Posted May 23, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The 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: book reviews, books, comics
Posted May 22, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The 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: book reviews, books, comics, DC, Gail Simone
Posted May 21, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Grave 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: book reviews, books, non-fiction
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:
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:
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:
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: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup
Posted May 20, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Kalpa 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: book reviews, books, Flashback Friday
Posted May 19, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 9 Comments
The 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: book reviews, books, romance, SF/F
Posted May 18, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Movement: Class Warfare, Gail Simone, Freddie Williams II
It took me so long to get around to reading the second volume of The Movement, I thought I’d better reread the first. Perhaps it was very much of its moment, both in terms of the content and in terms of the effect on me: I wasn’t as taken with it this time round, though there’s still lots to love. The diversity of the characters, in terms of sexuality and gender and even political views. It’s great for the way the characters struggle against each other: they don’t automatically have the same opinions, and some of them clash on fairly fundamental levels (and yet friendship can win out — note to US politicians: try not seeing your opponent as total scum).
The art is still awesome; I love Virtue and Rainmaker in particular. And Tremor. Okay, I just love the art, okay. I do wish at times there was a bit of a brighter colour palette — I can tell I’m reading a DC comic just from the gloomy colouring! Though it is also appropriate to the world that these characters are living in, so it does make sense. (Marvel’s Young Avengers are a much more privileged group, after all.)
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, DC, Gail Simone
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
