Author: Nicky

Review – The Cruel Prince

Posted August 20, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

The Cruel Prince, Holly Black

The Cruel Prince turned out not to be my thing. It just felt so immediately typical — the cruel and fascinating Fae with their fairy fruit and their grudge against mortals, the human girls in love with the world of Faerie. The human girl determined to prove herself by fighting, the betrayals and backstabbing, the evil and beautiful boy who turns out to have been abused, etc, etc, etc… it just all kind of felt familiar and I wasn’t getting into it. I’ve heard that the ending is very worth it, but I didn’t get there, so I couldn’t say.

Mostly, I just feel like if I’m dragging through a book at 50 pages a day and only that much because I feel I have to, even though it’s not all that dense or anything, then it’s time to give it up. So I did.

Rating: 1/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Heartstopper, volume 2

Posted August 19, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Heartstopper, vol 2, Alice Oseman

Volume 2 of Heartstopper basically just continues the adorableness. If you’re not interested in a comic about a pair of boys — one gay, one bisexual — becoming friends, figuring out they’re into each other, and coping with things like coming out and getting along with each other’s friends, then it probably isn’t for you. The art is all in the same style on the cover, kind of doodly, and somehow that makes it more adorable to me, as well as quite distinctive (though there’s a couple of other artists with a similar sort of aesthetic).

I love the way Charlie and Nick are with each other; they have a couple of misunderstandings, and yes, one of those is at the start of this volume and is due to not actually communicating… but for the most part, they do communicate, and it’s lovely.

Look! It’s just adorbs:

They’re consistently adorable and I am so tempted to race ahead and read the whole darn thing. Buuut instead I’m being good and purchasing it volume by volume as it comes out.

(That Patreon with so many pages ahead is tempting, though…)

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, romance

Review – Mistletoe and Murder

Posted August 18, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Mistletoe and Murder, Carola Dunn

Well out of season, whoops! In this instalment of the series, Daisy’s found a new country house of potential interest to her readers, and has arranged to stay there over Christmas. Her mother, being overbearing and knowing that the place is owned by someone with a title, signs herself up to join them, leaving Daisy to juggle with two children (Derek and Belinda are both along for the ride), work, and a very displeased mother who expected the titled personage to be present and is furious with Daisy when she finds he won’t be. Oh, and of course: murder.

Daisy doesn’t actually stumble across the body herself this time, for a wonder, though I was constantly waiting for the moment when she would! So thank goodness for slight variations in the formula, even now the Fletchers are back in Britain. She’s indispensable, of course, with her knowledge of the house and of the squabbles between and potential motivations of the inhabitants.

It’s a fairly standard plot for a Daisy Dalrymple book, all the same, and honestly, perhaps that’s part of why I like them (even though I can’t read too many of them back to back because of that same thing). You know how things are going to go, Alec and Daisy are delightful, and in the end the right chickens are brought home to roost. It’s restful and familiar — in fact, cosy in its own way, despite the deaths and the complicated and acrimonious feelings between some of the characters.

It isn’t deeply thrilling or wildly exciting, and that’s what’s nice about it.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Carola Dunn, crime, mystery

Review – This Is How You Lose The Time War

Posted August 16, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

This Is How You Lose The Time War, Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

I’ve been curious about this book for a while, so I dug into it right away when my pre-order arrived! I’ve only read short stories by Amal El-Mohtar, as far as I recall, and only one of Max Gladstone’s novels, so I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. It’s a rather lyrical and poetic book, following the correspondence of two enemy agents as they follow each other up and down time, through alternative worlds and different histories, and as they fall in love.

To be quite honest, I didn’t fall in love with it. I appreciated the lyricism, and I also definitely appreciate that these two agents are definitely presented as female. I found it enjoyable to read. But it didn’t really get claws into me; I didn’t feel like I’d mind terribly much if I never finished it. I couldn’t say what it could have done better to make me love it; I’m not sure there is anything specific. It felt too clever by half, really, and then the emotional undercurrents missed me while I was watching the cleverness from a cynical distance.

Definitely an interesting endeavour, and worth a read, but not something I could love.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic, SF/F

Review – Exit Strategy

Posted August 15, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Exit Strategy, Martha Wells

Exit Strategy wraps up the novella series by bringing Murderbot full circle: back to Dr Mensah and her team, the people it helped in the first book. Second-guessing itself, hating the idea of becoming a pet bot, but nonetheless needing to help the person who is (nominally, at least!) its owner, Murderbot finds that Dr Mensah is probably a hostage and goes ahead with doing what it does best. Planning, worrying extensively, and then throwing itself headlong into trouble.

If I didn’t know there was a novel coming as a follow-up, I’d be really mad about this final book, honestly. The second and third books gave us some development for Murderbot, of course, but they also gave us characters I’d really like to see again. Particularly ART, though I’d like to know what became of everyone else as well. It’s not that this book doesn’t give a kind of closure, because it does, but it doesn’t wrap things up in the kind of everything-converges-and-everybody-meets ending I guess I was hoping for.

It’s enjoyable, and Murderbot remains a delight. But I want more!

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Martha Wells, SF/F

Review – In the Labyrinth of Drakes

Posted August 14, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

In the Labyrinth of Drakes, Marie Brennan

In the Labyrinth of Drakes is so full of squee. That’s a technical term.

In this book, Tom and Isabella are shipped out to Akhia to work on a breeding program for dragons, in order to supply the army of Scirland with dragonbone for caeligers equivalent to those made by other world powers. So there’s one thread of plot whereby Isabella investigates the breeding of dragons, including a trip into the desert to find where they actually breed, and perhaps even witness a hatching.

Of course, we’re in Akhia, so there’s another thread to the plot as well: Isabella re-encounters Suhail, though his family disapprove very much of his association with her. Nonetheless, they find ways to speak to each other, and Suhail eventually accompanies her on her journey to the Labyrinth of Drakes, an area in the desert full of Draconaean remains and potentially untouched sites to delight the heart of any archaeologist.

There’s the personal plot, in which we finally discover who will turn out to be Isabella’s second husband (a fact which is a bit of a tease through the previous books, but obvious in retrospect), and then this intertwines with Isabella’s journey of scientific discovery and Suhail’s archaelogical pursuits. Overall, it’s very satisfying and not a bit wasted.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Marie Brennan, SF/F

WWW Wednesday

Posted August 14, 2019 by Nicky in General / 1 Comment

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.

What are you currently reading?

I’m partway through the same Daisy Dalrymple book as last week! That’s surprisingly slow for me and this series; maybe it’s already time for another short break before I pick up the next book. It’s not that I don’t enjoy Daisy in a cosy sort of way, but still… it is getting frightfully predictable.

I’m also paging through the Good Omens script book, which I picked up today.

What have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was Joanne Harris’ The Blue Salt Road, which is a selkie story. Fairytale-like narration, but some surprising stuff under the hood at times. And lovely illustrations! It was worth finally picking it up, for sure.

What will you be reading next?

Well, my preorder of Turning Darkness into Light is here, so even if I was holding off because I prefer to read this series in dead tree rather than ebook (I couldn’t say why, I guess it’s all part of the experience), now I have no excuse! Time to dig in. Possibly during the trip to Dublin…?

Which, again, if anyone is going to Worldcon, lemme know! Let’s maybe meet up!

And, as always, what are you reading?

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Record of a Spaceborn Few

Posted August 13, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Record of a Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers

All the books in this series are rather cosy, and they’ve been getting less of a plot with each installment — the first book has a crew of characters with a definite short-term purpose in mind, the second book is a character study in many ways, and this… this is slices of life on board the Exodan feet, contemporaneous with the other books. There’s not much of a plot beyond the very basics: people want to live, people want to find their place. It’s got quite a large cast of characters, and it kind of goes a bit aimless and limp in the middle if you’re looking for a plot or even hoping for a definite character arc. It’s very slice-of-life-ish. Even when something dramatic happens, the point is not the drama, but the way the people involved heal afterwards and deal with it.

If you’re looking for a character study and an exploration of how this society might work, though, there is a lot to enjoy. I got a bit teary about the other books, but this one had me in tears within the first fifty pages. There’s something powerful about the Exodan fleet and what it stands for, and this book explores that. It’s interesting to follow these characters as they do their very particular jobs, with meaning and significance only for the Exodan fleet.

