Posted October 25, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Gods of Olympus, Barbara Graziosi
For me, there weren’t many surprises here in Barbara Graziosi’s analysis of the Greek pantheon and their afterlife. I already knew how they translated into the Roman world (thank you, Mrs Wilson, for many fascinating lessons in classics!) and I had some idea of how they translated into the medieval and Renaissance world as well (I believe thanks there must go to Richard Wilson, Martin Coyle and Rob Gossedge – I can’t untangle in my mind quite who was responsible for this, but I blame my degree all the same).
Nonetheless, it’s a good survey of the Greek pantheon and the enormous influence they had on religious thought and, in the end, literature. I could wish for a bit on modern paganism, since I have friends who have revived the worship of the Olympians, but that’s probably a little much to ask.
It’s an enjoyable read, though not a particularly enlightening one, for me.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction
Posted October 24, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments
The Tiger’s Daughter, K. Arsenault Rivera
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 3rd October 2017
I wanted to love The Tiger’s Daughter, because there’s queer protagonists with a love story, a non-medieval-Europe fantasy setting, etc, etc. The writing at first promised to be beautiful, but I found the segue into the series of letters from one of the characters really off-putting. It makes it all second person (which can be done wonderfully, but wore on me here), and it requires one protagonist to tell the other stories as if she wasn’t there… despite them actually being present. So “you said to me, we did x, I did y to you”… It just feels too contrived at that point. It’s also rather slow-paced: this is less a fantasy story with romance, and more a romance story with fantasy. Which is fine, but the other things dragged it down for me.
In addition, this isn’t really my area, but I did notice a few warning signs. It’s not “own voices”, and it shows; it’s the typical flower-petals-and-beautiful-calligraphy version of Japan we keep getting served up, and several people from East Asia or of East Asian descent have been writing highly critical reviews about the racial stereotyping. I don’r know enough to really understand what’s going on there, but I believe people that it’s made them deeply uncomfortable.
That and the pacing meant I didn’t finish this, in the end. It’s a shame, because the cover is gorgeous, the concept sounds fun, and I did get somewhat into the relationship between the two characters. And yet. So my writing is very much for “as far as I read” — it’s possible the pace picks up and that issue at least is resolved. I wasn’t willing to hold my breath for it.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic, SF/F
Posted October 23, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The Language of Thorns, Leigh Bardugo
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 26th September 2017
While these stories are set in Bardugo’s Grisha-verse, you don’t really need to have read those books (or remember them in great detail) if you fancy reading this: it’s a little collection of twisted fairytales, somewhat shaped by the world of the Grisha, somewhat just by Bardugo’s responses to old stories. There’s a version of Hansel and Gretel, a sort of prequel to ‘The Little Mermaid’, a retelling of the story of the Nutcracker…
Each story has a certain magic, and Bardugo handles them well: they feel like fairytales, while also feeling fresh and new. I liked Ulla’s story in particular, the last one in the collection — but I liked the perspective Bardugo took on each of them. For example, the sting in the tail of her Hansel and Gretel retelling… But I’d better not say too much.
Suffice it to say it’s a great little collection, and it’s probably going to be a beautiful book in hardcopy, too. I recommend it if you love fairytale retellings as well as if you’re a fan of the Grisha-verse.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Leigh Bardugo, SF/F
Posted October 22, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson
If you’re fascinated by the universe but don’t know/understand much about physics, this is a decent place to get some sense-o’-wonder and scope. Tyson throws a ton of facts at you but in a pretty readable way, and he doesn’t linger too long over the difficult questions. It’s pretty much a taster, without getting into some of the big questions like string theory, or getting too bogged down about multiverses and so on.
If you’ve read pop science on the subject before, I guess it’s kind of thin, but it’s enjoyable enough.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, science
Posted October 21, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Naming of the Shrew, John Wright
There’s a lot of hilarity to be found in the Linnaean species names, from Crikey steveirwini to the unfortunate Rubus cockburnianus (named in honour of the Cockburn family, of course – how can you doubt it). I figured a book digging into all this would be interesting, or at least entertaining enough to beguile an eight hour plane ride.
Not so much. The author is undoubtedly – and commendably – enthusiastic. He’s dug around in all the vagaries of zoological and botanical naming, and he’s found some gems. He also tries to explain exactly how these names are coined and accepted. Unfortunately, he’s rather longwinded about it, and it becomes a long list of funny names joined by some anecdotes. Some of them I’m glad enough to know, but I did get rather tired of the idea by chapter four, and started wondering when the light at the end of the tunnel was going to show.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction
Posted October 20, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
The Beautiful Ones, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 24th October 2017
I wasn’t a huge fan of Moreno-Garcia’s Signal to Noise, though I liked it well enough, but I wanted to give more of her work a try. I wasn’t disappointed! The Beautiful Ones is a sort of Heyer-esque romance, only with magic as well — maybe Austen. You get the vague idea. It’s alternate universe, but there’s enough parallels that I just sort of nodded and accepted it as our-world-but-with-different-names. I’d have loved more world building about that, but it might have taken away from the character study and the romance, so I’m not too disappointed.
