Author: Nicky

Stacking the Shelves

Posted July 1, 2017 by Nicky in General / 18 Comments

Good morning, everyone! I’m back in Belgium with my bunnies and my wife, hurrah. And thankfully the weather is not trying to boil me alive at the moment.

I was going to say I don’t have any new books this week, but actually I got a last minute order in, so apparently I do.

Bought: 

Cover of The Wanderers by Meg Howrey Cover of The Space Between Stars by Anne Corlett Cover of Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

I was intrigued by The Wanderers after reading someone’s review on Litsy; The Space Between the Stars is imyril’s fault; I read Harari’s other book a while ago and quite enjoyed it.

Received to review:

Cover of Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

Had me at “features a compelling gender fluid main character, impressive worldbuilding, and fast-paced action.” Should be interesting!

Read this week:

Cover of Genomes and What To Make of Them by Barry Barnes Cover of Spaceman by Mike Massimino Cover of Dark North by Gillian Bradshaw Cover of Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix

Cover of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas Cover of Walking on Knives by Maya Chhabra Cover of Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty Cover of Shattered Minds by Laura Lam

5 stars: The Hate U Give.
4 stars: Newt’s Emerald, Six Wakes and Shattered Minds.
3 stars: Dark North and Spaceman.
2 stars: Genomes and What to Make of Them and Walking on Knives.

Reviews posted: 

–The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert. Not something to read when you’re feeling pessimistic about the future of the human race and all the other creatures we impact. But very interesting and well written. 4/5 stars
–The Emperor’s Railroad, by Guy Haley. Really strong narrative voice, and I’m definitely intrigued to read more about Quinn and his world. 4/5 stars
–Dark North, by Gillian Bradshaw. Not my favourite book by Bradshaw, but she does write such good historical fiction. 3/5 stars
–Death on Earth, by Jules Howard. A bit rambling and reluctant to address the real topic. 2/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Best So Far. My favourite reads of 2017, so far.
–WWW Wednesday. A little update on what I’m reading, and what I plan to read next.

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Review – Death on Earth

Posted June 30, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Death on Earth by Jules HowardDeath on Earth, Jules Howard

I was hoping for more from this book, I think. It glances into some of the issues covered in The Worm at the Core, which I also read recently — the anxieties we have about death, as a species, and how we handle it — but it backs away from any depth there. It sort of looks into decay and the reaction of other animals to death, but it doesn’t find much conclusive there, either. Honestly, I found it interesting enough to read at the time, but it seemed more like a musing about the process of trying (and failing) to write a book that’s really about death on Earth. I didn’t learn any new science or any cool facts, but I know all about Howard having a panic attack at an anti-ageing conference event and trying to teach his daughter about death.

You might find it entertaining, if that’s what you’re interested in, but it’s not really about death.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Dark North

Posted June 29, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Dark North by Gillian BradshawDark North, Gillian Bradshaw

Like all of Bradshaw’s work, this is a solid historical fiction, with a touch of romance. I found the romance aspect less compelling than in Alchemy of Fire, but I love the fact that Bradshaw based the story on a report of an Ethiopian soldier greeting the emperor during a visit to Britain, and the tiny piece of evidence that there were a company of Aurelian Moors in Britain at the right time. I really enjoy it when authors build a story around facts like that — like Rosemary Sutcliff and the mysterious Roman eagle that sparked The Eagle of the Ninth.

Bradshaw’s a great writer, though the main character was a little… annoying, I guess. He’s a good time guy; he does not want to take on responsibilities, and he doesn’t think through some of his actions. Also, he has a dark side. He’s not quite the unique character that some of Bradshaw’s other leads have been.

Still, it’s an enjoyable enough story, even if it’s not a favourite. If you enjoy historical fiction a la Rosemary Sutcliff, Gillian Bradshaw’s work will probably be just the ticket. I recommend Island of Ghosts to start with, though.

Rating: 3/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted June 28, 2017 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

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 here if you want to check out other posts.

Cover of Six Wakes by Mur LaffertyWhat are you currently reading?

Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty, and Shattered Minds, by Laura Lam. I’ve been looking forward to both for a while, and I’m enjoying them — though with Six Wakes I am kind of going “omg, give me the answer already!” because I’m impatient, and afraid that someone I like might have caused the mayhem. I’ll probably finish one or the other today; the plan is to finish Six Wakes, but Shattered Minds is technically a review copy, so I should finish that soon too.

Cover of Walking on Knives by Maya ChhabraWhat have you recently finished reading?

I read Walking on Knives, by Maya Chhabra, yesterday. It’s a retelling of ‘The Little Mermaid’, with a lesbian couple at the end. I wish I liked it, but I actually found it a bit confusing that no one had names, and why/when people were even in love. Also, lots of consent issues, ugh.

I’ve also just finished Newt’s Emerald, by Garth Nix, which is adorable. It’s basically Georgette Heyer but with magic, which is obviously right up my street. Cover of Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix(Though the writing is a bit more modern and Garth Nix-ish, of course.)

What will you read next?

I’m thinking I’ll finally work on books I’ve started but not finished. Maybe I’ll get back to my reread of The Dragonbone Chair, by Tad Williams. Otherwise I might read Thomas E. Sniegoski’s The Demonists, since I got approved for the sequel on Netgalley and haven’t actually read the first book yet! Should be fun, either way.

What’s everyone else been reading? I’m now back in Belgium, my computer’s not in for repairs, and I’m not way behind with work/studying, so hopefully I’m going to get to comment more on people’s posts!

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 27, 2017 by Nicky in General / 22 Comments

This week’s theme from The Broke and the Bookish is pretty much about taking stock, now we’re almost halfway through 2017. What’re the best books I’ve read so far this year? Hmm…

Cover of The Tyrannosaur Chronicles by David Hone Cover of Within the Sanctuary of Wings by Marie Brennan Cover of The Worm at the Core Cover of The Unreal and the Real by Ursula Le Guin Cover of An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire

  1. The Tyrannosaur Chronicles, by David Hone. A Christmas present from my sister, and an awesome one. It’s just come out in paperback, I think, so I definitely recommend it if you’re interested in dinosaurs and palaeontology. It’s pretty exhaustive, though; not for those who don’t like non-fiction.
  2. Within the Sanctuary of Wings, by Marie Brennan. The final volume of the Lady Trent books, this was really worth it. I wish there were a ton more of Isabella’s adventures, but it’s a great ending.
  3. The Worm at the Core, by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski. Very worth reading, all about how humans react to the knowledge we’re going to die, and how that sets us apart. It sounds depressing, but it’s really not.
  4. Outer Space, Inner Lands, by Ursula Le Guin. Amazing, of course — a collection of her best short stories, focusing in this volume on her SF.
  5. An Artificial Night, by Seanan McGuire. I’ve been reading quite a bit of Seanan McGuire’s work this year, and this volume of the Toby Daye series sticks in my head because of all the awesome references to myth and legend.
  6. Miranda and Caliban, by Jacqueline Carey. I didn’t expect to get so involved with the story of Miranda and of Caliban, but Carey got me hooked. I think I read it all in one go.
  7. The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman. The Invisible Library books continue to be a heck of a lot of fun, and I’m glad there are more to come.
  8. Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages. The first time I read anything by Ellen Klages, and it won’t be the last.
  9. On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. I know I’m dreadfully late to the party in reading this, but at least it’s stood the test of time. Darwin didn’t know a lot of key information about heredity, but he got so much right — and he was so willing to look exhaustively for evidence.
  10. Summer in Orcus, by T. Kingfisher. It’d be easy to get tired of portal fantasy, but this is so charming and full of ideas and characters I’d love to explore more.

Cover of Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey Cover of The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman Cover of Passing Strange by Ellen Klages Cover of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Cover of Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher

What about you? What’re your greatest hits so far this year?

