Category: Reviews

Review – Station Eleven

Posted March 26, 2015 by in Reviews / 13 Comments

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

I originally received this to review, but have actually bought a copy in the meantime because I took too long about getting to it — and some of my friends were very enthusiastic about it.

I’m actually finding this one a difficult one to review, anyway. The prose is great, and the interweaving of the plots, the character arcs, and the way the different time periods are handled… all of that worked very well for me. The set-up of the world, too: the plague, the way people survive, the existence of something like the Travelling Symphony (though it did remind me of Genevieve Valentine’s Mechanique). It just… doesn’t seem to be sticking with me. I finished it last night and I’m already forgetting details and connections.

Maybe part of it is that I didn’t really form an emotional connection to anyone. The way it shifts between central characters caused that, somewhat: I was never sure who was coming back, who was incidental. And sometimes the characters were just… drifting through their lives without purpose. The actor, for example, his hopping between wives and his callousness to his friends; he’s a well-written character, and yet not one I can be passionate about.

I think maybe what it really lacked for me was a sense of destination. “Survival” is all the characters aim for, and there’s no one unifying thing that they’re all drawn toward, so that their coming together feels unimportant. I don’t usually need some big epic event as a book’s climax, but it didn’t seem like this had a climax — it was more a character study, a world study, which normally I would enjoy, but because I didn’t really connect with any of the characters, it didn’t elevate the novel beyond “well, objectively I can see it’s well-written”.

I hesitate over giving it a rating, because I normally rate by enjoyment, but also by a sense of ‘okay, I’ll take a star off for x and y’. I don’t want to dock it stars, though, and yet it doesn’t merit the highest accolades I’ve given to books like The Goblin Emperor. I’m going to have to go with three stars (‘liked it’) — which is not to say it’s not a good book, maybe even a five star book in some ways, but it just can’t touch the involvement I’ve had with books I’ve given five stars.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Yesterday's Kin

Posted March 25, 2015 by in Reviews / 3 Comments

Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress
Received to review via Netgalley

This novella has two complementary storylines, really: each relies on the other to give it more meaning and to create tension, although each could be a satisfying story on its own. One thread of the story isn’t SF at all, as such: it’s about family and belonging, knowing who you are and knowing who your family are. The other thread is fairly typical SF: an alien civilisation contact Earth saying that they are very close to humans, genetically, and that a disease that devastated them is coming toward Earth. So then there’s a scramble to find a cure or a vaccine, with plenty of secrets and inequalities in the relationships, etc, etc.

Where the two come together is in the customs of the aliens, which emphasise family, and one of the scientists from the humans, who has besides her interests in genetics a somewhat dysfunctional family. I’m not going to spoil the various twists in the story which weave the two threads together, because I found it fairly predictable even without hints!

My main feeling is one that I’ve had before with Kress’ writing: I didn’t really feel the emotions deeply. It seemed like I should, but there was something distant about the characters. I could relate to them fine, but I almost didn’t believe their emotional moments, their turmoil. It was quite weird, intellectually recognising each reaction and knowing it was appropriate for the situation, and yet somehow not feeling as if it was real for the character.

Overall, I liked the ideas and the way the two threads work together, and though I’d begun to expect the twist, I did enjoy the way it happened. I just didn’t feel much for the story.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Nancy Kress, SF/F

Review – Myth and Magic

Posted March 24, 2015 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

Myth and Magic, ed. Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman
Received to review via Netgalley

Normally I quite enjoy queer retellings of fairytales — I’ve written a couple, because it’s just fun to take such a familiar story and wring the heteronormativity out of it. I’ve enjoyed stories like Malinda Lo’s Ash greatly. But most of these took the same sort of tone, flippant and trivial — which is fine, but not what I’m interested in right now. There are some fun ideas, some humorous bits, but there’s also some aspects that make me wince: the idea that only one sort of boy (a gay one) would wear a felt scarf to dinner. Whaaaat? Stereotypes, really? Gah.

It wouldn’t be so bad if those stereotypes weren’t still harmful. In so many ways, it’s ridiculous to look at someone and say, “Oh, you look gay.” Or whatever. It’s not funny yet because it’s still so harmful.

