Author: Nicky

Review – The Orb of Cairado

Posted February 16, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Orb of Cairado

The Orb of Cairado

by Katherine Addison

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 85
Series: The Goblin Emperor
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Set in the world of Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award nominee The Goblin Emperor, The Orb of Cairado offers an unlikely hero in historian Ulcetha Zhorvena.

Five years ago, Ulcetha was studying at the University of Cairado, working his way toward becoming a scholar first-class in the Department of History. Then a prize artifact disappeared and Ulcetha, deftly framed, was kicked out. Now he works for a crooked importer, using his knowledge of elven history to write provenances for the fake artifacts Salathgarad sells.

When the airship Wisdom of Choharo explodes, killing the emperor and three of his four sons, it takes with it Ulcetha’s best friend, Mara Lilana. But Mara leaves behind a puzzle—the one thing Ulcetha can’t resist. And the puzzle leads Ulcetha back to the Department of History
and maybe the chance to clear his name.

The Orb of Cairado is another addition to the world Katherine Addison began in The Goblin Emperor, set at around the same time as that book, though the events overlap very little — a character dies “off-screen” in the same accident that kills Maia’s father, which precipitates the events of this book… but mostly it’s about Ulcetha, his disgrace, and this work to solve the mystery and finally dig himself back out of the disgrace.

Like the books focusing on Thara Celehar, this novella gives us another different angle of the world, this one a scholar’s angle. We see a bit of that in Celehar’s interactions with scholars in The Grief of Stones, but it’s not his world. It’s always fascinating to see more of this world because there’s clearly so much of it to explore, and Addison’s been careful to mind that people like Ulcetha don’t speak like the Emperor must, that different classes have their own troubles, preoccupations, etc.

The storyline itself is also fun, since it involves exploration of ancient ruins, a formerly respectable scholar sneaking around like a thief (for the greater good), and of course, treasure. In the space of the novella I didn’t get terribly attached to Ulcetha per se; I wouldn’t object to reading more about him, but I was more interested in the expansion of the world.

Rating: 4/5

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted February 15, 2025 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Good afternoon! As ever, it’s been a busy week for me, but I’m on track with my studying etc etc, so that means a nice chill weekend (as long as I’m on track, I like to make sure my weekends are work- and study-free zones). Reading time!

…And an eye test and such, but you know, there’s still plenty of time for reading around that.

Acquired this week

This week featured a trip to the library, a new book from my wife, and a book via my British Library Crime Classics subscription. So without further ado, here are the books I picked for myself at the library:

Cover of Fighting Fit by Laura Dawes Cover of Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan Cover of Lost Wonders by Tom Lathan

And here’s the books I got from the “blind date with a book” display left over from Christmas — I felt so bad that they’d gone to a lot of effort to wrap them beautifully and hand-decorate them, etc, and there were still a bunch left, so I grabbed all the SF/F ones. I’ll try all three!

Cover of King of Ashes by Raymond E. Feist Cover of The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord Cover of Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho

I thought I might’ve read Spirits Abroad before, but apparently not, and I’ve read Feist and Lord’s work before and enjoyed it, so all in all, not a bad match for me for something chosen just because it was SF/F!

And then there’s the books I got in the mail, with thanks to my wife for the third Hilary Tamar book by Sarah Caudwell!

Cover of The Ten Teacups by Carter Dickson Cover of The Sirens Sang of Murder by Sarah Caudwell

I already finished The Sirens Sang of Murder — I’m really loving this series, and irritated the fourth book doesn’t seem to be readily available — and I’m eager to read The Ten Teacups, since I’ve started enjoying John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson’s work. It’s an “impossible mystery” again (which he was famous for), so I’m very curious how he makes it work this time.

Posts from this week

Aaand here’s the roundup of reviews:

And a What Are You Reading Wednesday post, as well, of course!

What I’m reading

As usual, let’s start with a sneak peek at the books I’ve finished this week which I plan to review on the blog…

Cover of The Light Eaters by Zoe Schlanger Cover of Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang Cover of Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon Cover of The Bloodless Princess by Charlotte Bond Cover of The Apothecary Diaries (light novel) volume 2

Cover of Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You To Hate, by Anna Bogutskaya Cover of The Sirens Sang of Murder by Sarah Caudwell Cover of The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young Cover of Drake Hall by Christina Baehr

Over the weekend, I plan to amuse myself by continuing to avoid a bingo on my BookSpinBingo card on Litsy (latest update to it posted here), so I’ll probably read The Tomb of Dragons (Katherine Addison), A Pirate’s Life for Tea (Rebecca Thorne) and Sir Hereward & Mister Fitz (Garth Nix).

