Category: Reviews

Review – The Lost Words

Posted November 18, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Lost Words

The Lost Words

by Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 112
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

In 2007, when a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary -- widely used in schools around the world -- was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around forty common words concerning nature had been dropped. Apparently they were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. The list of these "lost words" included acorn, adder, bluebell, dandelion, fern, heron, kingfisher, newt, otter, and willow. Among the words taking their place were attachment, blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voice-mail. The news of these substitutions -- the outdoor and natural being displaced by the indoor and virtual -- became seen by many as a powerful sign of the growing gulf between childhood and the natural world.

Ten years later, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris set out to make a "spell book" that will conjure back twenty of these lost words, and the beings they name, from acorn to wren. By the magic of word and paint, they sought to summon these words again into the voices, stories, and dreams of children and adults alike, and to celebrate the wonder and importance of everyday nature. The Lost Words is that book -- a work that has already cast its extraordinary spell on hundreds of thousands of people and begun a grass-roots movement to re-wild childhood across Britain, Europe, and North America.

Like The Lost Spells, The Lost Words is a collection of poetry by Robert Macfarlane, illustrated by Jackie Morris. This one is specifically aimed at children, and tries to bring a little magic back to how we relate to wild creatures, and save some of the words children don’t seem to care about any more (like “conker”).

Both books feel like the poet was having fun; though I didn’t universally love the poems (sometimes a rhyme is too obvious, or a particular word just stuck out as wrong), it was a fun read. And the illustrations are, of course, gorgeous — maybe I even prefer the ones in this book a tiny bit more than the other, though the scale in the library book I borrowed helped to let me study the detail (it was huge!).

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Mountain in the Sea

Posted November 17, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – The Mountain in the Sea

The Mountain in the Sea

by Ray Nayler

Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 456
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

There are creatures in the water of Con Dao.
To the locals, they’re monsters.
To the corporate owners of the island, an opportunity.
To the team of three sent to study them, a revelation.

Their minds are unlike ours.
Their bodies are malleable, transformable, shifting.
They can communicate.
And they want us to leave.

When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn’t pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA- a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence – has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research.

But the stakes are high: the octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence and there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of their advancements. And no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.

Lately, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting immersed in books like I (think I) used to. I’ll read 50 pages and feel like it’s been forever; read 10 pages and get distracted by wondering if that email I’m waiting for has come in; a 500 page book is just daunting because it seems like it’ll take forever. And I know, I know, it’s all the fragmentation caused by mobile phones, etc, etc — but while I was reading Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea, I wasn’t paying any mind to that. My brain was quiet and I was totally focused on the story; I say this by way of introduction because I think it bears saying when a book cuts across that fidgeting and demands attention.

There are essentially three threads to the story, which twine together but never quite meet: there’s Ha Nguyen, a scientist, who is brought to a remote island owned by a company called DIANIMA in order to study octopus behaviour that appears potentially much more intelligent than baseline; there’s Rustem, a hacker with a unique way of thinking, who is given a fascinating task to hack into an extremely complex artificial intelligence in order to use it as a weapon; and there’s Eiko, a captive aboard an AI-controlled fishing ship, forced to clean and sort the catch with no sign of escape.

Of the three stories, Dr Ha’s is the most fascinating, and I admit it could be a little annoying to switch to Eiko or Rustem. Ultimately, I’m not sure their stories were entirely necessary: I admire the overall effect, the details that the other two stories lent to Dr Ha’s, and the satisfying click as things came together, but Eiko’s story didn’t lend a lot to it (and his mind palace is overdescribed for something so ultimately useless to the plot — though I think in terms of themes, it does add to the overall inquiry into how thought works).

Despite how much I liked the reading experience, I think there are still things the book could’ve dug into deeper. Evrim’s cognition is important to this question of intelligence, and yet it’s rather brushed under the rug by Ha, who readily declares them to be human all of a sudden, based on the fact that they can interact with humans on human terms. I’m not sure I agree with that definition, or the simplification of it all. There were tantalising bits of inquiry here about artificial intelligence as well as alien (octopus) intelligence, but it feels like it didn’t quite go deep enough; perhaps Eiko’s thread should’ve been reduced in order to give more space for that.