Shrug. Mostly left me cold, though some of the stories were better than others.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic

Review – Elizabeth is Missing

Posted March 23, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey

Elizabeth is Missing is a very interesting play on the unreliable narrator. Maud isn’t unreliable because she’s lying or because she has anything to hide – or not exactly. She’s unreliable because she can’t hold onto her memories or make coherent sense of the things around her. It might sound a bit like a weird mystery novel: you could imagine it like that, with Maud being really sane but being gaslighted by the people around her into believing she’s crazy, and that’s why none of them will listen to her when she talks about Elizabeth. But it’s more mundane than that, at least for one strand of the plot.

The real mystery is in Maud’s memories of her sister, Sukey, who went missing. There’s a great sense of time and place here, putting it so firmly in post-WWII Britain in the same way as those youthful memories are the most vivid for elderly people. There’s a lot of really great description, too, which is partly facilitated by the fact that Maud doesn’t remember things right. You can make the most mundane things fresh and new if they’re a surprise to the narrator; you can tilt the world slightly off-balance like that. Healey does pretty well with that, and with the narration; to me, she balances a lot of things very well.

For example, it’d be easy to show the impatient daughter who just won’t listen to her senile mother. But it’s not like that in real life for most people; it’s just that people are impatient, and will say a sharp thing or roll their eyes or utter something sotto voce just to help themselves cope with what’s going on. And we see Helen like that; we see her trying to be patient, trying to understand, and sometimes coming up short. If there’s a carer in the world, especially a family member, who doesn’t feel like that, well, get them sainted.

It’d also be easy to really mess up the narration, over-exaggerating the things Maud forgets, making her memory come and go too conveniently for the story, smoothing over the edges of the illness to give us a tidy ending. Healey doesn’t fall to that temptation, either.

I can see why you might find it tedious, too painful to read, too disjointed; I liked the slow unfurling of the mysteries, even when I expected the endings, and I laud Healey for writing an elderly heroine with patience and understanding.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, mystery

Review – Half A King

Posted March 22, 2015 by in Reviews / 5 Comments

Half a King, Joe Abercrombie

I originally had this as an ARC. It’s now out in paperback, so I do actually own a copy. I feel terrible about taking so long to get round to it; I can only cite a long, long, long, long… backlog. Also, I wasn’t sure if I was in the mood; I’ve read the First Law trilogy, and that is generally pretty violent and depressing. This was still… gritty, I guess, though that word might be overused, but the characters and situation are interesting enough.

I was actually amused by the parallels (initially) with The Goblin Emperor, which I love so much. It took almost every trope I was glad that Addison avoided, and used them to spin a new story. The result isn’t entirely original (I mean, I could go “oh goodie, it’s about time for the epic cross country trek followed by a battle”), but it is fun and very readable, and Abercrombie can ditch the worst of the profanity and write something that most people wouldn’t mind their teen reading. (I shouldn’t be surprised, given I know Chuck Wendig can do it too, and that man loves profanity like I love ketchup.)

Overall, the result is an interesting bunch of characters, a not-so-typical relationship between some of them (like, the teenage crush doesn’t come to anything), and a very readable book. I’ve got Half the World from the library, and intend to get to it very soon.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Joe Abercrombie, SF/F

Review – Speaking from Among the Bones

Posted March 21, 2015 by in Reviews / 3 Comments

Speaking from Among the Bones, Alan Bradley

I do like this series — and tear through the books — when I get round to reading it, but I don’t particularly feel a pressure to keep up. There’s just something too precious about Flavia, and indeed the whole portrayal of idyllic British country life after the Second World War. My usual pet peeves with this series are firmly in place, in that sense.

But it is nice to just relax into it and enjoy the family’s weirdnesses, the unusual set up for the mystery, the intrepid Famous Five feel you get from Flavia — and the fact that hey, she’s a young girl who is great at chemistry, who deserves and demands respect from the people around her for what she can do. Sometimes she overshoots (and, ah, I think I do recognise myself in that; I was quite a mature kid, but also very aware of it and keen for people to know, which then veers toward being immature again), but mostly she’s quite right that she deserves some respect. I do enjoy her little crush on the inspector, too.

The last line is clearly set up for Things To Change, and I’m quite looking forward to that. There’s a formula now to these books; I hope the next book breaks it, at least somewhat.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: Alan Bradley, book reviews, books, crime, mystery

Review – Wildwood Dancing

Posted March 20, 2015 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier
Review from 23rd January, 2011

Wildwood Dancing is a very interesting blend of several different fairytales and folklore: the seven dancing princesses, the princess and the frog, stories of vampires and fairies. I love fairytale retellings, and it was interesting to see the way these were all put together in a reasonably historical framework, in Romania — with strong touches of realism, when the girls were going about their ordinary lives.

