Category: Reviews

Review – Changeless

Posted June 6, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Changeless by Gail CarrigerChangeless, Gail Carriger

Well!

This series continues to be fun, rather absurd, sometimes witty. The pack dynamics are interesting, etc, and this book features characters I already met in the Finishing School series. It’s a little odd to see them as adults, but I rather like seeing Sidheag again, and especially Vieve. I loved the part she had to play and the way queerness is just a part of this world, sex is not dreadfully horrifying (because as most people know, the Victorians weren’t actually, well, Victorian about it), and the way roles in society change because of the supernatural set is quite interesting. (Also interesting where it does not change, but instead fashions and such of the period are explained by the supernatural set’s presence.)

On the other hand, the end of the book just irritates the living daylights out of me. Everyone is entirely unreasonable, nobody bothers to think oh hey, maybe things are different with a preternatural than a human, and any love or trust between Conall and Alexia is just chucked out the window. I hope to goodness that this doesn’t get smoothed over with some nibbling and bodice ripping; I care enough about the characters to be outraged, so I hope Carriger keeps faith with readers and deals with this plotline in a way that does them justice.

Like Soulless and the Finishing School books, it’s fun and easy to read, and while I’m not wildly in love or unable to do without the thought of these books in my life, they’re enjoyable and a little bit addictive for me. Blameless is within arm’s reach right now, and I might just go with that impulse.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Only Forward

Posted June 5, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 5 Comments

Cover of Only Forward by Michael Marshall SmithOnly Forward, Michael Marshall Smith
Review from April 23rd, 2013

Oh — my — god. When I started reading this book I expected it to keep up the fairly light tone of the early chapters. Then it fucked with my heart bad. Don’t believe reviews saying it makes no sense: it makes perfect sense, in the end, as long as you stop holding onto normal logic and start applying some dream logic. The narrator is unreliable, yeah, and he has attitude, and he knows he’s telling a story, so there are bits that some people find irritating, like the way he keeps saying he’ll tell us more about [whatever] later, if it’s relevant. And I can understand that, but for me it’s all part of who the narrator is.

I love the world built up here. The different neighbourhoods, the cats, the whys and wherefores of The City. I love the writing, because so much of it is painfully on the nose about trauma, about the demons we’re capable of dreaming up. I love all of this more than I love the characters, really: I love it for what it has to say about trauma, about the way we think.

It’s hard to talk about it without any spoilers, really. All I can say is that it comes together in the end, and you understand things in a heartbreaking rush, and it really is good. Weird, yes. But very good.

Rating: 5/5

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Review – Valour & Vanity

Posted June 4, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Valour and Vanity, by Mary Robinette KowalValour & Vanity, Mary Robinette Kowal

These books seem to be just perfect for my brain at the moment. I read this on the train, more or less in one gulp. You’ve got to love that one of the most important threads of the story is the love between Vincent and Jane, and how it gets them through everything, no matter what. And despite how far their acts of derring-do have come from their Austen-esque beginnings in Shades of Milk and Honey, the development is clear. This time, the trouble they get into grows out of everything before (rather than being a whole new problem), which makes it tidier.

Likewise, their personal relationship grows out of everything that’s gone before; Jane’s miscarriage, Vincent’s time in captivity, the effects that had on them. They trust each other more now, and they’re readier to work through problems than despair. (Which is not to say Vincent doesn’t have some black moods in this novel. He does, in a way that very much reflects on the way some men even now feel less when their wives are the ones bringing in the money.)

I think really the blurb on the back gave a little too much away; knowing, for example, that they’re victims of ‘an elaborate heist’, I immediately began to suspect where the heist began and who was involved. But it doesn’t give away the motive, fortunately, nor what Vincent and Jane end up doing to fix the situation.

It’s a lot of fun, as I’d expected, and I enjoyed the inclusion of Lord Byron as well.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Mirror Empire

Posted June 3, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Cover of The Mirror Empire by Kameron HurleyThe Mirror Empire, Kameron Hurley
Received to review via Netgalley

It took me long enough to get round to this one, I know. Props to Ryan from SpecFic Junkie for poking and prodding me to finally get round to reading Kameron Hurley’s fiction. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it, because I had read the start of both this and God’s War before, and bounced off. That seems to have been a timing/mood thing, because I found a lot to fascinate me this time. Hurley can really do weird, in ways that come to feel more organic than, say, China Miéville’s brand of weird. I can never forget that’s weird. Reading The Mirror Empire, carnivorous plants and mirror worlds and all the other details quickly settled into feeling normal for the reality I inhabited while reading the book. It was never not fascinating, but I learnt the rules, and I didn’t feel like bizarre things were there just to be bizarre. It was part of building a whole world with a coherent mythology.

