Tag: book reviews

Review – The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, vol 1 (LN)

Posted July 11, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, vol 1 (LN)

The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter: Holy Maiden Summoning Improvement Plan

by Yatsuki Wakutsu

Genres: Fantasy, Light Novels, Romance
Pages: 288
Series: The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (light novel) #1
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Seiichirou Kondou is a 29-year-old accountant and major workaholic. When he's accidentally transported to another world, not only does he demand a job, he starts whipping the lackadaisical Royal Accounting Department into shape! But when he gets in over his head and nearly dies from overwork, the handsome Commander Aresh steps in to save him, and the two develop a unique, physical relationship... as a form of medical treatment?!

I’ve been reading the manga adaptation ofĀ The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, so now I’ve turned to the original light novel, by Yatsuki Wakutsu. Like most light novels I’ve come across, it has some illustrations, which are very similar in character design to the manga, but I might like them just a touch more.

I always think when reading a light novel that it’ll add a bit more to what I learned/experienced in the light novel, but then get amazed reading the light novel how faithful and complete the manga actually was. The same was true here: there are some extra snippets of characters’ thoughts and feelings, but really, I knew everything I needed to from reading the manga.

It’s still fun though to experience it in this format. Seiichirou is such an idiot, and Aresh’s overprotectiveness feels pretty justified when it’s so clearly laid out what an idiot he’s being with his own health.

That said, there’s already more than a hint of Aresh being a bit too controlling, which drives me mad in the manga versions. Seiichirou can make his own decisions, even if they’re objectively terrible ones. I really hope that they do eventually have a reckoning about this, but we’ll see!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Siren Queen

Posted July 10, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Siren Queen

Siren Queen

by Nghi Vo

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 282
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic.

ā€œNo maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers.ā€ Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill — but she doesn't care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid.

But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes—even if that means becoming the monster herself.

Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.

This is a review I wrote quite a while ago but which somehow never got posted!

When this book says Hollywood is full of monsters, that’s only the literal truth. Stars on the screen are also stars in the sky, and some people sell their soul trying to get there. That’s the premise ofĀ Siren Queen, and I really don’t want to say more than that, because I really enjoyed slowly figuring out what was literal, how this world differs from our own, where the metaphors have become reality.

Luli is Chinese-American, and she knows full well what kind of roles await her in Hollywood — but she’s going to go there on her own terms and do what she can.Ā Whether she’s going to get there never seems like an option: she wants to be seen, she wants millions to see her, she wants to be just like the people she’s seen at the local cinema. She never really questions this desire or her determination to go there; she’s almost possessed by it. I could definitely have stood to understand that better; I understood Luli’s ambivalent feelings about her home and her sister, and understood her drive toward Emmaline and her friendship with Greta… but I wanted to understand more of her drive to be seen, to rise, because the brief references to that felt powerful.

Luli is surrounded by characters who almost all want the same thing: they didn’t just somehow end up there, against their will — except for Greta, of course — and I found myself at risk of forgetting that with people like Harry Long and Emmaline and maybe even Brandt Hiller. But they chose this, just like Luli did, and the ways they are trapped and hurt each other arise from that as well. It adds a little complexity to the sympathy you feel for them sometimes. Luli’s far from perfect, but Emmaline has made the same choices in many ways.

There’s a lot that isn’t explained, a lot that you’re left to intuit or guess or imagine for yourself, and I really liked that. It stays with the central concept and doesn’t try to elaborate it too much, and there are mysteries that we don’t get to understand. I like that a lot; I don’t think it should have tried to unravel Oberlin Wolfe’s existence or why certain things are as they are — this is Luli’s story, shaped by those mysteries but never seeking to understand them.

People have compared this to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and there are similarities there, for sure. I’ve certainly enjoyed both!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Fence, vol 2

Posted July 9, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Fence, vol 2

Fence

by C.S. Pacat, Johanna the Mad, Joanna LaFuente

Genres: Graphic Novels
Pages: 112
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Tryouts are well underway at King’s Row for a spot on the prodigious fencing team, and scrappy fencer Nicholas isn’t sure he’s going to make the grade in the face of surly upperclassmen, nearly impossibly odds, and his seemingly unstoppable roommate, the surly, sullen Seiji Katayama. It’ll take more than sheer determination to overcome a challenge this big! From the superstar team of C.S. Pacat (The Captive Prince) and fan-favorite artist Johanna the Mad comes the second volume of this acclaimed, dynamic series.

