Category: General

Discussion: Hugo for Best Series

Posted June 25, 2018 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

I ended up having an interesting chat with one of my colleagues from Beeminder a few days ago, which prompted me to write this down as a post idea. We both follow the Hugos and try to vote, or at least decide how we would vote, and he mentioned being torn on the subject of the Hugo for Best Series.

To refresh our memories, here’s the requirements for the Best Series award:

“The best science fiction or fantasy series of at least 3 volumes and 240,000 words, with a work published in the prior calendar year.”

In some ways, it does seem a little unbalanced to have a whole series being judged at once. Sometimes the first book is amazing and the most recent book ruins everything, or vice versa, but you still want to reward the worthy book. Sometimes a series just by virtue of being a popular or long-running series gets a huge advantage — think of the Wheel of Time, for example: people were worried that it would win by default by just having had a lot of time to attract fans who would vote for it. (That didn’t turn out to be the case, though.)

In other ways, well, I love the idea of taking a step back once a series is over and thinking about whether it really hung together as a series, whether the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. There are some stories where the ending just turns everything else on its head, and I’d give all the awards to a series that really got me that way.

And yet, that’s not what the award is for: it doesn’t specify the series must be over, just that there must have been an installment published in the prior calendar year. That for me is the downfall of the series Hugo: instead of being about awarding something to a series that was really great as a whole, it becomes an award for a series which people are excited about. You have to start thinking about it in terms of just the last book, whatever that was, because you don’t know how everything is going to come together at the end.

That said, I’m really torn about the choices this year. I love both Marie Brennan’s books and Robert Jackson Bennett’s books, and I’d love to see both of them win all the awards ever — and in this case they’re both completed series, too, so they won’t have another chance next year (another thing I’m not sure I love about the series Hugo — is there anything stopping the same regular series being nominated again and again?). Gaaah.

So what do you think? Pro-Best Series award? Anti-Best Series award? Completely torn? Don’t care about the Hugos? (I’ll grant this post is, after all, really only relevant to my SF/F buddies!)

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 23, 2018 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Good morning, folks! It’s time for another installment of my post-exam book binge. This time, it’s the British Library Crime Classics edition. (Yep, I am addicted to these.)

Bought:

Cover of Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay Cover of Death of an Airman by Christopher St John Sprigg Cover of Scarweather by Anthony Rolls 

Cover of Murder of a Lady by Anthony Wynne Cover of The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Warren Adams

Books read this week:

Cover of The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home by Catherynne Valente Cover of Scarweather by Anthony Rolls  Cover of Deadline by Mira Grant Cover of The Black God's Drums

Reviews posted this week:

The Secret of High Eldersham, by Miles Burton. Okay, the plot is bananas, but it’s a really compulsive read. 4/5 stars
The Templars, by Piers Paul Read. Not just about the Templars, but about the Crusades more broadly. 3/5 stars
Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones. A favourite reread. <3 5/5 stars
A Quick and Easy Guide to Using They/Them Pronouns, by Archie Bongiovanni & Tristan Jimerson. Pretty good, but not perfect. 4/5 stars
A Little History of Archaeology, by Brian Fagan. Not quite everything I wanted, but fun enough and informative, if a little scatter-brained. 3/5 stars
Feed, by Mira Grant. A reread to let me get back into the trilogy and finish it this time, and it was great fun. 4/5 stars
Planetfall, by Emma Newman. Another reread, this one because I want to read the new book in the same world. Remains a great read, and I think I liked it more this time. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

Discussion: Interacting with Authors. Advice for both authors and bloggers…
Top Ten Tuesday: Summer TBR. What I might be reading this summer.
WWW Wednesday. The usual update!

So what’ve you been reading? What have you been stacking your shelves with? I want to know!

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WWW Wednesday

Posted June 20, 2018 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

My exams are over, and all is freedom and binging on books! 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 Classical World by Robin Lane FoxI just started The Classical World, by Robin Lane Fox, which is rather slow going. I’ve seen some really enthusiastic reviews, but I’m not quite seeing it — at this point, at least. Maybe it doesn’t help that I studied classics at A Level, so none of this is really new to me.

I’ve also got started on my reread of The Summer Tree, which is just, gah. It’s not going to be long before the first big tragic event. I had to pause last night so I wouldn’t go to sleep on that note!

What have you recently finished reading?

Cover of Deadline by Mira GrantLast thing I finished was Deadline, by Mira Grant. Gah! A little slower than the first book, I think, but oh gosh that ending, and the increasing attention paid to the epidemiology! I should go write my review, actually. Before that, I think the last thing I finished was Anthony Rolls’ Scarweather: wow, that was a creepy scenario. Gah. The crime was obvious throughout most of the book, but the exact way everything came out wasn’t.

What will you be reading next?

Cover of Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha LeeI don’t know! As ever, I’m driven largely by whim. But most likely I’ll get back to Revenant Gun (Yoon Ha Lee) and pick up Blackout and maybe Feedback (Mira Grant). Then there’s more of The Summer Tree and the rest of that trilogy, and, and, and…

On I go, forever.

So what’re you reading?

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 19, 2018 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

Text only: top ten TUESDAY www.thatartsyreadergirl.com

It’s been a long time since I did a TTT post, I know! But this week’s prompt is a summer TBR (it says beach reads, but everything is a beach read for me or nothing is), and I thought I could use the chance to reflect on that. So here goes…

Cover of Blackout by Mira Grant Cover of Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee Cover of City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett  Cover of Starless by Jacqueline Carey

  1. Blackout, by Mira Grant. I finished Deadline yesterday and I’m already itching to get onto this one. WHAT IS GOING ON.
  2. Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee. I’m partway through it already, but I really need to shuffle it to the top of the pile and finish devouring it. I got a little dangerously into it during my exam period and put it aside for a while, but now I’m freeeee.
  3. The Divine Cities trilogy, by Robert Jackson Bennett. I haven’t read the last book, despite being absolutely desperate for it at the time. I wanted to reread the first two, and time kept on catching up to me… bleh. But now I can!
  4. Foundryside, by Robert Jackson Bennett. I got an ARC of this, and I’m very excited by the sound of it, so here’s hoping Bennett will wow me again. (Spoiler: pretty sure he will.)
  5. Starless, by Jacqueline Carey. I don’t think this is optional in any way. I have to read it. It’s Jacqueline Carey!
  6. Only Human, by Sylvain Neuvel. The end of this trilogy! I grabbed it on release and… got busy, of course. You might be sensing a theme in my life.
  7. Before Mars, by Emma Newman. Another one I got on release, but then got distracted from. Though I am at least partway through my rereads of the previous books in this case!
  8. The Lost Plot, by Genevieve Cogman. Actually, I can’t believe I haven’t got to this one already. Again, I want to reread the previous books, though, and do it in a glorious binge.
  9. The Testament of Loki, by Joanne Harris. I am still kicking myself that I didn’t buy a signed copy when I was shopping with my sister, but hey, I have the ebook! More glorious Loki twistiness incoming.
  10. I Only Killed Him Once, by Adam Christopher. I’ve been a great fan of the Raymond Electromatic books, and I can’t believe this one has been sitting on my ereader awaiting me so long already.

  Cover of The Lost Plot by Genevieve Cogman Cover of The Testament of Loki by Joanne Harris Cover of I Only Killed Him Once by Adam Christopher

Let’s face it, I have too many awesome books: my head might just explode. But I’ll be happy.

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Discussion: Interacting with Authors

Posted June 18, 2018 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

So today’s discussion post is something that used to come up all the time when I was on Goodreads, and has happened a couple of times here: interacting with authors. On Goodreads it was nearly always a bad experience, though Tony Hays (author of Arthurian mysteries) was great and a couple of others too, plus of course authors who just wanted to offer me a copy of their books to review. But quite often the author would come by to argue with my rating.

There’s always exceptions, so it’s hard to come up with simple rules. But here’s a couple I think authors could stick to:

  • Don’t react to reviews unless people have indicated they’re willing to discuss them with you.
  • Don’t spam people with offers of copies to review.
  • Don’t spam people with anything.
  • Don’t make everything about your book — other interactions may not seem like they’re directly gonna sell your book, but I’m more likely to buy your book if I’ve had meaningful interactions with you. Even if that’s about other books. Maybe especially if that’s about other books.
  • Remember that nobody owes you interaction, nobody owes you an explanation, nobody owes you their time.

Buuut sometimes I think reviews could use some rules in reply. Mostly I think they’re common sense, but then someone always comes along and ruins my idealistic dreams. So hey:

  • Don’t beg for freebies.
  • Don’t draw the author’s attention to a review unless they’ve indicated they’re interested in reading reviews of their work.
  • Remember there’s a difference between the author’s voice and their character’s voice and even, depending on the narratorial choices they’ve made, their real opinions.
  • Don’t, for goodness’ sake, proudly announce that you’ve pirated the author’s book. There are some authors who don’t mind this much (Cory Doctorow) or have found that their books sold better after one was available free (Neil Gaiman). But for the most part, you’re telling them that they’ve lost revenue. Even if it wasn’t illegal (it is), then telling people you’ve pirated is just poor taste.
  • Review the book, not the author. (It’s fair not to read something because the author is a raging homophobe, but then you don’t need to review the book, because even doing that is getting them oxygen to keep on raging to an audience.) Sometimes biographical details can be important in understanding a book, and sometimes you’re just making douchy assumptions or being a bully.

