Posted May 17, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Door into Fire, Diane Duane
This was a reread for me, since it’s been so long since I read it, and I want to get on and read the second and third book. (Although alas, I don’t know that the fourth book has progressed at all since I bought them.) It’s a refreshing world where, though people have a duty to provide an heir, sexuality isn’t tightly regulated and once you have provided a child, you can love whom you will — and polyamory is also an option. Despite that, it’s not idyllic: the characters don’t always accept their lovers’ choices, don’t always agree with their actions, do things to hurt one another, etc, etc. It’s not falsely optimistic: in fact, the way Herewiss and Lorn hurt each other is very real, and recognisable.
The fantasy elements are fun enough, if somewhat typical (though that might be partially familiarity with later fantasy). Herewiss has access to a power men can’t normally wield, and yet he can’t truly call it forth. Lorn is a king without a kingdom, exiled after usurpation. Segnbora is wandering with Bad Stuff in her past and an inability to use her abilities for other reasons. There’s a fire creature that might call to mind Calcifer at times for those of us who love Howl’s Moving Castle.
There’s all kinds of humanness amongst the fantasy elements, which is what makes good fantasy. I really enjoyed rereading this, because despite feeling typical in terms of the plot, it feels like a world with so much more potential than some other fantasy worlds I could name, because it allows for so much more — it isn’t bound by Christian morality or constrained by our history. It genuinely feels like a separate world with its own reality, and despite the fantasy elements, that’s partly because Herewiss and Lorn never have to worry about being hurt because they’re in love.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, fantasy, queer fic
Posted May 16, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Dead Man’s Chest, Kerry Greenwood
Dead Man’s Chest takes Phryne from the comforts of her own home to an attempted holiday, much in the vein of Peter and Harriet’s honeymoon in Sayers’ Lord Peter books, that is to say: a busman’s holiday. For all that, it’s a reasonably relaxed mystery, without too many dead bodies or late night attacks. There’s one or two nastier elements, but for the most part it focuses on Ruth getting to play house. In fact, the nastier element is almost entirely glossed over…
In this book, a new character joins the cast, and I rather hope he’ll be a recurring one. Enter Tinker: a young boy who spends most of his time gadding about and isn’t any too clean or conscientious, until Phryne gets her hands on him. He quickly finds a place in the household, and it doesn’t feel forced; I quickly found myself interested in what Tinker was up to and what was going to happen to him. (And poor Gaston, the dog.)
Some of the usual elements are missing here — I don’t think there’s a single sex scene? — but for the most part, it’s what you’d expect from a holiday with Phryne. It captures the feel of a long warm day pretty well, too — and I’d say you can almost taste the gin and tonic, but I have no idea what that tastes like (and not much inclination to find out).
I think these books have essentially stopped surprising me at all, and instead become something comforting that comes out more or less as I’d expect, and deals with characters you can mostly sympathise with and like. There’s a place for that kind of reading, and I’m not disparaging it at all: it’s just that the Miss Fisher mysteries do somewhat lose their spice as they go along, because you get used to it.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Kerry Greenwood, mystery
Posted May 15, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The Bread We Eat in Dreams, Catherynne M. Valente
If you’re a fan of Catherynne M. Valente’s work, then you probably know what to expect: prose that touches poetry at times, often an influence of Japanese folklore, strange dream-like logic… This is a wide-ranging collection which includes some stories I read elsewhere, or could’ve read elsewhere, like the Fairyland novella about Mallow. The writing is generally beautiful; that’s never really something I doubt with Valente. The choice of stories is also generally good, even though I have encountered some of them in multiple other collections.
It’s probably most worthwhile for the pretty cover and for people who either haven’t read much Valente and want a sampler, or people who read everything she writes and don’t want to miss anything.
Confession: I mostly skipped the actual poetry. I prefer the lyricism of Valente’s prose to anything about her poetry.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Catherynne M. Valente, poetry, SF/F, short stories
Posted May 14, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Captain America: Civil War Prelude, Corona Pilgrim et al
So if you were wondering if this is worth getting, the answer is — unless you’re a fanatic collector of the MCU tie-in comics — no. It really doesn’t present much new material: I counted eight pages of new stuff, if we’re being generous. The rest was either recaps of the movies (which, if you’re enough of a fan to be grabbing the tie-in comics, you’ve probably seen) or excerpts from the original Civil War comics. And sure, that might prepare you for the film, I guess, but so would rewatching the movies so far. The movie adaptation (which I have now seen) is different enough from the original comic that it’s not at all necessary to read the comic as a companion.
So there you go. Save your money.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel
Posted May 13, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The City & The City, China Miéville
Originally posted 30th November 2010
I read this one in bits. The last half or so was all in one go, on a long train journey, but for the most part, I just read it in bits, a few pages at a time, and didn’t really get involved with it. I didn’t really care how it ended, for most of the time. I did get tense during the last parts, and I was sad for the main character about the ending, but I didn’t really care, for the most part. I wanted to care more about Corwi and Dhatt, but I didn’t really see enough of them, or enough positive about Dhatt…
I suppose it was pretty realistic, in that, but what actually kept me reading was the core idea — and, to some extent, the mystery. I’ve always said that cities were the most interesting thing about Miéville’s work: he’s really good at making them feel alive, I think. Less the individual parts, more the whole life of the city. This is a particularly interesting one, especially the way he navigates it: nothing here is overtly fantastical or sci-fi ish, really. I mean, it sounds completely far-fetched, but we know how deeply cultural conditioning can affect people, and if you just take it as a thought experiment…
Still, I like the idea — and Miéville evokes his worlds well — but it really didn’t have me on the edge of my seat, or caring about the characters, or needing to read more.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, China Miéville, Flashback Friday, mystery
Posted May 12, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments
Ink and Bone, Rachel Caine
Ink and Bone is an alternate history which starts with a simple change: the Library of Alexandria survived, and protecting it became the main focus of society. More than the church, the Library is the thing which holds society together, which has access and immunity, which controls technology. I thought there would be more about love of individual books, rather than books as a concept, since people talked about this as a book about books, but it isn’t, really. While the characters do read and study, and books are protected and valuable (and illegal to own an original copy of), it feels like the point is more the politics and the alternate history.
Which is fine: it turns out to be quite interesting. I found the supporting characters, like Wolf and Thomas, more interesting than Jess himself – and definitely wanted to see more of Jess’ twin, whose role and potential importance is kept very much in the background. The different way the world develops, with some types of technology (like the printing press) suppressed every time someone comes up with it, is pretty fascinating. The magic/technology is also pretty cool; I definitely want to know more about that, how it works and how much of it is magic, how much technology. The political background, with Wales’ war on England, is also pretty interesting, and I’d love to see Caine’s timeline of how exactly that would come about in the changed conditions of this Europe.
The end of the book leaves things very open; I’m quite impatient to read the next book and see where it all goes. I didn’t so much get involved with the characters as with the overall plot, so I won’t mind if the next book jumps POV. I just want it already!
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F
Posted May 11, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Silver on the Tree, Susan Cooper
Finally finished my yearly(ish) reread with this book. The conclusion to the sequence is full of its own magic and beauty, but because of the ending, it just can’t be my favourite. (Perhaps in a similar way that The Farthest Shore doesn’t work for me; I don’t like it when the magic comes to an end!)
The whole sequence in the Lost Land is gorgeous, and probably my favourite thing about this book. Then, of course, there’s the interactions between the group – such disparate kids, and brought together for a quest beyond their understanding. As always, Cooper’s handling of the children and the way they react to each other, particularly the Drews, feels spot on and realistic. Of course they’re going to bicker. And of course the Welsh/English divide feeds into it, setting Bran apart. The whole sequence has had history intruding on the present and the present intruding into history; it’s appropriate that that fraught history also touches the story.
Reading it this time, I wasn’t sure about the pacing. It might just be that I want more, more adventures, more of the Six together, but everyone spent so much time in ones or twos rather than together. There’s so much hinted at – Bran’s relationship to Herne the hunter, for just one – that I would love to explore. That’s why I come back to the book, I suppose, and yet…
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, Susan Cooper
Posted May 10, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Farthest Shore, Ursula Le Guin
This has always been my least favourite of the Earthsea books, and I think that’s sort of inevitable given the central conflict, the issue that the whole book centres around. It’s about magic dying out, about death and fighting death and being afraid of death, where few people are whole and entire and able to see the world as it is rather than wishing it was something else. Ged is one of those people, of course: he’s the Archmage for a reason, and more importantly, he’s faced the dark part of himself and accepted it.
But it’s not primarily about Ged: it’s primarily about Arren and his journey to kingship. We saw Ged from an outside POV in The Tombs of Atuan, and it’s not as though Tenar completely trusted or respected him instantly… but Arren’s distrust and indifference at times grate, especially set against his hero worship at first.
I can see the beauty of the story, of what Ged does, but I don’t enjoy it. It’s a shadow of a story, a feeling of foreboding – the shadow at the door. It’s, in part, an ending to an adventure that I wanted more of. It makes sense that Earthsea has to change, but that doesn’t reconcile me to the fact.
Needless to say, Ursula Le Guin’s writing is great and that’s not the problem.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, Ursula Le Guin
Posted May 9, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders
Oh, dear, I still don’t know what to say about this one, having put off reviewing it to let me think it over. I know that other people found it weird, and even decided not to finish it; I was never tempted to put it down and not finish it, but at the same time, I’m not sure how to talk about it or identify what I liked.
At heart, it’s a dialogue between fantasy and sci-fi; the power of nature and the power of technology; playing out the story where natural powers have to save the world from technology, but also vice versa, and a-slant. In the end, the story comes together as a symbiosis of both, equally flawed and equally powerful. If you’re exclusively a reader of one or the other genre, you’ll probably find this profoundly unsatisfying, because as far as I can tell, it never picks a side, never decides to be one or the other. It’s both.
That aspect was probably more interesting to me than the characters, through whom it was played out. I didn’t dislike them, but I wasn’t a huge fan either, and though there was a sort of inevitability to how they came together and apart and together again, it’s not something I had any strong feelings about.
It was interesting, and definitely an absorbing read, but not one I had strong feelings about in general.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F
Posted May 8, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Lady of Mallow, Dorothy Eden
In my quest for books like Mary Stewart’s, I think I’ve found another winner. The tone is much the same, and the set-up: there’s inevitably a touch of Nine Coaches Waiting (for me) when the protagonist becomes a governness – but this time, she’s deliberately there as a spy and she has her own motivations. I actually really liked following the twists of this and trying to make my own judgements, and I like that the conclusion wasn’t simple, wasn’t black and white.
I don’t know what it is about this sort of book I find so comforting and satisfying: the smart, proactive heroine, sometimes in a time/situation where she’s meant to follow a particular role; the fact that a happy ever after is more or less assured; perhaps the safe unsafeness of the male characters who seem a little wild but are, in the end, justified and acting for the best? Regardless, I found Lady of Mallow a fun entry in the more-or-less cosy mystery genre, and I’ll look for other books by Dorothy Eden.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, mystery, romance
