Category: General

Discussion: Buying a Series

Posted September 3, 2018 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

As with a lot of my discussion posts, this is basically prompted by authors posting on Twitter. In this case, authors are often to be found urging you not to wait for a series to be over before buying their books. There’s solid reasons for that, of course — if people don’t buy the first book in a series, publishers are probably not going to bother taking the risk of publishing the second book — let alone commit to an extended series in hopes that in ten years or so, once it’s complete, people will finally flock to buy the thing.

As a reader, though, I find authorial reproach on this topic… ugh, irritating isn’t the word, because it sounds unfair. But to me, it’s also unfair to expect readers to make an investment in a series right out of the gate, without it even being clear when the next books will come out, how long it’s going to take, how long the series might be, whether things are planned in advance… I would never bother to read the first book of a fantasy trilogy when it’s just the debut novel, for certain: I don’t want to be stuck in Scott Lynch-esque limbo. (I’m with Neil Gaiman — [author name] is not your bitch — but it’s been disappointing as a fan. And in that case, it wasn’t even after the debut novel that things slowed down. There were two books out in reasonably quick succession; it looked like a good bet!)

And of course, I don’t want to buy a book that I’m not going to read until I know when the next one is out. I have a backlog of over a thousand books; if nothing else, I don’t want to purchase something in order to have it sit there for five years inflating my counts and clogging my shelves.

Putting up a discussion post might imply I have an answer, but I really don’t. I don’t have a solid policy: I’ll buy a debut novel if it looks interesting, and I might even read it and risk spending five years waiting for the next book. But it’s something I really would like to balance out somehow: authors’ need for an audience, my desire to feel that I’m not gambling on the next book ever existing…

So hey, what do you guys do? Buy the first book and not read it? Buy the first book and read it and hope to goodness the next comes soon? Stubbornly hold out for the series’ end?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted September 1, 2018 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Good morning, folks! It’s been a quiet week here for the most part, unless you count the bunnies learning that they can make a big noise by dropping their hay ball down the stairs in their hutch when they want me to refill it. New home goes on apace, new car likewise, but I’ve gotta anti-recommend Virgin Media as an internet provider.

(But so many hearts in my eyes for Bulb, who do green energy and a completely hassle-free set up, as well as good rates. If you switch and use that link, you get £50 credit and so do I, just as full disclosure. For me that’s most of a month’s electricity and gas, so it’s a big deal!)

Books received to review:

Cover of Legion by Brandon Sanderson Cover of Ask Me No Questions by Shelley Noble

Tor actually sent me the hardback of Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds — I’ve only ever read the first novella, so I’m pretty excited.

Books read this week:

Cover of Verdict of Twelve by Raymond Postgate Cover of Farthing, by Jo Walton

Reviews posted this week:

–Ancestral Journies, by Jean Manco. A fascinating topic — the migrations and colonisations of Europe, as far as they can be traced. There are some slightly more tedious bits, but for the most part it pulls together a lot of evidence and is very worth the read if the topic is interesting to you. 4/5 stars
–The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers. A reread, and I possibly loved this even more the second time. 5/5 stars
–The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman. I liked this more on a reread, I think because I really placed it in the context of the other books properly. Before, it felt like an ending, but a weak one; I think that was just me focusing too much on Alberich’s arc. 4/5 stars
–Murder of a Lady, by Anthony Wynne. Atmospheric as heck, though perhaps leaning too hard on some tropes I dislike. 3/5 stars
–Death of a Busybody, by George Bellairs. Very typical Golden Age stuff, but there’s something about it that makes it a really fun casual read. 3/5 stars
–Moral Tribes, by Joshua Greene. A surprisingly (to me) good case for utilitarianism! 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: A Fast Read. Discussing whether a book being a quick read is a good thing or, as some authors on Twitter think, an insult.
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what I’m reading (and what I’m thinking about it!).

Out and about:

–NEAT science: ‘STEVE in the sky.‘ Ever seen the northern lights? This post is about a little-understood phenomenon that is a little bit similar in appearance, but so far only superficially understood.