Book two of C.S. Pacat’sĀ Fence (with art by Johanna the Mad) pretty much straightforwardly follows the first book, without a gap. The art is still gorgeous, the plot/character interactions are still predictable in a way I find pleasant (but won’t be winning points for originality), and it rattles along at a good pace.

I really love the relationship between Harvard and Aiden, which I’m guessing is heading to romance, but which is also just cute as best friends — especially when Aiden dropped everything to go chat to Harvard (and is so sensitive to his every shift of mood, even as he appears to care so little about everyone else).

Nothing startling happening here, but I’m having a lot of fun getting back into it.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Queer City

Posted July 8, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Queer City

Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the present day

by Peter Ackroyd

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 247
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

In Queer City Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way – through the history and experiences of its gay population.

In Roman Londinium the city was dotted with lupanaria (ā€˜wolf dens’ or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels) and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks and missionaries. And so began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure.

Ackroyd takes us right into the hidden history of the city; from the notorious Normans to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early nineteenth century. He journeys through the coffee bars of sixties Soho to Gay Liberation, disco music and the horror of AIDS.

Today, we live in an era of openness and tolerance and Queer London has become part of the new norm. Ackroyd tells us the hidden story of how it got there, celebrating its diversity, thrills and energy on the one hand; but reminding us of its very real terrors, dangers and risks on the other.

Peter Ackroyd’sĀ Queer City feels a bit like a list, somehow. ThereĀ isĀ analysis there, but it really just feels like a long list of evidence, sources, people — and mostly people being punished for being queer, in some sections, because that’s the only evidence he found. I found it a quite tedious read, unfortunately, despite the boistorous gay scene he describes.

…And mourns, as he seems to feel that queerness being more acceptable (more acceptable when he wrote this than now, in some ways) has led to a loss, to a vigorous community settling down. It’s not clear he thinks that’s a good thing, as a gay man himself.

I would give three warnings about this:

1. He defines “queer” weirdly and incorrectly as being a catch-all term for people who are unsure where they stand. I promise you, I’m very sure, but refer to myself as queer because I prefer it for a number of reasons. It’s a plastic term and often an umbrella term, and it doesn’t mean what he said it means. At other times he uses it differently, but I definitely sat up and took notice when he defined “queer” that way, i.e. definitely wrongly. Someone who says they’re queer might mean that they don’t know exactly what to call themselves, but that doesn’t mean that holds for everyone who is queer.

2. Where he’s ostensibly discussing gay men, he’s often discussing paedophilia and rape, instead. He makes no distinction between the two. He doesn’t offer comment on it or judge it.

3. The final chapter-ish hasn’t aged very well; there’s something rather sceptical about his tone towards the spectrum of gender queerness, and he also clearly does not foresee the tide of transphobia that has left Britain (and therefore London, the “queer city” he focuses on) to be referred to as “TERF Island”. I got the sense that he might be one of those people who think it’s gone “too far” himself.

Overall, I didn’t find it enjoyably written, and I also have… questions… about the author’s opinions.

Rating: 1/5

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Review – A Shropshire Lad

Posted July 7, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – A Shropshire Lad

A Shropshire Lad

by A.E. Housman

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 51
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Few volumes of poetry in the English language have enjoyed as much success with both literary connoisseurs and the general reader as A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, first published in 1896. Scholars and critics have seen in these timeless poems an elegance of taste and perfection of form and feeling comparable to the greatest of the classic. Yet their simple language, strong musical cadences and direct emotional appeal have won these works a wide audience among general readers as well.

A.E. Housman’sĀ A ShropshireĀ LadĀ is a classic, and I know a couple of the poems best by appearances elsewhere (Dorothy L. Sayers’ Strong Poison and Susan Cooper’sĀ The Dark is Rising), but I was surprised on this reread by how… uninspired most of it seemed. And I was a bit surprised by the pro-suicide poems I hadn’t remembered.

I know part of it was Housman putting on personas and playing around, but overall it seemed fairly well-worn, words ill-chosen, etc. There are a couple of standouts — ‘White in the moon the long road lies’, which is quoted inĀ The Dark is Rising, would be one of them — but mostly… I remembered it being better than this. Or at least, more enjoyable to me; I’m sure there are people who still think it deserves all the praise!

So that was a bit of a disappointing reread, anyway, but I was pleased to finally place the poem quoted inĀ Strong PoisonĀ (briefly in the book, at greater length and with relish by Ian Carmichael in the radio play).