The same goes for the octopus cognition, really: sometimes Ha comes to conclusions rapidly based on fairly little evidence. Is something built of human skulls necessarily an altar? Does it necessarily mean that they’re worshipping humans or trying to appease them? Are you sure it’s not a war trophy?

That makes the book sound unsatisfying, and I don’t think it is: personally, I found it fascinating and riveting. There’s just so much space to expand, as well.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Secret Life of the Owl

Posted November 15, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Secret Life of the Owl

The Secret Life of the Owl

by John Lewis-Stempel

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 88
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

‘Dusk is filling the valley. It is the time of the gloaming, the owl-light.
Out in the wood, the resident tawny has started calling, Hoo-hoo-hoo-h-o-o-o.’

There is something about owls. They feature in every major culture from the Stone Age onwards. They are creatures of the night, and thus of magic. They are the birds of ill-tidings, the avian messengers from the Other Side. But owls – with the sapient flatness of their faces, their big, round eyes, their paternal expressions – are also reassuringly familiar. We see them as wise, like Athena’s owl, and loyal, like Harry Potter's Hedwig. Human-like, in other words. No other species has so captivated us.

In The Secret Life of the Owl, John Lewis-Stempel explores the legends and history of the owl. And in vivid, lyrical prose, he celebrates all the realities of this magnificent creature, whose natural powers are as fantastic as any myth.

John Lewis-Stempel’s The Secret Life of the Owl is a bit of a miscellany covering all things owl, mostly focused on owls in the UK. It’s a quick read, less than 90 pages, and includes profiles of the owls that live in or visit the UK, and a bit of an examination of how owls fit into our landscape — both how we react to them, and how other British birds react to them. As such, there are a few poems quoted throughout, in and amongst the facts and figures, and a couple of black-and-white illustrations.

It did feel a little disorganised to me, like Lewis-Stempel was just pouring out anything he could think of about owls. The enthusiasm is endearing, as is the description of his personal fascination with owls, and his interactions with them. Even though it felt a bit badly organised, it was in the way that information can be disorganised when someone is passionately telling you about a pet topic, which I didn’t really mind.

I don’t feel like I knew a lot about owls before reading, other than some vague bits that filter through popular culture, plus a lifetime of living with intelligent people who watch and discuss documentaries and read this kind of book. I learned a few new things from this book, though I don’t know how much I’ll retain — either way, it was fun.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Rope’s End, Rogue’s End

Posted November 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Rope’s End, Rogue’s End

Rope's End, Rogue's End

by E.C.R. Lorac

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 249
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Wulfstane Manor, a rambling old country house with many unused rooms, winding staircases, and a maze of cellars, had been bequeathed to Veronica Mallowood and her brother Martin. The last time the large family of Mallowoods had all foregathered under the ancestral roof was on the occasion of their father's funeral, and there had been one of those unholy rows which not infrequently follow the reading of a will. That was some years ago, and as Veronica found it increasingly difficult to go on paying for the upkeep of Wulfstane, she summoned another family conference -- a conference in which Death took a hand.

Rope's End, Rogue's End is, of course, an Inspector MacDonald case, in which that popular detective plays a brilliant part.

Rope’s End, Rogue’s End isn’t one of my favourite E.C.R. Lorac books so far, though when I say that you always need to take into account that I think she was a really great writer. A three-star rating for an E.C.R. Lorac book is always relative (for me) to what I know her best books can be. In this case, she didn’t really exercise her talent for likeable characters, with everyone in the Mallowood family being difficult and argumentative, their relationships always rocky.

What I did think about a lot is that E.C.R. Lorac was careful not to pigeon-hole herself. She doesn’t have a particular character “type” that always turns out to be the villain. There are similarities between the situation in this book and that in Accident by Design — but the similarities are fairly superficial, and not a guide as to whodunnit in this particular story.

As usual, Lorac’s ability to evoke a sense of place does shine through in the portrayal of Wulfstane Manor, though again, it’s not a copy/paste by any means: while several of the characters adore the house, and Macdonald is certainly impressed by it, it doesn’t feel like a happy house, and the sense of wear and dilapidation is what comes through most strongly.

The mystery itself, I worked out the basics of fairly quickly, but figuring out exactly how everything was done was something else.

The main thing marring the experience here is that the Kindle edition is very badly edited. My guess is that OCR was used, but the system didn’t recognise various bits of punctuation (colons and dashes), meaning that sentences don’t always make a whole lot of sense.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Arch-Conspirator

Posted November 13, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Arch-Conspirator

Arch-Conspirator

by Veronica Roth

Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 137
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Outside the last city on Earth, the planet is a wasteland. Without the genes of the fallen, humanity will end.

Antigone's parents have been murdered, leaving her father's throne vacant. Passing into the Archive should be cause for celebration, but with her militant uncle Kreon rising to claim her father's vacant throne, all Antigone feels is rage. When he welcomes her and her siblings into his mansion, Antigone sees it for what it really is: a gilded cage, where she is a captive as well as a guest.

But her uncle will soon learn that no cage is unbreakable. And neither is he.

Veronica Roth’s Arch-Conspirator is a sci-fi dystopian take on Sophocles’ Antigone, which follows the steps of the plot fairly closely (inasfar as it can given the different setting). The basics are there: the two sisters, the two brothers, the tainted birth (though for a different reason here), the betrothal to Haemon, and the struggle of wills with Kreon.

However, a lot of the background is missing: Oedipus didn’t commit any great sin here (he seems to have been a democratic leader), and it isn’t really about the themes of Greek tragedy. Tiresias is entirely missing, and the concept of offending the gods likewise, so all in all it’s not quite a retelling of Antigone, but something which uses the basic shape of the story to say something else.

I enjoyed reading it and puzzling over how it was adapting the original story, and I don’t necessarily think it needs to engage with the same themes as the original in order to be interesting. Still, in some ways I think it’d have benefitted by departing further from the source material, to explore what it was really going for.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Overleaf

Posted November 12, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Overleaf

Overleaf: An Album of British Trees

by Susan Ogilvy, Richard Ogilvy

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 176
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Leaves live a thankless life. They go unnoticed while providing shade and cleaning the air, and are often the subject of our groans and grumbles in the fall while being raked away. Outside of brief odes to colorful autumn foliage, their quiet, everyday beauty is usually unsung.

Overleaf is an extraordinary celebration of that most obvious and overlooked part of a tree. It features over seventy brilliantly rendered studies of the leaves of thirty-seven tree species found across North America and Europe. Susan Ogilvy's paintings are lovely and uncluttered, resembling real-life pressings captured between the pages. The artwork is accompanied by Richard Ogilvy's thought-provoking text, which provides a vignette for each tree that explores its particular relationship with the environment, its style of growth, the history and mythology surrounding it, and the uses that birds, insects, and humans make of it. He reflects on the detailed complexity of our woodlands and forests and thoughtfully explores our place among them. Just as individual leaves create a cohesive shade, the range of these portraits provides a compelling vision of our relationship with trees. Overleaf is a thoughtful collection that will have readers taking a second look at the world above.

Overleaf is a fascinating collaboration between Susan Ogilvy, a botanical painter, and her brother-in-law, a forester. Each tree is illustrated by its leaf, showing the top side of the leaf on one page and then on the reverse side, the back of the leaf. They seem to be roughly to scale, and beautifully detailed; they aren’t the platonic ideal of each leaf, either, but a realistic one, probably based on a specific leaf, showing details of blight, galls and insect companions.

Richard’s contribution is the text, which for each tree is a handful of paragraphs talking about where the trees are found, their functions in the landscape, and some of the uses we’ve made of them and stories we’ve built around them. He explains some of the features in the images, pointing out the galls and associated other creatures, which ties the images and text together.

It’s a fascinating endeavour; it can’t really be used to identify the trees, since it contains only their leaves, but it’s an interesting compendium of detail and folklore.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 8

Posted November 11, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 8

Heaven Official's Blessing

by Mò Xiāng Tóng XiÚ

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 384
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #8
Rating: five-stars
Synopsis:

A BATTLE FOR FREEDOM, A LOVE FOR THE AGES

White No-Face’s mask is off, and the final conflict has begun. Deep in the ancient caverns and lava flows of Mount Tonglu, Xie Lian must face the one whose hatred has plagued him for centuries—but this time, he won’t have to do it alone. His beloved, Hua Cheng, has spent his long existence amassing the power to protect him, and now with their feelings for each other out in the open, they have all the more reason to fight for survival.

In this thrilling conclusion to Heaven Official’s Blessing, can Xie Lian and Hua Cheng triumph against an all-powerful foe?

Also included in this final volume are five bonus tales of romance, celebration, and adventure.

And here we are: I’ve run out of volumes of Heaven Official’s Blessing to read and review, unless the revised editions are made available in English. I’d be fascinated to see how much that adds to or changes the story, but I’m very satisfied with how it turns out as it is. Hua Cheng’s love for Xie Lian, and Xie Lian’s slow journey toward accepting it and returning the feeling is amazing — and it’s wrapped around and through a satisfying story about conflict between powerful beings, and the repeated testing of Xie Lian’s resolve to never change, to never be less than he is.

This volume has a few chapters left of the main story, and the rest is made up of extras. The conclusion is a heck of a thing, with some very heart-wrenching moments, and I find it very satisfyingly done.

The extras are a lot of fun, and include some very sweet moments. I must say that I do not understand how anyone can read these English language editions and think that Xie Lian remains a virgin once Hua Cheng returns. It’s blatantly obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense that the two of them are going at it on the regular, including on the altar in the Thousand Lights Temple. If you can’t even read into a thin veil of subtext, then it’s explicitly stated in the amnesia story: Xie Lian’s old method of cultivation is gone because he’s no longer a virgin.

I have no idea why people want to imagine that Xie Lian continues to be “chaste”. This is a man who has been through so much pain, sometimes unrelenting physical pain for years at a time due to his inability to die, and the most violating of situations (which it takes no effort at all to read as metaphorical rapes) — and folks are offended and weirded out if you suggest that ultimately he falls in love and allows Hua Cheng to show him that his body isn’t just a tool or a vessel for pain?

People can read the scene where an amnesiac Xie Lian dreams/remembers having sex with Hua Cheng, and Hua Cheng’s words to him during that memory (“don’t be afraid, Your Highness”), and refuse to understand what’s happening there?

Check yourselves and your homophobia and bizarre purity culture, folks.

I don’t want to end this review on that sour note, so I’ll just reiterate again: Heaven Official’s Blessing is a heck of a journey, a story about a very good (though not flawless) man who reaches great heights and falls, and struggles his way to redemption and then to freedom — with the help of someone who believes in him no matter what, and would do anything for him.

The one standing in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is ‘you’ and not the state of you. 

Rating: 5/5

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Review – The Man in the Brown Suit

Posted November 10, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – The Man in the Brown Suit

The Man in the Brown Suit

by Agatha Christie

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 381
Series: Colonel Race #1
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

A young woman investigates an accidental death at a London tube station, and finds herself of a ship bound for South Africa…

Pretty, young Anne came to London looking for adventure. In fact, adventure comes looking for her – and finds her immediately at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Anne is present on the platform when a thin man, reeking of mothballs, loses his balance and is electocuted on the rails.

The Scotland Yard verdict is accidental death. But Anne is not satisfied.

After all, who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body? And why did he race off, leaving a cryptic message behind: ‘17-122 Kilmorden Castle’?

Agatha Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit is rather different to her Poirot books in style and tone, rather breathlessly narrated by a main female character, Anne Beddingfield. Entangled in a mystery, she falls in love more or less at first sight, and proceeds to have adventures characterised by a fair amount of impulsiveness on her part. If it reminds me of anything, it reminds me most of Mary Stewart’s books, like Madam, Will You Talk?

It didn’t especially stand out to me, I’d say; there are a couple of plot points that are staples of the genre, and it feels like quirks like Sir Eustace Pedler and Suzanne’s enthusiasm are a great part of what carries it. There’s quite a bit of internalised sexism about Anne’s character and the way she, Suzanne, and the love interest all interact.

I’ll admit reading reviews I’m quite surprised it’s so popular. I just thought it was okay.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – What Moves The Dead

Posted November 8, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – What Moves The Dead

What Moves The Dead

by T. Kingfisher

Genres: Horror
Pages: 165
Series: Sworn Soldier #1
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

T. Kingfisher’s What Moves The Dead is a retelling and fleshing out of ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, with some added complexity through the introduction of elements of Ruritanian romance in the form of the character of Easton and the Gallacian customs kan adheres to (a heritage shared with Roderick and Madeline).

The story definitely had me tiptoeing a bit around things that trigger my anxiety (contagion, contamination), because it focuses in heavily on fungal infections: local hares and fish are rife with it, and the whole story oozes spores. I’ve no objection to fungi in general, which helps, but the idea of hyphae tangling around my brainstem — no, thank you. Easton’s fears around kan being potentially infected by it as well were juuust tiptoeing up to the edge of my tolerance, being entirely too recognisable.

(That said, it’s good for me at this moment to push at that boundary; it’s not a complaint. It’s just context, for anyone else with similar issues.)

I very much enjoyed Easton’s character and the invented Gallacian customs, kan interactions with Angus and Miss Potter, and indeed the hint of romance developing between the latter two (though it’s just a hint and not a serious thread of plot). The story breathes unease beautifully, and adds to the story of ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ rather than just retreading it.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Plants: From Roots to Riches

Posted November 7, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Plants: From Roots to Riches

Plants: From Roots to Riches

by Kathy Willis, Carolyn Fry

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 368
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Our obsession with plants and gardening goes back a long way and Plants: From Roots to Riches takes us to where it all began. Taking a journey through the scientific life of a uniquely British institution across 25 vivid chapters, this book explores how the last 250 years have transformed our relationship with plants for good.

Based on Radio 4’s landmark series, Kathy Willis, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Carolyn Fry, the acclaimed science writer, will take us from the birth of modern botany right through to the modern day. Delving into Kew’s archive and its world-class collections – including the Herbarium with over 7.5 million preserved plant specimens – they start with Carl Linnaeus and his invention of a universal language to name plants, through Joseph Banks’ exotic discoveries and how Charles Darwin’s fascination with orchids helped convince doubters about evolution. And as the British Empire painted the atlas red, explorers, adventurers and scientists risked their lives to bring the most interesting plant specimens and information back to London, and to Kew. From the lucrative races to control rubber, quinine and coffee to understanding the causes of the potato famine, the science of plants has taught us fascinating and enormously valuable lessons.

Full of amazing images from the archives, (some never reproduced before) and packed with history, science, memorable tales of adventure and discovery, politics and conflict, changing economic and social preoccupations, each chapter tells a unique and fascinating story, but, gathered together, a great picture unfolds, of the development of a most remarkable science, the magic and beauty of plants and ultimately our dependency on them.

Plants: From Roots to Riches is based on a series that was on Radio 4, written by Kathy Willis and Carolyn Fry. I never caught the radio version, but the book version is well-organised into a bunch of pretty bitesize chapters, following the development of botany as a modern science through the lens of Kew Gardens. It has some illustrations, though the colour plates seem quite muted and faded (not sure if this was always so or whether it was the age of the book — it’s a library book).

I don’t think it goes into enormous depth, so if this is your pet topic then likely there isn’t much new for you here, but it was an enjoyable read for me. The focus on Kew and the part Kew has played in the development of botany helped to focus things, and because of the various characters that have been historically involved with Kew, added a bit of human interest too (though none of them seem totally eccentric, alas).

It was a surprisingly fast read, I think because it is basically skimming the surface in a radio-friendly way. I learned some things, but nothing that terribly surprised me.

Rating: 3/5

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