Author: Nicky

WWW Wednesday

Posted April 8, 2020 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Aaaand it’s Wednesday again, for a little while longer. Here’s the usual check-in!

Cover of The Rules of Contagion by Adam KucharskiWhat are you currently reading?​

Non-fiction: I’ve circled back to The Rules of Contagion, by Adam Kurcharski. For a few weeks, it was too topical for me. Right now it’s just about topical enough to engage my brain with being curious instead of anxious. (As ever, all hail whoever once told me that curiosity is the opposite of anxiety; it often works, for me. If you think about it, anxiety is a protective thing that is keeping you from new/dangerous experiences, but on overdrive. Curiosity is all about finding out new things. Not very compatible!)

Fiction: I don’t appear to have much truly active right now. I’m still reading The Steerswoman with my wife (Wife Book Club!) but I haven’t really been making much progress. I’m holding her back! It’s a reread for me, but I really should try to catch up.

Cover of Castle Skull by John Dickson CarrWhat have you recently finished reading?

I finally polished off Castle Skull last night, and I probably should have just DNFed it. I’m just not a John Dickson Carr fan, and his solutions tend to annoy me more than they satisfy. I really do not love his detectives one bit.

Cover of Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuistonWhat will you be reading next?​

Who knows? I did get my last book order from Portal Bookshop through, though: I now have Red, White and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston, and that sounds really, really fun right now. (Concept: the son of a fictional female US president falls in love with a fictional British prince. Shenanigans ensue as they try not to sabotage anyone’s presidential campaign. Sign me up for this reality.)

What are you reading?

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Review – Castle Skull

Posted April 8, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Castle Skull by John Dickson CarrCastle Skull, John Dickson Carr

I don’t know why I persist in subjecting myself to John Dickson Carr. This is the third book of his I’ve tried, I think, and it’s just… not for me. His work feels stilted and contrived, lacking the style of someone like Dorothy L. Sayers or the breeziness of Agatha Christie’s best. His genius detective, all but infallible, all but omniscient, just gets on my nerves. In fairness, almost all of the clues are there, but it’s hard to solve the mystery (though in another sense, it’s obvious) when everybody is so opaque; not even the Watson really feels alive, despite the access to his thoughts you have with him as the narrator.

Just… not for me, and I really need to remember that; I’ve had the same problem with Dickson Carr’s other series detective, and I just… don’t enjoy the contrived nature of his plots.

This is the second book in the British Library Crime Classics line of reissues that featured the sealed book ending: if you could take it back to the place you bought it without cutting it open to read the ending, you got your money back. It’s sort of interesting to think about that kind of gimmick. I wonder how well it worked! I can’t remember which Golden Age book I’ve read did this now… maybe it was John Dickson Carr’s other book, though?

In any case, argh, I should have put this down and given up, but I still had the tiniest bit of curiosity to satisfy.

Rating: 1/5

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Review – Walking to Aldebaran

Posted April 7, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Cover of Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian TchaikovskyWalking to Aldebaran, Adrian Tchaikovsky

Received to review via Netgalley

I’m really late to this one, I know, but it caught my eye on my Kindle today and I dug in. It was a longer read than it looked, but it still went down pretty easy; by 60% of the way through, I had a solid idea about where it was going. I hadn’t quite caught all the nuances, though. But this is starting at the end.

To start at the beginning, Walking to Aldebaran is a novella-length story about Gary Rendell, a somewhat Mark Watney-esque character who is lost within the depths of a Big Dumb Object. The Mark Watney comparison is mostly referring to the narration, which has a very similar tone; Rendell, however, is rather less ingenious and rather more to putting his head down and charging at whatever it is that’s bothering him. Mostly, he just wants to go home, but the Crypts (his name for the Big Dumb Object) are vast, confusing, and full of physics that makes no sense.

I’ll be honest: while reading it, I was mostly thinking about how much more it would be up my wife’s alley. There’s a lot of weirdness going on, and some horror elements, that all in all reminds me of the work of Jeff Vandermeer or China Miéville. The narration is fairly straightforward — at times, Gary starts talking about how he got there, telling the story of the expedition and how the Big Dumb Object was discovered, but mostly it’s pretty linear and I thought I knew what was happening by around about 60% of the way through.