So that’s that for this week! By next week, I’ll have turned my dissertation in and finished everything I can do for my degree. Which means I’ll have plenty of time to catch up on those comments I’m running behind on…

How’re you guys?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted August 29, 2018 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

Cover of Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. CeramWhat are you currently reading?

Too much at once, as ever, but most actively I’m reading Gods, Graves and Scholars, by C.W. Ceram. It’s out of date now — definitely in terms of Egyptology, at least — but there’s still a fascination and grandeur about the finds Ceram describes and the broad history of archaeology mapped out here. And knowing some of the more recent material, it’s doubly fascinating to see what we used to think. I’m glad I picked this up, even though I had doubts because of the age of it.

Cover of Verdict of Twelve by Raymond PostgateWhat have you recently finished?

I just finished Verdict of Twelve, by Raymond Postgate. It’s one of the British Library Crime Classics, and it’s definitely an interesting one. I had the weirdest sense of deja vu reading the ending, even though I know I haven’t read the book before, and don’t remember peeking at the end! It’s a sort of character study in many ways of the court and how a jury works. It’s less about the actual mystery and more about how people interact..

Cover of Blackout by Mira GrantWhat will you be reading next? 

No idea. Me being me, it could be anything. I’m strongly tempted to pick up Provenance by Ann Leckie again already and give it a reread — I just seem to be in the mood for Leckie’s writing. Or I might settle down to reading some more of Seanan McGuire’s Toby Daye books, and finishing up Blackout…

Who knows. The ways of the Nikki are strange.

What are you reading?

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Discussion: A Fast Read

Posted August 27, 2018 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

I can’t remember which author it is, but there’s someone on Twitter who gets deeply offended whenever someone says, “Hey, I found your book a really fast read, totally unputdownable!” They completely take it as an insult, because they don’t want to be the kind of author who writes books that might be classed as easy to read.

Authors: please don’t do this. If I read your book fast, it is a compliment, and you’re just willfully taking offence if you decide that it isn’t. I’m a fast reader anyway, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t take in what I’m reading or appreciate your subtleties. How fast I read a book is much less important than how long it stays with me afterwards: there are books which take me months to read and feel like a total chore — do you really want to be one of those?! Because if your book is one of those, I can almost guarantee you… I don’t like it that much.

(There are some exceptions, mood reading and such. But in general…)

Now, there is a time and a place for close-reading. 1) A literature degree, 2) understanding how something is put together because it’s just that fascinating, and 3) you enjoy doing it. I’ve done close-reading for all three reasons — it’s not an impossible thing to hope that someone might do at some point — but most readers aren’t interested in doing that, and most of us just read at our own speed, and savour the book (or not) in our own way.

It’s a compliment, I swear. Chill.

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WWW Wednesday

Posted August 22, 2018 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

Cover of A History of Ancient Egypt Volume 2 by John RomerWhat are you currently reading?

Most actively, the second volume of John Romer’s A History of Ancient Egypt. I’m up to a lot of discussion of hieroglyphs in tombs now, which is kind of fascinating, and Romer has a quite refreshing pragmatic view of Egyptian society instead of seeing it as totally mystical and magical — he talks about some of the rituals being part of the state and as such, more secular than we imagine, because it’s to do with supply and so on. I’m not explaining it very well (it’s late and I’ve been travelling all day as I write this ready to go up in the morning!), but it’s really interesting.

I’ve also finally picked up Blackout by Mira Grant, and I’m excited to finally find out what happens. I’m hoping for a particular reunion in the next 50 pages or so (I know it does happen because spoilers, but not when!) so… eeeh.

Cover of Moral Tribes by Joshua GreeneWhat have you recently finished reading?

Moral Tribes, by Joshua Greene. The most interesting thing about this is that it’s a defence and elucidation of utilitarianism than does deal with a lot of the reflexive dislikes I have about utilitarianism, while acknowledging that it’s not necessarily the perfect value system — just one that enables us to answer most of our moral conundrums in the real world.

Cover of Rogue Protocol by Martha WellsWhat will you be reading next?

