welcome pretty quickly. Besides that, the dramatic denouement is then somewhat spoiled by a lengthy debriefing (detective speaks to the various former suspects to explain everything) and by the detective taking justice into his own hands because he knows best, a bugbear of mine in these stories.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, J.J. Connington, mystery

Discussion Post: Why Book Bloggers Should Avoid Substack

Posted October 18, 2026 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Spoiler: it’s the Nazis.

This has come up surprisingly often lately on several blogs I’ve been casually reading or linking up with or visiting via weekly linkups, leading to me actually deciding to add a couple of points to my commenting policy banning promotion of Nazism on my blog (including promotion of Substack). It seems that there’s still a fair few people in the world who don’t realise that Substack provides Nazis with a platform, makes money from Nazis and promotes Nazis. At least, I hope that’s what it is, and that people aren’t choosing Substack knowing that!

I’m not going to browbeat people for not knowing about Substack’s policies here; the temptation is there, but though it feels like the news has been out there a long time, whether you’ll come across it depends on the circles you run in, how proactive you are in looking up this kind of thing, and also on general life stuff. If something horrifying came up about a service I use, it’s quite possible I wouldn’t have noticed during my busy last few weeks… or even in general, given sometimes I just prefer to stick my head in the sand and read books instead.

But I do want to be clear: if you know about Substack’s Nazi problem and you keep on using Substack, and giving them your content to help legitimise their Nazi content, then other people might well wonder about what other compromises you’re willing to make. It’s one thing to know that a site has a far-right presence when promoting Nazism is at least against its Terms of Service, even if that ToS is difficult and time-consuming for the website to enforce. I’ve been part of a content moderation team, and user content is an exhausting firehose and you can never be sure something hateful hasn’t slipped the net and piled up in some corner.

But it’s quite another thing to know that the service in question proudly and deliberately hosts this content. That it has actively sent out a push notification to random users with a Nazi swastika and text inciting hatred against Jewish people (they later claimed this was a mistake, but that doesn’t fix the underlying problem that they host this content on purpose, leading to the possibility of such errors). That the service makes money off antisemitic content, and allows Nazis to earn money from posting their views on Substack. That they’re okay with hosting it on their servers and paying Nazis money for the privilege, because it brings them clicks and gets them money, even as it connects Nazis to other Nazis, gives Nazis money to fund their movements, and radicalises more people to become Nazis.

If you really think this is about Substack being all for free speech, I’ve got a bridge or two to sell you. Three, if you’re game.

And of course it’s not just Nazis: it’s other forms of bigotry as well. Of course it is: it all goes hand-in-hand. And it’s all allowed on Substack.

So, gently and with love: I believe firmly that book blogging does not belong on a platform where people will run into it side-by-side with posts calling for genocide, where that is permitted and promoted by the management. I’m aware that lots of people make different choices, and prefer to close their eyes to this truth.

But now I’ve said it, and you know; people who’ve read this post know. I’ll leave it to your imagination what I think people should do about it.

Here are some alternatives to Substack.

Tags: discussion

Review – Teddy Bears Never Die

Posted October 18, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Teddy Bears Never Die

by Cho Yeeun

Genres: Horror
Pages: 304
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
The horrormance genre mash-up you've been waiting for - from the award-winning Korean author Cho Yeeun comes a new novel where a young girl and a teddy bear team up to enact revenge!

A poisoned city - A grieving daughter - A boy trapped in a bear's body.

When the fledgling coastal town of Yamu is rocked by a mass-poisoning attack at The Seaview Parc, the luxury high-rise meant to revitalise the city, Hwayoung is one of many who lost family members. Except, she has never believed that her mother was poisoned. Now, fuelled by grief and a desire for revenge, Hwayoung spends her time hustling to save every penny and bring those responsible to justice.

Across town, Doha wakes up in a teddy bear and realizes something sinister has taken his body. When fate brings Hwayoung and Doha together, the two team up for a revenge quest that will shake the city's shiny façade to its rotten core.

This time, revenge is not just personal - it's supernatural.

I picked up Cho Yeeun’s Teddy Bears Never Die thanks to other bloggers’ reviews, and was very curious whether I’d find it easier to get oriented to the world given I’ve read a few other books/series in translation from Korean (like Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, A Magical Girl Retires, Walking Practice, Solo Leveling — a mix of manhwa and novels) so there’s a bit of cultural familiarity there. And yep, that did help: some of the locations were familiar, some of the untranslated words (like “gosiwon”) were ones I knew, and I didn’t get too tangled up with the names.

It is, of course, still a really weird book, since one central point is that one of the characters spends most of the book possessing a teddy bear. The cover is really striking, showing him as being huge, but that’s not a literal rendition — he’s just a normal-sized bear that the other main character can hold in her arms, though he does on occasion wield a knife.

