Tag: book reviews

Review – A Maze of Death

Posted September 13, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A Maze of Death, Philip K. Dick

My main reaction to this is “…bwuh?” The basic plot idea — the mysterious assignment to a mysterious planet, the mismatched and out of touch group of people who assemble there, the weirdness of the world they have to explore, all of that’s pretty cool. The problem is, the religion stuff was, at best, uninteresting to me, and at worst totally baffling. I’ve had this feeling with Dick’s novels before: people just seem to stumble around, pinging off each other, with no meeting of minds, no communion being made. That’s part of the point in this book, I think, and it’s portrayed effectively if that’s the case… but I don’t get the appeal of reading about it.

The plot around the plot is also interesting; I shouldn’t say too much about it, but the last chapter or so make a different sort of sense out of events. All in all, that aspect too is interesting, and yet gets so little time spent on it that it just feels like cleverness for the sake of cleverness. Which I have got the impression is a Philip K. Dick thing, so to each their own.

Character-wise, there is no one here you want to spend time with, so if you’re looking for character studies or sympathetic characters, etc, this isn’t really your game. There isn’t even all the information you need to judge the characters for over 90% of the book. If you’re looking for philosophical, even theological stuff that plays with reality, it might be more your thing!

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Two Boys Kissing

Posted September 12, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Two Boys Kissing, David Levithan

I do like Two Boys Kissing. But there’s one thing, right up front, that bothers me: the total privileging of gay men in the LGBT community. It happens a lot, and it happens in this book, talking about the generation of gay men who died of AIDs, centering the book around their narration as a kind of Greek chorus, and I just — where the hell are the women? Women have always been part of the gay community too, and though some appear in this book as allies, there’s a dearth of lesbians. And that sticks out a mile given that a range of different male queerness is explored, from trans people to gay people living in bigoted families to gay people living in families that just sort of look the other way, to gay kids thrown out and ending up on the street…

It’s a book about the gay community, where the central recurring theme is two boys kissing to draw attention to gayness being out there and okay. And that draws an audience of people, including support, and it’s… all gay men? I get that the AIDs epidemic, which is another theme, disproportionately took the lives of gay men. But other issues, like homophobic bullying and families not accepting you, aren’t limited to gay men and those stories aren’t just about gay men.

I mean, representation at all is a good thing, and the differing experiences of queerness here are great as far as they go. Some of the couples are cute; some of the stories are sad. The Greek chorus works really well, even though I feel that it’s not talking to me — the story looks at some of the issues gay people have faced, some of which are applicable to queer women as well, and it just feels like it’s all about the boys.

As a story, it’s readable and touching. And yet thinking about it after the fact, I found it problematic.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic, romance

Review – Fair Game

Posted September 11, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Fair Game, Josh Lanyon

Fair Game is reasonably typical of Josh Lanyon’s books, which is to say it delivers a mystery plotline twinned with the life of a non-stereotyped homosexual protagonist, without dealing solely with his love life (for example, in this book, Elliot’s relationship with his father is another key point — it isn’t just about him and Tucker, although it is about that too). Elliot is an ex-FBI agent who is rebuilding his life after a suspect shot out his knee, and I enjoy the fact that his physiotherapy is mentioned, that he can’t just get up and go go go as if he were still an FBI agent, even though emotionally that is something he hasn’t come to terms with yet.

The mystery itself, well, I guessed where it was going solely because I found a particular character irritating, after one or two red herrings. But that isn’t rare for me, and I was still interested in how Tucker and Elliot worked it out.

I really enjoy Tucker’s character, too. To begin with, he seems like a macho guy who maybe doesn’t want to accept that he’s gay or deal with his feelings, but in fact he’s readier to do so than Elliot is. He’s willing to put himself out there, to apologise for what he’s done wrong, to make the effort to meet Elliot more than halfway. It makes a nice contrast to the couple in Lanyon’s Adrien English stories, for sure. (And the sex scene did not contain any metaphors which made me spit my drink, which is also an improvement, entertaining as those could be.)

I need to get round to reading the sequel, Fair Play; I do like the couple, both individually and apart, though I’d like to see more of Tucker and his life where it doesn’t revolve around Elliot or his job.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Josh Lanyon, mystery, queer fic, romance

Review – Magic Breaks

Posted September 10, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Magic Breaks, Ilona Andrews

It’s hard to believe this is the seventh novel of the series. Somehow it still manages to feel fresh, and I’m not ready for this arc to come to an end. Yet that’s exactly what this book does, featuring Kate bigger and more badass than ever, with Curran at her side and ready to fight with her, against something she’s been preparing for her whole life.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t quite go as expected.

As usual, I found the Pack politics somewhat frustrating. One minute they’re all loyalty, and the next they won’t follow Curran and Kate, even though they’ve proved themselves, even though they’d give their lives for the Pack. I did enjoy the by-play between Desandra and Jennifer, though, and how that whole storyline wove throughout the book and joined the main storyline in places. Desandra’s a fun character, even if her humour isn’t always my thing, and she’s come a long way from our first glimpse of her.