The third Murderbot novella, I think! I’ve finally actually put it on my ereader. I also bought myself one book for my birthday: Seeds of Science by Mark Lynas. It’s about GM crops, which he used to vehemently oppose (including taking physical action to destroy GM crops), and which he’s now in favour of. I think it’ll be fascinating. So I definitely plan to pick that up soon!

What are you reading?

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Discussion: Half Stars

Posted August 20, 2018 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

It’s come up a couple of times lately when I’ve rated a book — I experience a fleeting wish for half stars. I used to be pretty active in the Goodreads Feedback Group, and that was perennial plea: give us half stars! And I don’t really actually get it, most of the time, if I’m honest. I mean, the Goodreads rating system goes like this:

5 stars: it was amazing
4 stars: I really liked it
3 stars: I liked it
2 stars: it was OK
1 star: terrible

I can’t remember if that’s the exact wording or not, but you get the gist. Now I don’t really see how that leaves room for intermediates (unless you’re just not using the scale at all, but then you can do whatever you like anyway and state that you’re awarding half stars in your review). Making it more granular makes it harder to decide, for me at least — and yet the cry was always, “well, I need half stars because I can’t decide between four and five!” To me, I don’t see how that helps: now you have more stars and they have ambiguous meanings (“I half really liked it!”) and surely that could lead to infinite regression. Quarter stars, eighth stars, sixteenth stars…

Nah, I’ll stick to full stars. If I was rating something to suggest whether a publisher should pick it up, maybe there’d be more need for precision. But it’s not like the ratings are actually precise anyway: how many times can you say you liked two books exactly the same?

I just don’t get it, I guess. A simple five star scale is enough for me in terms of giving a sense of where I am on the continuum — and having the stars weighted towards the positive end makes sense, too, because it’s not as important to know how much someone disliked a book as how much someone liked a book.

Probably this is all just me, but hey, now you know why I don’t use half-stars and rarely talk about wanting to use them: if I do, I really am on the fence, and usually it’s because I think a book deserves a higher score for technical merit, but I didn’t like it. (And all my star ratings are based on liking, so giving some things four stars is just lying, no matter how technically brilliant I think they are.)

So how do you rate books? Do you have a system, or do you go with your gut?

And hey, happy birthday to me!

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Weekly roundup

Posted August 18, 2018 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Good morning, all! It’s been a heck of a week, but hey, since we last spoke I’ve signed a contract on a flat for me and my wife, I’ve started sorting out getting some furniture in so we can actually live there, and I’ve aaaalllllmost finished my dissertation. And then on Monday, it’s my birthday! The last birthday of my 20s, in fact (and yet I still don’t feel like an adult).

Before the books, I’m still away from the bunnies (only for a few more days!), so here’s Breakfast enjoying his castle before it’s gone (we’re not moving it with us; it’d fall apart), and a pic of both Breakfast and Hulk, both demanding grooming from each other at the same time (that’s how bunnies roll).

And now we’re onto the non-fiction section of my recent hauls! Hold on to your hats.

Acquired:

Cover of The Spartans by Paul Cartledge Cover of Alexander the Great by Paul Cartledge cover of Praetorian by Guy de la Bedoyere

To Be a Machine by Mark O'Connell Cover of 4th Rock from the Sun by Nicky Jenner Cover of Swearing is Good For You by Emma Byrne

Cover of The Human Planet by Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin Cover of Think Again: How To Reason And Argue by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Cover of Think Like An Anthropologist by Matthew Engelke

Books finished this week:

Cover of The Regional Office is Under Attack Cover of Death of an Airman by Christopher St John Sprigg Cover of Think Like An Anthropologist by Matthew Engelke Cover of Rosemary & Rue by Seanan McGuire

Cover of Think Again: How To Reason And Argue by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Cover of A Study in Honor by Claire O'Dell Cover of Ancestral Journeys by Jean Manco Cover of Circe by Madeline Miller

Reviews posted this week:

–Witchmark, by C.L. Polk. I feel like I should’ve liked this more, but I was left a little bit lukewarm by some aspects, particularly the romance. It’s sweet, but I wanted more substance. 3/5 stars
–The Masked City, by Genevieve Cogman. For a second book in a series, I think this is really strong and keeps all the best things about the series going strong. 4/5 stars
–Swearing is Good For You, by Emma Byrne. Lots of information — really fucking interesting, actually. 4/5 stars
–Dreadful Company, by Vivian Shaw. It lived up to how much I enjoyed the first book, and I found myself really gulping it down. 4/5 stars
–The Regional Office is Under Attack! by Manuel Gonzales. I feel like I missed something. What was the point? It feels like it just peters out. It’s a fun enough read, but it doesn’t answer many of the questions you’ll have on finishing it. 2/5 stars
–Death of an Airman, by Christopher St John Sprigg. Not my favourite in this series of reissues: there’s something dry and characterless about it, from my point of view. 2/5 stars
–Think Like An Anthropologist, by Matthew Engelke. A bit unfocused and not sure of what it’s trying to do, with some interesting bits. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Who are reviews for? Other readers? The authors? Publishers? In the end, I feel like it’s “whoever I damn well say it is”.
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what I’m reading, in which I’m reading too much at once (as always).

Out and about:

–NEAT science: Do sunbeds cause cancer? I really did see that as a headline in the Daily Mail (sorry, my parents take it). The answer is yes (and I do explain why, if you’ve always wondered!).
–Once Upon A Blue Moon: ‘Strange Heroes’. A short story in which a superhero called Flechette saves one woman, which did not go where I expected when I started writing it.

How’s your week been? Any exciting news? Any exciting books?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted August 15, 2018 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

Cover of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky ChambersI’m partway through rereading The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, since the new book in that world is out now. I keep picking it up meaning to read a couple of pages and just sinking back into it, and suddenly, boom! I lost half an hour. Not that I mind that too much!

I also accidentally picked up Circe, by Madeline Miller, after reading people’s raptures about it on Litsy. I meant to just read a couple of pages (I know, I know, it’s a theme with me) and then found I’d read over 100 while my game was paused. Oops.

Then I accidentally picked up A Study in Honor, too. It’s an interesting choice for a Sherlock Holmes retelling. It’s actually reminding me somewhat of Witchmark, but I think that’s partly the main characters being doctors in both books.

Cover of Think Again: How To Reason And Argue by Walter Sinnott-ArmstrongWhat have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Think Again: How To Reason and Argue by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. I’m not sure yet quite what I think of this: it’ll probably become clear to me as I write the review! It definitely has good tips on how to understand other people’s arguments and put together a strong argument yourself, but it also has a lot of commentary on the right/left divide in politics.

Cover of At the Table of Wolves by Kay KenyonWhat will you be reading next?

Well, chances are I’m going to succumb to a new shiny and pick up Kay Kenyon’s At the Table of Wolves. It mentions Marvel’s Agent Carter in the blurb, and the cover is basically Peggy Carter with some colours switched round, and I’m kind of into that (even though I still haven’t actually watched Agent Carter).

What are you reading?

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Discussion: Who are reviews for?

Posted August 13, 2018 by Nicky in General / 11 Comments

I saw this on Twitter (this thread) and immediately had a ton of thoughts, especially after I saw the tweet claiming that reviews (in general) are for everyone: authors, readers, other reviewers… And in one way, that’s true; there’s no way I can stop authors coming to my blog and reading my reviews, and maybe they’ll be useful to authors too! I don’t begrudge them to authors, if they’ve got thick skins and can keep themselves from arguing with me.

But. With every piece of writing, you have an audience in mind. That’s part of what makes the writing effective: you tailor it to the people you want it to be useful to. It’s no use me posting here talking about the MIC of bedaquiline against Mycobacterium tuberculosis — you’re a smart bunch, so I’m sure some of you know what the MIC is and what it’s about, but it’s simply not relevant to most people — and likewise there’s no point in me using a chatty style in my dissertation. The audience distinction between other readers and the author of the thing being reviewed is not necessarily that large, but I’m definitely not keeping the author in mind when I review. I’m talking about what I liked and what I didn’t, and often don’t even touch on anything beyond personal taste. Now, unless an author’s planning to write a book just for me, that’s not exactly useful, is it?

Now, reading the actual thread, I don’t think me and the writer of that thread are actually too far apart in our opinions. I don’t disagree that reviews are open to and worth scrutinising, etc, etc. But all the same, I have an audience in mind for my reviews and it’s not authors (and it’s not really non-readers, either: I don’t see why a non-reader would be interested in my reviews). So sure, my reviews can be read by anyone who comes along and maybe they’ll be of interest or even useful for people whom I don’t expect to find them so.

But still, saying my reviews are for anybody I don’t think they’re for is putting a bit much of a burden on the rather slender shoulders of my typically 200-word-ish summaries of what I thought of a book. And I don’t think most people who are saying that reviews aren’t for authors or aren’t for xyz are saying that their reviews can’t/shouldn’t/mustn’t be read by those people — they’re saying, fucking Christ, will authors please stop commenting on my reviews to browbeat me because I didn’t like their book. So in that sense, yeah. Reviews are for other readers. Fight me.

(Please don’t.)

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Weekly Roundup

Posted August 11, 2018 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

Good morning! Just a week and a bit until I have the bunnies again — time is flying. In the meantime, here’s the traditional photo of (one of) them…

Breakfast is all about dat bass.

As well as this being my general weekly roundup, I participate in Stacking the Shelves, courtesy of Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality, so if you comment here, rest assured I’ll be commenting back!

And here’s this week’s highlights from recent hauls, focusing on the crime/mystery section:

Acquired:

Cover of Weekend at Thrackley by Alan Melville Cover of Quick Curtain by Alan Melville Cover of Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm by Gil North

Cover of The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson Cover of Family Matters by Anthony Rolls Cover of Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon

Cover of Mystery at Olympia by John Rhode Cover of Invisible Weapons by John Rhode Cover of Death at Breakfast by John Rhode

And nope, that’s not the end of my broken-up-into-bits hauls yet. I’ve been lucky lately!

Books finished this week:

Cover of Fury of the Tomb by S.A. Sidor Cover of The Civilization of Angkor by Charles Higham Cover of Swearing is Good For You by Emma Byrne Cover of Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw

Reviews posted this week:

–Have His Carcase, by Dorothy L. Sayers. There are some parts of this which get a little long-winded, but I still can’t help but adore it. 5/5 stars
–Subliminal, by Leonard Mlodinow. Nothing new if you’ve been reading around about the brain and the weird ways humans think. 2/5 stars
–Strange Practice, by Vivian Shaw. Another beloved reread. I just adore the characters and the way they work together and so much about the world and… yeah. 4/5 stars
–The Voices Within, by Charles Fernyhough. A really fascinating discussion of what happens when we think. 4/5 stars
–At Amberleaf Fair, by Phyllis Ann Karr. A rather gentle fantasy/mystery/romance with some interesting features in the worldbuilding. 3/5 stars
–Fury from the Tomb, by S.A. Sidor. Pulpy fun, but not quite as much fun as I might’ve hoped. 2/5 stars
–The Civilization of Angkor, by Charles Higham. A fascinating site, but this is less archaeology and more an extensive study of inscriptions, which comes off a little flat. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: The Rites of the Reader. What are your quirky habits surrounding reading?
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what I’m reading lately, almost guaranteed to be out of date by the next day at the rate I read and hop around picking up new books!

Out and about:

–Once Upon A Blue Moon: ‘Buttercup and Primrose Save The Day’. A short story featuring two determined young women, and a mystery of sorts.
–Once Upon A Blue Moon: ‘Take Care’. A creepy short story in second person POV.
–NEAT science: Why predators are a good thing. It’s a bit more complicated than the standard story a lot of people know about wolves and Yellowstone, but predators are a key part of food webs.
–NEAT science: Blue light danger. There was a somewhat alarming article in the Guardian talking about the damage blue light from screens can do your eyes. I read the source research and dissected things a bit. (Surprise! The newspaper article had some sweeping and so far not fully supported conclusions.)

So how’re you doing? Any good books this week?

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