Author: Nicky

Review – Valkyrie

Posted October 22, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Valkyrie

Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World

by Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 280
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. They protect some, but guide spears, arrows and sword blades into the bodies of others. Viking myths about valkyries attempt to elevate the banality of war - to make the pain and suffering, the lost limbs and deformities, the piles of lifeless bodies of young men, glorious and worthwhile. Rather than their death being futile, it is their destiny and good fortune, determined by divine beings. The women in these stories take full part in the power struggles and upheavals in their communities, for better or worse.

Drawing on the latest historical and archaeological evidence, Valkyrie introduces readers to the dramatic and fascinating texts recorded in medieval Iceland, a culture able to imagine women in all kinds of roles carrying power, not just in this world, but pulling the strings in the other-world, too. In the process, this fascinating book uncovers the reality behind the myths and legends to reveal the dynamic, diverse lives of Viking women.

Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir’s Valkyrie attempts to give us a pretty comprehensive picture of the position of women in Norse society (I don’t say “Viking”, because “Vikings” are the ones who went out trading and plundering, and this is a more complete picture than that), using evidence from archaeology, from any written sources we have, and especially from the sagas.

It may sound weird to take evidence from sagas, but there are two reasons this is justified. First, as anyone who has studied the Icelandic sagas knows, they contain detail which has been verified. Oral histories passed down through generations have, in many different societies worldwide, proven astonishingly accurate in general, and archaeological evidence has verified things previously considered fanciful (like the fact that the Vikings made it to North America, now a matter of historical fact).

That said, such sources need handling with care, and the author does that pretty well, always explaining what seems a reasonable inference and what isn’t. She leans on the sagas a lot, though, and that can get pretty repetitive (especially if you’ve read them).

Overall, I found I didn’t learn a lot, but I did start with a fairly high degree of knowledge. I think it might be a bit dry for a lot of readers, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff discussed, albeit sometimes crushing to one’s hopes of bands of Viking warrior women.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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WWW Wednesday

Posted October 22, 2025 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Cover of Iyanu: Child of Wonder by Roye OkupeWhat have you recently finished reading?

I’ve been digging into more of the comics offering I can get via my library’s subscription to Comics Plus, so there’s been a lot of graphic novels in the last couple of days! The last thing I finished, just now, was volume one of Iyanu: Child of Wonder, by Roye Okupe. I loved the backstory and notes probably more than the story itself, sadly.

Other than that, I finished Kim M. Watt’s Baking Bad, which is kinda cute and cosy, and didn’t quite work for me — not so badly that I wouldn’t try reading more by Watt, but the mystery felt a bit obvious and… I don’t know, I need to think it over properly before writing my review, but I really wanted to like it because a friend got it for me and they love it, but I never quite got into it.

Cover of Eating to Extinction by Dan SaladinoWhat are you currently reading?

My non-fiction reads are Eating to Extinction (Dan Saladino) and The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club (Christopher de Hamel). I’m enjoying both, and they’re both very much by people who love what they’re writing about, which is always pleasing.

I’m also in the midst of volume three of The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish (Xue Shan Fei Hu), and loving Prince Jing’s dedication to his unexpected family, and Li Yu’s usual haplessness.

Cover of The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette KowalWhat will you be reading next?

I’m not sure, but I need to get my skates on with my BookSpinBingo card books if I want to get a blackout again this month! I’m not sure which I want to start on next, though; maybe Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Spare Man, as I’ve let it languish unread faaar too long.

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Review – The Hero

Posted October 21, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Hero

The Hero

by Lee Child

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 96
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

In his first work of nonfiction, the creator of the multimillion-selling Jack Reacher series explores the endurance of heroes from Achilles to Bond, showing us how this age-old myth is a fundamental part of what makes us human. He demonstrates how hero stories continue to shape our world – arguing that we need them now more than ever.

From the Stone Age to the Greek Tragedies, from Shakespeare to Robin Hood, we have always had our heroes. The hero is at the centre of formative myths in every culture and persists to this day in world-conquering books, films and TV shows. But why do these characters continue to inspire us, and why are they so central to storytelling?

Scalpel-sharp on the roots of storytelling and enlightening on the history and science of myth, The Hero is essential reading for anyone trying to write or understand fiction. Child teaches us how these stories still shape our minds and behaviour in an increasingly confusing modern world, and with his trademark concision and wit, demonstrates that however civilised we get, we’ll always need heroes.

Lee Child’s The Hero is a bit of a ramble about language that works its way around to talking about what “hero” means, and how he thinks humans developed heroes. It’s a short read and it’s pretty slight, based on little evidence and without any sources — but if you’re interested in Child as a storyteller, it might be worthwhile to read and get an idea of how he sees storytelling and indeed heroes.

For me, I haven’t actually read any of Child’s work (and I’m not sure it’d be my thing if I did), but it was still mildly entertaining to follow someone else’s slightly rambling train of thought and imagination about how stories came to be, and why we need them.

Not something I’d super recommend, though.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

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Review – Blood on the Tracks

Posted October 20, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Blood on the Tracks

Blood on the Tracks

by Martin Edwards (editor)

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 288
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

“Never had I been given a tougher problem to solve, and never had I been so utterly at my wits’ end for a solution.”

A signalman is found dead by a railway tunnel. A man identifies his wife as a victim of murder on the underground. Two passengers mysteriously disappear between stations, leaving behind a dead body.

Trains have been a favourite setting of many crime writers, providing the mobile equivalent of the “locked-room” scenario. Their enclosed carriages with a limited number of suspects lend themselves to seemingly impossible crimes. In an era of cancellations and delays, alibis reliant upon a timely train service no longer ring true, yet the railway detective has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the twenty-first century.

Both train buffs and crime fans will delight in this selection of fifteen railway-themed mysteries, featuring some of the most popular authors of their day alongside less familiar names. This is a collection to beguile even the most wearisome commuter.

Blood on the Tracks — edited by Martin Edwards, as usual for the British Library Crime Classics series — is a collection of stories on an apparently very specific theme: railway mysteries. And yet there’s plenty, and several novels as well that one can point to (more than one by Agatha Christie alone, as I recall!), so it’s definitely a worthy theme.

As ever, there were some stories that spoke more to me than others, but overall it’s a collection I enjoyed, including the Holmes pastiche by Knox (despite being often wary of Holmes pastiches). Reading E. Bramah’s story featuring Max Carrados made me almost resolve to write to the lecturer back at university who refused to include more diverse characters like disabled detectives/characters in the course material (“what’s next, animal detectives? This would be really scraping the barrel”) — Max Carrados being, of course, totally blind. These collections are really fun for how they dig for forgotten stories and bring them back to light.

Overall, one of the most fun collections; not just interesting because I’m interested in the genre, but with stories I enjoyed in and of themselves.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – A Magical Girl Retires

Posted October 19, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – A Magical Girl Retires

A Magical Girl Retires

by Park Seolyeon

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 176
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

A millennial turned magical girl must combat climate change and credit card debt in this delightful, witty, and wildly imaginative ode to magical girl manga.

Twenty-nine, depressed, and drowning in credit card debt after losing her job during the pandemic, a millennial woman decides to end her troubles by jumping off Seoul’s Mapo Bridge.

But her suicide attempt is interrupted by a girl dressed all in white—her guardian angel. Ah Roa is a clairvoyant magical girl on a mission to find the greatest magical girl of all time. And our protagonist just may be that special someone.

But the young woman’s initial excitement turns to frustration when she learns being a magical girl in real life is much different than how it’s portrayed in stories. It isn’t just destiny—it’s work. Magical girls go to job fairs, join trade unions, attend classes. And for this magical girl there are no special powers and no great perks, and despite being magical, she still battles with low self-esteem. Her magic wand . . . is a credit card—which she must use to defeat a terrifying threat that isn’t a monster or an intergalactic war. It’s global climate change. Because magical girls need to think about sustainability, too.

Park Seolyeon reimagines classic fantasy tropes in a novel that explores real-world challenges that are both deeply personal and universal: the search for meaning and the desire to do good in a world that feels like it’s ending. A fun, fast-paced, and enchanting narrative that sparkles thanks to award-nominated translator Anton Hur, A Magical Girl Retires reminds us that we are all magical girls—that fighting evil by moonlight and winning love by daylight can be anyone's game.

I’d been curious about Park Seolyeon’s A Magical Girl Retires for a while, since magical girl stories are fun and the cover art very much calls up that aesthetic and genre. It was available on Kobo Plus, and looked like a quick read, so I snagged it and tore through it: it really is a quick read, very breezily written (despite some dark themes, e.g. the whole first chapter involves the main character considering suicide, and her depression is clear throughout) and with fun art that livens things up.

