Author: Nicky

Review – Strong Poison

Posted November 6, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Strong Poison, Dorothy L. Sayers

I can’t quite remember what the bad mood was that triggered this return to Strong Poison, so soon after I listened to the radioplay version. Fortunately, given Sayers’ witty, clever and allusive writing, it’s never going to be a chore, especially since this is one of the stronger books of the series — and it was a pleasure to realise how strong the fidelity of the radioplay version was, skipping very little of the original novel.

You see, in Strong Poison, Peter falls in love… with a woman who is almost sure to be convicted of the murder of her ex-lover. Knowing she’s innocent, pretty much because he thinks she’s pretty and her character as described doesn’t support the murder theory, he arranges to meet her, immediately proposes to her, and gets her out of the murder charge by finding the real murderer while he’s at it. The banter between them is delightful, as are the moments where Harriet is more vulnerable — she’s not immune to the situation she’s in, as she shows by breaking down in front of Peter.

The actual mystery is fun as well: in retrospect it’s very obvious, because of certain precautions a particular character has taken, but the unfolding of the hows and whys is still interesting, particularly because Bunter and Parker feature fairly strongly alongside Peter. And there’s also the delightful bit where Peter encourages Parker to propose to Lady Mary…

Still a favourite — even if my eyes popped a little at the point where Peter complains how horrible it is seeing Harriet in the dock… to Harriet. And she sympathises with him and says it must be beastly. Gah!

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery, romance

Review – Gaudy Night

Posted November 6, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers

Featuring Joanna David as Harriet Vane and Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey

Gaudy Night is the odd one out in both the radioplays and the books. It was recorded later, I think, and it shows — Ian Carmichael sounds almost winded half the time, though it does get better as the book goes on. It’s quite a different tone, too, because it’s from Harriet’s point of view. In the audiobook, this involves a fair amount of first person narration of her thoughts and feelings, which was never a feature of the other audiobooks, which makes it stand out as well.

That said, it’s a pretty good adaptation, drawing together all the key features well and giving clues through the voice acting as well as the plot. In audio, it’s a little hard to keep track of all the female dons, but that doesn’t seem to get in the way too much. And Harriet’s realisation of her feelings for Peter is well done; I think I prefer Sarah Badel’s take on it in Busman’s Honeymoon, but it works.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: audiobooks, book reviews, books, crime, Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery

Stacking the Shelves

Posted November 5, 2016 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

Good morning! It’s been a weird week for me; kind of slow, but busy too, with class to catch up with and my wife not very well. All’s good now, though, and I’ve made a decent start on my reading goals for November. I’ve also made a list of the books I need to read to meet my challenge goals… yipes.

Anyway, here goes, the weekly roundup:

Received to review:

I’ve enjoyed Carrie Vaughn’s work before, so I’m hopeful about this, even just because it has her name on it.

New books:

A bit of an odd mixture, perhaps! But it really is about time I read On the Origin of Species.

Books finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:
–Anthem, by Ayn Rand. If you’re going to read a book by Rand and you’re pretty sure you’re going to disagree vehemently with her politics, this is a pretty good choice. It’s nice and short. 2/5 stars
–Whispers Under Ground, by Ben Aaronovitch. I still enjoyed this one, but it is a bit of a filler book. Nothing like the impact of the next one. 4/5 stars
–Dinosaurs Without Bones, by Anthony J. Martin. This book is full of information on dinosaurs! And also jokes about all the sorts of traces dinosaurs have left. It doesn’t stop at coprolites — or at least, Martin hopes it doesn’t. 5/5 stars
–In the Land of Invented Languages, by Arika Okrent. This is a fun read and also very informative about conlangs. I actually found myself wanting to give this to everyone. 4/5 stars
–The Borgias, by Christopher Hibbert. Not as entertaining as I’d hoped; it’s not dry, exactly, but it’s very much a litany of facts rather than analysis. 2/5 stars
–The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy L. Sayers. BBC radioplay. The casting makes it shine, of course; Ian Carmichael is (at least vocally) the perfect Lord Peter. 4/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: The Winter Prince, by Elizabeth E. Wein. I found it an interesting and powerful retelling of the Arthurian story, though I wasn’t 100% a fan of the portrayal of the female characters. 4/5 stars

Other posts:
–Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books if Your Bookclub Likes SF. More or less what it says on the tin.
–ShelfLove November Update & TBR. My progress on my reading goals for 2016, plus a hopeful to-read list for this month.

Here’s hoping this is a good week for reading, for all of us!

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – To Explain the World

Posted November 5, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 5 Comments

To Explain the World, Steven Weinberg

This book is ostensibly about the development of science, and particularly the scientific method: the development, in short, of the understanding that we need both theory and experiment to derive natural laws. It goes into a lot of the history of the development of astronomy and physics, and thus necessarily chemistry to some degree as well (since the makeup of an atom affects chemistry)… but neglects biology almost entirely. Since biology is my interest, I’d hoped for a bit more of it, but instead it was more or less including as an afterthought.

Weinberg’s tone is entertaining enough, and he certainly isn’t constrained by anyone else’s ideas of who truly contributed to science — he dismisses most of the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, even within the context of their time, because they didn’t conceive of the scientific method or how to come up with testable theories and follow through. You may or may not find that justified; I was glad, personally, that we didn’t spend too much time on Plato, as I’m not an enormous fan.

There’s a lot of science in here as well, in that Weinberg explains how discoveries were made and proven, or why they weren’t actually consistent with the world and what you can observe. Most of this is very clear, but anything that involves maths is sadly lost on me, and I confess to skipping the back section. There’s a reason my BSc in Natural Sciences is almost all biology — I have neither the head for, nor the interest in, mathematical rules and proofs.

It’s entertaining enough, but it’s narrower than the blurb might lead you to think — the vast majority of it actually deals with astronomy and maths.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – The Winter Prince

Posted November 4, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Winter Prince, Elizabeth E. Wein

Flashback Friday review from 12th February, 2011

After finishing The Winter Prince, I had to stop for a minute to think about it — do I like it? How much did I enjoy it? The style is very interesting: it seems to be straight first person narration at times, but when Medraut’s mother appears, it becomes apparent that he’s addressing the story to her. It deals with one of the issues that lie at the heart of the Arthurian mythos, often blamed for the fall of Camelot: the incest between Arthur and his sister. It works out the issues, in a way, binding Medraut to his brother, Lleu, and neutralising him, though it’s not an easy road for either of them to walk.

It also deals with the issues of abuse, a horribly powerful link between Medraut and his mother, and even between his mother and his brothers. He has to deal with the tangled feelings that come when at one moment someone will hurt you horrifically and the next comfort you, when they’ll say it’s for your own good or that you did wrong, to excuse them torturing you. Medraut’s confusion is well done: I couldn’t predict what he would do and how, I couldn’t predict whether he would go free of her at the end or not.

With the point of view it took, I suppose it’d be hard to show more of Medraut’s mother and her motivations, but I found that somewhat difficult to swallow, of everything in the book. So casually evil, toying with other people as though they’re not real… Goewin and Ginevra are positive female characters, to an extent, though the latter does very little after the opening of the novel. Goewin hints at a way she could become like Medraut’s mother, so there is a bit of a sense of circumstances making her the way she is, but still… I did want more, I wanted less senseless evil and more a sense of someone made the way she is by being wronged and so on. Turning Morgause and Morgan Le Fay and their like into evil witches is one of those ways of pathologising female power that people don’t seem to guard against.

The Winter Prince can be a quick, easy read, but there’s darkness at the heart of it — which is, I suppose, countered by the end.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: Arthuriana, book reviews, books, Flashback Friday, SF/F

Review – The Nine Tailors

Posted November 3, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Nine Tailors, Dorothy L. Sayers

Featuring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey and Peter Jones as Bunter

The Nine Tailors is a book I think about fondly, although I can’t quite think of why. Some of it is the atmosphere, I think: the Englishness of this little village in the Fens, and the music of the bells woven all through the story — or, not music exactly, but the complex mathematical patterns of British bell-ringing. In a way, that’s how this mystery feels, too: it’s complex, with several mistaken identities and a long unsolved mystery. It’s also a sad one, because a family gets shattered through almost no fault of their own.

And the Reverend and his household are dear characters, of course.

The audio adaptation is pretty good, managing to make all the complex threads come together well. Ian Carmichael’s voice acting is great most of the time, though maybe a trifle overblown during the scene in the belfry. I guess it’s difficult to portray that scene without Peter constantly vocalising, though.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: audiobooks, book reviews, books, crime, Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery

Review – The Borgias

Posted November 2, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

The Borgias, Christopher Hibbert

I have to confess that my interest in the Borgia family comes from playing the Assassin’s Creed games — I love knowing what has been cleverly included in the games, where things diverge, etc. So I knew both that the Borgias were a pretty colourful family, and that Assassin’s Creed probably emphasised that, and was definitely biased against them (other than in acknowledging Rodrigo Borgia’s cleverness, I can’t think of anything else positive about him or Cesare in the games).

Still, this book made them feel rather dry and lifeless, and not because they were actually any less turbulent and power hungry than the Assassin’s Creed games depict. Instead, it’s Hibbert’s style that kills it: rather than analysis, he presents lists of facts. It’s not even that his prose is boring, because it’s perfectly clear and easy to follow. It’s just that lack of analysis, and even a certain impartiality — I have to confess that when a historian writes a pop-history book about a particular figure or family, I want to feel their bias coming through, their interest in the subject. I know I’m fickle, since I do turn my nose up at some books which do too much guessing about what so-and-so was thinking of feeling, but there it is. I don’t just read for the information: I do also want to be entertained. The Borgias rather failed on that, for me.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book review, books, non-fiction

ShelfLove November Update

Posted November 1, 2016 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

ShelfLove Update!

The goals where I’m ahead are in blue; bang on are in green; behind by up to five books are in orange; anything else is in red. I now have a running total to show where I should be for the month too (e.g. by June I needed to read 182 books overall).

Targets:
- 250 or fewer books bought;
- 366 books read overall;
- 200 books read which I owned prior to 2016;
- no more than 10% of income on books per month.
Books bought this year so far: 182/200.
October books bought: 11/20.
October budget: Smashed to smithereens on non-fiction titles.
Owned books read this month: 9/16.
Books read this month: 23/31.
Owned books read overall: 156/167 (11 books behind).
Books read overall: 293/305 (12 books behind).

A TBR for this month looks more or less the same as last month, because I was hopeless, with a few additions.

Ben Aaronovitch, Foxglove Summer.
Ben Aaronovitch, The Hanging Tree.
Ilona Andrews, Magic Binds.
Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie.
Mike Brooks, Dark Sky.
Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.
Mira Grant, Deadline.
Mira Grant, Blackout.
Joseph Hansen, Skinflick.
Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night.
Seanan McGuire, Late Eclipses.
Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things.
Emma Newman, After Atlas.
Cherie Priest, The Family Plot.
John Scalzi, The Ghost Brigades.

And this month’s ShelfLove challenge theme is to name one bookish thing you’re thankful for, and I think my answer has to be… bookmarks. I love having bookmarks and using them, not just to mark my place in a book, but to celebrate fandoms I like, mark reading targets, and… honestly, just to collect them. Even really plain boring ones. (I have some from my grandfather’s Rotary Club. They are not pretty, just plain stiff paper, but they have been with me a long time now.)

Tags: #ShelfLove, books, TBR

Review – In The Land of Invented Languages

Posted November 1, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

In the Land of Invented Languages, Arika Okrent

I’m not much of a linguist in the technical sense, though I do enjoy learning languages (and especially doing translation), so I wasn’t sure if reading a book about invented languages might be too technical. Luckily, it isn’t: In the Land of Invented Languages is actually a really easy read, with a more personal than professional analysis of the languages discussed — although it does go into some details about how each one works, why it’s effective or not, how much it’s used, etc.

Better, Okrent actually participates or participated in some events based around these languages, like Klingon and Esperanto, so she has an insider view (to some extent, anyway). It’s kind of fun reading about how she got hooked on learning Klingon, and her mixed feelings about hanging round with the other Klingon speakers. While she mostly talks about why these invented languages aren’t really successful, she does so with sympathy and an eye to how they create communities and cultures, and also a deep appreciation for the coolness of conlangs and the communities around them. (Even if that coolness is a very geeky, linguistic coolness, obviously.)

It’s an absorbing and entertaining read, which is also pretty informative, and I found myself wanting to share it immediately. For those with a bit more knowledge, I think you might want more detail about the technical workings of some languages, but as a survey of invented languages and their communities, I think it’s pretty awesome.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted November 1, 2016 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

This week’s theme is Top Ten Books if your bookclub likes ____. Well, I’ll go with sci-fi (or spec-fic more generally), surprising no one. (Except anyone who half expected me to do non-fiction again.)

The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell. Prepare to have your heart and soul ripped to shreds. It sounds like crack: Jesuits in space! It isn’t. It’s really serious and profound and an amazing exploration of faith and where it might take people.
The Carpet Makers, by Andreas Eschbach. The translation is actually really good, and the structure of this book is fascinating. Plenty to sink your teeth into.
Dark Run, by Mike Brooks. This is rather lighter fare: basically Firefly if it did more than nod at diversity. (Come on, I love Firefly, but Simon and River Tam should’ve been played by Chinese actors, following the logic of the world-building.)
Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang. You can even get a book club cinema trip out of this one in the near future, with Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner in a film adaptation of one of the stories. There’s some really clever stuff here.
The Gate to Women’s Country, by Sheri S. Tepper. RIP to the author, who died on the 22nd October of this year. I found this book really fascinating, and it’s an interesting exploration of gender roles.
Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. I really love this whole trilogy (maybe a reread soon?), but it seems like it can be a bit like Marmite. Regardless, there should be plenty to dig your teeth into in a discussion.
Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer. What’s going on in this book? Who knows, but there’s plenty to talk about and analyse. I’d read the whole trilogy, though, to get all the pieces of the puzzle…
Remnant Population, by Elizabeth Moon. This book actually features an older protagonist, which is interesting, and it’s a fun exploration of two species meeting in a less-than-typical situation.
The Broken Land, by Ian McDonald. I don’t know why other people didn’t enjoy this. Whether you see Israel and Palestine in it, or the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, it reflects reality and muses upon it in the best sort of way.
Troika, by Alastair Reynolds. I stumbled across this novella in a library in Belgium, and hadn’t come across it before, despite enjoying the author’s work. It’s an interesting take on the Big Dumb Object trope. If your bookclub wanted to explore a major SF trope, this’d be a good pick, for my money.

Looking forward to seeing other people’s lists this week — though it’s not like I need more new books…

Tags: books, SF/F, Top Ten Tuesday