I think it’s still an enjoyable read, as long as you’re not going into it with the expectation that you’re going to have gun fights and interstellar politics. This isn’t The Expanse, and there’s very little of the do-or-die heroism. Instead, it’s about people getting on with life, and the small everyday ups and downs they have to deal with. I don’t think it’s as strong as the previous two books, even though it’s the epitome of the hope and family and connection that makes those books so good! It’s just a little too slow and contemplative, without the clear drive of either of the other two.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: Becky Chambers, book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Dread Nation

Posted August 12, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Dread Nation, Justina Ireland

I can’t remember who I spoke to who thought this might be rather like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, just a sort of awkward shoehorning of zombies into a historical period in a fairly superficial way. That’s not how this comes across — I’d compare it more closely to Mira Grant’s Feed and sequels in terms of the way it’s built into how society works — and it does seem to me to reflect the era of history fairly well. Set after zombies rose during the American Civil War, this book follows the fortunes of Jane, a black girl who has been sent to a combat school in order to learn to kill zombies (along with all other non-white children of her age). No longer slaves, but definitely second class citizens, black people bear most of the burden of fighting zombies, leaving white people living in luxurious safety.

For the most part, anyway. Maybe things aren’t safe as they seem. But as soon as Jane starts to poke around into that even a little bit, she’s caught and carted off to a new settlement, a place that’s meant to be safe from zombies — safe because it’s guarded by a vast perimeter wall and the endless patrolling of people like Jane. Naturally, there’s all kinds of nastiness — in terms of race, class, and just plain horribleness — and a whole mystery into which Jane must dig.

I enjoyed her character on a superficial sort of level, though I found her somewhat contradictory. One minute she hates Katherine, another girl from the school, and the next she does her a favour with the thinnest of reasoning. (Tit for tat doesn’t work if you don’t like or trust the person covering your back if you cover theirs, especially if the stakes are rather different between the two of you.) Katherine’s the same, one minute despising Jane and the next relying on her. The interpersonal stuff just never quite adds up for me.

The setting works well, and I believe in the way Ireland has tweaked history and changed things up. What she changes makes sense, as far as I understand history, and the social consequences are all too easy to imagine. The story ticks along well, action following action rather than getting stuck — it certainly keeps the pages turning. In the end, though, I just wasn’t in love with it. It wasn’t bad, but nor do I feel any pressing need to read the sequel when it arrives.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, historical fiction, horror, SF/F

Review – The Pandemic Century

Posted August 11, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Pandemic Century, Mark Honigsbaum

The Pandemic Century is a look at the last century or so of infectious disease outbreaks which picks up some illustrative examples in order to… well, the stated purpose is to discuss “panic, hysteria and hubris”, but I’m not sure that I ever felt there was a coherent argument going on here. There are a lot of interesting bits, mostly when he focuses on the investigation of what’s causing disease, or the social/political measures taken to ameliorate disease. I didn’t know a lot about, for example, the outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease, and Honigsbaum does break it down well and explain the historical context.

It’s just not clear exactly where he’s going with this. At one and the same time, he decries the panic around certain pandemics, while also showing that the response to many of them wasn’t fast enough. I suppose you can do that and be advocating ever-greater focus on detecting and understanding emerging infectious diseases, but it feels off. Is he correct that we still don’t always understand what we’re looking for? Yes. But… scientists are always working on improving this stuff; it’s not news that the unknown unknown is always going to be a risk. That doesn’t mean what we’re already doing is wrong.

On the level of pure prose, well, I mostly found it readable but there are choice bits like this: “If SARS was a calamity for Toronto, for Hong Kong it was a disaster.” Those are the same thing, Mark. Those are the same thing. One is not worse than the other, which is what that sentence construction requires.

It feels… to some extent, it feels like it parrots the understanding of other writers, without actually driving toward a particular conclusion of its own. And where those understandings conflict, we get that weird juxtaposition of “everyone is panicking too much” and “we’re not panicking enough because there are things we don’t know about yet”. There’s also a bit where Honigsbaum tries to present the understanding that human/animal interaction is a powerful vector for novel diseases as his own and new in some way, when it’s basically a parroting of David Quammen’s Spillover.

There’s nothing new here, ultimately, just some different illustrative examples. I found it enjoyable, and even informative when it came to facts about particular diseases, but there’s no stunning new insight.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, science