Tag: book reviews

Review – Deadline

Posted June 25, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Deadline, Mira Grant

Deadline is narrated by Shaun Mason, of whom I’m rather less fond than I am of Georgia. Not that we’re quite bereft of Georgia in this book, because she’s very much present through Shaun. Literally, at times: he talks to her and imagines her replies, and sometimes even feels her hand on the back of his neck or sees her leading him to something, etc, etc. His trauma’s pretty intense, his temper’s pretty bad, and though you can sympathise with how torn up he is, he’s also somewhat unpleasant in the way he treats his staff.

It’s a joy to get to see more of Becks and Mags, though there’s not much else about this book that you could call a joy: the hits keep on coming, from terrible revelation to terrible revelation. There’s less about politics in this one and more about the science, particularly the CDC, and I found that interesting. (And monstrous. The real monsters here are not the zombies, but the other people who perpetuate their existence.)

I was a little sad that Rick doesn’t appear at all in this book: I hope he is going to appear more in the final book of the trilogy. All in all, I’m geared up and ready to go for Blackout. Deadline does suffer a bit from being the middle book, I think, but it does have some pretty tense scenes and awesome reveals, so I’m not going to drop the rating.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Mira Grant, Seanan McGuire, SF/F

Review – The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

Posted June 24, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne Valente

Not my favourite of the Fairyland books, on reflection: it’s a little lonely without A-Through-Ell and Saturday, even though their shadows are very much in evidence. It remains a ton of fun, though, and is saved from being formulaic by the fact that September doesn’t just repeat the same old adventures. The narrator is a joy, as ever: secretive and teasing and confiding and warm. It’s just all so cleverly done, the tropes and the departures from them, that I remain utterly charmed throughout.

Also, though I miss A-Through-Ell and Saturday, it’s worth noting Aubergine, who is a darling.

I still think that these books are at least as much aimed at adults (or voracious readers of any age) who get the references and understand what the narrator is doing — it’s so much more fun when you know what sly twist Valente has added now — as they are at young adults, or however this was marketed. It’s a pretty quick and easy read, but it’s clever.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Catherynne M. Valente, SF/F

Review – Kin

Posted June 23, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Kin, John Ingraham

Kin is a book about microbes and how they’re related to us, and the surprisingly close ties between microbes and humans. It does a lot of digging into the origin of life in general, really; I didn’t find it as interesting as Nick Lane’s The Vital Question, and ultimately I was also surprised by how bad some of the editing was — it was just careless, typos and missing words, etc.

If you’re looking for a book about where life came from, I probably recommend Nick Lane’s book; I’ll have to have a think for some others which present alternative ideas. Ingraham’s book is easy enough to read, but it didn’t feel quite worth the time for me. Bearing in mind, of course, that I’m finishing up my biology degree at the moment with a dissertation on one particular microbe, so I guess I’m not really the target audience here.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, science

Review – Planetfall

Posted June 22, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Planetfall, Emma Newman

One probably doesn’t need to reread this to read Before Mars, but I felt like doing so anyway. I couldn’t quite remember all the details, and I remembered enjoying it, so hey, why not? It’s definitely as good on a second time; maybe more so, because certain things take on a different significance. You know about the rather metaphysical flavour of the ending, you know what the mysteries are and where the mines are in the field, so you find yourself wincing for the characters and wishing they’d watch their step (and watch out for who to trust).

It’s still a bit intense reading about Ren’s anxiety problems, but I have more distance from it myself now, which made it less uncomfortable and more just… it’s interesting to read, interesting to see someone handle mental illness in a sci-fi setting in this way.

It’s well worth the read and the reread, and I really must hurry up and make my wife read it.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Feed

Posted June 21, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Feed, Mira Grant

This is, I think, the third time I read Feed: each time, I firmly intend to carry on with the story, but I always need a little bit of a break after the gut punch that is the ending of Feed itself. This time, I’m successful (as I type this, I’m 100 pages from the end of Deadline), but it’s still a gut punch, and Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant really knows what she’s doing with that. I love Georgia in all her capableness, I love the world-building with the Irwins and the Fictionals and the Newsies and just… all the stuff that’s been put into making it a fully realised post-apocalyptic, post-privacy world.

It’s especially weird to read after the last US elections and President Trump, because the Senator they’re following to the White House is actually a Republican. And he’s actually a good guy whom you can kind of root for.

I think maybe the one argument I have with it is that some parts of it lack quite the tension you’d expect from being chased by a zombie horde. Personally, it works — after all, this is Georgia’s job — but still, it’s not quite the endless ride of thrills some readers might expect from a zombie novel.

I’ll stick to not touching the epidemiology, etc, here. I’m not sure I can quite see how viruses based on the common cold and Marburg could recombine — they’re so different in structure and needs — but on the other hand, to paraphrase a great fictional scientist, viruses, uh, find a way. Just look at what HIV can do.

I don’t love Shaun — he’s okay, but not my thing — but darn, am I ever into Georgia as a character. More of her all over the place, please.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – A Little History of Archaeology

Posted June 20, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A Little History of Archaeology, Brian Fagan

I love archaeology, and I must confess I really love the kind of general books that do a bit more of a survey — like Cline’s Three Stones Make a Wall, for example. This looked like it was going to be good in that line, and it wasn’t bad; there’s definitely a lot of info in it and stuff I want to research more, but overall it’s a bit too brief for me. It’s definitely a little history, just a little; there’s so much more to be said about so many of the people and sites that Fagan skims past in giving an overview.