Unfortunately it felt like it was too much of a quick read — everything happened so fast, each chapter was so short, and I could’ve done with more build-up of the relationship between the main character and Ah Roa (which could’ve been really cute). There’s a lot of fun stuff in the detail of how being a magical girl works, the fact that there’s a magical girl union, etc etc, it just… skips by so fast that it’s difficult to get invested.

Someone else mentioned this was a case where a short story should be expanded into a novel rather than vice versa, and yeah, that’s the feeling I had. The main character is well-drawn as far as it goes (though it’s mostly the depression!) but everything else feels sketched in, and the stakes are so high that that doesn’t seem right. There are definitely neat ideas here, just. Hmmm. It didn’t quite work.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

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Review – Solo Leveling, vol 6

Posted October 19, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Solo Leveling, vol 6

Solo Leveling

by Dubu, Chugong

Genres: Fantasy, Manga
Pages: 304
Series: Solo Leveling #6
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Jinwoo continues to progress rapidly through the Demon's 6 Castle, climbing toward the top floor with the help of a demon noble who has agreed to escort the intruder if it means not having to fight him herself! Preoccupied with his personal quest, Jinwoo is unaware of the escalating threat outside the dungeon. The ant magic beasts that laid waste to Jeju Island are looking to relocate, and if they reach the mainland, all of Korea could fall. Will the combined S-ranks of Japan and Korea be enough to quell the swarm—and will Jinwoo be joining them?!

Volume 6 of the Solo Leveling manhua is a lot of fun, though it feels a bit weirdly paced, or like the volumes are weirdly split up. The first half is basically all about Jinwoo’s ascent of the Demon’s Castle, with lots of action and fighting that involves Jinwoo being… still clever, but mostly also way overpowered.

The second half is largely about the Jeju Island plot, with Japanese and Korean high-ranked hunters joining up, testing each other, and then starting the raid… and Jinwoo isn’t a super important part of that plot, since he chooses not to get involved due to his mother’s recovery. It feels really weird that he’s not involved, narratively, but I’m guessing he’ll be getting stuck in soon enough. I can’t imagine the system’s super interested in him no longer hunting…

The art and colours continue to be lovely, and while I don’t follow the action scenes well, eh, I never do — just not a visual person. I’m very curious where it’s all going, and also probably curious enough to start reading the light novel.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted October 18, 2025 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

Hurrah, it’s the weekend!

Books acquired this week

Last weekend was Bookshop Day in the UK, so I made sure to acquire some books — it’s my duty, right?! I didn’t go nuts: I acquired physical copies of the Shady Hollow series (which I had in ebook before, not pictured) and the rest of this series, The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish:

Cover of The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish vol 2 by Xue Shan Fei Hu Cover of The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish vol 3 by Xue Shan Fei Hu Cover of The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish vol 4 by Xue Shan Fei Hu

I’ve already read book two, and I’m probably going to steam straight ahead and read the next volumes!

Posts from this week

First up, the reviews:

Other posts:

What I’m reading

It’s been a bit of a quieter week for me reading-wise, especially since I was off sick on Wednesday/Thursday. Still, I have done some reading!

Cover of The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish vol 1 by Xue Shan Fei Hu Cover of Written In History: Letters That Changed The World by Simon Sebag Montefiore Cover of Milk & Mocha: Our Little Happiness by Melanie Sie Cover of Door into the Dark by Seamus Heaney Cover of The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish vol 2 by Xue Shan Fei Hu Cover of Seeing Stars by Simon Armitage

As for what I’m reading this weekend… probably more of The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish, for a start! But I’d also like to get back to KJ Charles’ All of Us Murderers. We’ll see, though!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

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Review – Between Two Rivers

Posted October 17, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Between Two Rivers

Between Two Rivers

by Moudhy Al-Rashid

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 336
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

In ancient times, the vast area that stretches across what is now modern-day Iraq and Syria saw the rise and fall of epic civilizations who built the foundations of our world today. It was in this region, which we call Mesopotamia, that history was written down for the very first time.

With startling modernity, the people of Mesopotamia left behind hundreds of thousands of fragments of their everyday lives. Immortalised in clay and stone are intimate details from 4000 years ago. We find accounts of an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, a dog's paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, a parent desperately trying to soothe a baby with a lullaby, the imprint of a child's teeth as it sank them into their clay homework, and countless receipts for beer.

In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid examines what these people chose to preserve in their own words about their lives, creating the first historical records and allowing us to brush hands with them thousands of years later.

