Review – Daughter of Necessity

Posted July 5, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 7 Comments

Cover of Daughter of Necessity by Marie BrennanDaughter of Necessity, Marie Brennan

I don’t normally review short stories and such, but this one caught my eye and I love the cover, so why not? It’s available to read online, for free, here; it’s not a long read, not even really a retelling, but a glimpse behind the scenes. A clever take on a piece of mythology we often take at face value. It answers one simple question.

Why does Penelope weave and unpick a funeral shroud for her husband to delay the suitors?

She’s a clever woman, and this puts her in an active role, taking a hand in her own fate and even her husband and son’s fate. The passive woman of the Homeric epic steps aside to reveal a woman who takes her own fate into her hands.

It helps that the writing is lovely. I can’t pick out a single line or passage: it’s mostly simple, with some of the imagery and phrasing from translations of Homeric verse, maybe a bit of Ovid. It hits just the right note. I do kind of want more, just because I really like the way Brennan interprets the story.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – Ancillary Justice

Posted July 4, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments

Cover of Ancillary Justice by Ann LeckieAncillary Justice, Ann Leckie

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about this one. It swept the awards for the year it came out, and many of my friends adored it, but the first time I tried to read it I bounced off, and my partner wasn’t a huge fan. Fortunately, I did really like it; enough that I’m in a hurry to read Ancillary Sword, at least. I’m not sure if it’s a five star read — that might have to await a reread — but it is definitely a solid four star.

It did take me at least 50 pages to really get into it, maybe even more like 100. There’s a lot to take in, with the language stuff and the world-building. The world-building is awesome, and I’d be a hypocrite to dislike the language stuff here when it’s as consistent as Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, and less obtrusive/central — so that’s not a complaint, just an observation: it took some getting used to. It also took some time for me to get to grips with the characters, particularly the main character. Breq isn’t, in her own eyes, a person, merely a fragment of an AI, so she minimises her own account of her personality, and that makes it awkward.

Still, the details of the world and Breq’s place within it build up, and the plot comes together really well. Unexpectedly, I found myself interested in Seivarden, really really hoping that Lieutenant Awn made it okay, feeling weird about the Lord of the Radch, etc. The feelings part, the emotional engagement, snuck up on me. But it came, and left me hungry for more of the world, to know what happens to Breq, to Seivarden, to the Radch.

Good thing I have Ancillary Sword right here.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves

Posted July 4, 2015 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

Yet more shenanigans in Canadian bookshops! Why do I gotta go home?

Cover of Dreams of Shreds & Tatters by Amanda Downum Cover of Sing the Four Quarters by Tanya Huff Cover of Fifth Quarter by Tanya Huff

Cover of No Quarter by Tanya Huff Cover of The Quartered Sea by Tanya Huff Cover of Summon the Keeper by Tanya Huff

Cover of Artemis Awakening by Jane Lindskold Cover of The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison Cover of The Stone Prince by Fiona Patton

And yes, I already had The Goblin Emperor, but as an ebook, which isn’t ideal for flipping to the back and checking the extra stuff. Plus, excuse to reread!

Also, a ton of comics between me and my partner…

Cover of Rat Queens: Sass and Sorcery Cover of Sex Criminals vol 2 by Matt Fraction Cover of The Movement vol 2 by Gail Simone

Cover of ODY-C vol 1 by Matt Fraction Cover of Ms Marvel: Crushed by G. Willow Wilson

I think that’s the end of my Canadian book spree, particularly since I’m no longer sure this lot will fit back into my suitcase to go home… What’s everyone else been grabbing?

Tags: ,

Divider

Review – Song for a Dark Queen

Posted July 3, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 7 Comments

Cover of Song for a Dark Queen by Rosemary SutcliffSong for a Dark Queen, Rosemary Sutcliff
Review from 10th November, 2011

I found, in a corner of my university library I’d never seen before, a couple of Rosemary Sutcliff’s books I hadn’t read. This was one of them — the story of Boudicca, as told by her harper, interspersed with extracts from the letters of a Roman soldier to his mother. I think this is maybe the most female-centric of Sutcliff’s books that I can think of, and yet it’s told in the voice of a man, so there’s that. As with all Sutcliff’s books, it was readable and well-paced, and well-researched: there’s a poetry to it, too. The end made me choke up a little, even.

I don’t know why I didn’t like it more. I think there was just something eroticised about Boudicca’s war-making, something discomforting — which is appropriate, in a way, for a dark queen… But why does her power come most when she’s eroticised and her children violated?

In that sense, too, I found it more violent than most of Sutcliff’s work — more adult, I guess. There’s references to rape, seemingly on both sides, and there’s a lot of blood and guts.