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Review – The Emperor’s Railroad

Posted June 26, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Emperor's Railroad by Guy HaleyThe Emperor’s Railroad, Guy Haley

I didn’t actually read much about this beforehand; I picked it up because it’s one of the Tor.com novellas, and I’ve generally found them worth trying, even if they haven’t all been my thing. I was a little wary in that I’ve read part of one of Guy Haley’s books before and didn’t really get into it. Not so with this one: it has a strong voice and it’s set in a fascinating post-apocalyptic world. I’d love to know more about it, and I’ll definitely pick up the sequel. The main character, Abney, isn’t really the important one, despite the fact that it’s told from his point of view: instead, it’s his short journey with the knight Quinn that matters. I really want to know more about Quinn, but I don’t care about spending more time with Abney — his story’s pretty much told. Fortunately, looks like that’s exactly the direction Guy Haley took.

Not that Quinn is the only attraction of this book; Abney’s mother might be the only female character, and it’s a shame she dies, but she is also a strong woman who makes a place for herself in what appears to be a man’s world. I’ve read that there are more female characters in the sequel, which is good to hear.

Also, I really want to know what’s going on with “angels” and “dragons”.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Sixth Extinction

Posted June 25, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth KolbertThe Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert

Considering the subject matter — the extinction or likely extinction of much of Earth’s biodiversity — Kolbert manages to write an absorbing narrative which wasn’t just depressing, though it sometimes was that, but also fascinating. She covers various creatures that we may have seen the last of, or may soon see the last of; creatures which only survive in captivity, and creatures which we didn’t even think to protect.

The fact is, humans are doing a lot of damage to our own ecosystems. Kolbert documents that and shows where it’s going, or at least, where it’s likely to go. What happens in the end is still, maybe, there for us to change. Maybe. It’s too late for a lot of species — perhaps most amphibians, for example — but we might still be able to stop this. The Sixth Extinction goes into some of the delights biodiversity has to offer, perhaps in hopes of inspiring some people to step up.

None of it came as a surprise to me, but I found the book interesting and entertaining all the same, if not exactly uplifting.

Rating: 4/5

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 24, 2017 by Nicky in General / 13 Comments

Good morning, folks! I’ve spent this week away at a residential school learning lab skills, which was awesome but means I’ve hardly had any time for blog stuff. However, look at the bacteria I made! They’re antibiotic resistant and fluorescent under UV light.

Photo of a petri dish with fluorescing bacterial cultures.

Note: for the concerned, which seems to happen more than I expected, it’s a proper lab with disposal procedures and so on. All the samples have been autoclaved by now, my lab coats have both been washed hot enough to denature anything from the lab, and the antibiotic resistance conferred on these bacteria is common outside the lab already; even if these were introduced into the wild, they wouldn’t do any harm.

In case that didn’t move you, here’s the now-traditional picture of my bunnies, as I’m still away from them:

Photo of Hulk and Breakfast, my bunnies; Hulk is grooming Breakfast.

But I’m not away for much longer! I’ll be back with them on Tuesday. Anyway, back to the books!

Received to review:

Cover of Killing Is My Business by Adam Christopher

Yay, a new Adam Christopher book! I’d say gimme, but they have!

Bought:

Cover of A Crack in Creation by Jennifer Doudna

This is about the gene editing tool, CRISPR, that I would maybe one day like to work with. Jennifer Doudna is one of the two authors of the paper that first talked about using CRISPR for gene editing, so this is going to be fascinating.

Read this week:

Cover of The Making of the Fittest by Sean B. Carroll Cover of Incognito by David Eagleman Cover of 15 Million Degrees by Lucie Green Cover of The Vaccine Race by Meredith Wadman Cover of The Emperor's Railroad by Guy Haley

Sneak peek at ratings:

Four stars to: The Vaccine Race and The Emperor’s Railroad.
Three stars to: The Making of the Fittest, Incognito and 15 Million Degrees.

