Stacking the Shelves

Posted March 14, 2015 by in General / 18 Comments

Hey everyone! I’ve had a busy week, but I promise it’s mostly library books. I was very tempted in Hatchard’s in St Pancras, but I elected to note down the titles and try to get them from the library instead. And lo and behold, they came through for me. I did buy two books, but only spent £5 on them; I had a £10-off for Waterstone’s!

Bought

I belatedly realised that several people I know (including the guy running the Cardiff SF/F book club) really hated Cannonbridge. Still, at the very least it’ll give me something to tear into, right? I was very unsure about getting Finn Fancy Necromancy, since the title makes it sound very silly, but flicking through convinced me to give it a try…

Library

Can you guess where I spent most of my time hanging out in Hatchard’s…? Although to be fair, I’ve wanted to read The Tale of Duelling Neurosurgeons for a couple of weeks now. Neurology! The Connie Willis books are for a reading challenge/book group. I haven’t been a major fan of Willis in the past, but I’m willing to try again.

Comics

So, I think that’s it. How’s everyone else doing? I should put up my update on this year’s progress with my resolutions soon, but how are you doing?

Tags: books, comics, non-fiction, Stacking the Shelves

Review – Pompeii

Posted March 13, 2015 by in Reviews / 4 Comments

Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town, Mary Beard
Review from August 7th, 2012

I’ve been meaning to get hold of and read this since my visit to Pompeii last September. I was worried it might be quite dry and spoil the fun, since it’s billed as being very sceptical and as cutting things down to the facts, but I needn’t have worried. It’s an easy enough read despite all the detail, and Mary Beard’s speculations are as interesting as anything she refutes.

I actually recommend you read it before visiting Pompeii, because you’ll have a much clearer understanding of what you’re seeing. (And you won’t need a tour guide, which considering the urban myths they propagate, is all to the good.) It might even be useful to carry around Pompeii with you to help identify and understand some of what you’re seeing — it’s not a guide book, it is a narrative, but if you’ve read it already, you could flip through to refresh your memory on details.

But reading it after a visit to Pompeii works, too, or even if you don’t plan to go to Pompeii at all. Remembering or imagining the hot and dusty streets is easy: Mary Beard is always careful to keep in touch with what Pompeii looks like now (even if that is sometimes disenchanting, for example when she points out that some of the paintings have been totally restored, not always perfectly accurately, by modern work), as well as trying to imagine a time when it was a living town.

Actually, that’s the part I find hardest: imagining Pompeii as a living town. Maybe it’s partially because my memories of Pompeii are often without context: a random house with tumbled-down walls, grass growing in the remains of an oven, the partial remains of mosaics and paintings. I’m not a visual person anyway, so the images of Pompeii that stay in my head are the ones I saw myself. Pompeii is a hushed town, in my mind, with wind and hot sun and pumice sand in your shoes.

Mary Beard does very well at speculating what it might really have been like, nonetheless, and I definitely recommend this if you have any interest in the site.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Flashback Friday, non-fiction

Review – Whose Body?

Posted March 12, 2015 by in Reviews / 5 Comments

Whose Body?, Dorothy L. Sayers
Featuring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, Peter Jones as Bunter, and Gabriel Woolf as Inspector Parker

I think the casting for the BBC radioplay adaptations of Dorothy L. Sayers was nigh on perfect. Ian Carmichael might’ve been too old to play Peter, but it doesn’t show in his voice, and he perfectly conveys the warmth and humour, the silliness, and the underlying strength. I can never get used to the new voice actor for Parker in the later episodes, either: Gabriel Woolf sounds just perfect as Inspector Parker.

It might not be a high octane crime novel (rather more toward the cosy side), but I still found the adaptation to be a good one, bringing across moments of confusion, embarrassment, discovery and conflict. It does a pretty good job with narration (weaving some of it into Peter’s character) and in choosing which scenes to represent, and how. One thing I do miss is the Dowager Duchess’ rambles. There’s more sense in them than you’d think at first blush, but of course it would cause anyone to tune right out in audio form.

These are all now available on Audible, which is certainly more convenient than having all the CDs, and definitely worth trading a credit a month for. Needless to say, given my affection for both Sayers and these radioplays, I’ve sped that process up rather and have (I think) all of them.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: audiobooks, book reviews, books, Dorothy L. Sayers

Review – H is for Hawk

Posted March 11, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
Received to review via Netgalley

This is one of those quiet books that links nature and human grief… without really sentimentalising it. Macdonald trains Mabel (the goshawk) as a way of reconnecting with herself, of dealing with grief about her father’s death, and she writes about that beautifully without ever reducing it to a picture-perfect moment of “nature healing” or something. I actually found it pretty painful to read: recognising some of the grief, the depression; knowing all about that disconnection.