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Payment Deferred

Posted July 6, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Payment Deferred

Payment Deferred

by C.S. Forester

Genres: Crime
Pages: 192
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

Mr Marble is in serious debt, desperate for money to pay his family's bills, until the combination of a wealthy relative, a bottle of Cyanide and a shovel offer him the perfect solution. Slowly the Marble family becomes poisoned by guilt, and caught in a trap of secrets, fear and blackmail. Then Mrs Marble ensures that retribution comes in the most unexpected of ways...

C.S. Forester’sĀ Payment Deferred is a horrible little story. I’m not saying it’s not well-written, but the protagonist is horrible in so many ways, and it’s basically the story of how he and his family become ever more twisted by a murder that he commits and then more or less successfully hides, for money (of course for money).

Mr Marble doesn’t seem like a great person to begin with, alcoholic and disinterested in his family, but murder brings out the worst in him, and the contamination seems to spread. It takes a long time for Mrs Marble to realise what’s happening (the portrayal of her is vicious and misogynistic), but eventually she too understands the murder, while the kids don’t, but definitely get twisted by the situation their parents have created.

If I hadn’t been reading this as a serial via Serial Reader, I’m not sure I would have finished it. It’s just relentlessly unpleasant. It’sĀ meantĀ to be — there’s no way Mr Marble is meant to be any kind of hero — but all the same, it’s not the kind of reading experience I generally enjoy. Still, it’s interesting as an example of a sort of inverted mystery, where the suspense is not “whodunnit” but “will he get away with it?”

Rating: 1/5

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Review – A Breviary of Fire

Posted July 4, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – A Breviary of Fire

A Breviary of Fire

by Marie Brennan

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories
Pages: 168
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

ā€œTradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.ā€

The words of composer Gustav Mahler animate this collection of sixteen tales from award-winning author Marie Brennan, inspired by mythological and folkloric traditions around the world. Here you will find flames of revenge, immortality, and grace, as a valkyrie seeks peace, a queen weaves and unweaves her own fate, and a goddess vanishes from mortal memory — but never from the page.

Marie Brennan’s A Breviary of Fire is a collection of short stories — some shorter than others — that fit broadly into the traditions of several different world-regions, each being based on mythology, or at least mythology-adjacent. It’s a pretty quick read, especially as some of the stories are more like prose poems or at least microfiction (which, to be clear, is something I’m enthusiastic about).

For me the most memorable ones were probably the Norse and Greek stories, just because they’re the mythologies I’m most familiar with (having studied them from the English Lit/learning to translate Old Norse angle); I really liked her take on Penelope, and her ponderings on the fate of Hella in Norse myth.

I enjoyed pretty much all of them, though; they all felt like they were at exactly the length the idea required, which can be a really annoying thing with short fiction.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, vol 8

Posted July 3, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, vol 8

A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation

by Misaki, Momochi, Sando, Lamp, Magonote

Genres: Fantasy, Manga
Pages: 162
Series: A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation #8
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

When Lizel mysteriously finds himself in a city that bears odd similarities to his own but clearly isn't, he quickly comes to terms with the unlikely truth: this is an entirely different world. Even so, laid-back Lizel isn't the type to panic. He immediately sets out to learn more about this strange place, and to help him do so, hires a seasoned adventurer named Gil as his tour guide and protector.

Until he's able to find a way home, Lizel figures this is a perfect opportunity to explore a new way of life adventuring as part of a guild. After all, he's sure he'll go home eventually... might as well enjoy the otherworldly vacation for now!

Volume eight ofĀ A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation continues the action of the previous volume — and Lizel’s manipulation of events. Someday someone is going to outmanoeuvre him and he’s going to get quite the shock, but for now he’s the master. I loved the extra glimpses of Shadow and his attempts to suss what Lizel’s up to.

And, look, you can say “deep camaraderie” all you want, but in this volume Eleven goes to sit at Lizel’s feet while he’s reading, gets his hair pet and cheek scritched, and then nibbles on Lizel’s finger. Come on now.

We have some real Gil/Lizel moments too, don’t get me wrong — Gil’s face when he thinks that Lizel’s trying to do something in order to go home, aaah. I think it’s both determination to do it if that’s what Lizel needs, and grief at the idea of losing him.