The contradictions that other reviews I’ve seen have mentioned… well, I didn’t notice them. To me, the whole concept of the mirror worlds came together well. Likewise, the stuff people accuse Hurley of putting in just to be shocking. Like, the ataisa, people who are neither male nor female but somewhere in a grey area. That’s not new in speculative fiction at all, and it’s baffling when people say it is. It isn’t even new in the real world for people to feel that way. What’s shocking and new is apparently just the fact that Hurley includes them, matter of factly, and it doesn’t have to be plot-relevant. I’d love to know more about Taigan and why she is the way she is (I use ‘she’ because that’s how she identifies at the end of the book), particularly the fact that unlike other ataisa, her transformation is physical. But it doesn’t have to be plot relevant: it’s character relevant, it adds another layer to the world. Why not?

There’s also polyamory, queer relationships, female-led societies and relationships. None of that is shocking — or rather, if it is, then you’re living your life with blinkers on.

I did struggle with the rape elements in this story. The degree to which particular characters consent or not, whether we’re meant to see one character in particular as heroic. In the end, I felt that Zezili — for example — was a character with nuance; her relationship with Anahva was unequal, and it didn’t seem to matter whether he gave consent or not, to her. But I didn’t see that as being excused by the story. It was a part of the character, like killing innocents, like opposing the Big Bad of the book. Good and bad in one person, and not always distinguishable.

As for the complaint about a lack of strong male characters… uh, Taigan? Roh? Ahkio? Oh, I see, your problem is that they aren’t all traditionally strong (or male all the time, in Taigan’s case). But it’s nothing like the straight flip that people are making out: the female characters aren’t all one brand of strong, either.

In the end, I enjoyed this a lot. It does feel a little too dark for me at times, but there’s a lot to enjoy too; loads of world-building, interesting characters and relationships, etc. I’m looking forward to the next book, and to going back to God’s War.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Darwin’s Lost World

Posted June 2, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Darwin's Lost World by Martin BrasierDarwin’s Lost World, Martin Brasier

When I picked this up, I didn’t really register that I’d been disappointed by one of the author’s other books. Good thing it was a library book, because though the topic of the most ancient remains of life is fascinating, Brasier’s account jumps around geologically and logically. There’s no straight progression from idea to idea, era to era, area to area. I kept losing track of where a fossil was and how old it was thought to be, and getting distracted by Brasier’s anecdotes (almost boasting) about places he’d been looking for fossils.

Also, I don’t know if Brasier is English or Welsh or what, but my teeth started slowly grinding when he brought in Arthurian analogies. Arthur never looked for the grail, never. It’s the same issue with basic facts that I found in Secret Chambers when he repeated common apocryphal stories as fact, except even more personally annoying because this is Arthur and I spent most of my degree studying Arthur as deeply as Brasier studies fossils. It’s an idiosyncratic reaction, I know, but it was still annoying. The Arthurian stuff felt weird, shoehorned in, especially when Brasier was doing research for Oxford University in Scotland. I could understand it more if he was a fellow of a Welsh university or something.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Ringworld

Posted June 1, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Ringworld by Larry NivenRingworld, Larry Niven

Read this for the Cardiff SF/F book club! I’ve been meaning to read this for a while, since it’s in the SF Masterworks list — and deservedly so, I think. Some of the attitudes to the female characters grossed me out, and there is a casual rape joke thrown in — basically a recurring theme is that it’s a woman’s job to keep the men on her team from going nuts. By having sex with them. Still, the main female character does have an arc of her own through the story which is all tied up with her character and everything else in the book; we’re very much given the impression that all of it is happening because of her.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff here, really: the idea of the Ringworld, the idea of breeding a population for luck (and the exploration of the effects that would have), the aliens’ interactions with one another… There’s a lot of background here that the book uses, without flinging it all at you at once. The style is pretty immersive: you’re right in there with the main character, using the technology of his world, etc. The science is mostly in the background; I gather this was intended to be hard-SF and then gets mocked for some issues, but that isn’t obtrusive for a layperson at all.

It’s also pretty readable, partly because the science is mostly kept in the background, partly because the set-up is interesting enough to make up for frustrations with the characters (and even then, their interactions are interesting, and it’s not as if they don’t call each other on their bullshit).

Given all that, I’m not all that enthused about reading more of Niven’s work. It’s nice to read the classics sometimes, but I tend to prefer character-driven stories, with human motives driving it; this was definitely not that, as many of the things that happened were ginormous coincidences that only happened for plot reasons. People didn’t have much free will of their own, this way.

For taking an idea and following it logically through, I originally gave this four stars, but after discussion with the SF/F group, I decided to revise it down. Louis is basically a Sad Puppy; this is the kind of fiction the puppies laud, and a lot of it doesn’t sit well with me. It got past my defences because when I read something from the 70s, I automatically give it an of its time tag in my head. Which is a bit silly when it’s being republished in the Masterworks series now as still relevant. Still, the ideas themselves and the consistency of them worked for me, and it was in no way a chore to read (unlike, say, the sequels to Dune, sigh).

