Author: Nicky

Review – Almost Human

Posted July 6, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Almost Human by Lee BergerAlmost Human, Lee Berger, John Hawks

Way back possibly even before I was doing my biology degree, I was doing all the MOOCs (massively open online courses) I could, and one of them was run by John Hawks. So when I stumbled across this book I had to have it. I’ve always been vaguely aware of and interested in what’s understood about hominin evolution, but I mostly knew about the big classic hits like Lucy. Homo naledi, discussed in this book, is new and rather surprising.

The story of excavating the remains is also pretty fascinating, with a team of female scientists picked for their ability to wriggle into the cave systems to retrieve the items, and all the science and planning that went into understanding what was happening. The book does also include some info on Berger’s career in general, which is less interesting to me, but his excavations of hominin remains… it’s all astounding and exciting to me.

Knowing that Berger’s work can be controversial, I’d love to read some other takes on the same info. I might even dig into the journals while I still have access, before my degree’s done. Either way, it’s fascinating stuff, though.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Ruby in the Smoke

Posted July 5, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip PullmanThe Ruby in the Smoke, Philip Pullman

This was a favourite when I was a kid: I loved the other books a little less, I think, but this one got very worn and tattered. I reread it during my exams mostly just because it caught my eye, and I wanted to revisit Sally and Frederick and Rosa and the smoky, sinister world of Victorian London which Pullman evokes in these books. I remembered almost every detail of the story, every step in the sequence, but it was still fun to read and think about how I loved and looked up to an independent character like Sally (her immaturity shows to me, now, as an adult, but she’s still pretty awesome all the same).

It was also nice to appreciate the details that went into some of this — Pullman did his homework in learning about the photography business, in painting a picture of that time and place which felt real, if sometimes a bit too squalid to be true. (Though Dickens was praised for realism, and Mrs Holland’s lodging house could have come right out of a Dickens novel, I think.)

The whole opium/India/ruby stuff was a little uncomfortable and felt like exoticisation, treating a troubled time in the history of a British colony like it was just a penny dreadful, but it’s hard to judge, and it still works when you lay that aside and embrace the penny dreadful feel — a thing I’m sure is intentional, because Pullman demonstrates several times in the story that he’s well aware of the kind of content of penny dreadfuls, and lampshades the similarities a bit through Jim’s reading of the whole situation.

Overall, it’s still enjoyable, even if I have more doubts now. I’d probably have given it five stars back then.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

Posted July 4, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Girl who Soared Over Fairyland by Catherynne M. ValenteThe Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, Catherynne M. Valente

I keep thinking, looking back at these, that each book alone is definitely not my favourite of the series for this and that reason. I think the point is that I love it as a series: you need to see the whole of it to see what Valente’s really doing, and one installment alone doesn’t quite satisfy. Standing alone, the book is whimsical and fantastical and touching and glorious, but I wouldn’t recommend reading it on its own. You need all the build up, all the cleverness.

That said, this book does have Aroostook, which is pretty awesome, and the Blue Wind and her puffins. Definitely awesome. And taxi crabs, and, and, and.

(That seems to be my refrain with books I love. I don’t think it’s a bad expression of all the muchness that some books provide.)

Rating: 4/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted July 4, 2018 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

Cover of The Devil in the White City by Erik LarsonWhat are you currently reading?

The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. I didn’t expect to find it quite this captivating, actually, but somehow it’s really moreish. The dichotomy between the design work for the World’s Fair in Chicago and what H.H. Holmes is doing is kind of jarring, even though the one informs the other, but somehow it works anyway. I’m very curious about Larson’s other work now: none of it sounds like it’d appeal to me a ton on the surface, but there’s something about his writing…

Cover of The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Warren AdamsWhat have you recently finished reading?

The Notting Hill Mystery, by Charles Warren Adams. It was one of the first detective novels, and the fact that there’s no established conventions does show a bit. It’s an interesting bit of writing, though. The plot revolves around mesmerism and the bond between twins; a little far-fetched, perhaps, but a fun read, even with the stuffier bits.

Cover of Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha LeeWhat will you be reading next?