Which is not exactly the fault of the book, but sometimes I feel that the history of archaeology would’ve been better followed through fewer key sites or key archaeologists, rather than a general mix of the two, which ended up feeling unfocused.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction

WWW Wednesday

Posted June 20, 2018 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

My exams are over, and all is freedom and binging on books! The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

I just started The Classical World, by Robin Lane Fox, which is rather slow going. I’ve seen some really enthusiastic reviews, but I’m not quite seeing it — at this point, at least. Maybe it doesn’t help that I studied classics at A Level, so none of this is really new to me.

I’ve also got started on my reread of The Summer Tree, which is just, gah. It’s not going to be long before the first big tragic event. I had to pause last night so I wouldn’t go to sleep on that note!

What have you recently finished reading?

Last thing I finished was Deadline, by Mira Grant. Gah! A little slower than the first book, I think, but oh gosh that ending, and the increasing attention paid to the epidemiology! I should go write my review, actually. Before that, I think the last thing I finished was Anthony Rolls’ Scarweather: wow, that was a creepy scenario. Gah. The crime was obvious throughout most of the book, but the exact way everything came out wasn’t.

What will you be reading next?

I don’t know! As ever, I’m driven largely by whim. But most likely I’ll get back to Revenant Gun (Yoon Ha Lee) and pick up Blackout and maybe Feedback (Mira Grant). Then there’s more of The Summer Tree and the rest of that trilogy, and, and, and…

On I go, forever.

So what’re you reading?

Tags: book reviews, books, WWW Wednesday

Review – A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns

Posted June 19, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them, Archie Bongiovanni, Tristan Jimerson

Received to review via Netgalley

A lot of people now use gender-neutral pronouns, and singular ‘they’ is one of the more universal and (to my mind) easy to adjust to choices. Not that I object to zie/hir on principle (though some people do because those pronouns sound like gendered pronouns in their own language; this is not a personal bother of mine, but I keep it in mind), but ‘they’ is already something we know how to use, and they doesn’t always have to mean plural (despite what people say). This is basically a guide focused on how to respect the pronoun choices of people who identify as non-binary… or just want to use neutral pronouns for reasons of their own. It’s an easy and simple read, though I find myself wondering if the people who could really use the education would ever bother to read it.

It’s also… not 100% right. There’s a whole bit about how saying “preferred pronouns” is disrespectful. I totally understand that argument — most people don’t prefer to be called she/her, they are a she/her — but I hesitate about it too because people to whom it doesn’t apply tend to take that too far. I’ve been scolded for saying I personally have preferred pronouns, even though that’s the case. I use they/them in some contexts, and refer to them as my “preferred” pronouns, because they are. However, nobody who meets me in real life is ever going to think there’s any grounds for ambiguity, and I don’t mind it in that context; it’s all about context for me and what’s comfortable in a given place/time. Often online I just let people make whatever assumption they want: it doesn’t matter to me, and I don’t usually have strong feelings either way (unless someone is being sexist or something). But still: at the end of it, they/them/their are my preferred pronouns by default.

So yeah, don’t go thinking this book is the bible of gender-neutral pronouns and can’t be wrong. But otherwise, it’s a good resource for explaining to someone willing to learn. The art it nothing special, but the expressions, etc, add some humour and flavour to it.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – Howl’s Moving Castle

Posted June 18, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

Another reread of a favourite during my exam period! I originally watched the Studio Ghibli adaptation first, and loved that, and I think the first time I actually read the book it took me a while to get into it; certain aspects at the end seemed so rushed, and there was so much to keep track of. Perhaps it’s familiarity that means I didn’t really have a problem with it this time; certainly, experience helps in untangling exactly what’s going on!

While I still love the Studio Ghibli version, there’s a lot to enjoy in the book that didn’t make it into the movie. Sophie’s family, for one thing, and Wizard Suliman, and everything about Wales — which means a lot to me, being Welsh, because hey! Howl is short for Howell! And of course he takes the last name Pendragon. And of course Calcifer sings Sosban fach. And, and — it’s just a delight, okay? And there’s the stuff that didn’t make it into the book in the same way, like pretty much everything about Michael and most of Sophie’s magic.

Also, I can’t help it. I do love the adversarial not-going-to-take-each-others’-nonsense couples, and Howl and Sophie have that in spades. Lots and lots of spades. That ending is also a thing of delight, for me.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Diana Wynne Jones, SF/F

Review – The Templars

Posted June 17, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Templars, Piers Paul Read

This is a rather exhaustive account not only of the Templars, but of the Crusades and the interactions between Popes and Kings during that period. That’s not a bad thing, though I had expected something a little more focused on the Templars as a group, and maybe more discussion of individual Templars as examples. Instead, there was a lot about individual kings and their reactions — fair enough, there’s probably more material available on them, but I still found it a little disappointing.

Still, it’s kind of fun reading it as someone who has played Assassin’s Creed, and playing spot-the-name-I-know and spot-who-got-assassinated-by-Altair.

I think it was a bit stodgy in places, but informative. And dude, you totally protested too much in the other direction that Templars weren’t ever gay. Let’s be real: the reality is that some of the Templars will have been gay, some bi, many straight, and some will have remained celibate while others won’t have done so.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction