Posted August 13, 2020 by Nicky in General / 3 Comments
Not joining the linkup this week… just too darn tired again. But I’d love to hear from anyone who drops by!
What are you currently reading?
I’m rereading The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet for a Habitica group read. I enjoy it a lot, the sense of family and love and compromise, and it’s proving a good read when (because we can’t catch a break) one of our bunnies is a bit off. Also, it’s hot, and I generally don’t want to do anything when I’m too warm, so having something familiar I can sink into is very appealing.
What have you recently finished reading?
Burnout, by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. It’s a self-help book and typical of the breed in many ways, including an overly chummy and simplified writing style that doesn’t tend to work for my brain. It did give me some ideas for stuff to do better for myself, even if it is deeply focused on assigned-female-at-birth people who identify as female and are treated as such. If you’re not fond of — or at least able to put up with — being addressed in “you go girl” terms constantly, it’s not going to be for you.
What will you be reading next?
Totally, totally unknown. I’ll probably try to return to and finish The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu, though.
What are you reading?
Tags: Becky Chambers, books, Emily and Amelia Nagoski, Ken Liu, WWW Wednesday
Posted August 11, 2020 by Nicky in General / 31 Comments

This week’s theme from That Artsy Reader Girl is books you love and haven’t reviewed, but I’ve been reviewing every book I’ve read for fifteen years now. So I’m going off-piste with a retrospective on my “book club”. I run it on Habitica, with a book each month, and I pick all the books based on my whim in that moment. I don’t guarantee the books’ quality or literary value or anything like that; it’s literally just a book I want to read, probably one I already own. It’s been a nice way to get some accountability for reading books from my shelves, and read alongside other people… without having to put up with anyone else’s taste in books. 😂
So here’s a shortlist of ones I’ve enjoyed discussing with the group…

- The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon. I’ve actually not finished this one yet, since I’m also reading it with my Beeminder coworkers at a nice conservative rate everyone can stick to. We’re near the end now! I’ve really enjoyed it, and even enjoyed reading it in this really slow drip-wise fashion, because it was something I could always manage, no matter how crappy I was feeling about reading (or how daunted by the size of the book).
- Seeds of Science, by Mark Lynas. This is by someone who was previously really anti-GM, and came to change his mind. He picks away at some of the myths and lies around genetically modified food, and makes an excellent case for a rethink.
- Pale Rider, by Laura Spinney. I’ve read two books on the 1918 flu pandemic, and I honestly couldn’t choose one over the other; both looked at it from slightly different angles, though I think perhaps Spinney dug a bit further on the social and cultural effects.
- The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette de Bodard. I kept thinking this wouldn’t be my thing, and then picked it for the book club to encourage me to give it a try. Lo and behold, I inhaled it! Such a fascinating mixture of mythologies, and a fantastic setting.
- Murder by Matchlight, by E.C.R. Lorac. I’m not sure if this was the first book I read by E.C.R. Lorac… it might have been. Either way, it was the one that switched her work from the “it’s a British Library Crime Classic, so I’ll probably get it and try it” to “I’ll pick up anything I find by her”. Her mysteries are often deeply rooted in a place, so that you can almost smell the farms or the fires of the Blitz.
- The Bell at Sealey Head, by Patricia McKillip. Pretty much anything by McKillip is going to be interesting, though I sometimes find the conclusions to her stories a bit difficult to follow. The Bell at Sealey Head was one I tore through, though.
- Provenance, by Ann Leckie. I’d have read this one anyway, and the Habitica challenge might actually have been for a reread for me. I love Provenance a lot; it’s not doing the same things as the Imperial Radch books, and it doesn’t feel the same in terms of narration or characters or plot. I think that led some people to be disappointed in it, but I wasn’t.
- Hild, by Nicola Griffith. Confession: I still haven’t actually finished this. But some of the descriptions are just perfect and beautiful, and I still mean to come back and finish it.
- The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas. I probably wouldn’t have read this one without a book club, because YA with a contemporary setting isn’t normally my thing. I’m really glad I did, though; this book deserves all the hype.
- Girl Waits With Gun, by Amy Stewart. I should really read the second book in this series, because I read the first book sooo fast. As I recall, it wasn’t a universal win in the book club… but I really enjoyed the story, and appreciated learning about the real Constance Kopp as well.