The characters, well. I spent a fair amount of time wanting to shake them into being sensible and communicating properly, but I enjoyed them and rooted for them — except of course for Valerie, who I didn’t quite hate (Moreno-Garcia does a reasonably good job of pointing out why she is the way she is), but who definitely isn’t a character to love. I found the lengths she ended up going to a bit unconvincing and unpleasant — sucks that it’s a guy who at the end decides to do the decent thing and come clean, and Valerie ends up being pretty irredeemable.
If you don’t like romance and novels of manners, this probably won’t appeal; if you do, then I recommend it. Even if you’re not so much into fantasy, really; that aspect is relatively slight.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, romance, SF/F
Posted October 19, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
Taste of Marrow, Sarah Gailey
Received to review; publication date 12th September 2017
Yay! More of Hero!
In a sense, I didn’t like this quite as much as the first story — because there’s a lot of dark stuff going on; Houndstooth is totally blinded in his search for Hero, and he doesn’t mind what he does (or who he does it to) along the way. In parallel, Adelia and Hero have to deal with Adelia’s baby being kidnapped, and Adelia doesn’t mind what she does (or who she does it to) along the way. That does give us some interesting development for Hero, as they try to help Adelia despite their usual tendency to stay in the background and the fact that Adelia tried to kill them. But mostly, I just wanted the old band back together again already.
The end of the book delivers on that, and was pretty much exactly what I wanted. I’d love to see more of these characters, together, with their hippos, and going on capers that don’t involve death, dismemberment, torture and bereavement.
In other words, hi Sarah Gailey, I am 10,000% here for Hero and Houndstooth setting up home, occasionally going on a riverboat to steal some shit or protect some hippos when they get bored.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books
Posted October 18, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments
First Grave on the Right, Darynda Jones
Received to review via Netgalley
I didn’t have high hopes for this, I admit, but what people said about it made it sound like some light fun.
Guys, this needs to come with trigger warnings. This review needs a trigger warning because it describes the problematic stuff. It opens with the main character having a sexy dream. Only it’s not just a dream: there’s some kind of supernatural agent behind it and it is actually a person who she knows. Okay… I’m a little dubious about the consent here because it sounds like he just jumps into her dreams and goes at it, but I’ll hold off. It’s clear she thinks she knows who the guy is and that she’s more or less okay with him having sex with her.
That’s fine, but I’m not along for the ride because it’s revealed later that they’ve met once before. She tried to help him in a situation which appeared to be horrific abuse, and he pinned her against a wall and groped her while asking if she’d ever been raped (read the scene quoted here).
THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC. THIS IS NOT LIGHT FUN. I DO NOT WANT TO BE HERE.
Now, I’m not judging people who find bad boys sexy or whatever, and maybe somehow all that is dealt with. But it didn’t look like it was being dealt with, and I was very uncomfortable.
Given the importance of sex and who likes whom to the apparent plot (which is otherwise jerky and felt oddly paced), it’s perhaps not a surprise I didn’t get along with it in other ways either, but… yeesh. At the very least, I’m shocked no one I know has brought up that aspect of the plot/characterisation/pile of problematicness before.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books, romance, SF/F
Posted October 17, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 7 Comments
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
I’m sorry. I don’t get it. I think I might’ve loved it if I read it at a formative age, but the basic concepts of fighting a great evil (and even some of the relationships between characters) reminded me mostly of The Dark is Rising, which I’m afraid has first place in my heart. I didn’t get the sense of wonder and fascination that I think it could’ve invoked, encountered at the right time, and I just felt rather impatient with the protagonists.
I’m not sure if I’ll read the other books or not – I know that if I’d gone on Over Sea, Under Stone alone, I’d never have finished Susan Cooper’s series. On the other hand, I just don’t enjoy the half fantastical, half scientific backdrop, and part of the reason I didn’t connect with the characters was because I couldn’t pin them down – one minute they seem painfully young and naïve, and the next I seem to be expected to root for a romance between them.
Really, it reminds me of so many other books — The Wizard of Oz, The Railway Children, The Dark is Rising, Little Women… It never quite became its own story for me.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F
Posted October 16, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, Angela Saini
There’s a lot of science (and pseudo-science) out there about gender differences and how they affect the way we think. Intelligent people, male and female, often disagree about what exactly it all means, and how evolution has selected for male promiscuity, female passivity, and a host of other stereotypes about the sexes.
Saini has a go at untangling some of this, discussing inherent bias in the researchers looking at this kind of thing, and alternate models that are available for understanding gender differences. She’s definitely successful at making the conversation more complex. For example, a lot of theories have rested on similarities between humans and their close relatives, chimpanzees. Saini points out that other research has shown that bonobos are equally closely related to us, and they have an entirely different social structure.
It seems that easy answers aren’t available, but there are many theories, with supporting evidence, that suggest women have been equally important in forming the human race. That would be my belief, simply because (as Saini points out) pregnancy and childbirth are definitely an important point at which selection will act, particularly in humans where we seem to be dependent on having other support.
An interesting read, but nothing that I think is revolutionary or likely to convince people that male and female brains aren’t physically different in structure. Note: if you think of gender as being a spectrum rather than a binary, be aware that this book definitely treats it as a binary with two distinct sexes. It doesn’t touch on transgender men/women at all.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, science
