Author: Nicky

Review – Lifelode

Posted October 23, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Lifelode, Jo Walton
Originally reviewed 16th March, 2011

I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Jo Walton, but it’s so hard to rate them in relation to each other, because they’re each so different. I enjoyed Lifelode more than Tooth and Claw, but perhaps less than Farthing — yet I rated both four stars. I loved Among Others most of all her work so far, and I’m not sure Lifelode matches up… Maybe I should be rating all her work that I’ve read so far five stars, except Tooth and Claw.

Her range of work is fascinating. Her books are not like each other, and yet all of them are well-written and ambitious, and succeed very well with their ambitions. The narration of Lifelode, for example, is done in both past and present tense, because for one of the main characters, time is like that: all things happening at once. I expected to see more of the more distant past, through Taveth, but it was very much about that generation, the people she knew. It’s a very warm book, full of family bonds and love.

It’s also interesting in that polyamory seems to be the default, and Jo Walton treats that sensitively. There’s a sense of great strength in the relationships, but also an acknowledgement of the problems they’ll succeed. There’s also LGBT people, and one who seems pretty much asexual. She always writes about all kinds of people, and that’s another thing I really appreciate about her writing.

It’s also nice that the gendering of roles isn’t a really big thing here. Taveth is a housewife, but she chooses that, and her role is central to the functioning of her home. But even a female priest is still just called a priest, not a priestess.

I’ve managed to say all that and say nothing about the plot. It’s a domestic fantasy, although there is also a level on which it is about gods. I think the homelife is as important to the story as the bursts of fighting, and the magic — the bonds between people are, I think, more important, as they are what is under threat. Don’t go into it expecting a big showdown at the end, or something like that.

Rating: 5/5

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

Review – Hard To Be A God

Posted October 22, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Hard to Be a God, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky, trans. Olena Bormashenko

I was fascinated by the sound of this when I came across it in the library, because I really liked Roadside Picnic, and because the foreword mentions parallels with Star Trek and Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels. However, I found this… pretty much unreadable. There’s a sort of opaqueness I associate with reading Russian novels in translations, but in spades. Supposedly, this translation is much more readable than the old one, which was done via German, but… if that’s the case, I hate to think what the old one was like.

It’s really disappointing, honestly, because the foreword makes it sound interesting, it’s blurbed by Ursula Le Guin, and the parallels mentioned are there. But I couldn’t even hold onto the meaning of the action — why did this character say that, what was the significance of that…

I might try again at some other time, maybe with the other translation, or with some future translation. The setting itself — being fairly traditional-fantasy-esque — doesn’t bother me, and I did, as I said, enjoy Roadside Picnic. Hm.

Rating: 1/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Colour Me Mindful: Underwater

Posted October 21, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Colour Me Mindful: Underwater, Anastasia Catris

I’m not so sure about this craze for calling adult colouring books a tool for mindfulness. Whatever works for you, I guess, but I use it much more as a way to relax and just… have some fun. The delight is a childish one and I’m totally okay with that, for the same reason I’m totally okay with people reading or doing whatever appeals to them, regardless of age or gender or whatever. Modern life is pretty darn stressful for our monkey brains, and we need to remember to play.

This one delights that kid in me because it’s full of fish that you can colour in improbable combinations of colour. And quite a few turtles, which are just adorable. The paper quality is good; I use felt-tips to colour in, and it doesn’t leak through at all, which is fortunate because there are designs on both sides of all the pages. I have had slight problems with pages curling up, though, when there’s a lot of colour and therefore obviously a lot of ink. I do suggest if you’re going to use felt-tips, markers or paint, you test on one of the blank pages to make sure there’ll be no leakage with your particular implement of choice.

The designs pretty much all have some small fiddly bits, but not so much so that I found it frustrating.

Also, Anastasia Catris apparently lives in Wales, so hurrah for that.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, crafts

Review – Made to Kill

Posted October 20, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Made to Kill, Adam Christopher
Received to review via Netgalley

You might know from my reviews of another Angry Robot alumnus, Chris Holm, that I kind of love the hardboiled pulp mystery fiction by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. This is basically exactly that… except you add a robot and his equally electronic handler, Ada; the robot has a limited 24-hour memory because his memory’s on tapes; and the electronic handler has a prime directive of “profit” and nothing to keep her on the straight and narrow.