There are horror elements, but the main feel is of being something of a thriller, with tense scenes of Hwayoung needing to escape being knifed by a perfectly ordinary non-possessed man, get away from the guy exploiting her and trying to sell her, etc. I don’t know how realistic the portrayal of the poverty and crime Hwayoung got mired in is, but it felt like a gritty crime drama at that point.

That said, some of the horror elements are pretty dang creepy, like the ghost of “Grandma”, the ghost-composite that goes after the assassin, and of course, a lot of the stuff to do with Dohyun’s father.

Overall, I enjoyed it quite a lot. The translation read pretty well for me, and I enjoyed Doha and Hwayoung’s journey, and their strained but realistic friendship. The things they’ve gone through are well-evoked; I think sometimes the narrative feels a little on the simplistic side, fairly exterior to the characters, but it still does a good job of making it clear what they’re feeling (at least to my mind!) and thinking, and the intense twisted feelings that Dohyun’s father feels are quite compelling, even while they’re repellent.

I did also like that we get a translator’s note! I’ve noticed that in a few Korean novels (less the webnovel type but more stuff like this and A Magical Girl Retires), and I enjoy reading a bit about the translation experience.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Cho Yeeun, horror

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted October 17, 2026 by Nicky in General / 26 Comments

After a busy week last week with lots of library books and lots of reading, this week’s been a bit quieter.

Funny thing: I had no idea, but WordPress informs me that today is my blog’s 13th birthday!

Books acquired this week

This month’s British Library Crime Classic was their Christmas release, which is how they usually do things, and that dropped onto my doormat this week:

That’s it, after the recent excesses, hahaha. I haven’t been back to the library this week, since I haven’t done a lot of reading in that time.

Posts from this week

Time for the usual roundup! Reviews first, and as ever, they’re not books I read this week but reviews written sometimes quite a while ago, since I try to keep things varied and plan in advance.

History: A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering, by Elinor Cleghorn (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Poetry: Dream Work, by Mary Oliver (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Fantasy manhwa: Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, vol 3, by Sleepy-C, Umi & singNsong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)

And as usual, I really mean it when I say 3/5 stars means I liked a book! I know other people have other rating systems, but I stick with the old Goodreads definitions that were around over twenty years ago now.

Here are the other posts from this week:

And that’s it for the week! I hope to get back to posting more reviews again, since work should be quieting down a bit for now (though just in time for the Christmas/New Year rush, ack).

What I’m reading

As ever, I’ll start with the books I’ve been reading in the last week! Mostly last weekend — I didn’t get as much reading time as I’d have liked during the workweek, this time round. As I mentioned last week, I want to be clear: these are just the books I’ve finished this week, and I’m not saying I recommend them at this time. You’ll have to watch out for my reviews for that! Please don’t read them because I mentioned them and then blame me when you don’t like a book that I’m planning to give one star… 😉

For this weekend, I’m a chunk of the way into Rachel Harrison’s Black Sheep and Francis Vivian’s Dead Opposite the Church, so those are my priority to finish. I’d like to read more of The Summer Hikaru Died as well… but otherwise, I’m not sure. I’ll probably go by whim!

Hope everyone else has a great weekend.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (manhwa), vol 3

Posted October 16, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

by Sleepy-C, Umi, singNsong

Genres: Fantasy, Manga
Pages: 248
Series: Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (manhwa) #3
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
With all the food destroyed by the goblin, Dokja’s group is forced to venture into the dark tunnels teeming with vicious creatures. But in the cruel new world, monsters are not the most dangerous enemies. When the atrocities committed by the “Major Group” come to light, chaos ensues in Geumho Station. And amidst the bloodshed, Huiwon’s true power awakens...the Time of Judgment is nigh!

The third volume of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhwa covers the aftermath of the group’s arrival at the next station, and their trek to Chungmaro Station. The pacing and storyline all feel pretty much the same as the light novel, so you could almost read them interchangeably (except that the volume numbers don’t match up due to the formats, and maybe missing out on some of Dokja’s internal monologue here and there).

I really love Huiwon; though she’s introduced through a “damsel in distress” type situation where sexual assault has been attempted and she’s in bad shape, that’s a key part of how her character evolves and why she gains the abilities she does. It doesn’t feel gratuitous to me, though I’ve seen some other people complaining about it; amongst all the other violence in Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, it feels significant that it’s mostly not sexual. The story doesn’t want to focus on that, even while we’re seeing a post-apocalyptic breakdown of society: it’s just important that Huiwon was so vulnerable, that people were so vile to her, more so than stealing food or attacking her or something like that.

Still, your mileage may vary and it’s worth keeping in mind that that’s part of Huiwon’s origin story, and may be touched on again.

I continue to enjoy Dokja’s scheming, of course, and I look forward to getting to the “cinema” section in the manhwa (maybe next volume? or the one after?).

N.B. This is being posted a couple months after I read it and I’ve actually read up to volume 10 by now and have 11 coming up on my TBR.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, manga, SF/F, singNsong, Sleepy-C, Umi

Book Blogger Hop: Bookish Escape Room

Posted October 16, 2026 by Nicky in General / 5 Comments

It’s Friday, so it’s time for the Book Blogger Hop again, hosted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer. I’ve made my own image from a stock photo (credit: Anna Shvets) to avoid adding images created via generative AI to my blog. Feel free to use it too if you would like!

This week’s prompt is about designing a bookish escape room:

If you designed a book-themed escape room, what puzzles would be part of it?

I have no idea about anything specific, but I’d steer away from using details of specific books in order to appeal to a range of bookworms, using mostly general knowledge. There might be some puns on the names of authors and titles of books, for example, but they’d be guessable by people with a general knowledge of literature.

I imagine there could be something with organising books, possibly with a clue to how they should be organised (I think alphabetical by author is usually the sensible way, but I know other bookworms prefer to make rainbows, sort by book title, or sort by height)… perhaps to open a secret panel or something like that.

If I were to design something specific, it’d be an escape room based on some kind of vintage mystery, and I’d definitely put some decipherment in — if possible, based on a Playfair cypher, as a reference to Dorothy L. Sayers’ Have His Carcase. I don’t think those need to be too difficult, if you left some way to decipher the key word in the room, and I know I’ve written notes to my wife in Playfair cypher once or twice, and they did get deciphered!

I’m not really very good at coming up with stuff like this, though, so generally I’ll leave it to the enthusiasts!

Tags: Book Blogger Hop, books, discussion

Review – Dream Work

Posted October 15, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Dream Work

by Mary Oliver

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 96
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems originally published in 1986, follows both chronologically and logically Mary Oliver’s American Primitive, which won her the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1983. The depth and diversity of perceptual awareness, so steadfast and radiant in American Primitive, continues in Dream Work. Additionally, she has turned her attention in these poems to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit, to accepting the truth about one’s personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the failures of human relationships.

I liked Dream Work a bit more than A Thousand Mornings, but I’ve developed such high hopes for Mary Oliver’s poetry, and this collection didn’t quite hit the spot either. There were more poems that I loved here, at least, and as always the whole thing is suffused with her love of the world exactly as it is, her attention to detail, and her ability to find joy.

The poems in this collection are perhaps a little less wide open and accessible than some of her later ones, which gives her a bit more room for depth, but at the same time, that accessibility is something I enjoyed about her work. Not that these poems are particularly difficult, at least not in the deliberate “I’m writing something difficult just to be difficult” sort of way, but they are a bit less… straightforward. That’s very much a matter of taste, in any case!

Overall, a good collection, though not a favourite.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Mary Oliver, poetry

WWW Wednesday

Posted October 14, 2026 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was Yuta Yagi’s Why I Adopted My Husband, which is about the practicalities of getting around the fact that gay marriage isn’t legal in Japan. I don’t think it’s super useful for most people outside of Japan, honestly, because the issue (and solution) is pretty specific to Japan.

Still, if you’re researching and if you want to read some commentary about what it’s like to be a gay couple in Japan, this could work.

What are you currently reading?

I have three books on the go that I started more or less at the same time, because I was having difficulty settling down. The first was John Wiswell’s Wearing the Lion and… I don’t know. I don’t disagree with Hera that Zeus is a dipshit, but the narration is grating on me in general. It’s hard to say exactly why, because I don’t think the Greek myths have to be treated with dignity or anything. Maybe it’s just a tone I don’t get on with in general.

I’ve also started Rachel Harrison’s Black Sheep, which has been cited by several people I know lately as their favourite of her books. I’m not far enough into it to judge, really, but I was relieved to have a character with a decidedly different (less mopey) feel to Willa in Kiss Slay Replay or Annie in Cackle. Something about those two characters was a little similar, but Vesper does feel a bit different.

Aaaand I’m also digging into The Demon Overlord’s Retirement Plan, which is fun so far. I’m curious where it’ll go, because I’ve heard comparatively little about the plot.

What will you be reading next?

Uhhh, let’s focus on my current reads first, mostly! Don’t tempt me to pick up more, ahaha. But I would like to read more of The Summer Hikaru Died; I’ve read three volumes, and I definitely want to read more.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Autumnal Colours

Posted October 13, 2026 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

Just a couple of weeks ago I already did a variation on this theme, and swore I’d try to do ten more totally different ones for this week. So let’s see what I can do!

Plenty of reds, yellow and oranges there! I think I win (at my self-imposed game, haha).

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday