Tag: book reviews

Review – Tropic of Serpents

Posted April 12, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Tropic of Serpents, Marie Brennan

I “had” to reread this in preparation for the new book, but it was (of course) absolutely no hardship. I got into it right away, this time; before, it’d been a while since I read the first book, and I had to adjust a bit and remind myself of who everyone was. This time, it was all fresh enough to plunge right in, and it doesn’t disappoint. Brennan handles Isabella so well: we get to see all aspects of her life, like her relationship with her son (realistically painful, given the death of his father before he was born), her feelings about the religious/social stuff she has to bow to, her relationship with her family, and her attempts to make headway in the world of scholarship.

I was surprised when Marie Brennan mentioned that Tom Wilker was an incidental character who she didn’t expect to spend so much time with. For me, the books would be very different without Tom sharing Isabella’s dangers and trials. I have to confess that at one point I rather hoped he would be Lord Trent, though actually I do enjoy the intellectual friendship between them, and their support of each other without ever (well, almost ever) letting the fact that she’s a woman and he’s a man get in the way. People seem to find male-female friendship hard enough to grasp in today’s world, let alone a pseudo-Victorian one.

Also, yay for casual representation: Natalie Oscott does not, of course, have the words for it, but she’s asexual (not sex-averse, just it doesn’t drive her).

If you don’t love Isabella, I don’t know what to do with you. She’s resourceful, clever, but flawed as well, and her “deranged practicality” is exactly that, and if you weren’t reading her memoirs you’d be sure that she’d get herself killed that way. (Unless, of course, they do, and someone is reconstructing her memoirs from her notebooks, using her voice… It seems unlikely, but I’m suspicious-minded.)

One thing I would love to know: does Marie Brennan see Tom Wilker’s Niddey origins as having a direct analogue in our world? I’ve been picturing him as Welsh since, on one occasion when it said his accent was pronounced, he used a rather Welsh phrasing.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Marie Brennan, SF/F

Review – A Civil Contract

Posted April 11, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A Civil Contract, Georgette Heyer

A Civil Contract is quite unlike Heyer’s other novels, because the romance is understated and, indeed, there isn’t much romance at all, at least not in the same sense. It’s a much more practical novel, dealing with the realities of life: more or less arranged marriages, marriages of convenience, unsuitable matches… The most entertaining thing about it is the clash between the aristocratic main character and his father-in-law, Mr Chawleigh. In fact, Mr Chawleigh quite steals the show on a number of occasions.

Jenny is one of Heyer’s better-realised heroines in one sense: she is practical, not very subtle, and devoted from the start to making her new husband comfortable and happy. Of course, that’s a stereotype too, and one which readers may well find less engaging than the sharp back-and-forth of Heyer’s Sophy (for one example). Still, Jenny clearly knows her own mind and does not regret things, although she does have human feelings — wishful thinking, some jealousy, etc, etc. I find her interesting because she’s so untypical of Heyer — a cosy little homemaker! And one with whom we sympathise, even though I did feel that Julia’s flaws were somewhat overdone, in a sort of ‘well, if Julia’s too nice then Jenny isn’t going to come into her own at all’ sort of way.

Really, A Civil Contract is about marriage, not about courting (like The Convenient Marriage, which has some similarities, though not in the characters); it’s about a quieter sort of love, not a grand passion. It’s about making the best of things, and about having a partner who you can rely on. Adam finally realises that that’s what he has in Jenny, and that’s lovely: the way his snobbishness initially gets in the way is annoying, but he learns.

As someone in a nearly eleven-year relationship (not to mention someone who feels no sexual attraction at all), this is in many ways more true of my experience, and it’s nice to see it in a romance novel (of sorts; I think this is less clearly romance than some of Heyer’s others, but if we divide her work into historicals, romances and mysteries… this seems to fit most into the romance section, being too recent in date for the historicals and clearly not a mystery). It might be fun to have a passionate doomed love for someone, but what matters is whether you can work together, work things out together, communicate. Jenny and Adam do model that, as each learns to discuss things with the other and share their lives.

In other ways, A Civil Contract is interesting because of the background of the French Revolution, the perspective of Adam as a former soldier, and the class mixing which happens as a result of the marriage. There are some very entertaining characters, including some very determined and headstrong women who are very different to Jenny, but still positive. (Lady Nassington is one; Lady Oversley is another, in a way; and of course, Lydia.)

