Month: October 2014

Review – Rose Daughter

Posted October 23, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Rose Daughter, Robin McKinley

Definitely not my favourite of McKinley’s works — I thought I’d like it more than Beauty, and in one sense I do, in that something that bothers me about the ending of Beauty is addressed here and a different sort of ending written. I like the world, the sisters, the domestic stuff that (as usual) McKinley shines with. I liked the castle and Beauty’s work there, and the way other little bits of fairytale lore come in (like her experiential seven days spent in the Beast’s castle versus seven months for her sisters). It’s also notable that the way Beauty and the Beast relate to each other is very similar to in Beauty; the differences are more in a more complicated setup with slightly different inputs producing a slightly different trajectory.

My main complaint the first time I read this was that the greenwitch at the end has far too much explaining to do, in quite a short span of pages, and that remains problematic to me. Some things needed a bit more opening out, foreshadowing, something, to prevent a long stretch of infodump via dialogue.

Still enjoyable, though, and the writing is gorgeous, of course.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Robin McKinley

Review – The Old Ways

Posted October 22, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane

The Old Ways was, for me, a bit like reading Richard Fortey’s work. Non-fiction that I’m not necessarily very interested in, but which is beautifully written, lyrical, literate. It wasn’t boring at all — meditative, perhaps. Sometimes Macfarlane’s a little too airy and mystical for me, too caught up in his imagination, but sometimes he comes round to something like Fortey, like the book I read recently on meditation, like Francis Pryor’s book about Seahenge and the ritual landscape.

I’m not particularly a walker myself, not now. As a kid I walked quite a lot with my grandfather, who would never have been nearly as poetic about walking as Macfarlane. It’s walking in the mountains in Wales that speaks to me, the hot still space at a ford where you could turn down toward home or go on toward a blackberry field, flies swarming on the evidence that a horse had come through earlier that day. Not a trek across chalk or snow or fen land: not this quasi-mystical experience of the landscape-as-self, just a walk on a warm day with blackberries in the middle and a scolding for getting so dusty/muddy at the end. If we went further afield, a hand-drawn map with “Grandma fell here” or some such comment to immortalise the trip.

Still, I can appreciate the sentiment behind this, and the lyrical writing. It just gets a bit too caught up in itself for me.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – Shards of Honour

Posted October 21, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Shards of Honour, Lois McMaster Bujold

I liked Shards of Honour more than I did the first time I read it, even though I’m sticking with my original three star rating. It’s fun, and this time I did get more wrapped up in it, in following the politics and in following Cordelia and Aral as they get to know each other. I still don’t quite get the enthusiasm over the whole series, but I’ve heard at least a dozen times that I’ll get along better with the Miles books.

Still, I got along pretty well with this one. The concept of honour is a thing that will usually get to me with a character — honour and loyalty in general. Juubei in GetBackers; Simon Tam in Firefly; Joscelin Verreuil in Kushiel’s Dart; Steve Rogers in Captain America — and if they can be tortured, make mistakes, and still be people you root for, that’s all the better. I know a lot of people love the mischievious tricksters with a heart that might just be gold after all, but I prefer the straight-forward ones, like Steve Rogers. And Aral is definitely one of those. Realising that helped me warm to him, even when he starts off not terribly sympathetic — and you realise that he did kind of have a point, too: he suggests to Cordelia that they should end the suffering of a man who will never walk or possibly even think coherently ever again. Now, it sounds barbaric to her in the moment, but it occurs to her later (and to me almost immediately), that maybe the guy wouldn’t have wanted to stay alive in the dependent existence that was his only chance. Certainly, I wouldn’t — and I’ve taken some pains to make sure my loved ones know it.

So I think the characterisation was more subtle here than I remembered, and I have grown sympathetic to Aral — and to Cordelia, and what she goes through to get back to him. I remember liking Barrayar much less than this, but we’ll see. And even if I still don’t like it, I’ll go on to read the Miles books, because I trust my partner’s judgement there!

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Lois McMaster Bujold

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted October 21, 2014 by in General / 4 Comments

This week’s prompt from The Broke and the Bookish is “Top New Series I Want To Start”. This is a tough one for me, because technically the prompt is for series new in the last year, and I… just no. So! Series in general I need to get into reading…

Tanya Huff, the Confederation books. My sister loves ’em, and generally they seem right up my street, so yeah!
Stephen Donaldson, the Thomas Covenant books. Someday, Mum. Someday.
Lois McMaster Bujold, Chalion. Fantasy is normally more my thing than SF, so I’m thinking I might get on with these better than…
Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan. But I hear so much good about these, too.
Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson. Because otherwise Amy will explode.
Faith Hunter, Jane Yellowrock books. My sister likes these, if I’m not mistaken.
Kim Harrison, The Hollows. My sister definitely likes these.
Kat Richardson, Greywalker. This is… the kind of series my sister will probably like.
Diane Duane, So You Want To Be A Wizard. Because I have them all for goodness’ sake.
Elizabeth Bear, The Promethean Age. I’ve got the first book…

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Loki: Agent of Asgard

Posted October 20, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Loki: Agent of Asgard, Al Ewing, Lee Garbett

I think I needed more of Journey into Mystery and general Thor comics to really understand what’s going on here, but it’s a fun ride anyway. It continues the kid!Loki storyline — except he’s all grown up now, thanks to Billy Kaplan of the Young Avengers. So we get to see Loki living in Midgard, with a fancy apartment and an unfortunate resemblance to Harry Styles. We get to see a bit more of the “new” Loki interacting with Thor, and the continuing saga of many Lokis that is the whole plot with Loki dying and then kid!Loki but it’s not really kid!Loki and —

Yeah, it’s confusing. But Loki’s capers are fun, and no doubt it’s going somewhere brain-twisty and fun. I like young!Loki a lot, and along with all the Hiddleston fangirls, just want to see that he’s been misunderstood and twisted into his role. And more than that, I hope Loki’s still playing with my head. I don’t really think we ever can or should get some kind of solid answer about where Loki stands on the moral continuum. He’s wildfire, unpredictable; the comics do take that aspect of the trickster Loki from Norse myth and play with it most excellently.

Oh, and the scenes with the Avengers in the tower are perfect.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel

Review – Galapagos

Posted October 19, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut

Galapagos is a fun read, playful; for a book about the end of the world, it’s certainly more humorous and light-hearted than most, except perhaps Good Omens. The narration is fun — the narrator is pretty much a character, but also pretty much omniscient, so you get to know everything that’s going, but with opinions into the bargain.

When I think about it, though, I can’t find much substance in this. It’s very repetitive, and if there’s one single point that comes out of it strongly, it’s that humans have big brains and we cause our own problems, and maybe it would be better if we evolved to have smaller brains and less able to cause trouble. Which… sure, fine, but ~250 pages of story all focused around that begins to lose its charm.

Still, that’s what saves it — the charm, and the fact that the narrative reveals facts haphazardly, so you have to hang on to almost the last page to piece together exactly what happened throughout the book. It is charming, like I said, and very readable, but… Shrug?

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Hour 4 Mini Challenge: Quotable Quotes

Posted October 18, 2014 by lionbird in General, Giveaways / 206 Comments

Welcome to the fourth hour of the 24 hour readathon! Are you all having fun? This challenge is about just taking a minute to really appreciate what you’re reading — it can be really easy to get caught up in just getting as much read as possible, but there’s got to be stuff you want to remember. So to participate in this hour, here’s the rules:

Comment with a quotation from one of today’s reads.
Include your email address to make sure I can get in contact with you.
I will randomly select one of the people who comments.

And… that’s it! Your prize will be a book of your choice up to £10 in value from the Book Depository, depending only on being in a country that TBD ship to!

Tags: giveaway, readathon

Readathon Progress

Posted October 18, 2014 by in General / 24 Comments

Yay! Soon the 24 hour readathon will start. To begin, have a photo of our bunny with some of my stack…

Isn’t she a darling? She’ll be keeping me company throughout, even when my partner abandons me to go shopping.

Anyway, here’s the opening meme:

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Belgium.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? Hmm, not really sure. All of them have their attractions. Maybe the comics? I don’t knooow.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? Whenever I let myself have my chocolate with Speculoos!
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! It was my one year anniversary of book blogging yesterday! Normally I live in Wales, and this is the first time I’m doing the readathon while visiting my partner.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? Last time, I had to sleep. This time, well, I’m insomniac at the moment, most of the time, so I’m thinking I’ll probably stay up for most of it. On the other hand, tomorrow morning we’ll be leaving the civilisation of the internet and going off to a convention, so I probably won’t see the last few hours.

Right, I’m going to assemble the rest of my stack and get comfortable, ready for the start!

15.07: It is occurring to me at this point that I might like to get dressed, on the grounds that I’d be warmer like that. Ah well, we’ll see. I’m nearly finished with Galapagos (Kurt Vonnegut), which I’ve read about 150 pages of.

15.38: Finished reading Galapagos. Gonna go update the books read database and then curl up with something else. What? I’m not sure yet. Maybe Loki: Agent of Asgard.

16.16: Yup, read Loki: Agent of Asgard. Also had some chocolate. In terms of the shelfie challenge, my whole webpage is one since my top banner has a rotation of three or four different views of my bookshelves.

17.18: My mini-challenge is up, and I’m battling a tide of comments to approve while also reading Shards of Honour, by Lois McMaster Bujold.

18.21: Current fuel: cola and candy bracelets. Still reading Shards of Honour. Amazed by the number of comments on my mini-challenge! Can’t take part in this hour’s challenge since most of the books I have here are ebooks.

19.02: Just finished Shards of Honour. It was a reread for me, and I liked it a lot more than I did the first time. Might have to wait until after the ‘thon to find the words to review it, though I normally review as I go. For the name-your-readathon challenge, hmm: Agents of Honour and The Old Ways. Because why not?

