Category: Reviews

WWW Wednesday

Posted October 1, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments

Cover of The Bookshop Below by Georgia SummersWhat have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished, approximately five minutes ago, was John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, which was mostly interesting because of its influence and because Lord Ruthven is a major character in the Greta Helsing books. It was interesting to finally read it, and to read it as a diss on Byron, but it is also mercifully short.

Last night I finished off the last of my planned September reads, my ARC of Georgia Summers’ The Bookshop Below, and a reread of volume nine of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, so that was nice. The magic in The Bookshop Below reminded me a lot of Ink Blood Sister Scribe, and it felt like it was never fully explained/delimited… but that didn’t bother me too much, I think? I need to sit down and put together my thoughts properly.

Cover of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System vol 4 by MXTXWhat are you currently reading?

Well, nothing, actually. Not even books on the backburner, really, except ones that have been backburnered so long I “paused” them on StoryGraph. I’m about to start my reread of volume four of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, to wrap that all up before reading some new-to-me danmei in October.

It feels weird not to have anything on the go; I’ll fix that posthaste.

Cover of The Forgotten Dead by Jordan L. HawkWhat will you be reading next?

I’ll probably reread volume ten of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, while volume nine is fresh in my mind — I wish I hadn’t left such a gap between volume eight and volume nine, honestly, since they contain one of the only true plot arcs in the manga so far, and one where all the pieces take time to come together.

Other than that, my Book Spin Bingo list for October is ready, although the numbers haven’t been announced yet, so maybe something from that. I want to reread Jordan L. Hawk’s The Forgotten Dead and Rattling Bone before I get onto the latest book in the series, Into the Dark, so perhaps I’ll start with those.

As ever, I’ll be mostly going by whim.

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Review – Queer as Folklore

Posted September 30, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Queer as Folklore

Queer as Folklore

by Sacha Coward

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 346
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

Queer as Folklore takes readers across centuries and continents to reveal the unsung heroes and villains of storytelling, magic and fantasy. Featuring images from archives, galleries and museums around the world, each chapter investigates the queer history of different mythic and folkloric characters, both old and new.

Leaving no headstone unturned, Sacha Coward will take you on a wild ride through the night from ancient Greece to the main stage of RuPaul's Drag Race, visiting cross-dressing pirates, radical fairies and the graves of the 'queerly departed' along the way. Queer communities have often sought refuge in the shadows, found kinship in the in-between and created safe spaces in underworlds; but these forgotten narratives tell stories of remarkable resilience that deserve to be heard.

Join any Pride march and you are likely to see a glorious display of papier-mâché unicorn heads trailing sequins, drag queens wearing mermaid tails and more fairy wings than you can shake a trident at. But these are not just accessories: they are queer symbols with historic roots.

To truly understand who queer people are today, we must confront the twisted tales of the past and Queer as Folklore is a celebration of queer history like you've never seen it before.

I ended up finishing Sacha Coward’s Queer as Folklore quickly by skimming it, which is disappointing, but there were a number of red flags about his methodology/ability to back up his claims. For example, he gives us some quotations from a really crusty old translation of the Poetic Edda (from 1936):

 Then loud spoke Thrym, the giants’ leader:
‘Who ever saw bride more keenly bite?
I ne’er saw bride with a broader bite,
Nor a maiden who drank more mead than this!’

Thrym looked ‘neath the veil, for he longed to kiss,
But back he leaped the length of the hall:
‘Why are so fearful the eyes of Freyja?
Fire, methinks, from her eyes burns forth.’

And then announces, with absolutely no further evidence:

It is this comedic sequence of questioning Thor’s appearance while in drag that seems to have inspired the most famous part of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. Red Riding Hood famously says to the wolf, who is disguised as her grandmother, what big teeth she has, and what big eyes she has.

On what evidence, other than the questions being vaguely similar? Did Perrault know the Poetic Edda? Where is the evidence that these things have a direct connection? If it “seems to have inspired” ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, you’re going to need to provide some additional evidence backing that.

There are also some basic errors of fact, when he states that Carmilla (1872) was written before Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819). He talks about Carmilla, then Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’, and then immediately goes on to:

… both these depictions of female vampires predate Dracula, Nosferatu and even Polidori’s ‘Vampyre’ by a number of years.

No. No, not they don’t. ‘Christabel’ (1797) does predate Polidori (1819), but Carmilla (1872) does not. This is apparent through an extremely basic understanding of the flow of time: 1819 comes before 1872.