Very curious what else will happen to wrap up the invasion of Marcade, and then what Lizel does to get back to what he was doing before…

Rating: 4/5Ā 

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Review – A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks

Posted July 2, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks

A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks

by David Gribbins

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 289
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

From a Bronze Age ship built during the age of Queen Nefertiti and filled with ancient treasures, a Viking warship made for King Cnut himself, Henry VIII's spectacular Mary Rose and the golden age of the Tudor court, to the exploration of the Arctic, the tragic story of HMS Terror and tales of bravery and endurance aboard HMS Gairsoppa in World War Two, these are the stories of some of the greatest underwater discoveries of all time. A rich and exciting narrative, this is not just the story of those ships and the people who sailed on them, the cargo and treasure they carried and their tragic fate. This is also the story of the spread of people, religion and ideas around the world, a story of colonialism and migration which continues today.

Drawing on decades of experience excavating shipwrecks around the world, renowned maritime archaeologist David Gibbins reveals the riches beneath the waves and shows us how the treasures found there can be a porthole to the past to tell a new story about the world and its underwater secrets.

David Gibbins’Ā A History of the World in Twelve ShipwrecksĀ was perfect for my mood and exactly what I’d been hoping for. I’ve been fascinated by underwater archaeology since watching certain episodes of Time Team as a kid, but I’d read another book recently about wrecks that really didn’t satisfy. This worked well, though!

As usual with this kind of thing, he doesn’t quite stick to just twelve shipwrecks, because contextualising each ship in comparison with other similar finds, documentary evidence, etc, can be really helpful — but each chapter does focus on a particular period and context, and there’s detail about the archaeology as well as the context surrounding it. My favourites were the earliest chapters/oldest wrecks, since modern history tends to leave me tuning out, but the author made all of it engaging.

I might maybe wish for numbered footnotes, but I feel I’m on a losing streak with those: few authors feel that’s necessary in a book for laypeople. I definitely wish the bibliography etc were printed in the book; my copy has a link where you can find the resources on the author’s website, but link rot is a thing and I wish people would be more cautious about it and just put the info in the darn book.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Future of Dinosaurs

Posted July 1, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Future of Dinosaurs

The Future of Dinosaurs: What We Don't Know, What We Can, and What We'll Never Know

by David Hone

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 272
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Discover the latest frontiers in dinosaur research with Dr David Hone.

Ever since we first started discovering dinosaurs in the early-1800s, our obsession for uncovering everything about these creatures has been insatiable. Each generation has made huge strides in trying to better our understanding of these animals and in the past twenty years, we have made more discoveries than in the previous two hundred.

There have been extraordinary advances in palaeontological methods and ever more dinosaur fossils promise a landslide of new data and huge leaps forward in our understanding of these incredible animals. Over time, we have been bale to look at the sizes and shapes of bones, we have identified patches of fossil skin, we have looked at footprints and bite marks and we've calculated mass estimates and walking speeds.

With surprisingly little data to work from, we can put together a picture of an animal that has been extinct for a million human lifetimes. But for all our technological advances, and two centuries of new data and ideas, there is stull much more we don't know. What parasites and diseases afflicted them? How did they communicate? Did they climb trees? How many species were there?

In The Future of Dinosaurs, palaeontologist Dr David Hone looks at the recent strides in scientific research and the advanced knowledge we've gathered in recent years, as well as what we hope to learn in the future about these most fascinating of extinct creatures.

David Hone’sĀ The Future of Dinosaurs: What We Don’t Know, What We Can Know, and What We’ll Never Know has a very descriptive title that tells you pretty much what’s to come. The seventeen chapters cover various aspects like anatomy, physiology, mechanics and movement, appearance, etc, discussing a little about what we do know, and illuminating where that knowledge can grow, and where we may never know more.

For the enthused dinosaur fan who reads loads of popular science books about dinosaurs, there’s probably not a lot here that’s very surprising — certainly I’m a fairly moderate dinosaur fan, and I wasn’t very surprised by most of it, though I did learn some snippets here and there. For example, about the fact that dinosaurs could and modern birds can isolate infection in one part of the body rather than tending to see systemic spread like humans. I want to do a bit more research intoĀ how; more localised immune responses, rather than a lymphatic system…? Or some kind of trigger-happy immune cell policing things harder? I’d like to know.

It’s a pretty dense book, with some black-and-white photos and illustrations; it looks very slim on the shelf, at least in the edition I read, but it has tiny text, so there’s more here than you’d think.

Rating: 4/5

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