Author: Nicky

Stacking the Shelves

Posted November 26, 2016 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Not many books read this week (understatement…), but I got a nice little haul of new books, so that was nice!

Books acquired:

Books finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:
–Creepy Crawly Crochet, by Megan Kreiner. A book of fun crochet patterns, with some clever tutorials on how to shape things without getting too complicated. 4/5 stars
–Lone Survivors: How We Came To Be The Only Humans On Earth, by Chris Stringer. An interesting book which provides a good survey and doesn’t pretend we know more than we really do. 4/5 stars
–X-Men: Return to Weapon X, by Mark Millar and Adam Kubert. A bit lacking in tension, and the art kind of raised an eyebrow. 2/5 stars.
–A Local Habitation, by Seanan McGuire. This book made me wish I’d continued with the series sooner — and I didn’t wait that long. Very entertaining, and lots of interesting faerie lore. 4/5 stars
–The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Do I have anything new to say about this? Apparently, I can ramble about how playing LOTRO changes the reading experience. 5/5 stars
–Hammers on Bone, by Cassandra Khaw. I think I might’ve need more familiarity with the Cthulhu mythos to fully appreciate this, but it was fun. 3/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: The Lion Hunter, by Elizabeth E. Wein. Doesn’t stand alone as well as the rest of the series, but it’s a good read — albeit quite dark and saddening. 4/5 stars

Other posts:
–Top Ten Tuesday: Thankfulness. With the US celebrating Thanksgiving, no surprise this was this week’s theme.

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – The Lion Hunter

Posted November 25, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Lion Hunter, Elizabeth E. Wein

Flashback Friday review from 13th February, 2011

The Lion Hunter is less able to stand alone than the other books of this series: the story ends in a cliffhanger, which goes directly on to the last book, The Empty Kingdom, so beware of that! It does help if you have read the other books, too, but really you just need to know what happens in them, what the main characters did in previous books.

Early in this book, Telemakos is severely wounded, and part of the point of this book is his adjustment to that, his ways of dealing with it, and also his ways of dealing with the mental scars from what happened to him in The Sunbird. It’s a story of recovery, and it goes carefully with it — it’s not a magical healing, by any means.

Easy to read, like the other books, but yes, dark and even quite saddening, near the end.

Rating: 4/5

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

Review – Hammers on Bone

Posted November 24, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Hammers on Bone, Cassandra Khaw

Received to review via Netgalley

Hammers on Bone is a fun novella which blends both noir detective fiction and something that looks to me like the Cthulhu mythos, though I’m not very versed in the latter. It drips with cliches in a way that works, because the main character is a man out of time — straight from hard-boiled detective fiction, despite the modern setting. The story draws you on with the mystery of what exactly John Persons is. It’s apparent from the beginning that he’s a monster, as his client notices, but what kind of monster? What does he want? Is he actually here to help anyone?

At times I felt like I was lacking information, but I think that might be my general unfamiliarity with the Cthulhu mythos. At least, I assume so, from the little I do know. If it’s meant to stand alone, perhaps it’s a little underexplained — though that can make for great uncanny moments. We fear the unknown the most, after all.

I enjoyed the voice, and even if it’s laid on pretty thick, it makes sense and makes for a fun story. I’d happily read more in the same world. It didn’t strike me as exceptional, but it was enough fun to come back to the world again if there’s ever a chance.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – The Fellowship of the Ring

Posted November 23, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

It’s difficult to know how to review something I’ve read so many times, and loved so much, with any kind of objectivity. I’ve been through phases with Tolkien: uncomplicated adoration of a plot I could get my teeth into and a mythic world it took work to imagine; disgust at the lack of female characters and the assigning of certain racial characteristics primarily or wholly to evil characters; nose-wrinkling at the moral absolutism; appreciation of the mythic framework and the sheer amount of time that went into the world.

Lately, I’m at the appreciation end — to me, the invented history around all aspects of this, including texts-within-the-text, is just so much fun, and the playing with language is inspired. From Elvish to Klingon (ed. Michael Adams) had a chapter which really made me appreciate the way Tolkien built his languages, including with a sense of history and an understanding of the fact (and the way!) that languages change. We are so ridiculously lucky to have this book, Tolkien’s mind at play on his ‘secret vice’ — it could have remained in his head and been lost, and we’d have been poorer for it.

This time, though, what I noticed mostly was the maps. I’m not a visual person, so I’ve never been good at imagining the sheer scale of the Fellowship’s journey, or understanding the geography. Perhaps unsurprisingly, hours spent riding around the Shire, Eregion and the Gap of Rohan while playing Lord of the Rings Online has given me a much keener sense of the geography (if not so much the scale, since obviously LOTRO isn’t set up to make you take days to cross Eregion). Suddenly it’s much easier to picture, and to realise that Tolkien had a very clear sense of where everything was, even when it came to small scenes. All the details work together — such and such is on the left, so the east wind does [x] — to make it a fully realised sensory experience. You have to have a heck of an imagination to keep all that straight, and for the most part, Tolkien does.

When you know that he also did illustrations for his own books and was a prominent scholar, one whose work on medieval texts is still relevant to undergraduates today, you just have to marvel. The man was a genius, and for all the flaws of moral absolutism and sexism I can see in his work — which nonetheless do make sense in the mythic context he’s creating — I can never again undervalue it. Anybody who dismisses J.R.R. Tolkien’s work is foolish. (Enjoying it is another matter, of course.)

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, J.R.R. Tolkien, SF/F

Review – A Local Habitation

Posted November 22, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

A Local Habitation, Seanan McGuire

When I started this, I found myself wishing I’d read it straight after Rosemary and Rue, even though it hasn’t really been that long since I read that. The world is just complex enough that I felt at sea coming back in — and I was a little surprised by Toby having friends, who I didn’t remember being mentioned before, who she’d actually go out clubbing with. It doesn’t fit the image of Toby I’d formed, somehow. So I’m now determined to chew through this series at speed, because it’s fun — I love the complexities of the world, the rules binding the fae.

Maybe the thing I like a bit less is the constant teasing at romance between Toby and… a bunch of other characters. At least, that’s how I read (for example) Toby’s relationship with Tybalt. I’d actually enjoy it if that sort of thing resolved as friendship. Knowing how my friends feel about McGuire’s work, I wouldn’t be surprised, though; possibly, I’m just reading it too simplistically, a la the Kate Daniels books.

The plot itself for this one was a bit obvious to me, somehow. One character just kept showing up, and one mystery surrounding another of the characters just seemed obvious somehow. But I loved the bit about the digital dryad, and I was rather surprised by the way some aspects of this turned out. We also learn fascinating things about the night-haunts, get an interesting twist to Toby’s relationship with the Luidaeg, spend more time with different kinds of fae… and perhaps, get a peek at Toby’s mother and where she is now, though not in any detail.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of these, particularly as I hear they get better as they go on.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Seanan McGuire, SF/F

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted November 22, 2016 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

With Thanksgiving coming up, it’s probably not a surprise that this week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is about bookish things you’re thankful for. I’m not American, but it’s always good to reflect on things you’re thankful for.

My mother’s recommendations. Everything I read now, I can pretty much trace back to her recommendations when I was around nine years old. She seeded the ground for my love of science fiction and fantasy, and somewhat later, detective fiction as well.
School. Because it was boring enough to push me to read under the table during class, thus nourishing both my love of reading and my ability to multitask.
My wife. Because who else could I squee at so often, push books at so often, and feel a warm fuzzy glow at getting recommendations right for so often?
My sister. Well, she’d be the other one, other than my wife and to a lesser degree, Mum.
Dad. Because he has built me nearly endless amounts of bookshelves over the years.
My bookshelves. Because let’s face it, they put up with a lot.
My friends. Including people I know via blogging! A great source of recommendations and, I’ll admit it, gifts in the shape of books.
Bookmarks. Well, really, what would we do without this humble class of object?
Book clubs. I wouldn’t have discovered Jo Walton, for example, without book clubs…
Libraries. Of course.

How about you?

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – X-Men: Return to Weapon X

Posted November 21, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

X-Men: Return to Weapon X, Mark Millar, Adam Kubert

I am still not sold on this — and Sabretooth is just a Wolverine knock-off, so I don’t think there’s a single scrap of tension in the scenes with him. Actually, in general the blurbs on the backs of these don’t quite seem to match the reality. Logan doesn’t “go it alone against the shadow-ops organisation that transformed him into one of the world’s most lethal killing machines”, and Sabretooth is not “a predator every bit [Wolverine’s] equal”.

I remember liking Rogue in some TV series or other, but there’s not much to get hold of here. And ugh, that phonetic accent. But Nightcrawler’s kind of cool.