Either someone messed up his facts, or he failed to catch this glaring issue in any editing pass, and didn’t have an editor to notice it either. That’s… worrying.

There are some references and a bibliography, so it’s not as though this is so focused on a popular audience that it doesn’t seem necessary to provide citations and evidence to back up a claim, and even being focused on a popular audience wouldn’t excuse blatant errors.

Unfortunately, not one I can recommend, though I found it readable and — until I started feeling uncomfortable about his omission of any kind of evidence or sources for some of his assertions — entertaining.

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

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Review – Infectious

Posted September 29, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Review – Infectious

Infectious: Pathogens and How We Fight Them

by John S. Tregoning

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 384
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

Nature wants you dead.

Not just you, but your children and everyone you have ever met and everyone they have ever met; in fact, everyone. It wants you to cough and sneeze and poop yourself into an early grave. It wants your blood vessels to burst and pustules to explode all over your body. And – until recently – it was really good at doing this… Dr John S. Tregoning has dedicated his career to answering these questions. Infectious uncovers fascinating success stories in immunology and virology, making this book not only a vital overview of infection, but also a hopeful story of ongoing human ingenuity. Covid-19 may be only the first of many modern pandemics. The subject of infection and how to fight it grows more urgent every day. How do pathogens cause disease? And what tools can we give our bodies to do battle? The human body is a marvel – but what happens when it comes under attack? A fascinating guide to why we get sick and how we get better.

It’s worth me admitting up front that it might possibly be time for me to stop reading most popular science that focuses on immunity or disease. I used to find it soothing, but I’m a difficult audience to please now, since I’m not a layperson (MSc in Infectious Diseases), and so my enjoyment/interest tends to hinge on style.

Which is unfortunate in the case of John S. Tregoning’s Infectious, because I found his humour schoolboyish and annoying, and at times, inappropriate for the topic. Half of his footnotes are just terrible jokes, or explaining terrible jokes, and if his students laugh at them in his lectures then either he’s got a lot of in-person charisma or they’re sucking up. Or they’re laughing at him.

The first half of the book is excruciatingly simple from my perspective, which doesn’t help; it’s a decent enough primer for someone who knows just a little bit, though I’ve definitely read others put it across more interestingly. (Honestly, if it’s a primer you want, Philipp Dettmer’s Immune would be my recommendation.) The second half of the book is a bit better, though the whole is studded with some terrible opinions such as:

  • He doesn’t like wearing a mask, so he agrees with research that says masks don’t help prevent the spread of aerosolised infections (i.e. he explicitly admits to confirmation bias);
  • He’s had COVID, so he won’t have it again and he can relax about any precautions, and he won’t be able to spread it to anyone else (then proven wrong by his own afterword, where he admits to having caught COVID twice in a year);
  • Andrew Wakefield has only had to retract two papers, so his lies must be the result of “compounded error” and not blatant corruption (see Brian Deer’s The Doctor Who Fooled The World if you’re unsure on this front)…

I’ll stop, I’ll stop.

The book needed a firm and knowledgeable editor, and the paperback should have been updated to remove some of Tregoning’s more careless (and thus dangerous) predictions about COVID. There were some snippets of interest, and I appreciate his care to pick out neglected scientists (often women) whose work was not properly recognised in their time (or sometimes even now), and his calling-it-what-it-is about James Watson’s racism, etc.

On the other hand, instead of just omitting his “Nuns and Slappers” example, he mentioned that he couldn’t include it because of wokeness. So there’s that.

Altogether, when I look back on it, reading it was a chore and the new stuff I learned was very limited in nature (that the record amount of rice-water stool expelled during cholera infection is allegedly 80 litres, and that we allegedly don’t know how paracetamol or ketamine work; in this moment, I don’t even know if those things are true).

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

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Review – The Wonder Engine

Posted September 28, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Wonder Engine

The Wonder Engine

by T. Kingfisher

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 366
Series: Clocktaur War #2
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

In the sequel to Clockwork Boys, Slate, Brenner, Caliban and Learned Edmund have arrived in Anuket City, the source of the mysterious Clockwork Boys. They even managed to build some trust in each other's skills. That trust is built on quicksand as the risks continue to escalate. But the secrets they're keeping could well destroy them, before the city even gets the chance...
Old foes and consequences of past decisions lurk in the shadows. Every team member's skills are required to succeed--even more so if they hope to survive.

