Author: Nicky

Review – Bookshops & Bonedust

Posted June 18, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis BaldreeBookshops & Bonedust, Travis Baldree

Received to review via Netgalley

This book had a lot to live up to, given my love for Legends & Lattes. It’s a prequel, following Viv when she was a young idiot, running with her first mercenary band and getting a massive injury. There’s a bit more action in this book, as a result, though the stakes are different because they’re not as deeply personal to Viv (though she does care very much).

It’s mostly a new cast, aside from Viv, though one particular character from Legends & Lattes gets a chance to shine. I didn’t latch onto them in quite the same way, except perhaps for one — about whom I shouldn’t say too much, except that I was deeply relieved they got what they wanted out of life. I wonder if I’d latch on more on reread, knowing what to expect.

Like Legends & Lattes, there are some very profoundly cosy aspects (such as discussion of books they all like! and how to sell more books!), and it’s very enjoyable to see the seeds of where Viv gets to later. I’d definitely recommend having read Legends & Lattes first, so that you can appreciate that, despite the fact that this is a prequel — plus, the epilogue of this book is spoilery for the original novel.

To call either this book or Legends & Lattes “low-stakes” is a bit misleading, I think. Life and limb are on the line in both, and loss of someone’s livelihood — not to mention a place full of memories of their family, for example — is not “low-stakes”, emotionally speaking. Sure, the world isn’t going to end, but there are things on the line here. I didn’t care quite as much as I did for Legends & Lattes, perhaps, but I did very much care about what was happening.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Pulling the Wings Off Angels

Posted June 17, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Pulling the Wings Off Angels by K.J. ParkerPulling the Wings Off Angels, K.J. Parker

Received to review via Netgalley

When I saw this up for request, I clicked pretty much right away: I’ve enjoyed K.J. Parker’s narrative voice in the past, and found the ideas interesting — and novellas are always fun!

Depending on your point of view, it might be fortunate or unfortunate to hear that the narrative voice of this novella is much the same as in a handful of Parker’s other works (I’m not sure if it’s the same as all of them). Irreverent, a little anachronistic, self-serving, just-an-ordinary-dude… all of it rang so familiar from other books I’ve read by Parker, and that kind of spoiled my enjoyment. If you love it, or if you’re not already familiar with it, it might work great for you! I don’t mind the irreverence in the least, though some might; it’s just much less fresh when you’ve read it before.

The plot was, well, it feels like a bunch of different philosophical hypothetical scenarios thrown together to see what shakes out, which is interesting as an intellectual exercise, but didn’t quite work for me as a plot. Novellas may not need to have much of a plot, and your mileage may vary as always, but for me I felt it all hung on that narrative voice and a couple of “what ifs” about God and beliefs.

It was okay, but… shrug?

Rating: 2/5

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Review – The Scourge Between Stars

Posted June 16, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Scourge Between Stars by Ness BrownThe Scourge Between Stars, Ness Brown

Received to review via Netgalley

I’m told this owes a lot to Alien and similar stories, but I’m not familiar (I know, I live under a rock), so I’m less qualified to comment on the originality than some other reviewers. For me it was fairly new — not entirely, because I’ve read plenty of sci-fi, and watched some sci-fi TV shows… and even without that, not too narratively surprising.

The thing that was genuinely creepy (for me) was mostly the human aspect — the people who treat other people callously, who decide “me and mine first, and to hell with others”, or “I have the right”. That creepiness definitely adds something here, even though it’s the creepiness of people.

The elements of it are all enjoyable enough, though I feel like maybe it would’ve been a bit better as a novel, with more room to build things up before the deaths start rolling in. Especially since there are essentially two attacks on the ship from different origin (within and without), and one of them is dealt with so glancingly I almost forgot about it in writing this review.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – And Put Away Childish Things

Posted June 14, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Cover of And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian TchaikovskyAnd Put Away Childish Things, Adrian Tchaikovsky

Received to review via Netgalley

In the end, And Put Away Childish Things didn’t really work for me. In part, probably because I’m not actually that cynical and I still like the idea of Narnia and don’t want to think about a Narnia-like world getting all gross and run down. And sure, the main character isn’t actually meant to be likeable, as far as I can tell, but all the same, I don’t like him and I don’t like reading about him.

As a result, I was only mildly engaged with the story, and thus it never came together for me at all. I think there are some neat ideas — Tchaikovsky usually has those! It’s just all a bit grim, and the unpleasant main character never appreciably wises up, and the most interesting characters are all kind of on the side.

Not for me, though I’m confident others will love it.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Guilty Creatures

Posted June 10, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Guilty Creatures, edited by Martin EdwardsGuilty Creatures, ed. Martin Edwards

Guilty Creatures has an interesting idea for a theme (crime/mystery stories centred around animals in some way, usually where animals are the culprits), and is an entertaining read in the aggregate, but I can’t say that any single story actually really stood out to me, except perhaps the one where a tuberculosis infection was a significant clue, given my interests! In some cases the theme was a little bit stretched, to say the least (I won’t say which, since it kind of spoils the point of the story to understand what happened).

The quality of the stories is variable, as so often in short story collections of any kind, but it overall manages to be a fun experience — in part because of the little windows into the author that Edwards gives at the start of each story, providing a little bit of context. It’s very easy reading, as well: if you don’t like one story or style, the next is coming up very soon.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Emergent Properties

Posted June 7, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Cover of Emergent Properties by Aimee OgdenEmergent Properties, Aimee Ogden

Received to review via Netgalley

I quite enjoyed Emergent Properties while I was reading it, but I don’t think it quite came together for me — I’m reviewing this a few days after finishing, and I confess, I’m not entirely sure what to say. I wouldn’t compare it too much to the Murderbot books, which have a very distinctive voice and attitude — this book has some similar themes, and even some similarities of voice, but is a little less… mature-feeling, I guess?

I did enjoy the setup of the mystery, and having to try and figure out what exactly is going on, without giving the game away. However, I kind of lost the thread of it between the body swaps and the random (-seeming) attacks on Scorn, and also the interlude in the black box bar.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on — the part in the black box bar actually intrigued me a lot since it imagined how AIs and others might interact, and how something akin to the internet (but older) might be. I think the Aura thing felt cribbed from Black Mirror, though (or at least, that’s where I know that whole social score thing from — even though I don’t myself watch Black Mirror!).

All in all, I had fun, it just didn’t quite come together for me. I’d read more by the author, and even more with this character or this world.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Translation State

Posted June 5, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Translation State by Ann LeckieTranslation State, Ann Leckie

Received to review via Netgalley

I’ve been a big fan of Ann Leckie for a while: even though Ancillary Justice didn’t work for me immediately, it found a huge place in my heart anyway. So I was pretty excited to get a chance to read this early and review it, and dived in as soon as I could! Like Provenance, it’s in the same world as Ancillary Justice, but it focuses on another group of characters, including a Presger translator. It’s an opportunity to learn a bit more about the Presger, and perhaps about the Radchaii interactions with them, that I was really excited about.

There were certain elements of this story (the cannibalism) that really felt weird for me and icked me out a bit; I definitely wasn’t expecting them, so that’s something to be aware of before you pick it up if you’re a bit squeamish. There is a point behind it all, all the same, and of course Leckie takes another dive into the issues of gender and identity and personhood, from a different angle again from in the Breq books or in Provenance.

I think overall this isn’t my favourite of the bunch, though I appreciate it a lot, and the glimpse it gives of things everyone’s bound to be curious about (the Presger, but also other parts of non-Radchaii space, and some of the other races). I was excited by a couple of the appearances of characters from the other books, about which I shan’t say too much.

Well worth it, of course — and I’m sure it’ll grow on me, to be honest.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Nothing But The Rain

Posted June 3, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Nothing but the Rain by Naomi SalmanNothing but the Rain, Naomi Salman

Received to review via Netgalley

If you like to know the whys and wherefores, Nothing but the Rain is not going to be for you. It explains nothing about its central premise, which is that all of a sudden, water (not just rain, but water coming out of the taps as well) induces amnesia in people in a certain town. A droplet of water might take away a few seconds of memory; a sudden inundation might wipe out a person’s entire memory and leave them empty of everything.

And we never find out why! Which I know will be deeply infuriating to some folks, so I mention it first here because it’s important to know. Instead, the story is more about how people might act in this situation, and how one particular person — the narrator — makes her way.

There were a few things other than the basic premise that I feel weren’t thought through. For example, at one point a character does something to the narrator that she should’ve been suspicious about — she has 24 hours of her memory removed, not weeks, so she should notice a particular thing is amiss. (I don’t want to say too much; when this gets posted on my blog [breathesbooks.com], I’ll happily elaborate in comments if anyone else who has read it wants me to point to the thing that bugged me.)

It’s overall an interesting idea and execution, and I don’t actually mind that we don’t know why the situation is happening, but I do mind when things like that don’t connect up. The ending has a nice sting in the tail.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Crimes of Cymru

Posted June 2, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Crimes of Cymru ed. Martin EdwardsCrimes of Cymru, ed. Martin Edwards

These aren’t strictly all one thing: some are stories written by Welsh writers (and not necessarily set in Wales), while others are by non-Welsh writers (but set in Wales). As a result, it’s a fairly mixed bag, but still a fun collection.

I was pleased by the inclusion of a story by Rhys Davies, whose work I enjoyed when I was doing a Welsh fiction in English course — I do wonder if it might’ve been possible to find more works by Welsh authors, but on the other hand, it did seem that some of those included were already pretty obscure.

As always, I enjoyed this more than I expected to: somewhere in my head I have the idea that I’m not that into short story collections, at least not themed ones that can contain works of varying quality… but the British Library Crime Classic ones have been pretty universally entertaining.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Pathogenesis

Posted May 29, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Cover of Pathogenesis by Jonathan KennedyPathogenesis, Jonathan Kennedy

Pathogenesis was less absorbing for me than I’d hoped; I love non-fiction about diseases, even though I’m already studying for my MSc in the subject and thus most of it is not new to me. Still, often there are titbits I didn’t know, and that seemed like it was going to prove true here too when I read the introduction: did you know that viral genes are involved in the formation of the mammalian placenta?

But overall, the rest of it was much less scientific, less based on… well… pathogenesis, and much more about history. How diseases affected armies and governments, and how changes like capitalism (of which the author seems to be a huge fan) changed the approach to public health. Which is to say, created a demand for it, since there was no such thing under feudalism.

For someone who is interested in the history of infectious diseases in relation to humanity, this is probably still fascinating. For me, it was just a bit to starboard of my real interests, and I found it far too simplistic in discussing how diseases work. (Plus, there was definitely a lot more room to consider the impacts of the current pandemic and what it means for the future. Consider the impact on the treatment of tuberculosis, for example — deeply negative.)

It was alright, but not what I wanted, ultimately.

Rating: 3/5

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