So yeah, still not sold on this, and will someone tell the artist that breasts just don’t look like that? Like, they’re not shiny globes with one point of attachment to the female body. In some of these panels, it just looks like Jean and Ororo are holding pairs of melons in front of them via Jean’s telekinesis.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel

Review – Lone Survivors

Posted November 20, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth, Chris Stringer

I’m a little baffled by those who say that this book is for the scientific community, because it so blatantly isn’t — it explains how DNA and various methods of dating work, for example, which definitely wouldn’t be required by someone with even baseline knowledge in the scientific community. (Including me. There was no single technique this book covered which I didn’t comprehend, and only one or two I wasn’t aware of specifically.) I think it can be a little bit dry — especially when it explains things like DNA being in a helix or mtDNA being transmitted only through the female line… And the structure could definitely use some help. While I can see that he’s trying to interrelate his chapters by saying “see chapter x”, it means that sometimes the significance of something isn’t as apparent as he thinks.

Overall, though, I found it pretty readable and unexceptionable: Stringer freely admits that he’s been wrong at times about the course of human development, and that we don’t have all the answers now. He’s respectful of ideas he disagrees with, and covers some of them well, including the evidence which does point in that direction. I’m surprised by how little evidence of hybridisation he sees; I thought hybridisation with Neanderthals and Denisovans was more of a foregone conclusion than it appears from Stringer’s analysis.

It’s slightly more up to date than the Homo Britannicus book by the same author, too. Of course, it covers worldwide human history in general, so it’s less limited, but it also includes stuff I missed in reading that book, like some discussions of the Denisovan caves and the remains discovered there.

All in all, a reasonably good read, though naturally in general drift it supports the author’s hypothesis of a Recent African Origin for H. sapiens.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – Creepy Crawly Crochet

Posted November 19, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Creepy Crawly Crochet, Megan Kreiner

Received to review via Netgalley

To begin with, Creepy Crawly Crochet is a good resource on its own, because it includes clear illustrations and step by step instructions for various stitches and techniques, including the adjustable/magic ring which forms the first part of a lot of amigurumi. It has info on finishing off your toys, too, including stitches to join things, how to make fringes, etc. Throughout the book, the patterns come with plenty of guidance on how to assemble them, and where special care might be needed. There’s a list of abbreviations in the back, too, along with a conversion chart from US sizes to UK sizes.

The designs themselves are also pretty neat; the faces are shaped really well, for example, and it makes great use of stitching to create body shapes and designs, in a more subtle way than I’ve seen in a lot of other designs. It’s little touches that make the designs look great by giving them just that little bit extra realism… right down to the bits of zombie brain.

I think it’s a fun collection and worth getting, especially for a beginner, because it covers a lot of the basics as well as some pretty easy designs.

Rating: 4/5

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

Stacking the Shelves

Posted November 19, 2016 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Busy, busy week! But I have books. <3

Fiction acquired:

I’ve already read The Philosopher Kings, of course, but with the UK edition out (and on offer, actually), I had to grab it. I grabbed Ayiti to help finish off a reading challenge; The Dark Forest because The Three Body Problem left me just curious enough; and Feedback, After Atlas, Memory of Water and An Accident of Stars because I’ve been meaning to read ’em.

Non-fiction acquired:

A bit of an odd combination, I’ll admit. Celebrity memoirs… biology!

Books finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:
–In the Forests of Serre, by Patricia McKillip. Possibly my favourite of McKillip’s books so far, this is magical and rich, based on Russian fairytales and taking them somewhere unique. 5/5 stars
–Poems: Three Series, by Emily Dickinson. Not a fan, sorry. 2/5 stars
–Busman’s Honeymoon, by Dorothy L. Sayers. BBC radioplay. Fun as ever, featuring Sarah Badel as Harriet Vane and doing a brilliant job of it. 4/5 stars
–The Celts, by Nora Chadwick. Admittedly out of date, but still absorbing and informative. 4/5 stars
–Ultimate X-Men: The Tomorrow People, by Mark Millar. This… didn’t really work for me, which is sad since I do enjoy Ultimate Spider-man. Alas. 2/5 stars
–The Wind Off the Small Isles, by Mary Stewart. A Mary Stewart I hadn’t read? Yep! This is a novella, so it’s lacking a bit of the detail and length I’d like, but it still evokes that lovely sense of atmosphere that Stewart was so good at. 3/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: The Sunbird, by Elizabeth E. Wein. I loved this one, possibly more than the rest of the series so far, even though it was the furthest from the Arthurian canon. 5/5 stars

Other posts:
–Top Ten Tuesday: Movies. A few of my favourites…
–What are you reading Wednesday. My weekly update on what I’ve just finished, what I’m reading now, and what I might read next…
–This is my genre, show me yours! A fun tag about my favourite genre, including rambles about how much I love it.

I could wish I’d managed more reading, but it hasn’t been a bad week! How’re you?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup