Posted November 7, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Plants: From Roots to Riches
Genres: History,
Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 368
Rating: 
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
Tags: book reviews, books, Carolyn Fry, history, Kathy Willis, non-fiction, science
Posted November 7, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Sad Ghost Club
Genres: Graphic Novels Pages: 248
Series: The Sad Ghost Club #1 Rating: 
Synopsis: Ever felt anxious or alone? Like you don't belong anywhere? Like you're almost... invisible? Find your kindred spirits at The Sad Ghost Club.
(You are not alone. Shhh. Pass it on.)
This is the story of one of those days - a day so bad you can barely get out of bed, when it's a struggle to leave the house, and when you do, you wish you hadn't. But even the worst of days can surprise you. When one sad ghost, alone at a crowded party, spies another sad ghost across the room, they decide to leave together. What happens next changes everything.
Because that night they start the The Sad Ghost Club - a secret society for the anxious and alone, a club for people who think they don't belong.
The Sad Ghost Club by Lize Meddings is a pretty short graphic novel (took me 15 minutes to read, despite the page count) which features two lonely, awkward teenagers befriending one another after a day of agonising whether they wanted to attend a party, and an awkward evening of not really speaking to anyone at the party. The concerns and anxieties are really familiar from my own teenage years — I was definitely a sad ghost.
I don’t know what it’d have meant to me as a teenager, but as an adult it felt a little overly simplistic, and Socks’ explanation of their difficulties with depression (and the way they urge SG to seek help) felt… cookie-cutter, and laid on with a trowel. Also, it’s really hard to follow which of them is which other than by dialogue. I’m not very visual, so perhaps there are clues I couldn’t pick up, but Socks and SG look pretty identical to me.
It’s probably great for the right audience, but I wasn’t it. Always glad to try new things, though!
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, graphic novels, Lize Meddings
Posted November 5, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Heaven Official's Blessing
Genres: Fantasy,
Romance Pages: 404
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #7 Rating: 
Synopsis: LIFETIMES OF CRUELTY, CENTURIES OF DEVOTION
The Kiln is open, and White No-Face is back to his full power. The past eight hundred years have not blunted his hatred nor his obsession with Xie Lian — he aims to break Xie Lian down to nothing, even if all of humanity and the heavens themselves are collateral damage.
This time, however, Xie Lian will not face him alone. Together with Hua Cheng — powerful ghost king, stalwart protector, and devoted love — can Xie Lian finally reveal the face behind the mask and put an end to the nightmare forever?
It was perhaps a mistake to dash on and read book eight of Heaven Official’s Blessing before I wrote a review for book seven, but here we are, so I’ll do my best! And to be honest, I would recommend reading them that way too. Book seven is back in the “present” (after the flashback in book six), and it’s hurtling rapidly toward a final confrontation which takes up the first half of book eight (the latter half is extras). You won’t want to stop at the end of book seven, especially not given where it ends.
Book seven sees Xie Lian break out of the Kiln, reunite with Hua Cheng, return to the heavenly court, discover the big bad, play hide and seek with his captor around the heavenly court, and then essentially re-enact some Gundam series or other in an epic battle that takes him into Black Water’s domain. It’s full of action, and the end of the book isn’t really a natural break — it’s a cliffhanger moment, and it makes some sense to end a volume there, but as a reader it’s super annoying (and in terms of actual plot, there’s only half a book left).
This volume also sees Hua Cheng and Xie Lian comfortable in their feelings for each other (if not, in Xie Lian’s case, always happy with public displays of affection, or other people knowing about their relationship). More than ever, Hua Cheng’s total devotion is on show — and so is the answering strength his support wakens in Xie Lian. It’s lovely to read.
The story that’s been building over the previous six volumes is so satisfying at this point, with so many threads (which didn’t always tie together yet) coming together. I keep wondering when I’ll rate any given volume five stars, and it’s difficult to say: no volume alone makes me think “it’s perfect”; it’s the whole that gives me that feeling.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, danmei, Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù, romance, SF/F
Posted November 4, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Hunter
Genres: Crime Pages: 208
Series: Parker #1 Rating: 
Synopsis: Double-crossed, shot, and left for dead — by his wife. The thriller that introduces Parker.
“The funnies call it the syndicate. The goons and hustlers call it the Outfit. You call it the Organization. But I don’t care if you call yourselves the Red Cross, you owe me forty-five thousand dollars and you’ll pay me back whether you like it or not.”
Richard Stark’s The Hunter is the first of a whole series of books about Parker, an awful excuse for a human whose desire for revenge drives this noir classic. Not that there’s a single redeeming male character in the whole thing, given they’re all criminals and cowards — and the narrative simply doesn’t have room for a female perspective, showing everything through Parker or Mal’s perspectives, which is a pretty grubby and brutal place to be. The whole thing is a glorification of violence, particularly against women.
Which is, to be clear, pretty much exactly what I expected. I was curious about this one more because I’m always curious about various aspects of the crime/mystery genre; it shares some DNA with Raymond Chandler’s work, but the writing isn’t nearly as good, and Parker is nothing like Chandler’s “shop-worn Galahad” (though a lot of the misogyny — and racism and homophobia — is the same even so).
Overall, of course, not my thing. It was a quick read, or I wouldn’t have wanted to stay with it any longer, and I won’t be reading more. Curiosity satisfied.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Richard Stark
Posted November 3, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
Haunt Sweet Home
Genres: Fantasy,
Horror Pages: 163
Rating: Synopsis: On the set of a kitschy reality TV show, staged scares transform into unnerving reality in this spooky ghost story from multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Sarah Pinsker.
“Don’t talk to day about what we do at night.”
When aimless twenty-something Mara lands a job as the night-shift production assistant on her cousin’s ghost hunting/home makeover reality TV show Haunt Sweet Home, she quickly determines her new role will require a healthy attitude toward duplicity. But as she hides fog machines in the woods and improvises scares to spook new homeowners, a series of unnerving incidents on set and a creepy new coworker force Mara to confront whether the person she's truly been deceiving and hiding from all along—is herself.
Eerie and empathetic, Haunt Sweet Home is a multifaceted, supernatural exploration of finding your own way into adulthood, and into yourself.
I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Sarah Pinsker’s Haunt Sweet Home takes a while to unfold and show you the SF/F side: at first it feels like a coming of age story, albeit one which occurs on the set of a show that tries to renovate people’s houses while convincing them that they’re haunted. The main character, Mara, hasn’t yet managed to achieve anything she set out to do, and her family view her as a bit of a loser — but her cousin manages to give her a spot in the show, and an opportunity to prove herself.
The rest develops a bit more slowly, but give it time; I found it pretty satisfying, and at novella length, it doesn’t take that long to reveal the real haunting. Meanwhile, Mara’s well written; I feel like a lot of us know her type, and instantly find her familiar.
There are some lovely descriptions of Mara’s grandmother’s carving, and the process of creativity around woodworking, etc, too, which will stick with me.
I did find one particular thing a little obvious, but it was still fun to stick around and watch it properly unfold.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, horror, Sarah Pinsker, SF/F
Posted November 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women
Genres: Historical Fiction,
History,
Non-fiction Pages: 336
Rating: Synopsis: In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden, was actually a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history and literature to reinvent her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined. Nancy Marie Brown links the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines Hervor’s adventures intersecting with larger-than-life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as the Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervor’s short, dramatic life shows that much of what we have taken as truth about women in the Viking Age is based not on data but on nineteenth-century Victorian biases. Rather than holding the household keys, Viking women in history, the sagas, poetry and myth carry weapons. In this compelling narrative, Brown brings the world of those valkyries and shield-maids to vivid life.
This is a much-belated post for a book I read and reviewed a while ago, and realised I never reviewed here. My memory of the book’s contents isn’t the sharpest now, but I can try, if anyone has questions!
The Real Valkyrie is about 40% fiction by volume, which is not entirely what I expected. The author has chosen to name and give a fictional biography to the Viking warrior found in Birka who was, after DNA testing, proven to be a woman. The author names her Hervor, and vividly reimagines her life using a mixture of information gained from archaeology and information gained by reading the sagas that have been recorded and handed down.