One thing I want to do going forward is diversify the picks a bit — there have been authors of various marginalisations in the lineup, but I can do better. Luckily I’ve been picking up plenty of books that will qualify for that, in the past year!
Tags: Aliette de Bodard, Amy Stewart, Angie Thomas, Ann Leckie, books, E.C.R. Lorac, Laura Spinney, Mark Lynas, Nicola Griffith, Patricia McKillip, Samantha Shannon, Top Ten Tuesday
Posted August 10, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
The Green Mill Murder, Kerry Greenwood
The Green Mill Murder is one of the books of this series which really sticks in my head, mostly because of the descriptions of the flight over the mountains, and then the silence and space of the mountains. That part is so vividly imagined — including Phryne’s dislike of it — that it can’t help but stick in my head… that and the sheer awfulness of both Charles and Mrs Freeman. The mystery itself feels a little unfair… I knew how it was done and still couldn’t piece it together until Phryne, like magic, pulled it out of the hat. I don’t always mind that, myself, but it does rankle with some mystery readers, so it’s worth knowing.
Ostensibly the main mystery of the book is the murder which happens in its opening page, when one of the dancers in a marathon dancing session suddenly collapses, and seems to have been killed with a very slim knife. Something’s changed about the corpse when Phryne next looks at it, but she can’t put her finger on what… and in the meantime her date has vanished off to be copiously sick. Or just vanished: the policeman who goes to look for him finds no trace.
I find the main mystery oddly forgettable, though, despite the power of Nerine’s voice and Tintagel’s alleged charms. I didn’t really see it myself, for Tintagel’s case, though of course Phryne is susceptible to a pretty face… it’s just that he’s also a bit of an amoral bastard, and that always colours my reading of his character. In any case, the bit that sticks in my head is Vic Freeman and his lonely hut. Or not lonely, really, given he has a horse (actually a donkey or mule, I think? I am too lazy to get up and check), a dog, and a wombat (who proves instrumental). The rest of it is full of awful people, but Vic is just happy to be alone, to have some silence and healing away from the city.
It’s an enjoyable read, but sometimes feels a little lopsided to me, because of the bits of the plot I prefer.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Kerry Greenwood, mystery
Posted August 8, 2020 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments
Greetings, folks! This has been a good week for ARCs, and passable for reading… and I have my replacement ereader now, so I can get back to some neglected library books. Hurrah! It’s also been pretty busy in terms of posting reviews, which I hadn’t realised until starting this post. Whoa!
Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.
Books acquired:


Thank you to the publishers who let me have ARCs (mostly Tor!) and also the two lovelies who have bought me books this week. You know how to spoil a Nicky, and it’s appreciated deeply.
Books read this week:

Reviews posted this week:
- Mystery at Olympia, by John Rhode. Not the most memorable story, actually; I’d thought better of John Rhode’s work in other outings (as Miles Burton). But fun enough. 3/5 stars
- Lock In, by John Scalzi. Very entertaining, and not a bad SF mystery either. Held up very well as a reread. 4/5 stars
- Drowned Country, by Emily Tesh. A lovely novella, following up on Silver in the Wood. I was mad at it at first for certain plot/character things… but it brought me round. 4/5 stars
- Head On, by John Scalzi. Also very entertaining, and that’s including the cat in witness protection which I’d forgotten to mention. 4/5 stars
- The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo, by Zen Cho. I don’t always get along with things that are meant to be funny, but this works very well for me, and the voice reminded me of I Capture the Castle, a solid favourite. 4/5 stars
- A Scream in Soho, by John G. Brandon. Rather sordid and racist. Meh. 1/5 stars
Other posts:
Whoa, that took some rounding up.
So how’re you folks? Been reading anything good, or stacking your shelves with anything shiny? I got my finished copy of Seven Devils as well, this week, so that’s something to look forward to!
Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup
Posted August 8, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
A Scream in Soho, John G. Brandon
Ooookay this one is just somehow really not my thing. It’s all Italian mobsters and German spies, slathered on thick with a side of racial determinism. The policeman at the centre of the story, McCarthy, is prone to violence to get his way — and has a rather Holmes-ian moves-in-mysterious-ways air about him, along with various sidekicks pulled off the streets and a disguise or two. It’s fairly obvious whodunnit, from pretty early on, and whydunnit comes pretty quickly after as well. After that, McCarthy just knocks some heads together and does some casual breaking and entering.
The joy of Golden Age crime fiction is often the sense of order, the sense that things in Britain are fundamentally good and just. It’s a total nostalgic lie, and always was, and the noble policeman as much as any of it… and this doesn’t have to be everybody’s thing, but I do think it’s a big part of what calls to me about E.C.R. Lorac’s series detective, or John Bude’s: they are decent men, doing a job which they believe to be serving justice, and doing it for the right reasons.
Needless to say, then, I did not enjoy McCarthy, even though he’s probably more realistic in many ways — particularly not since we’re supposed to be entirely on his side. Nope, nope, nope.
Not one for me. 1/5 stars feels kind of unfair, but… no, I can’t honestly point to anything I liked.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, John G. Brandon, mystery
Posted August 8, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo, Zen Cho
I don’t usually get on well with books that are meant to be funny, or books described as satirical, but The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo was great fun. Jade (or Geok Huay, but Jade is a translation and the name she uses in Britain) has a great voice: it took me ages to decide what it reminded me of, until I saw someone else mention I Capture the Castle. Yep, really quite like that, though I think also I’m being reminded of Mori from Jo Walton’s Among Others… there’s something in the curious, practical, analytical tone (not divorced from dreaming, but approaching things with a sort of scientific curiosity) that is both endearing and entertaining.
The story does feature one moment of the sort of horrible miscommunication that makes me writhe with second-hand embarrassment… but Jade’s voice carries it beautifully, and though I wasn’t passionately interested in how things turned out for her (actually, I felt it could be entertaining no matter what), I was glad that she had her happy ever after. And in the meantime, I thought the descriptions of kissing with the guy she doesn’t really have any feelings for were quite hilarious:
In ordinary kissing one aligns one’s lips with the kissee’s lips, and presses them together, but in well – i can’t think of a better term – in sex kissing the insides of one’s mouth is involved, and it is quite difficult to make it so the respective lips are aligned. One folds one’s lips on top of the other’s. But caution is required: if everyone’s lips stray too far beyond the mouth it gets very damp and one feels as if one is being eaten by an excessively friendly lion.
And that is exactly why french kissing baffles me quite a bit, on a personal level, though I know very well that others don’t see it in quite such mechanistic bodies-are-silly ways. It’s such a great way of showing both the lack of emotion between the two characters involved (at least on Jade’s side), and Jade’s general attitude to sex.
All in all, very fun, and often funny — even to me, and I hardly have a sense of humour.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, humour, romance, Zen Cho
Posted August 6, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 5 Comments
Head On, John Scalzi
I don’t know why it took me so long to read this sequel to Lock In; I really liked the first book, and Scalzi’s work is always breezy in the best way. Unsurprisingly, when I got to this I steamed through it in two days (and I’d gladly have finished it in just one day, but bedtime is a thing that has to happen now I’m getting to the ripe old age of 31). Head On is set a year later than Lock In, and to some extent, I think you can read it without the previous book; it catches you up pretty well on the most pertinent information.
The investigation centres around the death of an athlete during a game in which people piloting robot bodies try to tear each other’s heads off. Something about what happens during play when one of them gets his head torn off causes him to die… and the league pull his details from the live feed, arousing the suspicions of Chris Shane. It gets worse: right before Vann and Shane go to interview him, one of the bigwigs apparently kills himself.
Curiouser and curiouser, as they say. Everything spirals from there, with Scalzi’s usual pace and wit. Some aspects of the mystery were obvious to me pretty early on, but it’s fun to watch Scalzi spin it out and complicate it before bringing it home.
It feels maybe a little less urgent than the first book, somehow, and I probably still prefer Lock In… but it’s a worthy sequel, and I’d love to spend more time following Shane and Vann around as Vann bulldozes her way through all opposition to solve the case.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, John Scalzi, mystery, SF/F
Posted August 5, 2020 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments
It’s Wednesday again! So here’s the usual check-in. You can go to Taking On A World Of Words to chat with everyone else who has posted what they’re reading right now!
What are you currently reading?
Probably a bunch of stuff that I’ve accidentally put down when I didn’t mean to… but primarily, I’ve just started A Scream in Soho, by John G. Brandon. There’s so much period-typical racial stereotyping (largely about Italians, but Germans too), and the murdered person is… well, the way the story puts it is that it’s a man disguised as a woman. Which the plot will probably bear out, given they’re probably a spy. Still, it’s not exactly aged well in various ways.
What have you recently finished reading?
I devoured a reread of John Scalzi’s Lock In, and then followed it up with the sequel, Head On. I’ve been meaning to read it for ages, and I didn’t really need the reread of the first book… but it was nice. I still need to sit down and do my review of Head On and think through it, but I tore through both books.
What will you be reading next?
Goodness knows! I want to reread The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet for a Habitica book club readalong, so there’s that… but I also just got my replacement ereader and I had a bunch of books part-read on Libby that I need to get into the queues for again. If they’re not currently reserved, maybe I’ll be able to grab them and restart on those.
But as usual, it could really be anything.
What are you currently reading?
Tags: Becky Chambers, books, British Library Crime Classics, John G. Brandon, John Scalzi, WWW Wednesday
Posted August 4, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
Drowned Country, Emily Tesh
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 18th August 2020
Drowned Country is a follow-up to Silver in the Wood. Tobias Finch has left the wood, leaving Silver behind to… well, mostly mope, actually. It’s a bed of his own making and he has to lie in it: it’s slowly revealed that he managed to drive Tobias away, despite the deep affection between them. But he has a chance to make things right: Silver’s mother returns to the wood to get him, in order to help with a particular case of supernatural shenanigans she and Tobias are dealing with. There’s a vampire roaming around, a young girl is missing, and they require Silver’s particular talents.
It’s a little disorientating to start where we do, but it makes sense: it allows a slow unfolding of how exactly Silver could mess it up so badly. We’re also in Silver’s point of view now, and get to see Tobias from the outside; that’s rather enjoyable, and the close-third POV is livelier and a little more human in outlook than the close-third to Tobias from the previous book. It gives everything a little more depth, and a different colour; the light has changed in the forest, though the trees are all the same.
It’s not a simple adventure, and the relationship between Tobias and Silver isn’t the sole driver of the plot. Instead, we get a little glimpse of other things deep and strange.
And of course, you still have to love Silver’s mother.
The two novellas are very easy reading, and beautifully written. Very worth it!
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic, romance, SF/F
Posted August 4, 2020 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