The only place this falls down for me is that, well, I just don’t believe Curran’s going to bow out gracefully. It’s convenient for Kate to doubt him or think he’s dead or whatever, but I never do. And with Kate as the narrator, I never believe that she’s really in danger either.

I really want so many more of these books stretching out ahead of me, though. Something about them just hits the spot perfectly.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Ilona Andrews, romance, SF/F

Review – Never Let Me Go

Posted September 9, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

Originally reviewed May 9th, 2010

(You may consider this review spoilery, if you read all of it. I state something explicitly that is below the surface of the book, at any rate.)

This book is a bit like having a one-sided conversation with the narrator. In consequence, it kinda feels like it rambles a bit — they digress to talk about something else and then a couple of pages later, wrench it back to the original point. In some ways that makes it feel very natural, like someone talking, but to read it, it gets irritating.

There’s a difficult tone to it… Very resigned, unemotional, and somewhat, I don’t know, superficial. The narrator skims the surface of the truths revealed. It’s natural to do that, in some ways, for a real person, but in a character, it’s hard to engage. The characters of Ruth and Tommy were much more vivid for me than Kathy: Ruth and her needing to be in the know, needing to be superior; Tommy and his anger issues and his struggle to be creative. Ruth felt especially real to me: I knew a girl who was very much like her, and I was pretty much the Kathy in our interactions, too.

The way it engages with the issues — with the idea of clones — without dragging out all the backstory is interesting, dealt with it in this way. Like it’s a fact of life, like what you’re reading is all very matter of fact. And you go along with it a little, and then you stop, and you think about it… It actually reminds me of the way Kathy describes being taught about what her life will be: somehow it builds up so you’ve known it all along, but you never have this big moment of revelation. Unfortunately, that deadens the sharper shocks, I think.

I enjoyed it, and it was very easy to just settle down and read it. It’s not racing action or anything, pretty leisurely, and not compelling in the sense that I couldn’t put it down. But I wanted to know — even suspecting what the end would be like, I wanted to get there and see.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Flashback Friday, SF/F

Review – The Incorruptibles

Posted September 8, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Incorruptibles, John Hornor Jacobs

The Incorruptibles is a bit of a mash up of all sorts of genres: a little steampunk, a little Western, a little horror/supernatural/Supernatural vibe, alternate history with a Roman (sorry, Ruman) feel… and it does work insofar as it’s entertaining, and it’s interesting to figure out how exactly the world goes together — what’s different, what’s the same, what this or that term means. There’s quite a lot of action scenes and there’s always something apparently going on, but pacing-wise, it feels odd. After a certain point, it suddenly gets a lot more serious, with really high stakes, and that isn’t where I was expecting it to go — and that jarred with the rather less consequential stuff going on before.

Also, I’m… really not a fan of the ‘stretchers’; the equivalents of native people who hound the heroes and human settlements, who cannibalise and sacrifice and all kinds of horror. Some of it, especially their tendency to scalp people, is just too reminiscent of racial stereotypes about Native Americans in the Wild West. It feels like the author said, oh, I need to have that threat in the background, but it wouldn’t be politically correct to use actual Native Americans… so instead I’ll create monsters and attribute all the same shit to them!

It’s an interesting set-up for a world, but that aspect honestly grossed me out.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – The Heart of Aces

Posted September 7, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Heart of Aces, various

The Heart of Aces is a collection that’s almost more interesting/important to me because of the theme than because of anything about the actual stories within. Asexual representation is a big thing to me, because for a long time I was all kinds of confused about why I wasn’t interested in other people the way my peers were, why I didn’t want the same things in a relationship, etc. The only times I did come across it were in stories about trauma, and then it was something to be got over; not something that you can just accept. And that’s the nice things about the stories here. Each one of them accepts asexuality as a valid way of living a life that can still be whole and fulfilling, and even shared with a romantic partner. Sometimes you have to compromise or go out on a limb, sometimes things don’t match up quite as well as you’d hope, but all the same, these stories say it’s possible.

(And oh, my relief that I don’t think a single character in these stories calls not wanting sex “unnatural”, or anything like that. Look, I don’t feel naturally feel physical attraction — if anything, if I did, that would be unnatural for me, even if it might maybe be achievable with drugs or something. It’s just not the way I’m built, and that’s okay.)

The stories in the collection are a little shaky; one of them I just found plain unreadable, while others were very basic. There are a couple of sweet ones in there, though. I do wish that there was a bit more representation across the board — a cisgendered, straight, asexual couple would be great to see, or stretching the definition of ace a bit, an aromantic character — but there is one story with a trans character (albeit the POV character takes a while to switch pronouns correctly), and a realistic range of what the characters in the stories are interested in. I wouldn’t really recommend the stories, except that there’s so little out there that’s tailored for asexual people. If you feel like you really need to see something that does touch on that, you might enjoy picking up The Heart of Aces.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic, romance, short stories

Review – Feed

Posted September 6, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Feed, Mira Grant

I read Feed for the first time a few summers ago, and enjoyed it enough that it stuck in my head. At the time, I think I found the contagion aspect of it pretty horrible; I was very much more anxious then, and the idea of a cold curing virus combining with a cancer killing microbe to cause a zombie rising — ugh, it just gave me chills. This time, though, it wasn’t as much of a focus for me: it was just part of the story, and not even necessarily the major part. There’s still something profoundly horrible about the idea of carrying the sleeping contagion in your body all your life, constantly needing to be tested in case the virus levels are shooting up, constantly needing to be afraid of your own body and the people around you; I’m not saying that aspect isn’t well done, because it definitely is and that discomfort colours the whole book.

But I was also able to enjoy the humour, the banter, and the thriller aspect: the political race which Georgia and her team get themselves involved in, the bonds between the characters and the way they bend and break under pressure, the whole world built after the zombie apocalypse has failed to wipe out humanity. I really appreciated the way it dealt with issues like people avoiding physical contact, side effects of the virus like George’s eye dilation, the effect on policy and public life in the US. And I appreciated the presidential race, much as I don’t feel like it could be written right now.

It’s not so much the bad guy; you can see him in current American politics, larger than life and twice as scary. But the sympathetic, tolerant, relatable family man Republican… none of the Republican candidates felt anything like that. It feels like a kind of politics that’s out of reach right now, because the bad guy is all we’ve got, and we can see that more moderate politics isn’t winning people over. It was so weird reading about this fictional presidential race, with plenty of high stakes in its own way, but comparing it to the current presidential race and its demagogues… I kept thinking that Senator Ryman couldn’t be Republican, because he couldn’t stand with the things the Republican party is saying and condoning right now.

Which is probably an odd perspective to have on a zombie book from a few years ago, but that’s the joy of rereading or reading older books; you get whole new perspectives.

Lest I sound like the politics is the only interesting aspect, I was also immensely caught up in the relationship between Shaun and Georgia. Their co-dependence, their ability to cover for each other’s weak points, the way they worked together — and especially the last few pages of the penultimate section of the book. Gah. I forgot that this book actually really gripped my heart strings, and it did so doubly this time.

In a way, I like Feed as a standalone novel. The emotional arc of the characters is devastating, but where the story ends leaves you some room to wonder without being agonising; the political situation was never really the key thing for me; the zombie situation is at a fairly steady-state, or so it feels.

But then, I also want to know what happens next.

Rating: 4/5

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

Review – Magic Rises

Posted September 5, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Magic Rises, Ilona Andrews

Magic Rises really ups the stakes. It opens with a serious dilemma for the Pack being made really crystal clear to Kate: the likelihood of the Pack’s children to ‘go loup’, at which point the pack have to kill them. To make sure we really notice, one of the children affected is a friend of Kate’s adopted daughter, and then the Pack receive an offer: go and mediate issues with a woman who is pregnant by two different men, whose father uses her as a way to control and divide territory. In return, you’ll get a load of the stuff you need to drastically reduce the odds of loupism.

It’s a trap, of course, and the trap is really well baited. The only question is really who it’s set for, and of course, it turns out that this advances the overarching plot as well: Kate’s heritage comes more and more to the fore, and her relationship with Curran has to weather that. At the same time, there’s a price paid within the story for every advance they gain, and lots of impossible choices to make.

My main frustration is that Kate and Curran start being idiots again. Communication, people. It’s not a myth. Use your mouths and talk to each other. Argh! Even if they don’t agree on tactics and so on, I wish their personal relationship felt less shaky and superficial at moments like this. I believe that Kate needs Curran, loves him. Now make the two of ’em act like it!

Also, the whole Andrea-and-Raphael issue is just all of a sudden solved. I’m guessing this is the point where it’d have helped to read Gunmetal Magic.

It’s a really fun read, though: it just races along at breakneck pace, and you never know exactly what’s going to happen next. The writing team that is Ilona Andrews don’t pull their punches.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Ilona Andrews, romance, SF/F

Review – Saga volume 4

Posted September 4, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Saga volume 4, Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples

Volume Four takes a little timeskip to move the story on, and it’s a wise decision. It drops us right in the middle of Alana and Marko’s difficulties with Hazel as a toddler, and with balancing their lives between caring for her and working, and scraping some time for each other. And it’s kind of awesome how not fantastical those aspects of Saga are — the way Marko and Alana mess up and hurt each other, and don’t manage to do the right or best thing, despite their love for each other and for Hazel.

The other storylines of Prince Robot, Gwendolyn and even the gay reporters are also touched on, but they felt more throwaway when compared to the messing up of Marko and Alana. And, to be fair, the way other people participate in messing them up — looking at you, dancing teacher lady and high-as-a-kite tree lady.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, SF/F