I found T. Kingfisher’s The Wonder Engine a touch less well-paced then Clockwork Boys: it’s a bit chunkier, and it’s not entirely clear to me that all of it is needed. I don’t mean any major events should be cut, I think, but some of the will-they-won’t-they could’ve been condensed, at least, and maybe some of the events around the reason why Slate didn’t want to return to Anuket City. (I’m trying to avoid spoilers here.)

All of which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did, it’s just that Clockwork Boys felt a bit more streamlined, and I began to lose patience with Caliban and Slate’s inability to communicate properly. Grimehug is right, of course, they can’t smell each other, but a gnole could wish humans would manage to speak with words, allegedly their strong point!

I enjoy this world and seeing a bit more of it, and I enjoyed the characters for the most part — even Learned Edmund, to my surprise, now that he’s understood a bit more of the real world. There was a “twist” that shouldn’t have surprised me but sort of did (I’d been expecting something to happen, but not that specifically), and the way everything wrapped up definitely had punch, with room for healing and a happy ending for some of the characters.

I’ll definitely grab the UK edition when it comes out, to match Clockwork Boys; it’s a series I want to keep around, and I was surprised by how quickly I wanted to go on and read The Wonder Engine right away, because normally I space out a series by at least an unrelated book or two.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Solo Leveling, vol. 5

Posted September 27, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Solo Leveling, vol. 5

Solo Leveling

by Dubu, Chugong

Genres: Fantasy, Manga
Pages: 314
Series: Solo Leveling #5
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Jinwoo knows it won't be long before his true power fully comes to light and the guilds and Hunter's Association of Korea descend, seeking his allegiance. Since his training has thus far been a solo endeavor, Jinwoo decides he ought to at least see what an A-rank raid is really like. Joining the Hunters' excavation team is the perfect opportunity to assess a high-level guild in action, even if his role is limited to hauling and mining. That is, until a particularly nasty dungeon boss requires the luggage carrier to step up to carry the team as well!!

Volume five of Solo Leveling feels a bit… like filler? Jinwoo hitches himself a ride with a guild on the “excavation” team, and we get to see a bit more about how the guilds make money by totally stripping out the dungeons, so it’s not bad for worldbuilding, but it felt like the bit about the re-evaluation was kinda stretched out.

Still, we meet Cha Hae-In, who seems pretty cool, and it was kinda nice to tone down the darkness a touch and have Jinwoo spend some time reminding himself what it used to be like when he went on raids with other people. Despite thinking he’s not going to rely on other people etc etc, Jinwoo’s still actually protecting the innocent, which is good to see.

He is getting super overpowered though, like me overlevelling in the first dungeon of a game. I’m thinking the ants are gonna be a good opponent for him; it’d be pretty disappointing if that doesn’t even challenge him either.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – Crap

Posted September 26, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Crap

Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America

by Wendy A. Woloson

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 416
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Crap. We all have it. Filling drawers. Overflowing bins and baskets. Proudly displayed or stuffed in boxes in basements and garages. Big and small. Metal, fabric, and a whole lot of plastic. So much crap. Abundant cheap stuff is about as American as it gets. And it turns out these seemingly unimportant consumer goods offer unique insights into ourselves--our values and our desires.

In Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America, Wendy A. Woloson takes seriously the history of objects that are often cynically-made and easy to dismiss: things not made to last; things we don't really need; things we often don't even really want. Woloson does not mock these ordinary, everyday possessions but seeks to understand them as a way to understand aspects of ourselves, socially, culturally, and economically: Why do we--as individuals and as a culture--possess these things? Where do they come from? Why do we want them? And what is the true cost of owning them?

Woloson tells the history of crap from the late eighteenth century up through today, exploring its many categories: gadgets, knickknacks, novelty goods, mass-produced collectibles, giftware, variety store merchandise. As Woloson shows, not all crap is crappy in the same way--bric-a-brac is crappy in a different way from, say, advertising giveaways, which are differently crappy from commemorative plates. Taking on the full brilliant and depressing array of crappy material goods, the book explores the overlooked corners of the American market and mindset, revealing the complexity of our relationship with commodity culture over time.

By studying crap rather than finely made material objects, Woloson shows us a new way to truly understand ourselves, our national character, and our collective psyche. For all its problems, and despite its disposability, our crap is us.

I’m a little torn on how to rate Wendy A. Woloson’s Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America. It’s very thorough, and well-sourced, with 50 pages of numbered end notes, an index, and lots of illustrative images (mostly black-and-white, with a small section of colour plates). The topic is interesting, and somewhat applicable to what I see in the UK too, but it’s lacking a little enthusiasm: I don’t need it to be any kind of memoir, but this feels a touch on the dry academic side.

It’s also a bit repetitive. The chapters/sections are themed, e.g. one on useless gadgetry (though it includes electric toothbrushes, now recommended heavily by dentists, in the category of useless gadgetry? Not entirely sure why, it was a throwaway comment but one which puzzled me), one on free gifts, etc… But that means some comments about the Depression’s affect on the accrual of “crap” feel a bit repetitive, as the trends are usually very similar.

Overall, I think my conclusion is that this was interesting to reflect on, and definitely well presented and sourced, but a bit dry and slow for casual reading, so more for someone who’s interested in quite a serious take on the topic.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – Nine Times Nine

Posted September 25, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Nine Times Nine

Nine Times Nine

by Anthony Boucher

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 255
Series: Sister Ursula #1
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

The man in the yellow robe had put a curse on Wolfe Harrigan—the ancient curse called the Nine Times Nine. And when Matt Duncan looked up from the croquet lawn that afternoon, he saw the man in the yellow robe in Wolfe Harrigan’s study.

When Matt got there, all the doors were locked and all the windows too; all locked from the inside. Harrigan’s sister sat outside the room. She had seen no one come out. But when the door was broken down, there was no man in a yellow robe in the room, and the body of Wolfe Harrigan lay murdered on the floor.

Later the police discovered that at the time of the murder the man in the yellow robe was lecturing to a group of his followers miles away!

A man who could be in two places at once? An astral body? A miracle, perhaps?

Then who better to explain miracles than Sister Ursula, a nun, whose childhood ambition was to become a policewoman.

I probably made a mistake in the timing of reading Anthony Boucher’s Nine Times Nine, as I read Rocket to the Morgue earlier this year during a rough time, and… coincidentally, ended up reading Nine Times Nine at a similar, relatedly rough moment. Boucher definitely has a certain style that I think will now inevitably call up funerals for me!

Which is a bit sad, because it’s not a bad style (not particularly sad or grim, either), there’s just something about it which is very recognisable. Both books I’ve read of his are locked room mysteries, but this one is openly allusive to other locked room mysteries, even directly quoting John Dickson Carr’s work and embedding the reading of it into the attempted resolution of the mystery — as someone who’s read quite a bit of John Dickson Carr’s work, this did make me grin, but might be a bit tedious for someone who hasn’t, regardless of how clever it feels.

I wasn’t enamoured of the relationship between Concha and Matt; it moved in fits and starts, and always felt a lot more serious on her side than his (but in a very juvenile infatuation sort of way even on her side). As in Rocket to the Morgue, I loved the relationship between Leona and Marshall though!

Overall, not bad, with some good atmospheric moments, and of course, gotta love Sister Ursula, the nun who actually solves everything (though one could wish to see more of what she’s thinking and have her more closely involved with the other characters). I’d probably read more of Boucher’s work if it happened to come my way, but I’m not in a hurry.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – First Light

Posted September 24, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – First Light

First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time

by Emma Chapman

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 304
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the Universe's history, from recording the afterglow of the Big Bang to imaging thousands of galaxies, and even to visualising an actual black hole. There's a lot for astronomers to be smug about. But when it comes to understanding how the Universe began and grew up we are literally in the dark ages. In effect, we are missing the first one billion years from the timeline of the Universe.

This brief but far-reaching period in the Universe's history, known to astrophysicists as the 'Epoch of Reionisation', represents the start of the cosmos as we experience it today. The time when the very first stars burst into life, when darkness gave way to light. After hundreds of millions of years of dark, uneventful expansion, one by the one these stars suddenly came into being. This was the point at which the chaos of the Big Bang first began to yield to the order of galaxies, black holes and stars, kick-starting the pathway to planets, to comets, to moons, and to life itself.

Incorporating the very latest research into this branch of astrophysics, this book sheds light on this time of darkness, telling the story of these first stars, hundreds of times the size of the Sun and a million times brighter, lonely giants that lived fast and died young in powerful explosions that seeded the Universe with the heavy elements that we are made of. Emma Chapman tells us how these stars formed, why they were so unusual, and what they can teach us about the Universe today. She also offers a first-hand look at the immense telescopes about to come on line to peer into the past, searching for the echoes and footprints of these stars, to take this period in the Universe's history from the realm of theoretical physics towards the wonder of observational astronomy.

It turns out that I am still not great with astrophysics. Emma Chapman is enthusiastic and keen and tries to enthuse the reader, but my eyes just started to glaze over as First Light dug deeper into the detection methods, types of stars, etc, etc. There are important mysteries discussed here, stuff that it would be monumental for humanity to understand — but I won’t be the human understanding them, I’m pretty certain!

It could be that Chapman’s explanations aren’t great, but that’s hard to judge, when I know this isn’t my field or interest. There were bits I found interesting, mostly the less technical stuff, but whenever she started talking about wavelengths, I was a goner.

I will say that I did find some of her extended metaphors a bit annoying/random. I know she was trying to add colour and interest, but I didn’t need the metaphor of cooking Christmas dinner for a full family to understand that launching a complex telescope is difficult. I’d rather just hear about the telescope, thanks.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

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Review – Reignclowd Palace

Posted September 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Reignclowd Palace

Reignclowd Palace

by Philippa Rice

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 400
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Evnie Treedle makes magical things and for the last few years she has been selling them in magical knickknacks shop, the Magpie Nest.

But everything changes when one day Evnie's crafting abilities catch the attention of the nearby Reignclowd Palace. She is asked to become their resident spellsmith... the original spellsmith suddenly ill under mysterious circumstances.

Evnie is soon put to work making and mending magical objects. Yet, problems start to appear when she realises there's much more at stake than friendship or romance; a dragon looms over the kingdom looking for a soul to devour, and it's eyes are set on their princess.

I picked up Philippa Rice’s Reignclowd Palace on an absolute whim — more accurately, I spotted it in a bookshop, was curious about the colourful cover, and ended up putting it on my wishlist. I hadn’t seen anyone else talk about it or review it, which is pretty unusual for me at this point: a lot of my reading decisions are based on seeing other people’s thoughts about the books first.

Aaand I really enjoyed it: it kinda had Howl’s Moving Castle vibes to me in many ways (which is not to say it was a rip-off of Howl’s Moving Castle, just that something about the world and relationships felt adjacent). Evnie is a pretty good protagonist, new to the palace and thus open-eyed to its wonders and quirks, giving us a good chance to explore alongside her but making it make sense that she doesn’t know what’s going on all the time or figure out the intricacies of it.

I feel like there were maybe one or two inconsistencies that I’d have to flick through the book to check back on (why would Fantacci go and get Evnie if the Oracle is so blind to her and what she’s going to do?), and there were a couple of notes that felt off (what happens to the youngest prince in the end makes sense, but felt abrupt) or things that were just a tad weird but never came to anything much (Ren’s crush on Hadriana really seemed a bit creepy/obsessive).

I loved the way dragons work in this world, though, and the chaos of the palace, the nature of Evnie’s magic, the way that it slowly becomes clear what dragons are and what happened to Evnie’s village… And I liked that it works as a standalone: I’ve no idea if there’s other stuff planned in this world, there would certainly be space for it, but there doesn’t need to be.

Overall, a gamble that paid off. It was a nice semi-cosy book for my mood — by which I mean there’s a cosiness to the fact that Evnie’s spellwork happens through knitting and sewing at times, in the friendships growing up around the palace, the light romance, etc, but there is also peril and trauma. There’s a warmth to it that I appreciated a lot.

Rating; 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Eat the World

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

Review – Eat the World

Eat the World

by Marina Diamandis

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 124
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

For the first time, platinum-certified singer-songwriter Marina shares her singular observations of the human heart through poetry; this collection is essential.

Marina’s talent for powerful, evocative song lyrics finds a new outlet in her poetry. Each poem resonates with the same creative melodies and emotional depth that have made her an artistic sensation. Hailed by The New York Times for “redefining songs about coming of age, and the aftermath, with bluntness and crafty intelligence,” Marina delves even further into trauma, youth, and the highs and lows of relationships in these profound, autobiographical poems to form a collection that transcends the boundaries of music and literature.

When I saw that Marina Diamandis (better known as the singer MARINA or Marina & the Diamonds) had put out a book of poetry, I was… uncertain. I do like Marina’s lyrics, but half of it is also in her tone, her singing, the music. Some lyrics look good written down, and some are lacking without the music, and I mostly feel hers fall into the latter group.

I do think some of the stuff here could make fun songs, but as presented, as poetry, it left me cold. She plays with the words on the page, and there’s a bunch of images added too, so it’s partly that it’s a style I’m not super keen on in general. But also I just found that her turn of phrase didn’t sparkle at all.

I think she was having fun and it was cathartic for her and that’s great! But not my thing.

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

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