But, as ever, I’ll also just go wherever my whim takes me.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

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Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 8

Posted February 14, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 8

A Side Character's Love Story

by Akane Tamura

Genres: Manga, Romance
Pages: 161
Series: A Side Character's Love Story #8
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Winter is here, and the first Christmas that Tanaka-san and Irie-kun will spend together as a couple approaches. The two of them make plans to bake a cake together at Tanaka-san's place. As Christmas begins, they're both a little nervous: it's the first time she's invited a boy over, and the first time he's been in a girl's room. In the midst of it, Irie-kun works up the courage to ask for their second kiss... The heat of their love grows stronger in volume 8.

Volume eight of Akane Tamura’s A Side Character’s Love Story is super cute. I know I keep saying that all of it is cute, and it really is, but it’s turbo-charged here. Hiroki and Nobuko spend Christmas together, and also he gets sick and she goes over to nurse him a little. The glasses scene… be still my heart.

In terms of the arc of their relationship, nothing much changes here except that they get more confident with one another, with showing how they care for each other and treating each other as partners rather than just coworkers (something they struggled with even once they were together, at first).

One criticism: arrghh stop taking your masks off when one of you is sick! Wear them properly!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma

Posted February 13, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Review – Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

by Claire Dederer

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 257
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Can we love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is history an excuse? What makes women artist monstrous? And what should we do with beauty, and with our unruly feelings about it?

I’d been meaning to read Claire Dederer’s Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma anyway, but it became suddenly very topical for me after the in-depth reporting of the allegations of rape and abuse against Neil Gaiman. I hadn’t been a major fan of his in years, but I loved Good Omens, and connected deeply with Crowley as portrayed by David Tennant and that feels deeply tainted now — so what do I do?

(I try not to discuss anything too in-depth about specific types of abuse and monstrousness, but if you’re not in the right place for any of that, I suggest leaving this review for now.)

Dederer naturally doesn’t offer any actual answers, instead doing a fair amount of gazing at her own navel about her own heroes and monsters, and herself. I don’t mind that it’s navel-gazing, but I do mind that we have men like Polanski juxtaposed against Joni Mitchell, included because she gave her daughter up for adoption at birth, or Sylvia Plath, because she committed suicide. (Ted Hughes mentioned once, only as Sylvia Plath’s husband, not for his part in that whole situation.)

She does mention Rowling, but sparingly, and the book is seriously lacking a really monstrous female artist in a way that to me suggests lack of research: for instance, Marion Zimmer Bradley may be genre, but still a very relevant and important monster to consider for modern fans of Arthuriana and fantasy. And there have always, will always be women who behave like Amanda Palmer is alleged to have done, who knowingly enable the abuse perpetrated by their husbands and stay damningly silent.

There’s a certain amount of self-hate, I think, in Dederer’s choice of female monsters: really what she keeps trying to tell us is that she( thinks she)’s a monster (because of her alcoholism, and because she sometimes chose to shut her children out in order to work, or found herself just going through the motions and angry at her children — normal things).

In a way, the fact that she struggled to find female monsters may also reflect the fact that we give men a lot more leeway to be monsters, but mostly I think she just didn’t do any research beyond her own narrow frame of reference, and thus served us up women she thinks are monsters because she worries that she’s a monster. That’s pretty uncomfortable to read.

She does make some interesting points, likening the consumption of work by monsters to recycling: the individual agonising about it makes very little difference, almost none, under capitalism. It doesn’t address the question of the “stain” metaphor she uses, the blackening of the work because you know about the crimes of the author — but for those who can divorce the author from the work, it might offer some peace when they can’t stop treasuring something in their heart of hearts.

On which note, Dederer also writes powerfully about the fact that this is about love. We can love terrible people. Abused children often continue to love their parents. It’s hard to let go of, and it asks us to figure out where love stops, and whether we can stop it just by wanting to.

It also leaves me thinking about monsters who were made, who had monstrous things done to them which shaped even the thoughts they could think. What do we do about them? Sometimes it can change the level of culpability… I came to no conclusions there, and Dederer certainly didn’t. The book ends with the same ambiguity and same questions as it began with, or perhaps even more. The only answer can be that every person has to figure out their own answer: there is no calculator to work out how bad someone must be, what mitigations they can have, and then tell us whether to continue to love.