20.30: I’m now reading The Old Ways, by Robert MacFarlane, since I don’t think I want to be reading non-fiction much later in the ‘thon! My partner’s been napping, already, tsk. Can’t do this hour’s challenge, as I have no physical books here, and I don’t want to mess up my partner’s books or the library books, or expose them to the dangers of the bunny. Even if it is the bunny’s naptime.

21.37: Paused for dinner, which was nachos and cheese and chilli and noms. Partner’s cooking always the best except maybe my dad’s. Still on The Old Ways. Bunny still napping. Here’s my signed book picture for the mini-challenge — Lifelode, by Jo Walton. Among Others is marginally more precious to me, but Lifelode is signed to me and my partner, which is why I took a picture of it to show her after spending the day with Jo out on the moorland near Swansea. We’re both big fans.

22.56: Finished reading The Old Ways, and reviewed everything so far. Not sure what I’m going to read next; partner’s going to be going to bed soon, but she’s letting me keep the main light on, whew. Otherwise I’m sure I would end up sleepy.

Even still, I can imagine getting tempted in the chill of 5am to squirm into bed next to her. Let’s hope the bunny can keep me awake!

00.07: I’m now reading Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley. Partner’s gone to bed, so now I’ve got her chair. Not sure I won’t sleep, but I do want to at least finish Rose Daughter.

01.13: Nearly finished with Rose Daughter, and then I think I am going to curl up with my partner. If I can’t sleep, I’ll get up and read more; if I can, well, I have a con to go to and quite a bit of work to do, tomorrow, so I should get rest if I can.

1. What are you reading right now? Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter.
2. How many books have you read so far? Four.
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I think I was looking forward to Rose Daughter most! But perhaps A Song for Arbonne, on the train tomorrow or if I can’t sleep.
4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Not really. My partner’s understanding of the readathon, and the bunny can be pet while I’m still reading.
5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? Perhaps how print-orientated the challenges are. It’s not the only way to go, guys! Some book lovers don’t collect; some book lovers aren’t at home. It makes me feel a little left out, honestly.

01.46: Finished reading Rose Daughter, now. I’m not so tired I have to go to bed, but five books is a good amount and I do have a busy day tomorrow, so I’m going to have a quick shower and then scurry to bed. If I can’t sleep, it’ll be A Song for Arbonne keeping me company.

09.56: About to go to the con! Reading A Song for Arbonne on the train, I think. Or maybe The Crystal Cave.

19.04: Back from the con and settled down after doing some work. I started my rereads of both A Song for Arbonne and The Crystal Cave; I’m getting on better with the latter now than I did before, though Misogynistic Merlin is my least favourite flavour.

I’ll do a draw for the winner of my mini-challenge tomorrow morning and send them an email ASAP. For now, thanks to everyone in and running the readathon!

Which hour was most daunting for you? None, I just did what I could and then chose to go to bed.
Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Honestly, it’s different for everyone. But maybe Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce books would suit a pretty wide audience: they’re fun, but not too heavy.
Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Fewer challenges focused on physical books.
What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? Everything seemed to run pretty smoothly.
How many books did you read? I finished five and read a bit of two more.
What were the names of the books you read? Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut; Loki: Agent of Asgard by Al Ewing; Shards of Honour, by Lois McMaster Bujold; The Old Ways, by Robert Macfarlane; Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley. And part of The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart, and A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay.
Which book did you enjoy most? Probably Rose Daughter; it’s a familiar favourite.
Which did you enjoy least? I didn’t really dislike any of them.
If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? N/a.
How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? Reader, along with running a mini-challenge, methinks.

Tags: books, readathon

Stacking the Shelves

Posted October 18, 2014 by in General / 2 Comments

Despite the fact that I have a £10 Kobo voucher to spend, I actually haven’t bought anything this week! Shocking, I know. I have received two books to review, though — the first via LibraryThing Early Reviewers, the second via the author.

I know, I know, it’s a miracle as far as my usual stacks are concerned. What’s everyone reading? Anybody doing the readathon? My stack is here, and my post will be up later in the day in time for the start. Also, if you drop by around hour four, I’m running a challenge!

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves

Readathon stack!

Posted October 17, 2014 by in General / 6 Comments

Readathon time! It doesn’t seem like it’s been long since the last readathon, but here we are again with the event coming up on Saturday-Sunday of this weekend. Naturally I’ve been working on my stack and trying to decide what to read. For once, I’m actually at my partner’s flat in Belgium for the readathon, which means a) I’ll probably be up for the whole thing because I have chronic insomnia here, and b) I only brought my ereader with me, no dead tree books. On the other hand, I have comics to borrow and a whole stack of library books too, so it’s not as though I’m short of reading material.

To reread:
-Robin McKinley, Rose Daughter.
–Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour.
-Guy Gavriel Kay, A Song for Arbonne.
–Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave.

New:
–Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park.
–Keri Hulme, The Bone People.
-Robert MacFarlane, The Old Ways.
–Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos.

To finish:
-James Morrow, This is the Way The World Ends.

Comics:
-Loki: Agent of Asgard.
-Thor.
-Winter Soldier.

Anyone else I know doing it?

Tags: books, comics, Guy Gavriel Kay, Lois McMaster Bujold, readathon, Robin McKinley