However, Tchaikovsky is not without his tricks. I didn’t quite catch on to everything until I peeked at other people’s reviews/discussions on Goodreads. That’s all I’ll say; too much would spoil it. It’s possible that I was having a particularly dim day not to spot it right away, of course, but I still appreciated it very much once I “got” it.

Overall, quite enjoyable, and I think it’s possible this is one that will stick in my head, despite it not being an outright awesome match for my reading tastes.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Masked City

Posted April 7, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Masked City by Genevieve CogmanThe Masked City, Genevieve Cogman

The Masked City might be my favourite book of the bunch so far. It mostly features Irene, on her own, doing her thing. The motivations aren’t all about world-ending disaster or terrifying eldritch horrors, and at root it’s all about friendship and going to any lengths necessary for someone. Almost at the start, Kai is kidnapped by Fae and taken to a high chaos world that is inimical to his very nature, to be sold to the highest bidder. It will lead to a war between the Fae and Dragons, and it probably won’t end well for Kai, so Irene plunges in to save him.

It is a little annoying that every book relies more or less heavily on the repeated plot motif of Irene being cut off from the Library. In the first book, she’s chaos-infested; in this book, she’s too deep into chaos to reach the Library… It makes sense that she can’t always be popping back and forth to research things, but I feel frustrated by how little of the Library we see.

Nonetheless, this instalment has some very fun things, including the world-building about the natures of the Fae. Maybe it’s partly a fondness for the aesthetics of Venice that prompt my love of this particular book; Irene moves in a fantasy-Venice, in which the water doesn’t smell and there’s always a gondola going where you want to go. It’s deliberately charming, the very best of Venice; painted scenery against which the lives of the Fae (and this story) are hung. It really works as imagery and as a theme because Venice is treated like that in the real world, too.

There is a bit, I think in this book, where Vale tests Irene’s motivations a little, and that’s a really good scene (though sort of inconclusive), because Irene and all the Librarians feel a little shallow. They could do all sorts of good in the worlds, they have immense power to affect reality… and yet they’re only interested in books? I can understand a love of literature, but the Library feels hollow when you think about its alleged purpose: just to collect books. That’s it. Collect and preserve books. Not just unique knowledge — much of it isn’t applicable between worlds anyway — but obscure variants and unique copies of books that exist already in other worlds. It all feels a bit thin, and I worry at times that there isn’t anything behind that apparent central mission.

So yes, overall, probably my favourite, and probably the book that really made me enthusiastic about the series, too.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Provenance

Posted April 6, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Provenance by Ann LeckieProvenance, Ann Leckie

I loved Provenance the first time I read it, focusing on Garal Ket and somewhat on Tic Uisine as being particular awesome points. I also enjoyed the gender-neutral characters included as a matter of course, and seeing something from outside the Radch, from a human point of view. Also, getting some screentime (so to speak) for the Geck! It’s all pretty awesome, but this time all of it was a background to Ingray’s journey, for me. If you’re used to Breq, she’s a much less put-together main character, and we also may feel less close to her as it isn’t a first-person narrative. Nonetheless, her journey to true self-sufficiency — and her healing from some of the wounds of a childhood spent competing with foster siblings — is great.

The book opens with her disastrous attempt to have a neman returned from Compassionate Removal (a sort of prison planet). The captain of the ship she’s about to travel on refuses to take anyone on board who isn’t fully consenting and aware of their destination, so the neman is awoken right there in the dock… and says e is not the person Ingray thought she asking for. Nonetheless, she ends up offering em the fake identity she bought to take that person home, and e ends up accepting — and throwing in with her to scam her family into believing e is the person she was hoping to find. Then the Geck get involved…

It’s an interesting society, which includes some stuff quite casually — part of adulthood is deciding on your gender and choosing your adult name! there is a third, officially recognised neutral gender! Ingray has a lesbian romance with a friend! — which I really enjoy as a) setting this planet apart from the Radch or from our own Earth, and b) the inclusiveness. The idea of the importance placed in this society upon “vestiges”, physical remnants that have been touched by one’s ancestors, is an interesting way to build up the society, too. Ingray’s relationship with her mother and brother are interesting and sad and ultimately rather affirming: despite mistakes made in the past, they remain a family and find a way through it all.

It remains a very enjoyable book, and I ate it up the second time as swiftly as I did the first. That said, if you’re looking for more of the Radch, or for a character more like Breq, this isn’t going to scratch the same itch.

Rating: 5/5

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Weekly Roundup

Posted April 5, 2020 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Greetings, folks. It’s been a week. I don’t know what kind of week it’s been, to be honest. A weird one, but they all are right now. Let’s talk books instead.

Received to review:

Cover of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I usually like Moreno-Garcia’s work, some with more enthusiasm than others. Looking forward to giving this a try.

New books:

Cover of Deeplight by Frances Hardinge

From a friend. <3 Many thanks.

There should be more books here, but I basically just have tabs and tabs open trying to decide what books to buy with the book vouchers I was given. I had no idea Carola Dunn had written so many romances, for example, and I have no idea where to start.

Books read this week:

Cover of Drowned Country by Emily Tesh Cover of The Ghosts of Sherwood by Carrie Vaughn Cover of What's Your Pronoun? Beyond He & She by Dennis Barron

Reviews posted this week:

–What’s Your Pronoun? by Dennis Baron. Interesting, but not quite what I hoped for. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. Discussing What’s Your Pronoun? and Drowned Country, this week.

Out and about:

–Beeminder Blog: “Self-Isolation Strategies: Nikki’s Operation Safety Bubble.” This one’s all me, talking about how I’m using Beeminder to keep me healthy and sane during this difficult time. Some of it is generalisable to planning your life goals in general.
–Habitica Blog: “Behind the Scenes: Coping in a Crisis.” Habitica’s mods and staff worked together to create a post about how they’re coping with the current situation. And yes, I added a bit. Spot the Good Omens cameo in the photo of my bookshelves…
–NEAT science: “How do you define a species?“ In which I discuss the species definition, and when certain definitions might be useful.

How’re you all doing?

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Review – What’s Your Pronoun?

Posted April 5, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of What's Your Pronoun? Beyond He & She by Dennis BarronWhat’s Your Pronoun? Dennis Baron

What’s Your Pronoun? discusses something that’s on a lot of people’s minds, for good or bad: the humble part of speech we call the pronoun. Despite what some idiots protest, everybody uses pronouns all the time: I, you, she, he, they… They’re ubiquitous in speech and have been stirring up people’s emotions for years, whether it be wanting a neutral indefinite pronoun (for when you don’t know the gender of the person you’re referring to), or perhaps (like me) wanting to be addressed using a definite neutral pronoun (when someone doesn’t want to reveal their gender, or doesn’t identify with any).

Barron mostly discusses the former, because that’s something that he feels English is lacking (and which he has a fairly marked preference about, judging from this book). He goes over the numerous attempts to invent neutral pronouns, and some of the societal drivers behind that like denying women suffrage, getting used to women taking equal part in public life, and now the greater acceptance in Western society (the examples mostly stick to the US and the UK) of people who prefer to be gender-neutral.

It gets a little stodgy at times, personally, because I don’t care exactly when every different neopronoun was coined, and I’m less interested in a neutral indefinite pronoun (which English speakers usually solve with singular “they”, even if they believe that to be ungrammatical) than in a definite one. Baron is definitely behind singular they all the way, by the sounds of his arguments in this book, whether it be definite or indefinite: in answer to the cries of grammatical issues, he points out that singular “you” is a much more recent coinage, and one nobody even murmurs about these days.

I found it fairly readable, with some chapters being very absorbing and others getting a bit bogged down. If you’re interested in grammar, I’d recommend it.

Rating: 3/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted April 2, 2020 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Very quickly, my WWW Wednesday!

Cover of What's Your Pronoun? Beyond He & She by Dennis BarronWhat are you currently reading?

Non-fiction: What’s Your Pronoun? by Dennis Baron. I’ve got a little bogged down in the history of invented pronouns, and it’s mostly actually so far about finding a gender-neutral pronoun for when you don’t know the gender of the person you’re talking about or are talking gender-neutral possibilities. The next bit I think has more about non-binary pronouns, which I’m more interested in.

Fiction: actually, nothing really actively. I still have Feed half-finished, and should pick it back up.

Cover of Drowned Country by Emily TeshWhat have you recently finished reading?

An ARC of Emily Tesh’s Drowned Country. I enjoyed it at least as much as the first book; it makes a nice little duology, though I would happily read more adventures of Silver’s mother tearing around the country. I am not wholly sure about the end; it feels a little too pat, but also in a nice way.

Cover of Castle Skull by John Dickson CarrWhat are you planning to read next?

As usual lately, I don’t really know. I’d like to finish or finally DNF Castle Skull (John Dickson Carr) and Salt: A World History (Mark Kurlansky), so maybe I will turn my attention back to those!

What are you guys reading?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted March 29, 2020 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

I said I’d get back to my normal format this week, but there’s not much to round up in the way of blog content. However, there’s plenty by way of books — yikes!

Received to review:

Cover of The Last Emperox by John Scalzi Cover of Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee Cover of Drift Wood by Marie Brennan Cover of A Good Duke is Hard to Find by Christina Britton

Cover of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab Cover of Goldilocks by Laura Lam Cover of Seven Endless Forests by April Genevieve Tucholke

Cover of Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott Cover of The Sin in the Steel by Ryan Van Loan Cover of Network Effect by Martha Wells

What a haul, right? Bless Netgalley.

New books purchased:

Cover of Digging Up Armageddon by Eric H. Cline Cover of Bringing Down The Duke by Evie Dunmore Cover of The Duchess Deception by Cat Sebastian Cover of The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

My eclectic tastes are well on show in this post, huh?

I’ll skip the books read this week as there’s basically just one.

Reviews posted this week:

–It Takes Two To Tumble, by Cat Sebastian. Cuuuute. 4/5 stars
–A Gentleman Never Keeps Score, by Cat Sebastian. This is less all-out cute than the first book, though it is also sweet. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. This week discussing Mark Kurlansky, Mira Grant and Cat Sebastian.
–The Book Tempter’s TBR Challenge. Getting our TBRs down while in isolation? Well, maybe.

How’s everyone else doing? Reading anything good?

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Review – A Gentleman Never Keeps Score

Posted March 29, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score by Cat SebastianA Gentleman Never Keeps Score, Cat Sebastian

After It Takes Two To Tumble, this book follows the fortunes of one of Ben’s brothers, Hartley. As a teenager, he slept with a much older man, his godfather, to help provide for his brothers — school fees, rank, etc. On that man’s death, he inherited his house and a good deal of money, but now the whispers have gone out about why exactly he was the beneficiary… and, of course, he’s socially ruined. Into his life comes Sam Fox, publican and former boxer, who is kind and careful and handsome, and whom Hartley wants despite all the damage done by the exploitative sex he had as a teen.

On the one hand, it’s a delight how slowly and carefully the sex is explored in this book, how well Sam takes care of Hartley. At the same time, it’s harrowing; Hartley’s fears and self-disgust and inability to let himself find happiness are all over everything, making it a rather more serious book (at least to my mind). It’s not that it lacks sweetness, because it certainly doesn’t, but there’s a certain amount of bitter to it as well that — despite grief and worry — weren’t present in the previous book. There’s no on-screen rape or graphic discussion of it, but it colours everything; those who may find this triggering may want to avoid this.

It does have a lovely found family, much as the previous book does, and Hartley opens out into a lovely character as he loses some of his snootiness and challenges some of his own assumptions. Sam is lovely from start to finish — human, and not always able to be perfectly patient and perfectly understanding, but he strives to be better all the time. There are some fun side characters as well, particularly Sadie and Kate.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot and it broke through a funk during which I wasn’t reading much at all. It’s a little darker in tone, but it does have a happy ending, and I ended up enjoying it a lot.

Rating: 4/5

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