I rarely give advice to parents in my reviews, but this time I feel it’s warranted. I wouldn’t go so far as to say prevent your children from reading it, but I do think you should read this one first and assess whether your child would be alright with reading it. It discomforts me, as an adult woman; as a child, I don’t know whether the references would have gone over my head or not, but I think I would have caught the horror of it anyway.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

July TBR

Posted July 2, 2015 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

So June’s TBR didn’t really go down as well as I’d hoped. I’m gonna blame the holiday, though: so much to do, so little time. I’m not going to have everything in the catch-up section, just the ones I think I actually will get round to. Here goes…

ARCs

  1. The Raven’s Head, Karen Maitland.
  2. The Dead in their Vaulted Arches, Alan Bradley. (I know, I know. Way late.)
  3. The Philosopher Kings, Jo Walton.
  4. Adaptation, Malinda Lo.
  5. A Suitable Replacement, Megan Derr.

Library

  1. A Dance in Blood Velvet, Freda Warrington.
  2. The Goddess Chronicle, Natsuo Kirino.
  3. Half the World, Joe Abercrombie.
  4. Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling.
  5. Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling.

Owned

  1. Assassin’s Blade, Sarah J. Maas.
  2. Heir of Fire, Sarah J. Maas.
  3. Fair Game, Josh Lanyon.
  4. An Ember in the Ashes, Sabaa Tahir.
  5. Clariel, Garth Nix.

Rereads (including books counting as owned-unread because of ebook duplicates)

  1. The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch.
  2. Red Seas Under Red Skies, Scott Lynch.
  3. Powers, Ursula Le Guin.
  4. Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling.
  5. Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling.

Catching up (from last month’s TBR)

  1. Heartless, Gail Carriger.
  2. Timeless, Gail Carriger.
  3. Abhorsen, Garth Nix.
  4. Named of the Dragon, Susanna Kearsley.
  5. The Winter Sea, Susanna Kearsley.

Wildcards

  1. The Killing Kind, Chris Holm. (ARC.)
  2. One Night in Sixes, Arianne ‘Tex’ Thompson. (Bought, book club read.)
  3. Poison, Sarah Pinborough. (Library.)
  4. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling. (Challenge read.)
  5. Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. (ARC.)

ETA: tweaked this a bit because I forgot about a book challenge I was doing. Some of the original list, alas, will have to wait!

Tags:

Divider

Review – After the Golden Age

Posted July 2, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of After the Golden Age by Carrie VaughnAfter the Golden Age, Carrie Vaughn

It’s been a while since I read this the first time, so I felt I should revisit it before I read the second book, even though I gather that follows the next generation. I was right that I needed to do that: a lot goes on that I’d forgotten the details of. I think this was the first superhero novel I read, possibly before I got into comics; it’s made me eager to read as many other superhero novels as I could, though so far I’ve just got to the point of collecting them all up, not actually reading them yet…

Anyway, this is a fun story; actually, it’s not exactly a superhero story in the traditional sense, because while the main character is the daughter of superheroes, she doesn’t have any powers of her own, unless you count being a kickass accountant. I guess on a second read you can see that it’s a little bit predictable, that the characters are not all developed… it’s a little bit tropey: I can see that same parental relationship problem as there is in Perry Moore’s Hero, for example. It’s a fairly predictable problem to have if your parents are really famous, let alone if they have superpowers. Worse if you don’t have superpowers.

I did like, though, that there was a certain ambivalence about Warren. He’s a hero, sure, and he’s learned to control things. And his daughter is important to him. But then he’s also thinking mad things like dropping his daughter off a roof to see if her power is flight, and nearly attacking her because she doesn’t go his way… And then again, on the flip side of that, he’s doing his best to rein himself in and reconcile. And they don’t quite reconcile, it’s not quite that easy, but they make some moves in that direction. Celia herself is a little ambivalent: she feels like she could flip and go with the supervillains, she has spent time with her father’s main adversary primarily to split from her parents and rile him up.

The relationship with Arthur Mentis could be problematic, but they kind of deal with the fact that he knew her as a child, and the story definitely deals with the way his mindreading affects the relationship.

All in all, it’s still really enjoyable, at least to my mind, and I’m looking forward to fiiiinally reading the sequel.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Review – The City

Posted July 1, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of The City by Stella GemmellThe City, Stella Gemmell

I hoped to love this, because I have enjoyed the late David Gemmell’s work (some of it more, some less), but this just went too slow for me. I don’t necessarily mind a slow build, but this was a trope salad: it felt like typical epic fantasy, and the prose didn’t elevate it above that. Sure, the prose and setting were decent, and some aspects of the setting were really well described — the darkness, claustrophobia and caution endemic among the sewer people, for example. But it was lacking… something. A spark, some originality, characters to love; any one of those things would have rescued it, for me.