As ever, goodness knows. I should probably get on with one of the books I’ve already started — like, you know, Revenant Gun — but Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence by Michael Marshall Smith is kinda tempting me. I only bought it this weekend, but I have a grasshopper mind.

What are you reading at the moment?

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Review – Sleeping Giants

Posted July 3, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Sleeping Giants by Sylvain NeuvelSleeping Giants, Sylvain Neuvel

This was a reread because the next book is coming out. I knew I found this series enjoyable, but there was so much I’d forgotten. And I just… can’t stop reading it, once I pick it up. It’s surprisingly quick to read, and it just really sticks its claws in. I love the core concept: here’s this buried metal giant, in pieces, which is clearly manufactured by aliens. Then you have the plot of putting it together, you have the international politics and manoeuvring, you have the pilots and their lives, and… yes, there’s the risk that the aliens are going to come back and not be very happy about what’s happening.

And I still can’t unhear “him” as Agent Coulson from the Marvel universe. Clark Gregg would just be perfect.

(That statement probably makes no sense if you haven’t read the book.)

Normally, the transcript/extract/journal entry format would drive me bats, but I think it’s pretty well done in these books. I’m glad I reread it and got the refresher. Now, onwards!

Rating: 5/5

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Discussion: Deciding what to read

Posted July 2, 2018 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

With such a massive reading list, sometimes I end up spoiled for choice. There’s a gazillion and one books I want to read at once, so how do I choose?

Welp, I’ve found that any kind of constraint tends to just make me contrary. Have to review it by next week because it releases soon? Let me ignore it altogether for at least another month. Planned to read it for a readalong? Often, that just leads to meh as well. In the end, I’ve come to terms with this — I had a really great conversation over on Beeminder’s forum about my attitude to books and goals in general a few weeks ago, which really helped elucidate that I was making it into work, and it really doesn’t need to be.

So yeah, you’ll find that I might miss review deadlines by a mile, but review something that’s been out for five years the day after I got it. Or vice versa. In the end, it comes back to something I’ve said on here a couple of times: this isn’t my job. I do this for fun. This may not always be a winning strategy with publishers (ugh, my Netgalley ratio is appalling) but it works for my brain and keeps the dreaded reading slumps mostly out of my way.

So what’s your strategy? Reading lists, never own so many books you have to make choices, whatever’s got a deadline on it…? And how on earth do you stick to it when there’s such new shinies out there?!

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Review – Immune

Posted July 2, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Immune by Catherine CarverImmune, Catherine Carver

I’m not entirely the audience for this one, since I know the subject from a reading-scientific-papers and writing-a-dissertation-on-tuberculosis level, and this is like the other Bloomsburg Sigma books aimed at a casual, pop-science kind of audience. Not a bad thing, but if you’re here to seriously buckle down and learn (e.g. because you have an immune condition), then it’s going to feel far too light and flippant, and the focus will be all wrong. For me, it was a good opportunity to revise my understanding of some of the topics I’ve been learning about, and see an alternate way to describe them, but it’s nothing new and Carver couldn’t get me more excited than I already am about the subject.

A couple of times the topics lean towards the memorable and thus aberrant things like the boy who grew up and lived entirely in a bubble due to immune problems; this can be fascinating, but you could see it as an element of sensationalism in a topic that needs no sensationalising to be fascinating and deeply relevant to all of us. After all, the same illnesses and malfunctions await all of us if our immune systems fail, and our immune systems are the only things that really have a hope of continuing to be effective against the pathogens around us in the long run.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Madam, Will You Talk?

Posted July 1, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary StewartMadam, Will You Talk? Mary Stewart

I don’t know why I keep coming back to this book: there’s something about it. The sense of place, of course — that’s a given in Mary Stewart’s work. But the lead male character in the romance is just so… for a good chunk of the book he’s violent and unpleasant, and there’s a whole sense of dread about him ever catching up with Charity. The moment when they end up on the same side feels jarring — I don’t feel like the reader is prepared well enough for the switching of sides.