It’s well-known that the sagas contain quite a lot of truthful detail and history, e.g. in making it clear that Vikings went as far as the Americas in their voyaging, and Brown makes the very good point that the number of female warriors in them probably doesn’t reflect pure fantasy either. I think she’s at her most interesting while discussing the sagas, to be honest: her fictional biography of Hervor made her lose sight of how little she actually could say about the real warrior, and she kept believing far too much in her own story. (The Birka warrior and Ragnhild probably never met, so that’s why they didn’t stay friends…)
It’s an interesting reconstruction, but I’d have preferred to stay focused on the facts (even including those picked from sagas).
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, historical fiction, history, Nancy Marie Brown, non-fiction
Posted October 31, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
.self
Genres: Graphic Novels,
Science Fiction Pages: 146
Rating: Synopsis: Postscript backs up everything about a person into a file ready to be loaded in a printed body that offers one final chance to wrap up loose ends after they’ve died.
Nat Winters has finally achieved something like a perfect life. No more scraping or getting by. She has a home, a husband and a job turning into a career.
When Nat’s Postscript gets hacked and her file is torrented, her life gets set on fire by these tweaked copies of her running around the world, chasing down their own versions of her deferred dreams. As more of them begin coming to town, looking for her, Nat will be forced to confront a dozen different sides of herself and try to fix the mess they’ve made. But as she tries to contain things, Nat finds out there’s a contingent of Blanks out there who want to hurt her, even kill her, on the orders of a mysterious enemy who is looking to make this identity theft permanent.
.self starts with an interesting concept: there’s a service that allows you to record all your experiences, right up until you die. Once you die, you’re uploaded into a blank body in order to allow you to move around, meet people, and provide closure. But what if that file gets out into the world early? What if dozens of people torrent it, download you, and put create copies of you? What will those copies do?
I think there’s a lot that could be done with this concept, but .self goes with a fairly straightforward route. Some clones want to kill Nat and take over her life, some want to punish her, some want to be their own person, etc, etc. I wasn’t sold on the idea that these clones were what they said they were: one tells Nat that they’re alternate versions of herself, versions that took a different path, but how? If they’re based on her recent data, they’re all the same. And they all seem to know what they are, and have no blurring of identity between their new self and Nat.
They’ve also all been downloaded into all kinds of bodies, not ones that look like Nat, but there’s little exploration of how weird that might be.
Overall, I thought that at each turn, the most predictable choice was made, and a story that could’ve dug into identity mostly just turned out to be about a modicum of personal growth for Nat, unconvincingly presented.
The character designs are cool, though.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: Aditya Bidikar, book reviews, books, Cara McGee, Christopher Sebela, graphic novels, Rebecca Nalty, SF/F
Posted October 30, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Heaven Official's Blessing
Genres: Fantasy,
Horror,
Romance Pages: 403
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #6 Rating: Synopsis: BODY IN ABYSS, HEART IN PARADISE
White No-Face, Xie Lian’s greatest fear and most hated enemy, has arrived…or so it seems. While the ghost with the half-crying, half-smiling mask is somewhere nearby, the creature is elusive as always, taunting Xie Lian from just out of reach and promising the total destruction of everything he holds dear.
As Xie Lian confronts the trauma of his last encounter with the terrifying ghost, Hua Cheng will do anything in his power to protect him. But White No-Face’s identity and purpose are not the only mysteries to unravel, as Hua Cheng also has a history in the labyrinthine tunnels beneath Mount Tonglu. Will Xie Lian finally discover the full connection they share—and learn the true depths of Hua Cheng’s devotion?
The sixth volume of MXTX’s Heaven Official’s Blessing is certainly full of ups and downs. The first section, in the “present” of the narrative, answers a few mysteries and gives us a moment we’ve been waiting for since the first book: Xie Lian acknowledges Hua Cheng’s feelings for him, and indicates that he returns them. It’s a lovely, lovely scene…
And then we slip off into a flashback even darker and sadder than the first. It’s better-paced, in my opinion, but it’s an extremely rough read, as Xie Lian is manipulated and cast down by his people. He loses his way severely, and it doesn’t really help to know that he ends up being true to himself again — you still have to read about him going through it.
Reading it with an eye for metaphor, and remembering how important Xie Lian’s virginity is as a theme, it’s hard to avoid drawing parallels with the incidents on Beizi Hill in the first flashback, and reading the mass-stabbing as a literal and metaphorical violation, so it’s all a bit dark.
There’s important stuff in this volume, but the flashback is a really rough read. It’s hard to decide quite how to rate it — but the scene from the cover is so good it has to be a 4/5, even with all the misery of the flashback.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, danmei, horror, Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù, romance, SF/F
Posted October 29, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Murder at the Fitzwilliam
Genres: Crime,
Historical Fiction,
Mystery Pages: 320
Series: Museum Mysteries #1 Rating: Synopsis: After rising to prominence for his role investigating the case of Jack the Ripper, former Detective Inspector Daniel Wilson is now retired. Known for his intelligence, investigative skills, and most of all his discretion, he's often consulted when a case must be solved quickly and quietly. So when a body is found in the Egyptian Collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Wilson is called in.
As he tries to uncover the identity of the dead man and the circumstances surrounding his demise, Wilson must contend with an unhelpful police Inspector, and more alarmingly, Abigail McKenzie, the archaeologist who discovered the body and is determined to protect the Egyptian collection. Can they find a way to work together to solve the mystery?
I picked up Jim Eldridge’s Murder at the Fitzwilliam mostly because I love the idea of mysteries set in museums, and this is the first of the series. It’s been rare that a mystery used the full coolness of the museum setting… and alas, this was the case again here. It was an easy read, it’s not that I didn’t have fun, but it felt more like the setting was “Cambridge in general” rather than specifically a museum.
The detectives are Daniel Wilson (a former copper turned private inquiry agent) and Abigail McKenzie, an archaeologist and blatantly obvious love interest. Daniel’s a bit nondescript, just a fairly standard male detective, while Abigail’s a bit highly strung in some ways — a bit prone to the dramatic, as the final scene where she bursts into tears at him after yelling at him because he’s supposed to have magically understood from her cold behaviour that she wants to date him. One minute she’s touting how practical she is (and boasting about having seen XYZ in Egypt), and the next there’s a mood swing and she’s angry at Daniel for even suggesting something. There are some reasons for her behaviour, but overall it just felt weird.
The concept is still tempting enough to me that I’m going to try the second book, and I don’t regret giving the first one a shot, but I hope for a bit more use of the museum setting, and a bit more consistency in the portrayal of Abigail.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Jim Eldridge, mystery
Posted October 28, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
But Not Too Bold
Genres: Fantasy,
Horror,
Romance Pages: 160
Rating: Synopsis: The Shape of Water meets Mexican Gothic in this sapphic monster romance novella wrapped in gothic fantasy trappings
The old keeper of the keys is dead, and the creature who ate her is the volatile Lady of the Capricious House—Anatema, an enormous humanoid spider with a taste for laudanum and human brides.
Dália, the old keeper’s protégée, must take up her duties, locking and unlocking the little drawers in which Anatema keeps her memories. And if she can unravel the crime that led to her predecessor's death, Dália might just be able to survive long enough to grow into her new role.
But there’s a gaping hole in Dália’s plan that she refuses to see: Anatema cannot resist a beautiful woman, and she eventually devours every single bride that crosses her path.
I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Hache Pueyo’s But Not Too Bold is sort of a Bluebeard retelling, where “Bluebeard” is in fact a massive, ancient spider-like being called Anatema. The background to the story is mostly sketched in: there are Archaic Ones like Anatema in various places around the world, though each of them is monstrous in a different way, and their works are clearly desired by others for some reason — but other than that the details are thin on the ground. Which is fine, because what matters is the setting of the Capricious House, Anatema’s home, and Dália’s role within it as she takes over from her mentor, the old keeper of the keys, whom Anatema has eaten for stealing something.
There’s a genuinely creepy, claustrophobic feeling about it all, even as Dália sails through it all. In all of it, she’s happy where she is, happy serving Anatema, and that adds a sort of “Beauty and the Beast” feel in some ways, though it’s very much not the same story, as there is no transformation or any hint of one — we’re talking “romance with a monster”, not “redemption and transformation of the monster”.
I was completely riveted, and a little creeped out, all at once. It was a lovely read.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Hache Pueyo, horror, romance, SF/F