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Peacemaker

Posted May 31, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Peacemaker, Marianne de PierresPeacemaker, Marianne de Pierres
Received to review via Netgalley

I’ve been meaning to read something by Marianne de Pierres for ages. I don’t know if this was a good place to start, but I usually enjoy Angry Robot books; they usually have interesting ideas, and they’re quick reads. And I got this on Netgalley before I cut down my requesting habits, so I have finally, finally got round to reading it. And I enjoyed it! It keeps up a hell of a pace, there’s a bunch of interesting mysteries (some characters are mysteries in themselves, there’s a larger mystery which causes all the mayhem, and there’s an ongoing question yet to be solved, presumably awaiting further books), etc.

In some cases, it felt a little too scattered, waiting for something to pull it all together: why is Heart so involved in Virgin’s life? Why does Hamish care? How much does any given character know about what’s going on? And some things felt a little too convenient/easy. The park is easy to picture, but other areas less so: Virgin doesn’t spend nearly as much time describing anywhere but the park, which makes sense with her character, but still. The near-future setting kept throwing me: where exactly is the technology in relation to ours? Etc.

Overall, it’s fun. A bit Western-y, a bit urban fantasy, a bit near-future spec-fic. There’s a pretty diverse cast of characters, and nearly all of them have a role to play — there’s no, or at least few, throwaway characters who are just there to prop up a bit of the plot.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Without a Summer

Posted May 30, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Cover of Without a SummerWithout a Summer, Mary Robinette Kowal

When I’m just reading this and not thinking too much about it, I love it. If I try and pick nits, I’m less enthused — like sometimes I just think about Jane’s behaviour for a moment too long, and want to slap her down. She jumps to conclusions, acts like Melody is brainless, dismisses her… If I think about it too much, my frustrations with Jane take the shine off things a little.

So: why I like it — it’s so easy to read. I love the relationship between Vincent and Jane, at least as far as he’s concerned; I think she could stand to trust him more, but I also think that there’s reasons she doesn’t and that she works on it, which helps. I love the small ways the trauma of his past is made clear: very little is said about his father, it’s all in the way he acts, in the little tells like the nervous whine at the back of his throat… I liked Vincent’s mother’s part, the way her actions speak of the same traumas, and yet also of love and determination.

I like the political plot behind this, too: the use of real history interwoven with the magic of this world, the issues with Irish people and problems of interaction between aristocracy and working people… It works pretty well, for me at least.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Steal Across The Sky

Posted May 29, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Steal Across The Sky by Nancy KressSteal Across the Sky, Nancy Kress
Review from January 1st, 2013

I didn’t really intend to read Steal Across the Sky all in one evening, it just sort of happened. It’s the first of my books for a challenge which I might or might not fully participate in, the Worlds Without End female writers challenge for 2013. I’ve meant to read Nancy Kress for ages, and I actually have Beggars in Spain somewhere to read, but on impulse I chose this one.

It’s an interesting concept, or bundle of concepts: people are chosen to bear witness to the results of a crime committed by aliens long ago, and to take that knowledge back to the human race. But it’s not a book about aliens — we barely see the aliens — it’s a book about humans and how we might react, how things might change, if those Witnesses existed and came back with the news of what they saw.

Nancy Kress seems to be, from this at least, a good judge of what people are like. The whole range of responses is here, and a range of different personality-types to react to each other in all the ways people do, seeing things from different sides. My main quibble was that it felt very much like the narrative took a side in the whole debate, so I was very sure what the truth was. I would rather have wondered a little more, or even a lot more.

It’s not so much about specific people and personal emotions, but about the central concept, and how it affects everyday people. There was enough personality there, though, to keep a character-orientated person like me reading. Once I’d picked this up, apart from a break to wash my hair, I read it more or less in one go — it had me thinking, which is sometimes more important than feeling when it comes to books.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Gifts

Posted May 28, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Gifts, by Ursula Le GuinGifts, Ursula Le Guin

Gifts is a quiet story, in the way that Ursula Le Guin can do really well: those moments of silence, introspection, contemplation. It isn’t my favourite of her books, but I love the things she explores here: the longing of parents to see their children succeed; love within families; grieving and loss; trying to choose the lesser evil… Orrec’s voluntary blindness and the way it affects the world around him, his fears and his wants, are beautiful; Canoc is a wonderful portrait of a difficult man: difficult to love, impossible to hate.

The whole feel of the book is really epitomised by Gry, for me; her quiet loyalty and determination, her love of Orrec which is undemanding and completely rock-solid. Their friendship and later the love between them is perfect.

I’m looking forward to rereading the rest of this trilogy; as I recall, the other two books feature more suspense and tension, and less of the solid quietness of this book. All of them have their own loveliness, though: it’s Le Guin, so how not?

Rating: 4/5

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