Sorry I missed last week, folks! It was a heckuva week, for sure. Anyway, this week is a bit like a scavenger hunt for me, because I’m not sure I can actually think of books I like with colours in their titles… so I’m going to survey my shelves for whatever I can find.

- Red, White & Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston. I haven’t read this one, and I really really want to.
- The Silver Branch, by Rosemary Sutcliff. This I have read, of course, though I wish I could find the editions I had as a kid. I read ’em to pieces, though The Eagle of the Ninth was my favourite.
- The Boy in the Red Dress, by Kristin Lambert. A recent acquisition, so one I haven’t read yet. It looks so fun, though!
- Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Marlon James. I haven’t read it yet, and I’m not entirely sure it’s going to be my thing based on reviews… but I’m eager to give it a go.
- Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse. Okay, this is actually on my wishlist and not on my shelves because it’s not out yet.
- All Systems Red, by Martha Wells. Oh, Murderbot. <3
- Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord. I’ve been meaning to reread this, I remember loving it but not much about it.
- The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark. Loved this novella so much!
- The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle. I was less of a fan of this Lovecraft retelling, but it kinda sticks in my head!
- A Pale Light in the Black, by K.B. Wagers. Another one that’s on my TBR but which I haven’t read yet…

As you can see, I have a TBR problem, insofar as that can be considered a problem!
How’d everyone else do with the scavenger hunt? Or could you think of enough books with colours in the title that you could pick out your favourites? I’m looking forward to seeing all the obvious ones I’ve missed…
Tags: books, Casey McQuiston, K.B. Wagers, Karen Lord, Kristin Lambert, Marlon James, Martha Wells, P. Djèlí Clark, Rebecca Roanhorse, Rosemary Sutcliff, Top Ten Tuesday, Victor LaValle