But on the other hand, there’s Charity and her attitude to her relationship with her late husband. Like this bit, just — ahh:

Past and future dovetailed into this moment, and together made the pattern of my life. I would never again miss Johnny, with that deep dull aching, as if part of me had been wrenched away, and the scar left wincing with the cold; but, paradoxically enough, now that I was whole again, Johnny was nearer to me than he had ever been since the last time that we had been together, the night before he went away. I was whole again, and Johnny was there for ever, part of me always. Because I had found Richard, I would never lose Johnny. Whatever I knew of life and loving had been Johnny’s gift, and without it Richard and I would be the poorer. We were both his debtors, now and for ever.

It’s not just a whirlwind romance with a weird love/hate thing going on, and nor is just the mystery and adventure. There’s also this maturity towards relationships underneath that… yeah. I think that’s a big part of why I enjoy Charity — plus, of course, her fast driving and her determination to take care of David, for all that he’s a stranger to her.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Foundryside

Posted June 30, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Foundryside, Robert Jackson Bennett

Received to review from the publisher

When I heard about this, I was excited solely because, hello, it’s Robert Jackson Bennett. I loved City of Stairs and City of Blades, and I really should have read City of Miracles by now except that I wanted to reread the first two before I did that, because… why not. So, yay! New series! And oh man, I had fun. There’s just as much world-building and weirdness and just as many oddly endearing characters who are by no means perfect, and possibly even more horribly tense scenes. Okay, I called a trick or two before I got to the part where it was revealed, but for the most part I was right along for the ride with Sancia and Clef.

Also, who else makes you care about a key as a character? Well, Cat Valente, actually, but in a very different way. I won’t say any more on the subject of the key, though: that’s for y’all to find out once you can get your hands on this book, if you weren’t lucky enough to get an ARC.

There’s tons of funny bits, there’s some horribly gut-wrenching bits, there’s gore and fight scenes and a whole heist thing, and I ate it up. I think I read this in just three sessions, which given my attention span at the moment is pretty impressive.

I want everyone to read it ASAP so we can talk about it.

Also, Berenice and Sancia = love. And Gregor, ahh. He’s a big idiot at times but I love him and I don’t want bad things to happen to him and… ahhh! Okay, Orso can go get in the sea, but I’m fascinated by what will happen next with Valeria, and even Ofelia, and, and, and…

I’m torn on the rating: I don’t give many fives, but there’s no reason I can think of to dock a star and I think this one probably does deserve a five. I’m not ready to fight over it yet, though… give me a few days.

Rating: 5/5

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 30, 2018 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Hi all! This would actually be an Unstacking week if I weren’t still highlighting my purchases from when me and my sister went on a post-exam shopping spree. But fear not… today is me and my wife’s trip to the Hague (including a book museum and the excellent American Book Center), so I’m pretty sure I’ll have new books next week. Today’s batch showcases the non-fiction books I grabbed during that shopping trip with my sister, though.

Other than that, it’s been a quiet reading week because a) I’ve decided to write my entire dissertation in a week, no pressure, and b) I have the attention span of a gna

Bought:

Cover of Prehistory by Colin Renfrew Cover of Genghis Khan by John Man Cover of A Lab of One's Own

Cover of How the Irish Saved Civilisation

Bit of an odd mix, perhaps…

Read this week:

 Cover of Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

Reviewed this week:

–Kin, by John Ingraham. Not well edited, moderately interesting, but really I’d rather read Nick Lane’s work. 3/5 stars
–The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, by Catherynne M. Valente. Enormous fun, as always, though I missed Ell and Saturday. 4/5 stars
–Deadline, by Mira Grant. I don’t 100% love Shaun as the main character/narrator, but there’s still a lot of awesome stuff going on, and I enjoy the greater focus on epidemiology. 4/5 stars
–Mystery in the Channel, by Freeman Wills Croft. Solid writing and I did kind of get into the plot — enough to be disappointed that the mystery wasn’t solved the way I wanted. 4/5 stars
–Science and the City, by Laurie Winkless. Just… not my thing at all. 2/5 stars
–The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djeli Clark. A lot of fun, and there’s badass nuns. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Hugo for Best Series. Pondering on how that award works (and doesn’t).
–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update on what I’m currently reading and what might be up next.

So how’s your week been? Been doing anything exciting?

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