I can see why people don’t enjoy it. It’s had good press, and won awards, but it’s not an exciting triumph against adversity or a horror story written to wring the heart, something like A Child Called It. It’s a meandering through grief and back to the world, with literary allusions, glances back over the shoulder at history, at T.H. White. In a way, it’s a biography of T.H. White, as encapsulated in his own battles with his hawk — I feel like I understand him more now through Macdonald than I ever did through reading his work.

It’s not an uplifting story. It’s not a triumph. It’s uncompromising and lovely, like the hawk herself, and you have to accept the beauty as it comes, with the raw meat and grim struggles it entails as well.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – The Very Best of Kate Elliott

Posted March 10, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Very Best of Kate Elliott, Kate Elliott
Received to review via Netgalley

I should’ve got round to this sooner; my apologies to the author and Tachyon Publications. My ARCs have piled up rather, but I requested this one anyway because I’ve been meaning to try Elliott’s work for a long time. I keep picking up her books in the library, eyeing her post about where to start, eyeing the books on Kobo… So I decided to start here: she mentions in her post that short stories are not her favourite form, her usual thing, but this collection does introduce you to some of her worlds, and to her ways of thinking.

I’m still a little bit on the fence, to be honest. I enjoyed these stories, but some of them felt a little too long — which may just be that Kate Elliott is more of a novel writer, and I’m very sensitive to the natural end for a story, the degree of baggage it can carry. I enjoyed the detail, the world-building, and especially the perspectives she writes from (the essay included at the end about writing with a female gaze rang very true), but… I’m still not convinced, or something.

I think it does make a great taster for what Kate Elliott’s work is like, but I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy her novels more.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted March 10, 2015 by in General / 11 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “ten books for readers who like _____”. I’m gonna go with epic fantasy, since I do love a good epic fantasy and it can be difficult to find ones that are to your taste. I’m going to assume that Tolkien’s work is a given, in this category…

Poul Anderson. He did a lot of sci-fi stuff, but also some fantasies. I love The Broken Sword (I posted my old review as one of my Flashback Friday posts here) and Three Hearts and Three Lions. This is fantasy that isn’t directly affected by Tolkien, so it doesn’t have all the same aesthetics — but The Broken Sword in particular draws on some of the same sources, and has some of the same interests. The poetry, for example, in The Broken Sword — there’s definitely comparisons there with the way Tolkien used verse.
David Eddings. No, okay, I know all his series are basically the same stories and characters recycled, so I’d only recommend reading one. But for brain candy, I do like a bit of Eddings. Personally, I would go with The Diamond Throne et al. I think Sparhawk was my introduction to Eddings, and I still have affection for those books.
Jacqueline Carey. Specifically Banewreaker and Godslayer for a flipped around version of The Lord of the Rings, something that goes into a lot of shades of grey and finds that few people are irredeemable, and that there’s more than one side to any story. If you like court politics more, then Kushiel’s Dart is more likely to be your speed. (And she’s even written some urban fantasy more recently, too.)
N.K. Jemisin. I liked her more recent duology, but it was the Inheritance Trilogy that really hooked me. Court politics, gods and men. And women. Interesting mythology, various different perspectives, and it’s not a multi-volume epic. Each book doesn’t stand completely alone, but one level of the plot is certainly accessible without reading the other books. Lots of interesting narrative voices, too.
Raymond E. Feist. This is a case of a multi-volume epic. I’ve never read them all, but I do love his Riftwar Saga. It’s something I want to come back to. I fell for so many of the characters and ideas, and this is a case where there is a ferocious amount of world-building. You’re never gonna go off the edge of Feist’s maps and find the writer’s forgotten to account for the world outside his tightly controlled setting.
Robin Hobb. So many characters to love and to hate. I’m not at all sure what I think of the Soldier Son trilogy — there were some persistent themes in them that I just didn’t like — but the Farseer books are great. Assassins, quests, dragons, magic, animals, politics… It has a little bit of so many things that I love, with a convincing narrative voice too.
Steven Erikson. Willful Child was really disappointing to me, but I loved Gardens of the Moon, and I can’t wait to dig into the rest of the books. And this is another of those wide worlds with lots to dig your teeth into.
Tad Williams. The Memory, Sorrow and Thorn books are awesome. I started reading them and thought it all fairly typical — you know, kitchen boy is probably going to turn out to be a hero, etc, etc. I was probably reminded of David Eddings, actually. But there’s a lot of world building, a lot of other characters to love, and I found it all so compelling that I read all four massive volumes in less than a week.
Scott Lynch. I hardly need to say this, do I? The Lies of Locke Lamora is great; the world the books take place in is rich and full of wonder (things the characters wonder at, and things that the readers wonder at while the characters take them for granted). “High” fantasy? Maybe not; we’re not dealing in princes and kings, nor even kitchen boys who turn out to be knights, just a bunch of orphans from the streets who turn out to be real good at scamming people. But there’s epic background.
Guy Gavriel Kay. Particularly the Fionavar Tapestry books, which seem like a synthesis of so much else from the genre. There’s hints of Stephen Donaldson, Tolkien, Anderson, so on. These were his first books, but he was already very powerful with the details of character and relationship. Tigana is also highly recommended, and stands completely alone, with all the politics and magic you could wish for.

I thought I’d find this week’s hard, but actually, I quite enjoyed doing this. Let me know what you think — and let me know what you’ve posted about!

Tags: books, David Eddings, Guy Gavriel Kay, Jacqueline Carey, N.K. Jemisin, Poul Anderson, Raymond E. Feist, Robin Hobb, Scott Lynch, Steven Erikson, Tad Williams, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Ancestors in Our Genome

Posted March 9, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Ancestors in Our Genome, Eugene E. Harris
Received to review via Netgalley

I got this as an ARC a while ago, but never got round to reviewing it, which probably isn’t going to do me any good with the OUP approving future requests. Ah, well. This one is, if you know anything about me, obviously right up my street: so much so that most of it wasn’t new to me, whether because I read about it in New Scientist, heard about it in one of the MOOCs I’ve taken part in, or read about it in another book somewhere. So for me this was more of a review than anything: a clearly written overview of what we currently know about human evolution.

So it was almost inevitably interesting for me, but I think I would recommend it for other people too. Harris’ explanations are clear, without going into so much depth that it doesn’t fit in, say, the popular science section. It’s pretty up to date, as one would hope from such a recent publication, and it’s more or less uncontroversial (to my mind, anyway; you may disagree if the very fact that chimpanzees are our close cousins is a subject of doubt for you). So: not revelatory, but solid and easy to read, a good way to update your knowledge and brush up on where the field is now.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – The Strange Library

Posted March 8, 2015 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami

This book seems more design than story, really. It’s presented beautifully, intriguingly. But I don’t get the story at all (which is not a new thing when it comes to me and Murakami, it’s true). The idea of the library with the weird hidden basement, the starling-girl… the creepiness is interesting, the uncanniness.

But in the end, it’s not much of a story, and that’s what I really read for. I’m not averse to weirdness (hello, Jeff VanderMeer), but Murakami’s weirdness never seems to work for me in the same way. I’m glad I borrowed this and didn’t pay full price.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books

Review – Acceptance

Posted March 7, 2015 by in Reviews / 4 Comments

Acceptance, Jeff VanderMeer

Let me just say up front: if you’re looking for a resolution, a concrete simple answer, this isn’t the book for you. I think that’s the point: VanderMeer gives us the uncanny, the unknowable, the impossible, and posits that maybe when we come across alien life we’re not gonna know what the heck to make of it. That we might not see any rhyme or reason in what they do — that to us, there may not be any rhyme or reason.

If you’re looking for solutions to some of the smaller mysteries, like what the creation of Area X was like, or why Saul Evans is involved, or anything like that, there’s some of that here. You can find out what happens to some of the characters, like Control and the biologist (though Grace and Ghost Bird are less certain). You get a lot more mystery, atmosphere, weirdness — basically, more of everything you’d expect if you’ve read the previous books.

And I don’t know about anyone else, but I found that I’d got quite attached to the characters. I cared about Saul Evans and Charlie (and excuse me while I’m incredibly pleased about the casual gay couple); I cared about what happened to the biologist and to Grace; I cared about Gloria/Cynthia.

Overall, this is a brilliant trilogy for the pure atmospherics of it. The weirdness. The sense of place. The actual real alienness of Area X, and the paltry efforts of humans to understand, define, dissect it.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Jeff VanderMeer, SF/F

Stacking the Shelves

Posted March 7, 2015 by in General / 36 Comments

Hmmm, I’ve had a bit of a busy week for acquisitions, compared to what I’ve read. Time to buckle down and get on with it, I think! I’m still within the bounds of my resolutions though, whew. How’s everyone doing?

Bought/received

I do love Claire North’s work, even if I found her last book disappointing. A Darkling Sea I’ve picked up based on a recommendation, and The Buried Giant is a) by Ishiguro and b) contains Arthurian stuff. Of course I got it on release day!

Received to review