…Not that this is an exhaustive list (either of them, actually), but these are some of my pet hates.

How about you?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 16, 2018 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Good morning, folks! I’m back in Belgium with the bunnies, and they are precious clingy creatures right now. It’s the best. And I had quite a book splurge this week with my sister, celebrating the end of our exams. I’m going to split it up into a couple of posts by category, though, just so I don’t have to spend too long uploading things and such. So this week, here’s a review copy received this week, and the SF/F books I picked up.

Received to review:

Cover of The Black God's Drums 

Lucky as ever — thank you, Tor and Rebellion! <3

Bought:

Cover of Moonshine by Jasmine Gower Cover of Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott Cover of The Armored Saint by Myke Cole

I’ve heard mixed things about all three of these, actually, but they intrigue me all the same, so we’ll see!

Books read this week:

Cover of Koko Takes a Holiday by Kieran Shea Cover of Murder in Piccadilly by Charles Kingston Cover of Kin by John Ingraham 

Cover of The Amazons by John Man Cover of Against Empathy by Paul Bloom Cover of The Templars by Piers Paul Read Cover of Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Reviews posted this week:

Murder in Piccadilly, by Charles Kingston. Not the best of the British Library Crime Classics so far, definitely. I found the characters unpleasant, almost all of them, so it was no fun, and the mystery itself was never a mystery, yet nor was it never satisfactorily wrapped up. 2/5 stars
Koko Takes a Holiday, by Kieran Shea. Bloody gorey fun, but not really more than that. And the portrayal of depression doesn’t really bear a longer look. 2/5 stars
The Telling, by Ursula Le Guin. It was nice to revisit this as an adult and understand more of what it was driving at. I got distracted by all the wrong things, as a kid. 4/5 stars
Against Empathy, by Paul Bloom. A fascinating dissection of why empathy may not be the best guide to morality. 5/5 stars
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente. A reread, and I’m so glad to spend time with the narrator again! 5/5 stars

Other posts:

Discussion: Blog Tours. When they work for me, and why they often don’t.
WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update on what I’ve been reading.
Blog tour and giveaway for Jacqueline Carey’s Starless. There’s an international prize as well as a US/Canada one! There’s also an excerpt exclusive to this blog tour.

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WWW Wednesday

Posted June 13, 2018 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

My exams are over, and all is freedom and binging on books! 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 The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home by Catherynne ValenteWhat are you currently reading?

Far too much, as ever, but most actively I’m finishing up rereads of Howl’s Moving Castle and The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home, plus a first-time read of The Templars by Piers Paul Read — I am finding the latter interesting, but I doubt it’ll ever be a book I’d read over and over again! I think I originally picked it up because of my interest in learning the actual history behind the Assassin’s Creed games, but honestly it’s amazing how little Robert de Sable or the Assassins actually figure into it. It seems more like a general history of the Crusades than specifically focused on the Templars.

What have you recently finished reading?

Cover of Against Empathy by Paul BloomI just finished Against Empathy, by Paul Bloom — now, I know the kneejerk reaction is to go “what the hell? Against empathy?“, but it really is worth a read, pointing out that in many cases, empathy is a poor guide of moral decisions. At its best, it can focus the spotlight of our attention on something worthy — but it’s also true that then the spotlight isn’t focused on something else equally worthy. Bloom isn’t saying there’s anything bad about compassion (in fact, he advocates it), only that the idea we’ll attain moral perfection by feeling each other’s feelings seems to be a little unfortunate.

Cover of Starless by Jacqueline CareyWhat will you be reading next?

Goodness only knows. I might pick up Jacqueline Carey’s Starless (blog tour post for that coming later today!) or I might just go completely off-piste. I’ve been tempted to read The Prisoner of Zenda, to get the proper background for reading K.J. Charles queer rewriting of it — maybe it’ll be that! I don’t know.

What are you reading?

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Discussion: Blog Tours

Posted June 11, 2018 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

It’s Monday morning, and though I’ve been lax lately, that does mean it’s time for a discussion post ’round these parts. This week, “blog tours” feel like an appropriate topic, as I should be taking part in one this week and I’ve put my name down for another. The thing is… I have a confession to make.

I don’t pay that much attention to blog tours. I’d rather read a review of the book. If it’s a book I don’t know anything about, then even a giveaway probably won’t tempt me to join in the feeding frenzy. There are exceptions: an author I love, content that’s actually unique or worth reading (like interviews or lists of recommendations from the author, some other kind of genuine content that sheds light on what they do), books I’m already curious about… But for the most part, I see “Blog Tour” and I scroll on by, because I’ve noticed a trend in them of people just promoting every book they’re asked to promote, books they may not even care about — sometimes multiple books in one day — and just phoning it in. Cover, blurb, Rafflcopter giveaway, done.

Meh.

(Granted, most people I follow don’t do this at all, which is probably why I follow them. The same is likely to be true of people following me, since I don’t go in for publicity frenzies. Still. Sometimes you just need to say it.)

So my personal commitment with blog tours is: provide something people want to see. Genuine content, chances to win ARCs of an eagerly awaited book, a review of a book I’ve actually read and enjoyed, or at least want to discuss… I will never, I promise, just take part in a blog tour for the sake of it. There’s no point in doing it to get followers, to win brownie points, to fill in a blank space in your schedule. It’s like the boy who cried wolf: if every day you’re shouting about a brilliant new book you don’t even care about, then what’s the point? Readers never know if you’re being sincere or not, and if you’re putting out significant volumes of it, the answer is most likely not.

Be sincere in your choice of books to promote, and then the promotions you do will be more valuable — to publishers and other bloggers alike. Win/win, right?

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Unstacking the Shelves

Posted June 9, 2018 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Good morning, folks! It’s been a rough week for me, with a horrible cough and a horribler exam, but I’m very nearly at the end now — the cough’s tapering off, and the last exam of my degree awaits me at 10am on Monday morning. On Wednesday, me and my sister are going for a post-exam jaunt in a bookshop, and then on Thursday I’m heading back to Belgium to smoosh my face into my bunnies’ fur and snuggle them good.

For now, here’s the now-traditional I’m-away-from-my-bunnies pic.

Which is actually a favourite from before I left, where you find Breakfast napping by my leg with my teddy bear. <3

Anyway, no books bought this week (when would I have had time?), but I have managed to do some reading, hurrah.

Books I’ve finished this week:

Cover of Power, Sex, Suicide by Nick Lane Cover of Rubicon by Tom Holland

Cover of The Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente  Cover of The Telling by Ursula Le Guin Cover of The Castlemaine Murders by Kerry Greenwood

The non-fiction books were new to me, but the fiction books were all rereads. I needed Valente, Le Guin and Greenwood to take me to familiar places this week. It helped. <3

Reviews posted this week:

The Seafarer’s Kiss, by Julia Ember. I wanted to like this queer retelling of My Little Mermaid, but it didn’t quite come together for me. There is fascinating stuff — mostly Loki and the fact that they are genderqueer — but, meh. 2/5 stars
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, by Margaret Killjoy. Like an origin story for a hunter on Supernatural, only not so white nor so co-dependent. And, you know, queer, and involving women. It didn’t quite grab hold of me enough that I’m in a hurry to get the second book, but I enjoyed it. 4/5 stars
The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu, by Charlie English. The author isn’t honest in the way he tells his story: there are doubts about some of the sources he uses and the story he presents as fact, but he waits until the end to let you know that. Not something I appreciate. 2/5 stars

Like last week, I might not comment back right away, but once my exam is over I’ll be all over you fine people. Have a good week!

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 2, 2018 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

Technically, I think this might be an unStacking week, but I found some books I never featured so hey! They get their chance to shine this week. Also, I haven’t been doing much unstacking anyway, given that I am hurtling towards my final exams (and caught a horrible stupid virus).

But first, of course, here’s a bunny pic, since I’m still away from them. Breakfast wants to know what y’all are doing!

And here’s the new(ish) books!

New books:

Cover of The Vikings by Else Roesdahl Cover of Stealing History Cover of The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi Cover of The Henchmen of Zenda by KJ Charles

A rather random assemblage, but that will surprise no one when it comes to me!

Books read this week:

Cover of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente Cover of The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M Valente Cover of The Girl who Soared Over Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente Cover of The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman

Reviews posted this week:

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, by Christopher de Hamel. I found this really relaxing to read, just something where I could let tons of information wash over me while enjoying descriptions of beautiful books. 4/5 stars
Seven Dead, by J. Jefferson Farjeon. Melodramatic, of course, but also oddly compelling just from the weirdness of the opening. 4/5 stars
On a Red Station, Drifting, by Aliette de Bodard. This writer has a gift for complex characters you can’t quite root for, but who seem very human all the same. (Even when they’re not.) I enjoyed this, and I’m looking forward to trying more of the stories in the same world. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

Discussion: Romance. Tl;dr? Don’t knock romance just because it’s not your thing.
WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what’s on my plate or, er, stack right now. Spoiler: too many books at once.

So, what’re you reading? Stacking your shelves with anything fascinating? I can’t promise I’ll comment back immediately (EXAM TIME!), but I always do visit back in the end!

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