So, at around 20% of the way, I confess I stopped reading. If you’re looking for epic fantasy, this might still be your thing; maybe if I was in the mood for something comfortingly traditional, it would’ve gone down okay. But I’ve got Raymond E. Feist and David Eddings and, indeed, David Gemmell, for traditional fantasy. I wanted something fresh, and The City wasn’t it. I didn’t expect Stella Gemmell to burst any major boundaries, but this story felt like it could be set in part of Feist or Eddings’ worlds, rather than a new fantasy world dreamed up entire.

Rating: 1/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – The Girl at Midnight

Posted June 30, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Girl at Midnight by Melissa GreyThe Girl at Midnight, Melissa Grey

Hm. I got 150 pages into this and stopped to take stock, and found too many correlations between this and Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke & Bone to keep reading without looking up some other reviews to see if I was the only one. And… I’m not. And the reviews indicated more points of similarity, and not just with Taylor’s work, but also with Cassandra Clare’s. So I took a deep breath and started reading again, but sceptically, which was probably enough to harm the book right there without the surfacing of other similarities.

Let’s look at them, shall we? The doorways. The Ala and her likeness to Brimstone. The two races locked in battle, without a clear cause or end. The warlord (Thiago/Altair). Animal aspects (though this time for both races). Love surviving reincarnation. A Romeo and Juliet set-up. The two main characters wanting peace. Even the tone of it, the desire to conjure magic in mundane human spaces, it all seemed so familiar.

I wanted to like this, I really did. I had it on a list of anticipated books, and I even bought a copy, despite having originally got a review copy. It’s like, jeez. You start a story in a library, you wax poetic about books, and then you betray me like this? I like to believe that the author didn’t intend for all these similarities to be here, but they were, particularly as I’m just about to read the final book of Laini Taylor’s trilogy, and the story so far is fresh in my mind. I feel played by this book.

It’s not badly written, and for that, two stars. It’s just… not the breath of fresh air it was hyped to be.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 30, 2015 by Nicky in General / 13 Comments

This week’s theme is the top ten books read so far in 2015. Which is at least easier than all-time favourites or something like that!

  1. Voyage of the Basilisk, Marie Brennan. Or Tropic of Serpents, in fact. I gave them both five stars!
  2. Acceptance, Jeff VanderMeer. Though it’s the whole series, really; they’re so weird, and I think you do need to read all three to get a good picture.
  3. Grave Mercy, Robin LaFevers. Or the second book… I might even prefer the second book. But yeah, I was surprised by how much I liked these.
  4. The Just City, Jo Walton. Nobody’s surprised. Are you?
  5. Season of Storms, Susanna Kearsley. Go on, break my heart, you meanie.
  6. Lock In, John Scalzi. Really fascinated me.
  7. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke. Okay, okay, I know it’s a reread, but I discovered a whole new appreciation for it.
  8. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie. I might not have given it five stars myself, but it is pretty awesome.
  9. A Court of Thorns & Roses, Sarah J. Maas. I wasn’t a huge fan of Throne of Glass, though it’s fun, but ACOTAR… yeah.
  10. The Lie Tree, Frances Hardinge. I don’t love it like I loved A Face Like Glass, but. Yeah. <3

Looking forward to seeing everyone else’s, but bear in mind I’m in Canada on holiday right now and might not get much chance to comment!

Tags: ,

Divider

Review – Ring of Bright Water

Posted June 29, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Ring of Bright Water by Gavin MaxwellRing of Bright Water, Gavin Maxwell

I wanted to read this after having a go at Miriam Darlington’s Otter Country, which in many ways revolved around this book and the landscape described by Gavin Maxwell. He got much closer to the animals than Darlington, so perhaps it’s not surprising that his account is more interesting and vital. Otters were, not quite pets, but definitely companions for him, in a way that Darlington had no opportunity to understand.

Maxwell takes such a delight in the landscape and the antics of the creatures within it, both the wild ones and those he tamed or half-tamed, that it’s impossible not to enjoy this, for me. He wasn’t ashamed of his love for the animals, and sometimes that just shines through so clearly.

It’s not some adventure story, not such a battle of wills as, for instance, H is for Hawk chronicles. Mostly, it’s worth reading for that delight in nature, described with love and attention to detail. If you’re not interested in autobiography and nature writing, it’s probably not for you.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: , ,

Divider