Unfortunately, for me, there was something all too predictable about it. I’d answered all the questions long before the narrator, Jena, even thought to ask them. I knew the identity of Gogu, and what Cezar had done, and what would happen to Costi… At some point, I’ve read a book very like this, or enough books that were like this to tie them all together and make an Ur-Wildwood Dancing in my head! That made it rather less fun for me, since I knew how it would all go and I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, constantly.

With that in mind, I’m not sure how much I actually enjoyed reading it. Everything just seemed so familiar — and I’m absolutely positive I haven’t read it before. If you enjoy fairytale retellings, I think it’s worth a try, and I haven’t been put off Juliet Marillier entirely: I’m going to read Cybele’s Secret, at least, which is the sequel to this. I’m told the narrator is one of the sisters from this story, but not Jena. I wanted more depth in Paula, Iulia and Stela, so perhaps Cybele’s Secret will provide. If not, I’ll give one of her other books from a different series a try, and then perhaps give it up if that doesn’t work out… I really want to like what Marillier does — and in some ways, her work reminds me of Robin McKinley’s: that was a part of the familiarity I had with the writing, I think — but this was just too, too predictable for me.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Flashback Friday, Juliet Marillier, SF/F

Review – Sand and Ruin and Gold

Posted March 19, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Sand and Ruin and Gold, Alexis Hall
Received to review via Netgalley

This is… not a romance. It’s something strange and sad; a fairytale with an ending that isn’t precisely happy or sad. The writing is lovely, and the descriptions of the mermaids as something wholly other really works. The relationship — is it a relationship? — between the narrator and the merman is strange, and the more realistic for being ambiguous, for being… what it is, a strange union between two species where one has more power over the other, where one is a captive and the other is, nominally, in control.

It’s not a very long story, at all, but it’s just the right length; someone else commented that it feels like the background to a novel rather than a story in itself, but I definitely didn’t feel that way. I would’ve liked more, more explanations, more depth to the world, but I didn’t feel as if it was necessary.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic, SF/F

Review – The Importance of Being Earnest

Posted March 18, 2015 by in Reviews / 4 Comments

The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde

I don’t think there’s much I have to say about this that hasn’t been said. Like, gee, did you know Wilde was really witty and satirical? I know, it shocked me too… But in all seriousness, even reading this rather than seeing it performed, it has a wonderful flow and wit, and it’s really funny. I don’t normally have much patience with plays, because they’re so much flatter on the page, and you don’t get the fun of watching actors/directors interpreting them, but I really enjoyed this anyway.

And yes, yes, I know; it’s disgraceful I have two English Lit degrees and this is the first time I’ve ever read The Importance of Being Earnest. I can only say that Wilde was a bit too recent for me…

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books

Review – The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons

Posted March 17, 2015 by in Reviews / 4 Comments

The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons, Sam Kean

I’d been eyeing this for a while, but Robert really convinced me to read it. I was worried with that title it would be a bit too silly, but I shouldn’t have worried. The tone can be light, and there are a few jokes cracked and some wry asides, but it’s more scientific than the title suggests, while still being accessible to the general reader. A lot of the cases it discusses were ones I was already aware of, but it added depth and colour. I really need to get round to reading Permanent Present Tense, a book about “H.M.”, or Henry Molaison, which I’ve already got, and I’m curious about Clive Wearing’s wife’s book about his condition (though this youtube video gives you some idea).

It also added information about scientists who’ve studied the brain, though I kept muddling up my timelines and getting confused about who discovered what and when, and how it impacted everyone else. It’s arranged more thematically than chronologically, although there is a certain chronological element too (throughout the book, it moves toward more recent incidents and discoveries), so the timeline doesn’t matter incredibly.

Altogether, I found it a good primer on the science and history of neurology, for a casual reader, and the notes and such at the back offer plenty more places to dig for interesting information. (Where the library has any of these rather specialised books might be another matter, alas.) Best of all, it never feels like a lecture: the tone is warm, and the author finds the best in people and theories rather than mocking previous insights that turned out to be wrong. Which is wise, since we don’t understand the brain yet, and all of this may yet be overturned again…

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction