Review – Silk: The Life and Times of Cindy Moon

Posted May 26, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Silk by Robbie Thompson and Stacey LeeSilk: The Life and Times of Cindy Moon, Robbie Thompson, Stacey Lee

The main complaint I’ve heard about this (and Spider-Gwen, and Spider-Woman) is basically “oh noez, they’ve got WOMEN all up in my comics!” To which I say: “heck yeah, about time.” Silk’s first solo volume is reasonable, though the themes are familiar — Jessica Drew had some of the same adjustment problems from her spidery-past, Cindy has to learn to do the whole great-power-and-responsibility thing, coping with a normal life, and so on.

It’s fun enough, though not outstanding, and somewhat hobbled by the fact that it almost immediately gets swallowed up by Secret Wars at the end of the volume. That certainly didn’t have any kind of positive effect on solo storylines (not that I’ve seen anyone being fond of it elsewhere, either). Almost universally it just suddenly happens and derails all vestiges of solo plot.

Stacey Lee’s art is great, though — fluid lines, good expressions; it works for me very well, and I hope she illustrates future issues.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Review – Cruel Beauty

Posted May 25, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Cover of Cruel Beauty by Rosamund HodgesCruel Beauty, Rosamund Hodges

There were some aspects of this Beauty and the Beast reworking I found really interesting — mostly, the Greek mythology that was mixed in. It didn’t feel like a typical woodsy-castle-y faux-medieval-y setting, which was refreshing, and the references to the Kindly Ones — aka the Furies — worked pretty well for me. The complex relationship between Nyx and her sister was actually kind of interesting too; it’s not straightforward, because everything is not as it first appears, and neither of them are honest to each other.

But otherwise, there were a lot of aspects of this I just couldn’t get into. Both the relationships the main character had just felt off, despite the attempt to show a dichotomy between the two where one, to borrow Tolkien’s phrasing, ‘looks foul and feels fair’ and vice versa (except mostly acts/feels; they’re both handsome, as I recall). The romance tends to the insta-love trope, and given that Ignifex never makes himself really pleasant (unlike, say, T. Kingfisher’s Beast in Bryony and Roses).

There are some interesting aspects, as I said, but looking back at it as I write this somewhat belated review, it definitely never came together for me, and it didn’t really become memorable either.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Review – Tehanu

Posted May 24, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Tehanu by Ursula Le GuinTehanu, Ursula Le Guin

This still wasn’t a favourite book for me in the Earthsea sequence, because it deals so much with the consequences of what happened to Ged in The Farthest Shore. Considering I’m not a great fan of that plot (though I have come to appreciate it more as an artistic choice and for the way it changes Earthsea), I guess it’s not surprising that I’m not such a fan — even though, like The Tombs of Atuan, this brings the female point of view to the fore and deals with some of the issues of sexism in the world.

The brief glimpse of Lebanen as the young king is lovely, and the understanding Tenar and Ged eventually come to is too. The stuff about the friendship between women, and the way Tenar realises that she’s totally failed to raise the kind of man she’d like for a son, also works pretty well.

But it takes away Ged’s dignity — and that, more than the loss of his power, I dislike intensely. He’s always been proud, and here… he can’t fight, can’t save himself. He needs Therru and the dragons.

So as with The Farthest Shore, I see the thematic importance. I just… don’t like it that much.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted May 24, 2016 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

This week’s theme is an interesting one: ten books I feel differently about now time has passed. There’s a lot of books I feel that way about from when I was a kid, of course, but I’ll try to go for more recent stuff.

  1. Cocaine Blues, Kerry Greenwood. I reaaaally changed my opinion on this one, and ended up devouring the whole series. But the first time I tried it, I hated it.
  2. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. I’ve always liked reading it, but I’ve gone through periods of being more or less critical. There was one point where I didn’t dare reread it, because I thought I’d find it too racist, sexist, simplistic… But thanks to Ursula Le Guin’s writing on Tolkien’s work, and then studying it during my MA, I’ve come to appreciate it a lot more. A lot of the things people complain about post-Tolkien fantasy really are post-Tolkien — he didn’t bring them in. Derivativeness, lack of thought about the implications of this choice or that on the world — I’ve come to see that lack of thought was never Tolkien’s problem, though it has been a problem for people after him.
  3. The Diamond Throne, David Eddings. I’ve had a long succession of feelings about this too; loved it and thought it really romantic as a kid, grew up and thought it was crappy and derivative, but recently I reread a bit and thought it was kind of funny anyway. (Even if Sparhawk and Ehlana is actually a creepy relationship.)
  4. Chalice, Robin McKinley. I think I originally gave this one three stars, but I keep thinking about it and I’ve read it again since and I just… I love it.
  5. Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton. Didn’t love this the first time, fell right into it on a reread. The right book at the right time, I guess.
  6. The Farthest Shore, Ursula Le Guin. This is less one that I’ve got to like more, and more one I appreciate more. I’m still not a big fan of it and wouldn’t idly pick it up the way I would, say, The Tombs of Atuan. But I see its purpose and beauty.
  7. Across the Nightingale Floor, Lian Hearn. I loved this at the time, but I don’t know if it’d stand up to that now. I’m a little afraid to try, so I think that counts for the list?
  8. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden. I know in how many ways this is exploitative and so on, but I did love this at one point. Another one I don’t think I’ll try again.
  9. Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country, Rosalind Miles. I might like this more now that I read more romance, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. My opinion got worse and worse as I read more of her books.
  10. The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart. The misogyny drove me mad the first time, but I actually appreciated parts of it more the second time.