There’s an interesting story in the background, too: Ray discovering what he does during what are essentially blackouts; the whole background with Ada and Ray’s creator; the manipulations of Ray’s memory by Ada; Ray’s discovery that he’s being used as a murder weapon… Wisely, I think, this fascinating stuff is kept as background. It keeps you wondering what exactly Ada’s up to, it means you know about Ray’s limited memory and how he can be manipulated, but it focuses on an immediate mystery and leaves all that background to keep you wondering and coming up with your own red herrings.

Adam Christopher doesn’t quite have the style and originality of Chandler (there’s no phrases like “shop-worn Galahad” to delight the senses), but the writing is slick and functional in the best way. I read the whole thing in just over an hour, without stopping, without ever catching up on a snag that made me want to stop. He uses the robot nature of his protagonist in great ways to add detail, uses the limitations of the character to convey expressions and emotions. The robot technology is also kept at just the right level: sure, Ray can take pictures using his eyes, but they’re stored on film and he only has four rolls of film at a time. Ada runs on tapes. The technology is clunky, old-fashioned.

The plot itself is classic and I’m not gonna spoil it by giving you any clues. There’s some staples of pulp fiction here, though, and it’s good for a knowing smile, makes you want to wear a trenchcoat and a natty hat.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: Adam Christopher, book reviews, books, mystery, SF/F

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted October 20, 2015 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

This week’s prompt from The Broke and the Bookish is “10 Wishes I’d Ask The Book Genie To Grant Me”.

Well.

Auto-approval on Netgalley for everything. Especially Tor.
Budget and unlimited space at local community library. Please?
Free publicity for the above. We need more readers.
A TARDIS for personal book storage. This one’s obvious if you know me at all… and hey, I could use it to travel to my partner’s and take all my stuff!
Digital and print copies in the same purchase. Wouldn’t bundles like this make life so much easier?
Time spent reading pauses “real life”. Then I could get soooo much more done.
More library cards. And more libraries, come to that.
A conversation with Mori from Among Others, when she’s 26. Seems like it might, you know, be relevant to me.
Ability to slap some characters and say no don’t do that. FitzChivalry Farseer, I’m looking at you.
The ability to read some books for the first time… again. ’nuff said, right? Some books, you just wish you could come to them fresh again.

I could probably keep going for a while on this topic…

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Shadow and Bone

Posted October 19, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Shadow and Bone, Leigh Bardugo

I was vaguely not-interested in Shadow and Bone after reading a couple of negative reviews, which I think particularly mentioned the Russian influences and then overall not-Russian-at-all, fairly typical fantasy world setting. This is true, and if it’s something that will bother you, then yes, steer clear. However… I picked this up from the library at five o’ clock, walked to the station, got the train home, walked up the hill home, mostly without reading… and by six o’ clock, had got two thirds of the way through the book anyway. It was a fast read, and it was compelling.

Now granted, yeah, there’s some typical YA stuff going on — there’s a love triangle, for one. It came across quite well for me, though. I think it helped that Mal and Alina have such a clear bond, which has been confused in realistic ways as they grew up. And the Darkling has an obvious allure, and you can see why people trust him, want to be near him. I like the development of Alina’s powers, and her interactions with people around her. For a book with a guy called the Darkling and a main character who is a “Sun Summoner”, there’s a fair amount of ambiguity going on — there are several characters who don’t clearly align on a good/bad matrix.

Overall… I don’t quite know why I enjoyed this so much. Probably it matched my mood, in part, and it wasn’t a challenging read, while I wasn’t in a great mood. I’ll be interested to see how I react to the second and third books.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Leigh Bardugo, SF/F

Review – Ask a Policeman

Posted October 18, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Ask A Policeman, John Rhode, Helen Simpson, Gladys Mitchell, Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, Milward Kennedy

I think the books and stories the Detection Club did together must have been a lot of fun to do and to share around with other writers, but they come off less well for someone outside that context, and particularly given that many of the authors and detectives are no longer well-known. Sayers/Lord Peter were the only ones I knew from this bunch, so the parody and playing in other people’s sandboxes doesn’t really interest me.

Going through the same murder in however many different ways just… didn’t interest me enough. The parody of Sayers was quite fun, since I know what Wimsey is like, but other than that, I found this fairly boring. Alas.

Rating: 2/5

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

Review – Binti

Posted October 17, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Binti, Nnedi Okorafor

I keep meaning to read Okorafor’s work, but Who Fears Death was a bad fit when I picked it up, and my copy of Lagoon has gone AWOL. Which left this as my introduction — maybe not a bad thing, because it’s fairly bitesize, without being truncated. I wasn’t sure what to think of it until I was talking with Robert from my book club, though, where he noted that at the start of the book, things begin to happen due to Binti’s merit. She gets herself into university, and she’s brave enough to leave her family and set out into the unknown. After that, though, it’s luck: she couldn’t know that the things she took with her would be useful, had no idea how to make them useful, and basically just happened to survive and do well because of her background.

It feels almost like message fiction: sometimes, someone from an unprivileged background can make good because they bring new tools which other people wouldn’t consider. That’s not a bad message, and the story and world-building is reasonably entertaining… but. The conflict essentially ends by 20% in — after that, Binti no longer has to rely on her own resources. She just happens to have the right things with her.

That’s a bit of a simplification, but it does weaken the story for me. It starts off strongly, and the world is interesting — Binti’s people, the way things are set up, the aliens — but then… I began to feel as if it would turn out okay because Binti was special somehow. Having a special protagonist who is insulated from harm makes suspense and intrigue difficult.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, short stories

Readathon Progress Post

Posted October 17, 2015 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

Good afternoon, everyone! It’s almost time for the readathon, so I thought I’d get my progress post up and running. All my updates will be in here, unless the post starts getting ridiculously long, in which case I might start a new one. Let’s start by showing off my stack (or, you know, some of it).

Of course, who knows whether I’ll stick to that, because I am a contrary creature…

Here’s the introductory meme!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Cardiff, UK. And since I’m Welsh, you can expect some squealing about the rugby as well, I’m afraid.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? I don’t know, I’m quite looking forward to rereading Old Man’s War. Or maybe Magic Slays; Ilona Andrews’ work is always fun.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? Salted caramel chocolate Cadbury fingers. Mmmm.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I’m a ghostwriter and will be looking with interest to see if anybody’s reading books I’ve had anything to do with… not that I can tell you if you are.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? I’m pretty in the swing of it, now. I’ll sleep if I have to and read joyously if not, and not beat myself up too much about either outcome.

13.31: Well, I’ve started with Miss Phryne Fisher Investigates. I actually tried to read this before and did not get on with it, so I’m a little surprised to find myself enjoying it.

14.24: Just did the Cover Escape challenge, and now it’s back to curling up with Phryne. Yeesh, it’s cold here in Wales!

15.26: I’m strangely slow at reading, today! I thought I’d easily get Phryne polished off in two hours. Ah well, enjoying it.

16.34: Now finished my first book! Not sure what’s next, being social a little bit first.

17.44: Have started reading Hollow City. Accidentally spoilered myself about the end, oops. About 1/4 of the way through.

18.27: More than halfway through Hollow City now. Break for dinner! Wales lost in the rugby, sigh.

21.02: Whoops, where is the time going? (Cue some Sandy Denny!) Listening to music to liven me up again and taking a break to chat. I’m 1/3 of the way through Murder Past Due, and 3/4 of the way through Hollow City — I was flagging a bit, so I changed it up for a while.

22.07: Finished Hollow City! I think I’m going to see if I can have a bath… books to go in with me: The Moonspinners (Mary Stewart) and Murder Past Due (Miranda James).

01.07: Well, I read The Moonspinners in the bath, completing my third book. But now I feel a bit sick, and I have work and book club tomorrow, so I’m going to get some sleep now. Back in the morning!

09.39: I’m back! I actually ended up reading over half of another book till I could fall asleep, so I’m now halfway through Dark Entries (Robert Aickman).

10.59: Finished Dark Entries. Now I’m going to settle back down with Murder Past Due, and see if I can finish a fifth book this readathon.

12.19: Now I’ve finished Murder Past Due. I’m wrapping up with some organisational stuff rather than reading more.

Tags: readathon

Stacking the Shelves

Posted October 17, 2015 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

This has been an unexpectedly busy week again, since friends have been super nice to me (particularly Lynn and Robert), and Mum ended up with some Amazon vouchers from surveys! Which is really nice, because it is a stressful time. This week my grandmother’s going to have her operation for cancer, so I would really, really appreciate good thoughts sent her way.

Anyway, back to the books!

Won

I liked The Errant Prince a lot, so yay for this! Looking forward to reading it. Thank you, Sasha L. Miller!

Dead tree books

I was instructed to get something light and escapist and easy, and Magic Slays will be exactly that for me. And research, since paranormal romance is a genre I ghostwrite in… Dark Metropolis apparently has a bunch of LGBTQ characters, including an ace character.

Ebooks