For me, it’s usually fairly clear-cut, but I have some blurred lines and grey areas and (yes) hypocrisy, as many people do. I didn’t find Dederer’s book helpful in clarifying that, really, but all the same, I enjoyed reading it, for a certain value of “enjoy”.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Sing Like Fish

Posted February 12, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments

Review – Sing Like Fish

Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water

by Amorina Kingdon

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 324
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

A captivating exploration of how underwater animals tap into sound to survive, and a clarion call for humans to address the ways we invade these critical soundscapes—from an award-winning science writer

For centuries, humans ignored sound in the “silent world” of the ocean, assuming that what we couldn’t perceive, didn’t exist. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. Marine scientists now have the technology to record and study the complex interplay of the myriad sounds in the sea. Finally, we can trace how sounds travel with the currents, bounce from the seafloor and surface, bend with the temperature and even saltiness; how sounds help marine life survive; and how human noise can transform entire marine ecosystems.

In Sing Like Fish, award-winning science journalist Amorina Kingdon synthesizes historical discoveries with the latest scientific research in a clear and compelling portrait of this sonic undersea world. From plainfin midshipman fish, whose swim-bladder drumming is loud enough to keep houseboat-dwellers awake, to the syntax of whalesong; from the deafening crackle of snapping shrimp, to the seismic resonance of underwater earthquakes and volcanoes; sound plays a vital role in feeding, mating, parenting, navigating, and warning—even in animals that we never suspected of acoustic ability.

Meanwhile, we jump in our motorboats and cruise ships, oblivious to the impact below us. Our lifestyle is fueled by oil in growling tankers and furnished by goods that travel in massive container ships. Our seas echo with human-made sound, but we are just learning of the repercussions of anthropogenic noise on the marine world’s delicate acoustic ecosystems—masking mating calls, chasing animals from their food, and even wounding creatures, from plankton to lobsters.

Amorina Kingdon’s Sing Like Fish is all about the world of sound underwater. At one point humans dubbed it stuff like “the silent kingdom” and stuff like that because we can’t hear well underwater, but in fact lots of fish, marine invertebrates and marine mammals make noises — a lot of them! Whalesong is well known now, but it isn’t the only thing. There are fish that drum their swim bladder to attract a mate, fish who fart (literally expel air from their anuses) to communicate, and of course, use sound to navigate.

Unsurprisingly, pretty much any purpose for sound you can imagine from our lives is also served in the ocean, perhaps through some slightly different physics.

And of course the sounds we make are impacting the ocean. Sometimes that means our installations in the seabed are actually attracting creatures, and sometimes it means that the sounds are actively snapping the cilia involved in hearing and leading to deafened, unbalanced lobsters whose lives are drastically shortened by their injuries.

Kingdon discusses all of this and how we can ameliorate some of it, highlighting things we need to pay attention to for the health of the planet. Like me, you probably didn’t know that sound can harm plankton, but… yep, it can.

Mostly though it’s full of wonder about this world of sound we don’t always understand or know how to investigate. I found it really interesting.

Rating: 4/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted February 12, 2025 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Good afternoon! I’m writing this in somewhat of a hurry, as I have a date with a bunch of library holds waiting for pickup, but let’s see…

Cover of The Apothecary Diaries (light novel) volume 2What have you recently finished reading?

I juuust finished the second volume of the light novel The Apothecary Diaries (not the manga). I really liked it, and it really turns out that I shouldn’t have gone to bed last night without spending another 5-10 minutes to finish it, because my brain kept oooon turning over the conclusion of the story, wondering if I’d understood what was going to happen right. (I had.)

I guess I need to order volume four, lest I mainline volume three just as quickly.

Cover of The Sirens Sang of Murder by Sarah CaudwellWhat are you currently reading?

I’m a chunk of the way into the third Hilary Tamar book, The Sirens Sang of Murder, by Sarah Caudwell. I’m really enjoying this series and its wit, and this pack of ridiculous lawyers. I have posted jokingly elsewebs that I think it’s very rude of the author to have only written four books in this series, and to have died, and I maintain the joke while feeling compelled to remind everyone firmly that it is, indeed, a joke. (Yes, someone took me seriously and yelled about it.)

The introduction to this one was very tantalising and I’m very curious how Julia’s going to get arrested. Again.

I’m also reading The Unmaking of June Farrow, by Adrienne Young, but it’s not really sticking with me… and Unlikeable Female Characters, by Anna Bogutskaya, which I’m finding frustratingly obvious (which makes me re-evaluate how much I liked her book on horror).

What will you be reading next?

Signs generally point to the next (and last) Hilary Tamar book, honestly. It’s comparatively rare for me to read a series in close sequence, but these books have been suiting my mood beautifully. There are also a number of books I need to get to for the “BookSpin” and “BookSpinBingo” challenges on Litsy, though, so I might pick up one of those.

How about you?!

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Review – Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight

Posted February 11, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Review – Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight

Mr. Pottermack's Oversight

by R. Austin Freeman

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 302
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

On a sultry afternoon in July, a man stumbles through thick foliage and rough ground, making for the coast. He wears prisoner’s garb and the guards are hot on his heels. Happening upon a bather’s clothes – the bather nowhere in sight – the escapee takes the risk, changes and leaves the scene looking the part of the average beachcomber.

But it can be hard to stay hidden forever. When a blackmailer intrudes for the last time upon the promising life of the man who now calls himself Mr. Pottermack, a violent fate befalls him, and the stakes are set: Pottermack must avoid discovery at all costs to escape the hangman’s noose for murder.

When Pottermack’s attempts to fabricate evidence arouse the suspicions of the fiercely forensic Dr. Thorndyke, a nerve-racking game is afoot as we follow both detective and suspect in their contest to root out – or bury – the damning truth in this inverted-mystery classic, first published in 1930.

I was looking forward to Mr Pottermack’s Oversight, because I’d read one of R. Austin Freeman’s earlier books and really liked it. It was slow and methodical, but in a way that was interesting. This one had the same style, but it was maybe a bit too slow and methodical, and Freeman’s interest in writing a sort of inverted mystery (the mystery is more how the detective works out what happened, since we see the crime committed directly, and spend most of the book with the killer) went maybe a bit toooo in depth. There’s a certain amount of detail that lends verisimilitude, and then there’s getting overly into detail about (for example) casting a copy of a shoe sole from a footprint…

That said, somewhere partway through I entered into the spirit of the thing a bit more and found myself reading as eagerly as I’d expected. I don’t know whether the pace just improved a bit there (probable) or maybe I just got used to the new expectations. For a killer, Pottermack is pretty likeable, though the sense that he’s justified is set up very very deliberately and transparently (the victim is a blackmailer who originally framed him for the crime he’s blackmailing him about).

I really wonder whether the lady in the case has realised that of course it is her lost love… but we’re never told that explicitly.

Overall, I genuinely enjoyed it, but it felt like a bit of a book of two halves — though I couldn’t put my finger on a specific dividing point. Hard to rate, as a consequence, but ultimately I’ll go with my final assessment: a fascinating “inverted mystery”, if a little slow at times.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – A Sweet Sting of Salt

Posted February 10, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – A Sweet Sting of Salt

A Sweet Sting of Salt

by Rose Sutherland

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction
Pages: 342
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Once a young woman uncovers a dark secret about her neighbor and his mysterious new wife, she’ll have to fight to keep herself—and the woman she loves—safe in this stunning queer reimagining of the classic folktale The Selkie Wife.

When a sharp cry wakes Jean in the middle of the night during a terrible tempest, she’s convinced it must have been a dream. But when the cry comes again, Jean ventures outside and is shocked by what she discovers—a young woman in labor, already drenched to the bone in the freezing cold and barely able to speak a word of English.

Although Jean is the only midwife in the village and for miles around, she’s at a loss as to who this woman is or where she’s from; Jean can only assume she must be the new wife of the neighbor up the road, Tobias. And when Tobias does indeed arrive at her cabin in search of his wife, Muirin, Jean’s questions continue to grow. Why has he kept his wife’s pregnancy a secret? And why does Muirin’s open demeanor change completely the moment she’s in his presence?

Though Jean learned long ago that she should stay out of other people’s business, her growing concern—and growing feelings—for Muirin mean she can’t simply set her worries aside. But when the answers she finds are more harrowing than she ever could have imagined, she fears she may have endangered herself, Muirin, and the baby. Will she be able to put things right and save the woman she loves before it’s too late, or will someone have to pay for Jean’s actions with their life?

Rose Sutherland’s A Sweet Sting of Salt is ultimately a selkie story, but it doesn’t feel like one — this isn’t a fantasy story, is what I’m trying to say, but feels much more literary fiction/historical fiction. Which is not a bad thing, per se, but it was on fantasy lists and I think the vibe is quite different to that. The story is mostly grounded in physical, historical detail: milking goats, making cheese, delivering babies… and it’s not that fantasy never does that, but this book is so coy about the selkie reveal that you only know it’s going there for sure because the cover copy says so.

The main character, Jean, is a big part of that, because she’s very much grounded in the everyday, physical tasks of her life, and quick to interpret everything in light of that everyday life. Muirin’s not a selkie, she’s just a Scot who doesn’t speak English; Kiel’s webbed hands are just a minor birth defect; their seal-like barks are just an odd laughter…

You get the drill.

There’s a significant creepiness and tension to the book that I hadn’t quite expected, as Muirin’s husband becomes colder, angrier, and more determined to keep her locked inside her home, and keep Jean off his land. His suspicions turn into violent anger and creepy behaviour, in a way that feels realistic at each step — and then you take a step back and look at how unhinged he was, see all the warning signs, and know that all along he was awful, really.

It’s well done, and I enjoyed it; I didn’t find it “unputdownable”, but I did want to know how things worked out exactly. I liked some of the supporting characters, like Anneke, Laurie, and the brief glimpses we get of Dal and Jo.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Apothecary Diaries (manga), vol 1

Posted February 9, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Apothecary Diaries (manga), vol 1

The Apothecary Diaries (manga)

by Nekokurage, Natsu Hyuuga

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Manga
Pages: 176
Series: The Apothecary Diaries (manga) #1
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Maomao, a young woman trained in the art of herbal medicine, is forced to work as a lowly servant in the inner palace. Though she yearns for life outside its perfumed halls, she isn't long for a life of drudgery Using her wits to break a curse afflicting the imperial heirs, Maomao attracts the attentions of the handsome eunuch Jinshi and is promoted to attendant food taster. But Jinshi has other plans for the erstwhile apothecary, and soon Maomao is back to brewing potions and...solving mysteries?

The first volume of the manga version of The Apothecary Diaries (original story by Natsu Hyuuga, drawn by Nekokurage) was fun; I wondered if I’d be more into the story if I’d read the light novel, after reading this, so I’ve been reading that as well and really enjoyed it. I’m very curious about Jinshi’s motivations and what he’s up to, and I wondered if maybe the novel went into a bit more depth. In some ways it did, but in others it didn’t.

Maomao’s a fun character though, with her fascination with her studies, her stubborn desire to avoid the people who sold her into this situation profiting by it, and her total lack of interest in Jinshi.

I like the art too, it’s very clear.

Rating: 3/5

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted February 8, 2025 by Nicky in General / 23 Comments

This post comes to you after a deeply lazy morning on my part, which segued neatly into a deeply lazy early afternoon — I didn’t get out of bed until nearly 2pm, because I was busy reading! And now it’s time to talk books for a bit.

Books acquired this week

I had a lucky week for ARCs — I have auto-approval from Tor on Netgalley, but I was more surprised to get approved for A Drop of Corruption from Random House! Thanks to both for these eARCs.

Cover of Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher Cover of A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

I also claimed my February book from my wife — every year, for Valentine’s Day, we renew a promise that I get (at least) one book a month of my choice. In practice it’s often more, but still, the choosing of the monthly book is a thing. And this time it was the second book in a mystery series I’m quite enjoying!

Cover of The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell

Sadly it doesn’t look like the fourth book is available in this edition, but here’s hoping I’ll manage to get my hands on some copy or other. The third book is now on its way to me… given that I devoured The Shortest Way to Hades this morning already.

Posts from this week

Time for a bit of a roundup of the reviews I’ve been posting!

What I’m reading

First off, as usual, here’s a roundup of what I’ve read since the last post, at least assuming I plan to review it — a bit of a sneak peek, if you will.

Cover of The Orb of Cairado by Katherine Addison Cover of A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation vol 10 by Misaki and Momochi Cover of Around the World in 80 Birds by Mike Unwin Cover of The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

Cover of The Leavenworth Case by Anna K. Green Cover of The City in Glass by Nghi Vo Cover of The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell

Not sure what I’ll be reading today, all in all — probably more of The Light Eaters, a fascinating book about plant intelligence, but I’m not sure what else. As my whimsy takes me, I’m sure!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

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