That was… harder than I expected. Although I was also distracted by being a backseat driver to my partner playing Assassin’s Creed.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Divider

Review – The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage

Posted May 23, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney PaduaThe Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, Sydney Padua

This seemed like a comic perhaps more for my partner than me (and lo, she did love it), but I wanted to give it a try too after hearing some stuff about it on the radio… somewhere. And Robert kindly sent me his copy to peruse, so I had no excuse (and didn’t really want to find one anyway). I like the art — it’s cute, but not too cute; lively and character-ful, without feeling like caricature. And the sense of humour suits mine pretty well too.

If you’re looking for a serious what-if about the Difference Engine, then this isn’t really your show; the comic itself is more about the characters, their endearing characteristics, their partnership. It’s based heavily on material surviving from the correspondence of and commentary on Lovelace and Babbage, but the events themselves are fanciful, often ludicrous, for the sake of a fun rather than “educational” comic. It works well, if that’s what you’re here for — and even if you aren’t, there’s a whole wealth of info contained in the footnotes and the appendices.

One thing I did find awkward about reading this was how busy the pages are. Text! Everywhere! Here’s a footnote there’s a footnote and another little footnote! My brain is not very good visually at all, so I found it cluttered and distracting at times. Colour might have helped; maybe not.

Still, overall fun and yes please to Ada Lovelace as hero.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – The Movement: Fighting for the Future

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

Cover of The Movement vol 2 by Gail SimoneThe Movement: Fighting for the Future, Gail Simone, Freddy Williams II, Chris Sotomayor

Volume two of The Movement is a little disappointing in that it’s also the last volume. Some things are wrapped up, but really you’re just left feeling this frustrated sense of how much has been left undone, how much potential exists within this mismatched group of characters. I love the fact that the story itself brings this up, in a way: people warn Virtue that her team doesn’t fit in with how existing superheroes work and think, and she says essentially, well, one day they’ll have to. Change is coming.

Change is coming, and maybe The Movement was a little too soon, a little too blatantly diverse, a little too brazen about being a new sort of superhero team. Maybe it’s just that it’s difficult to launch a new set of superheroes without serious support — some of which the team gets, in Batgirl’s appearance in a couple of issues. Successful as the Young Avengers have been, they don’t have a current comic either, while Cap and Iron Man and all the mainstays are going on (and on, and on).

I love what we did get, though: a complex team made up of people who complement and clash with each other in equal measure. It’s a team of diverse voices, not only in terms of skin colour and country-of-origin and sexuality, but in terms of political ideals too. Katharsis is fairly blatantly not down with some of the more liberal ideas held by other members of the team. Burden comes from a religiously conservative background and is only just opening up to new ideas. It’s not just a liberal hippie love fest.

And on a lighter note: I love that we saw the hinted-at date between Virtue and Rainmaker. Cute.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , , , ,

Divider

Review – Grave Secrets of the Dinosaurs

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

Cover of Grave Secrets of DinosaursGrave Secrets of the Dinosaurs, Phillip Manning

Finding an intact skeleton of a dinosaur is rare enough: some of the famous specimens that look complete actually aren’t, with gaps filled in by guesswork, or from other skeletons. Partial finds are much more common — but even then, compared to all the dinosaurs that ever lived, the number that survive in some form as fossils is tiny. Every find provides new clues: an impression of skin, the hint of a feather, the presence or absence of marks which tell us how dinosaurs stood or walked.

This book is about the holy grail of paleontology: mummies, i.e. remains with soft tissue preservation. They can tell us an astonishing number of things about a corpse, and they can even include preserved biological molecules that can be tested — perhaps even DNA. This book goes through the past discoveries which have fuelled hope for soft tissue preservation, and given a lot of food for research in themselves, but the main point is an almost totally preserved specimen from Dakota. It includes background into the research and the discovery, and then a few chapters on what’s happening now. Frustratingly, it went to print before the research was complete, so readers might be left wondering if the Dakota mummy was ever successfully scanned, etc, and what that might have revealed.

It’s very much a work on an evolving situation: there’s more to learn from Dakota than is contained in these pages. That’s for sure. But that could be the case for years and years to come, so I’m glad this book exists and is accessible to laypeople.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves

Posted May 21, 2016 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

This week hasn’t been great for reading, but my assignment is finally done, and it was the last one for this module! So maybe I can relax a bit now? I started off the relaxation in style with some new books, of course…

New books:

Cover of The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor Cover of Horns of Ruin by Tim Akers Cover of The Tempering of Men by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear Cover of Lois Lane: Double Down by Gwenda Bond

Cover of An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire Cover of The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher Cover of Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald Cover of A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

A mixed bag, which probably surprises no one. I’ve already finished reading The Book of Phoenix; it might be the Nnedi Okorafor book I appreciate the most so far! The other stuff is mostly from my wishlist, except The Horns of Ruin, which was an impulse buy. Oh, and The Tempering of Men, because I finished the first book earlier this week.

Books to review:

Cover of An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows Cover of Tremontaine, by various Cover of The Fireman by Joe Hill

I’ve read some of Foz Meadows’ blog posts and such, I think? Anyway, I enjoy how rainbow-y the cover is and the fact that it’s openly queertastic. Tremontaine and The Fireman I’ve been hearing a lot about…

Books finished:

Cover of A Companion to Wolves by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette Cover of Ashoka by Charles Allen Cover of The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor Cover of The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher

Reviews posted:
Captain America: Civil War Prelude, by Corona Pilgrim et al. I was not impressed by the lack of new content in this tie-in release. If you’ve seen the other Marvel films, or even just a good selection of them, you’re good to go. 2/5 stars
The Bread We Eat in Dreams, by Catherynne M. Valente. A varied and typically gorgeous collection. If you’re a fan of Valente, you’ve probably read some of these before — but probably not all… 3/5 stars
Dead Man’s Chest, by Kerry Greenwood. Another strong outing for Phryne, and it introduces a secondary character who I rather hope will stick around. 3/5 stars
The Door into Fire, by Diane Duane. A book well-deserving of the nostalgic love people have for it. I love the way it deals with polyamorous relationships, without them being idyllic, but without demonising any of the participants either. 4/5 stars
The Movement: Class Warfare, by Gail Simone and Freddie Williams III. This is basically like Gotham, if it was policed not by Batman, but by the 99%. I didn’t like the reread as much as the initial read way back in 20…14? But still fun, and really cool and diverse characters. 4/5 stars
The Sin-Eater’s Daughter, by Melinda Salisbury. I think it’d be hard for a book to match up to that gorgeous cover, and so it proved. But I enjoyed the story well enough, and it caught me by surprise… 3/5 stars
Flashback Friday: Kalpa Imperial, by Angélica Gorodischer, trans. Ursula Le Guin. An interesting what-if, and I think it’d appeal to fans of Le Guin’s writing and world building. There’s something of the same flavour. 4/5 stars

How’s everyone else been? Good weather where you are? Any reading achievements to share?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – Kalpa Imperial

Posted May 20, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Kalpa Imperial by Angélica GorodischerKalpa Imperial, Angélica Gorodischer, trans. Ursula Le Guin

Originally reviewed September 30th, 2012

If you like Ursula Le Guin’s work, it’s worth trying Kalpa Imperial, even though Le Guin isn’t the author, only the translator. She was obviously the ideal choice of translator for Gorodischer’s style; there’s no sense of distance from the story, or rather stories, that you often get with translations.

It’s a bit of a strange book, a collection of connected stories that don’t follow on from each other — often the only link is in the common setting of the Empire That Never Was. Consequently, there is little character development (though the narrative voices are to some extent characters in themselves), and each story is just a window on a world that doesn’t exist, with very little context and very little pausing to explain. If you want to know everything about everything, this will prove more frustrating than anything, I think.

But I think it was well done, anyway, with the mythic tone and the air of half-remembered history. Some of the stories are more fascinating than others, but I enjoyed all of them.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – The Sin Eater’s Daughter

Posted May 19, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 9 Comments

Cover of The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda SalisburyThe Sin Eater’s Daughter, Melinda Salisbury

The cover for this book is just gorgeous, and between that and the first chapter, it really drew me in. There are some interesting concepts and politics, actually: I was worried from some of the reviews that it really wouldn’t hit that mark, but the way the queen uses the people around her, even her son, does actually manage to hit some interesting notes. There are a couple of twists I wasn’t really expecting, but in that way where they made sense when they happened, so kudos on that.

Overall, though, thinking about it now, it feels rather thin. I liked the concept of Twylla’s power and was quite prepared for it to be real; the way the plot plays out is actually a little disappointing, since the original idea is so tantalising. It’s also pretty heavy on the romance, and though there are one or two good scenes, mostly I wasn’t that taken with it. The title is disappointing, too; Twylla might be the sin-eater’s daughter, but that’s not really important to the plot, doesn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. A lot of what I found interesting — like the sin eating — was background, or not real, while the elements I was least interested in were focused on.

Enjoyable enough, but not something I’m desperate to read more of. I’m glad I haven’t already picked up The Sleeping Prince; I might in the end, but not immediately.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider