Category: Reviews

Review – Off The Map

Posted September 26, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Off the Map by Alastair BonnettOff The Map, Alastair Bonnett

This was something of an impulsive purchase, and it turned out to be lighter reading than I expected. Each section is very short, sometimes just three pages long, and it leaves you wondering why he included such-and-such a place if there was so little to say about it. After all, the point of this book is to highlight interesting stuff about places that don’t exist (that either never have, or no longer do, or can’t officially, or…), so surely it’s worth spending some time on each one. Instead, a lot of the sections come across as perfunctory, included more out of a sense that they fit the theme than because they’re interesting.

There are some interesting facts in here, and I do enjoy the way Bonnett cross-references with fiction — when he talks about St Petersburg/Leningrad, he mentions China Miéville’s The City & The City, for example. But it was too much of a grab bag of not-always-interesting facts, and sometimes it also came across as rather preachy. Not that I disagree with Bonnett on many of these things, but still, the tone is offputting.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – Stories of Your Life and Others

Posted September 25, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted ChiangStories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang

I’ve been meaning to read Ted Chiang’s stories for ages, since his work is clearly adored by a lot of writers I admire and whose taste I trust. And I wasn’t disappointed at all: there’s a reasonably formal feel to the writing in these stories, something careful and precise, and for me that makes them particularly engaging. I guess other people might find that makes them fall rather flat, but to me it added to the poignancy.

My favourite stories of the bunch, by far, were ‘The Tower of Babylon’ and ‘Story of Your Life’. The others explore some interesting ideas, but those two interested me the most. ‘The Tower of Babylon’ is just a fun what-if — what if the Tower was real? What if the world was shaped differently to ours? And also, what kind of expertise and building would be needed to make this tower? How long would it take, and how would people cope? Examining all of this fascinated me, because Chiang obviously thought it through.

‘Story of Your Life’, well. I’m not sure how Adams and Renner’s film Arrival is going to deal with it, because for me the whole point is the narration, the calm regret and acceptance of the narrative voice. I’m not sure about the idea of language working that way (i.e. the different perspective to time being an aspect of the language, not of the structure of the aliens’ brains, and one which is transmittable to another species). But emotionally, the story really works, and of course it also leaves you wondering about the aliens, about what exactly they intended, what they wanted from humanity, and whether they got it.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Review – A History of Ancient Egypt

Posted September 24, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of A History of Ancient Egypt by John RomerA History of Ancient Egypt: From the First Farmers to the Great Pyramid, John Romer

I don’t know much about modern Egyptology; it’s been a long time since I read exhaustively about the subject, and the books I referred to then were either for children or very out of date, albeit fascinating in their own way. (Christine Desroches-Noblecourt’s description of the treasures and items found in King Tutakhamen’s tomb held me spellbound for days at a time, and I frequently returned to it, fascinated by what we could glean of the boy king, and of Ankhasamen, his sister-bride.) This book kept some of the fascination of those books for me, though it deals with early Egypt, the very first pharaohs. That does mean it covers up to the construction of Khufu’s Great Pyramid, so it does include some of the very classic Egyptian things people think of, though not the gold-encrusted tombs of later pharaohs.

Because I don’t know much about modern archaeology in Egypt, I can’t really speak to the accuracy of Romer’s interpretations. There is an extensive bibliography, of course, and he steers away from some of the romanticised, imperialist assumptions of earlier theories. Still, at times I had no idea how solid a base his theories stood on: he seemed to spend a lot of time telling the reader what can’t be gleaned from the remains, and then building up some kind of story — a court organised around early pharaohs, controlling the flow of goods along the Nile — anyway.

On a purely stylistic level, it has some of the grandeur and wonder of the books I used to read, and finds wonder in the simplest carvings and burials as well as the feats of engineering, but the sentence structure… needs work. I don’t usually nitpick grammar, but there were far too many long sentences where the subject wasn’t clear, or which lost focus halfway through, or were fragments. Quite offputting.

I’m definitely interested in reading the follow-up volume, once it’s out!

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Review – The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

Posted September 23, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan GarnerThe Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Alan Garner

Originally reviewed August 12th, 2009

I remember reading some of Alan Garner’s books when I was much younger. I found them creepy as hell then, and he certainly does know what kinds of images to evoke to have that feeling of danger and creepiness. There’s a lot of claustrophobia in this book — tunnels and water-filled passages and being packed in tight. There are parts of the description that are just brilliant.

The mythology aspects are pretty cool, too. The references to Ragnarok, etc. I don’t know whether it’s that whole ‘younger readers can accept the unnatural much better than adults’ thing that people mentioned when reading Diana Wynne Jones, though, but I found it hard to follow and it all piled in on top of everything else in a haphazard, difficult to process manner. Didn’t help that I read parts of it when everyone was around talking, and parts in a cafe, but I think part of it was the writing.

Overall it’s pretty fun, but the characters aren’t terribly well developed. I know it’s a trope of fantasy for younger readers that the kids get to tag along, and be equal to adults, etc, etc — I love The Dark is Rising, which is almost as guilty of it — but it makes me shriek, the way the adults easily accept the kids being dragged into it, and the way the kids seem to just… deal with it. Realism, you can not has it.

I’m going to read the sequel, since I have it, but I can’t say I exactly recommend it. It doesn’t come together very well for me, for all that bits of it are brilliant/cool/fun.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – A Winter Book

Posted September 22, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of A Winter Book by Tove JanssonA Winter Book, Tove Jansson

A Winter Book is a collection of some of Tove Jansson’s less famous writing — i.e., this isn’t the Moomins. Instead, this is a selection of short stories written throughout her life, many of them autobiographical or otherwise revealing. The stories are generally quiet set pieces, often with vivid images at the centre — the girl rolling a stone home; the girl throwing her torch onto an island of floating ice and lighting it up, but too scared to jump across…

‘Quiet’ is definitely the word that comes to mind most; the prose (even accounting for translation) is unassuming and relatively down to earth. Things are just so.

The writing isn’t bad, but it’s not the sort of short story writing I actually really enjoy, though at times it can be done really well (thinking Raymond Carver).

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – Sea Foam and Silence

Posted September 21, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Sea Foam and Silence by Lynn O'ConnachtSea Foam and Silence, Lynn E. O’Connacht

Received as a gift from the author

In favour of me enjoying this book: I love retellings, especially ones which add in a bit of diversity or something else that updates the story. Not in favour: it’s a verse novel, and in free verse at that. I’m terrible and tend to prefer really structured poetry. Oh, and Lynn chose to use emoticons in the text, which she had solid reasoning for, but I am apparently just a cranky traditionalist and it tended to pull me out of things rather than add to it — though it does add something to how to read the lines, where in some places I wasn’t sure quite how to take the tone. I wouldn’t have known whether I was right or wrong without the emoticons, so they’re not without purpose.

So what did I think overall? Despite being not-for-me in some ways, I did enjoy reading it, and I read it quite fast — I’m glad I didn’t follow the web serial version, because I am an impatient creature. There’s some awesome lines and use of imagery, and some things just come across beautifully: one example is the mermaid’s love of dancing, for instance, and another is the quiet bond between the mermaid and the prince.

I shouldn’t spoil the story, because at the time of writing (August) the web serial is still running. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed this take on the story, and especially the role of the Witch and her more complex than usual motivations.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – The Goblin Emperor

Posted September 20, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Cover of The Goblin Emperor by Katherine AddisonThe Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison

Again? Yes, again. Technically, my wife was supposed to reread it too, but I don’t think she get round to it… Still, reread it, and I’m very happy I did, because it really doesn’t lose anything with multiple reads. If anything, it’s easier to get into, easier to remember who is who and what motivates them, and especially easier to get along with the invented language and be attuned to the way formality works.

I don’t think there’s anything new I’ve got to say about this, so I’ll just appreciate all over again the cleverness of the language and world-building; the fact that this feels like a lived in world with history and a future, with science and innovation and politics all moving under the surface. It’s also such a human (ironically, I suppose) approach, because there’s so many people with feelings and conflicting loyalties and differing views of how Maia should rule.

And the thing I appreciate most of all is the way that Maia is a good person, but it takes effort: he has to remind himself that baiting Setheris, even now he can, is a poisonous pleasure — that revenge isn’t something an ethical ruler can indulge in. He struggles with the burden he’s taken up, but he never honestly considers giving it to someone else, at least not someone unprepared. He tries to be polite, he tries to make even the smallest person in the court feel wanted — in fact, does better with those people than the people who have an inflated sense of their own importance.

I just love the way Maia gathers affection and loyalty by being himself and not compromising, and the way he’s so tired and strained but he makes himself keep learning and keep trying.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – Planetfall

Posted September 19, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Planetfall by Emma NewmanPlanetfall, Emma Newman

I was somewhat hesitant to read Planetfall after all the reviews I read talking about the anxiety issues the main character has, and the effect it had on some readers — it sounded like it might well be something that would make me uncomfortable too, and it’s true it does hit exactly those buttons. There’s one point where Renata is afraid she might have bugs on her, and, ugh, yes, I remember that skin-crawling feeling all too well. Luckily, for me it wasn’t uncomfortable, as such: I certainly recognised the emotions, the way Renata had to grapple with her feelings to get what seems like anything done.

The only thing I didn’t really feel was the motivation behind the big secret which Mack and Renata keep. Their reactions in the present, the way they both grapple with the decision they made, works really well, but I didn’t really believe in their initial decision — or rather, Mack’s: Renata’s choice to keep silent about what Mack has done does ring true. And it’s not that what Mack does makes no sense, but it feels like it’s just… not quite a whole story.

In the end, Planetfall is a colonisation story with a mystery at its heart: it takes a long time to figure out exactly what happened (though the bare bones were apparent early on), and then everything starts coming together with a series of very definite clicks. Motivations make sense, small details come together, everything works… except that one decision which so much of the story hinges on. It’s kind of disappointing, when the rest of it works so well.

I know a few people didn’t like the exploration of God’s city as much, or the way that thread of the plot ended. For me, it reminded me of books like Roadside Picnic, and to me the ending fit beautifully with that kind of story.

There is a companion book for Planetfall, called After Atlas, which I have for review. It doesn’t follow the same characters and threads at all, though, from what I’ve read; I’m definitely interested to see how much it does tie in and illuminate Planetfall.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – Thinking, Fast and Slow

Posted September 18, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanThinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

This book is a well-respected one which has at its heart one main theory: that we have a certain amount of automatic routines in our brain which we rely on, as well as a more analytical way of thinking. The automatic routines are “fast” thinking, and they’ve served us well evolutionarily, allowing us to come to immediate conclusions in dangerous and ambiguous situations. The analytical way of thinking is “slow”, and correspondingly resource intensive, and we tend to only engage it when we have to.

So far, so good, and I don’t disagree with his findings and examples as generalisations. There’ll always be exceptions, for example being primed with the words “banana” and “vomit” does not make me associate bananas and vomit. Instead, I think about my lack of a gallbladder, because I know that a lot of the time when I’m sick, it’s nothing to do with the food I’ve eaten as such and just to do with the proportion of fat in it, thus meaning that I have learnt to de-associate food as a specific cause-and-effect for nausea. Tl;dr: exception that proves the rule. My routines have been rewritten to reflect my reality, and now that is the assumption I make when I’m thinking lazily.

The problem is that he goes into such excruciating detail of statistics, despite the fact that he knows from his own work that his readers have no intuitive grasp thereof — and me even less so, since numbers are a weak spot for me. And he uses examples based on the American educational system, which is also Greek (or Arabic) to me. And sometimes he’ll digress into discussing some theory from economics, leaving me frankly bored.

It’s worth reading, I think, but I might almost recommend you pick up one of the ‘thirty second’ or ‘simplified’ versions other people have written. The central thesis is fine, but the book drags on.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – The Wolf in the Attic

Posted September 17, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Wolf in the Attic by Paul KearneyThe Wolf in the Attic, Paul Kearney

Received to review via Netgalley

The Wolf in the Attic is a bit of an odd one. I have quite a few reservations about it: firstly, I’m not sure about the narrative voice. It took ages for me to pin down how old Anna was supposed to be, based on the words and phrases she used, and the general tone. I know she’s actually a refugee whose first language was Greek, but instead she comes across as slangy (saying things like “what rot!”). I also wasn’t sure about the inclusion of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis — it’s a cute cameo in one way, but it also gives one of Tolkien’s original ideas to a fictional character, and the inclusion of the two shook my suspension of disbelief. Especially when Kearney manipulated real events to fit his story better, re: the date of C.S. Lewis’ conversion to Christianity. They really aren’t necessary to the plot at all, and not really to the themes.

More worryingly, though, I didn’t really buy in to the relationship between Anna and Luca. That is, there’s nothing wrong with it as a concept, but in execution I didn’t see why they were drawn together. It just needed a little more flesh on the bones, and it probably would have worked.

I’m also not 100% sure about the stuff about the Romani people. I know that the skinchangers/witches say that they’re not Romani, but have dealings with them, but it’s a slim difference and at other times the book doesn’t seem to make a distinction. The stuff about King Arthur and the Roadmen felt a little confused, and I thought it needed a little more explanation — just a little. I’m not sure I agree with another reviewer who felt it came across as racist, because Luca is a good person and there are definite shades of grey, but it is a bit borderline in some ways.

Nonetheless, it’s an interesting read, and Kearney’s style is certainly readable. The book is a little slow-paced, but that’s fine for me; it actually feels a little odd how quickly the second half is covered, given there’s a lot more going on. I enjoyed the process of reading the book; it’s just thinking about it too much that seems to spoil things.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , ,

Divider