Reviews posted this week:

–Cold-Forged Flame, by Marie Brennan. I think I’d have enjoyed this more if the first book had been fresher in my mind. I love the world, and Ree, but the characters didn’t always click with me in this one. 3/5 stars
–Pavlov’s Dogs and Schrodinger’s Cat, by Rom Harré. Dodges the ethical issues which would’ve made the book more interesting to me. 2/5 stars
–The Shambling Guide to New York City, by Mur Lafferty. So much fun! And not gimmicky in the way I’d feared. 4/5 stars
–Death Before Wicket, by Kerry Greenwood. Fun as ever, but definitely missable. 3/5 stars
–Saturn’s Children, by Charles Stross. Way oversexualised and rapey. Consciously so, and not in a way that celebrates the rapiness, but that doesn’t mean I liked it. 2/5 stars
–The Ghost Train to New Orleans, by Mur Lafferty. A fun follow-up. Zoe can be a bit annoying at times in this one, but it’s a solid story for my money. 4/5 stars
–In Search of the Multiverse, by John Gribbin. Actually made more aspects of quantum physics and string theory make sense to me! 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Series I’ve Been Meaning to Read.

Worth noting:

I’m very conscious that most people are not here for non-fic reviews and that I’ve been posting a lot of them. I suspect that’s why some followers have already unsubscribed. That’s cool if you want to; I’ve never made a secret of being a rather eclectic reader and prone to going through stages, but if you jumped on during a different stage it could be pretty annoying to find me switching gears. I get it. But at the moment I’m going to try and mitigate it a bit by spreading out my non-fic reviews more. For the next couple of weeks at least, that’ll probably mean no new reviews on days when other posts are going up, i.e. Saturdays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

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Review – In Search of the Multiverse

Posted June 23, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of In Search of the Multiverse by John GribbinIn Search of the Multiverse, John Gribbin

I don’t understand quantum physics or string theory, really — I couldn’t possibly explain them to someone, anyway. But I keep trying to, and this book has probably got the closest to making me really interested in the topic. It’s easy enough to follow, and doesn’t throw maths at you without explanation, and it helps that it’s focused on one of the important more interesting factors: quantum theory and string theory could require a multiverse. Gribbin has a look at all the reasons a multiverse seems likely, including the fact that quantum computing works at all, and takes you through anthropic reasoning, etc, etc.

Overall, I still find parts of this difficult to get on with. We can’t know that we live in an average universe — even if there are an infinity of different universes, that doesn’t follow that universes which are suitable for life are more common. We could be living in a rare universe. We can’t see what the probabilities of anything are when we only have experience of one universe — nobody has ever convinced me we have the data to really judge.

This is probably going to date badly when it comes to its explanations of string theory and a theory of everything, but for someone as lacking in knowledge as me, it works.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Ghost Train to New Orleans

Posted June 22, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of The Ghost Train to New Orleans by Mur LaffertyThe Ghost Train to New Orleans, Mur Lafferty

The Ghost Train to New Orleans picks up where The Shambling Guide to New York City left off, taking Zoe and her team (some of them new, some familiar) to New Orleans, and deepening the plot concerning Zoe’s abilities. It’s a little tropey — Zoe is an orphan, and the reason that her ability is rare is due to a purge in the coterie community where, for some reason, they felt a bit cross about people like her using their abilities to kill people. Zoe continues to be rather put off by some of the coterie around her, their abilities and tastes, and sometimes that just doesn’t make her look good.

But it’s still a really fun read, and I ate it up. I appreciated the way it dealt with Arthur and Zoe’s little budding romance (which dies on the branch before the end of this book, in case anyone was worried about urban fantasy tropes), and the way it was affected by Arthur’s problems. It becomes very clear that nothing comes for free in this world, which takes a particular character in an new direction — which could’ve been fascinating, if there were any more books to come.

I’m probably overlooking more faults, but honestly I wasn’t interested in picking nits. I really enjoyed the tone and some of the lore, and I wanted to know what happened. That was enough for me.

Instead, alas, I learn that Orbit only took on the two. Publishers, you’re mad. I’d grab the third book eagerly if it existed — I read the first two in two days.

Rating: 4/5

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