Bringing us closer than ever before to the lives of ancient people, Between Two Rivers tells not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.

Moudhy Al-Rashid’s Between Two Rivers is a conversational, fairly personal introduction to some Mesopotamian history through things that she is interested in herself, which made it a nice companion for a quiet evening, while leaving a bit of an itch for more info in some cases. The chapters lead on nicely from each other, building up a picture of ancient life based on the finds in the palace of Ennigaldi-Nanna, a priestess and daughter of a Babylonian king.

In the process, while introducing the finds and contextualising them as best as possible, Al-Rashid digs into some of the assumptions that archaeologists make (does a label for an item make a museum? does the presence of learning materials make a school, or are there other explanations like reuse of waste?). Perhaps the thing that startled me the most was realising that we can actually follow some specific ancient people through scribal records by name, getting a fair outline of their lives.

What’s most obviously lacking, though, is any kind of photography or even sketches to show us what she’s describing. She does write pretty good descriptions that give me a fairly reasonable idea of what she’s discussing, though I have no “mind’s eye” and thus I’m not really able to “picture” them in the way most people can.

So, yeah, pretty conversational, sometimes a little rambling/repetitive, overall: I enjoyed her style and her choices of topics, and found it an overall very pleasant read, but it did make me want to return to Selena Wisnom’s The Library of Ancient Wisdom and spend more time with that in hopes of more detail.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – The Man Who Was Thursday

Posted October 16, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – The Man Who Was Thursday

The Man Who Was Thursday

by G.K. Chesterton

Genres: Classics, Mystery
Pages: 224
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

In a park in London, secret policeman Gabriel Syme strikes up a conversation with an anarchist. Sworn to do his duty, Syme uses his new acquaintance to go undercover in Europe's Central Anarchist Council and infiltrate their deadly mission, even managing to have himself voted to the position of 'Thursday'. When Syme discovers another undercover policeman on the Council, however, he starts to question his role in their operations. And as a desperate chase across Europe begins, his confusion grows, as well as his confidence in his ability to outwit his enemies. But he has still to face the greatest terror that the Council has: a man named Sunday, whose true nature is worse than Syme could ever have imagined...

I don’t know quite what I expected from G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. It’s a book I’ve known about for a long time, but I had no idea about any details, other than that it was kind of a thriller and that it was pretty influential (or at least popular or talked about).

Having read it now, I wouldn’t have pegged it as being by the same guy as the Father Brown stories. I also still couldn’t tell you entirely what I think it’s about: it does have thriller elements, as Syme and later others go up against anarchists, culminating in a weird chase across the country (twice). I know it’s a spoiler, but it’s hard to explain how weird this book is without adding that of course it later turns out to have all been a dream.

It’s hard to know how to take it all in part because it all turns out to have been a dream. There are parts which are pretty funny, but then there are also moments where Syme’s repugnance really comes through and it feels almost horrifying.

Such a weird mix, and I don’t think I enjoyed it, though it’s interesting to have read it and have it logged as context somewhere in the back of my mind when people write about it or mention it in passing.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

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WWW Wednesday

Posted October 15, 2025 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

Cover of Written In History: Letters That Changed The World by Simon Sebag MontefioreWhat have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Written in History, which was… okay? It’s a collection of famous letters, and I don’t feel like it quite meets its brief of being “letters that changed the world” in all cases. It’s definitely got letters of interest, and useful context for them, though.

I’ve been meaning to read it forever, so now it’s off my list, too!

Cover of All of Us Murderers by KJ CharlesWhat are you currently reading?

Most actively, volume two of The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish (Xue Shan Fei Hu). It’s so silly, it’s pretty cute, and I’m having fun with it. I ended up getting volumes two, three and four all together, to celebrate the UK’s Bookshop Day, so I have the whole series ready to dig into.

I’ve also started on KJ Charles’ All of Us Murderers, though the bullying directed at the character who clearly has ADHD is a bit… not what I’m in the mood for right now (though I was warned about it, and almost all the characters doing it are clearly intended to be being unpleasant). I hope to pick it back up properly soon, though.

What will you be reading next?

As ever, it’s up to my whim, but it’s likely I’ll keep on with The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish. Other than that… I might start on E.C.R. Lorac’s I Could Murder Her, since it’s on my bingo card for October, and a “cosy” (ish) classic mystery sounds like just what the doctor ordered for me right now when I’m feeling a bit bleh. (Right, Dr Mum?)

Otherwise… we’ll see!

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