All in all, this isn’t one of the more adventurous stories, like The Talisman Ring, and neither is the romance one with tension or too much worry about how it’s going to work out. It is, for the most part, fairly comfortable — though I wonder if perhaps it would have been less so in more class-conscious times. (Says the daughter of a working class man and a upper-middle-class woman, whose families cordially, and sometimes not so cordially, hated each other!)

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Georgette Heyer, romance

Review – Wolfsbane Winter

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

Wolfsbane Winter, Jane Fletcher

Wolfsbane Winter is mostly a reasonably unremarkable fantastical love story, with some hints that this world is one we should be recognising. Not being great on the geography of the US, I only got some of the most obvious ones, like “Ellaye”, but I think there’s others for the more discerning among us. And then, of course, there’s the fact that this unremarkable fantastical love story is remarkable because of one major thing: both protagonists are women.

If you’re looking for relatively traditional fantasy without the crappy gender roles and homophobia, tahdah, you’ve found it! Women are capable soldiers and scouts, in this world, and are mostly allowed to do it. I think I remember some commentary from some characters that was less happy about it, and maybe some gendered insults, but it’s relatively free of that. The character arcs are fairly traditional too: from a damaged, traumatised child to one who can accept love, or from being broken down by a strange new ability to slowly coming to terms with it… It all feels very traditional, except minus the inevitable Guy Getting The Girl (and there are no kitchen boys who become kings, either, if you want to be really pedantic).

Given that fantasy is relatively devoid of non-straight love stories of any type, it was kind of charming to have a traditional one like this to read. If you’re looking for something groundbreaking, this isn’t it, except that it portrays a world a little more broad-minded than your average medieval fantasy novel. (Which this isn’t quite, see also “Ellaye”, but it feels it.) But it is fun.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic, SF/F

Review – Wolves

Posted April 9, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Wolves, Simon Ings

I got a surprising amount of the way into this when I realised that I really couldn’t care less, because it spends so much time looping round itself, I was too busy trying to figure out what some of the sentences even meant. I returned the copy I had to the library, so I can’t quote one, but there were plenty of sections where I felt that the point was not to get across a point, but to be flowery and pretentious. Eh. I kept waiting for the “terrifying thriller” parts to kick in; the brilliant new technology described in the summary and whatever would make the book stand out.

A third of the way in, I was still waiting, and meanwhile I was hanging around with characters who seemed opaque, pointless, uncaring and not worth caring about. There’s a line or two here and there that does work — the concept of falling in love, first, with the world a person inhabits, the things they surround themselves with, and then with the person. Or not. But, eh. Not interested in simply contemptible characters, and I didn’t feel pity or interest or anything else for them.

Rating: 1/5

Tags: book reviews, books

Review – The Owl Killers

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

The Owl Killers, Karen Maitland

Originally reviewed 25th August, 2012

I think this might be my favourite of Karen Maitland’s books so far — I definitely liked it more than The Gallows Curse, although it didn’t grip me as tightly as Company of Liars. I have nothing really to nitpick about here, though: the five POVs were well done and cast interesting lights on each other, and I love the research Maitland clearly put into it. The very concept of a beguinage is pretty fascinating, so that helps, but the way Maitland brought this one to life — and tried to explain a real historical event through it — is even more so. I’ve always loved historical novels that take something we know (a wingless Roman Eagle was found buried in Silchester, and Rosemary Sutcliff wrote The Eagle of the Ninth to explain it, for example) and try to puzzle out why. Karen Maitland explores why the beguinages failed to take root in Britain, despite some evidence of them existing here, and despite their longevity and appeal on the continent.

As with her other books, she evokes the Middle Ages well — the smells, the sounds, the sights. Perhaps a little predictably, I suppose: she gives us the vision of the Middle Ages we expect, dirt and plagues and superstition, but still. She does her work well.

I suppose I do have one nitpick, and that’s the POV of Pisspuddle, which doesn’t add much. It does add a villagers-eye view, so there’s that, but mostly she’s just a small child who doesn’t matter that much to the events happening around her.

The characters are all intriguing: I really felt for Osmanna, and for Servant Martha, particularly. I felt very sorry for Beatrice, even though I knew she was seeing things from a very biased point of view. And Healer Martha deserved better.

Oh yes, and trigger warning: rape, abusive parents, sickness. More or less what you might expect, but just in case.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Flashback Friday, historical fiction

Review – The Wicked Day

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

The Wicked Day, Mary Stewart

Arrrghhh, this book! Okay, on the good side: Stewart knew the Arthurian material well and handled it with confidence, often bringing in small details in ways which were a delight to spot (but which didn’t particularly harm the narrative if you didn’t spot them). And it’s an interesting take on Mordred: a loyal son to Arthur, once he knows about it, taking up much the same sort of relationship as between Merlin and Ambrosius, or Arthur and Merlin. His emotions are for the most part really well done: his ambition, his determination, how he fights against his fate and ultimately serves it.

But. Arthur. In the last quarter or so of The Wicked Day, Stewart breaks her entire previous characterisation for Arthur. He becomes irrational, forgets who he can trust, takes advice from the wrong people — ignores the advice of people like Nimue, whose power comes from Merlin. He forgets what’s important — forgets important plans that he made — and just gives way to suspicion and slander. He endangers everything, and for what? For suspicions that just chapters before he knew were unfounded.

The way I read it, Stewart broke her own story’s backbone by insisting that everyone (except the women) remain blameless. She didn’t want to blame Arthur or Mordred or Bedwyr, so she palmed some of it off on Gawain’s rash nature, some of it on Mordred’s latent ambition, and… some on Arthur being an idiot in ways he hasn’t been at any other point in the series. She couldn’t resist heaping calumny on the women: Morgause committed incest knowingly with her brother, and then wanted to commit incest again with the son born of that union. What the hell? The other books well-established Stewart’s near-inability to handle the women of the Arthurian mythos (more surprising given the relatively active and capable heroines of her mystery/romances), but this is just… desperate. It reeks of pushing everything off onto the female characters, but she had to do it because she decided that it “didn’t make sense” for Mordred and Arthur to do things they do in some branches of the mythos — in some kind of wrong-headed attempt to marry it all together, or to follow the example of others (cough, Malory) who didn’t manage to bring it all together. It just won’t go.

And I can kind of get it. I did enjoy the little references I noticed, for example to other sons of Arthur. We want to admire the Arthurian heroes, and we want the best of all of them: the just and strong king, the heroic seneschal, etc, etc. (And I was badly served in this, since Gawain is an impetuous idiot given to murder in this version, and also my favourite knight in the general mythology.) But Stewart tried to get everyone out ‘alive’, or at least their reputations (few of them actually survive, which is kind of a relief given the contortions she went through in The Last Enchantment to keep Merlin alive), and that… doesn’t work.

It’s so frustrating, partially because I get the impulse, and I liked the relationship between Arthur and Mordred here. The treatment of women aside, I quite enjoyed the first three quarters, or even four-fifths. But. But. Stewart broke her own story and characterisation because she couldn’t make a hard decision, as far as I can see, and the story is critically weakened by it.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: Arthurian, book reviews, books, Mary Stewart, SF/F

Review – Blood and Feathers

Posted April 6, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Blood and Feathers, Lou Morgan

Blood and Feathers reminded me very much of Supernatural, from the morality of the angels/demons through the issues of falling to the general reliance on human firepower — Mallory, one of the main characters, uses guns regularly, rather than any kind of angelic power. As in Supernatural, sometimes it seems as though the angels may not be the best allies, and may not want the best for humanity; some of the demons seem redeemable.

Overall, it’s a fast read, and I found it quite enjoyable. If it had dragged, I might’ve questioned things more or wanted more depth in the world-building, but as it was, Alice didn’t really know what was going on and things continued to reveal themselves to her and the reader at a pretty good clip. Mallory is the kind of character obviously calculated to be interesting to the reader: racked with pain, competent, more sympathetic than some of the others, capable of empathising with Alice. I found myself imagining him as the love child of Dean Winchester and Castiel, somehow — there were bits of both character types in him. Alice herself is more of a blank slate, with vague bits of her past slowly being filled in; nothing to object to, but nothing to attach to either.

I don’t know if I’m going to pick up the next book; while this was a fun enough quick read, I’m not terribly invested in it, and some of the plot ‘twists’ were terribly obvious to me. (The entire character of Gwyn, for example. The ‘mystery’ of what happened to Alice’s mother, for another example.) We’ll see; I’d probably get it from the library, but not buy it.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Liars and Thieves

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

Liars and Thieves, Karen Maitland

I might’ve benefitted from reading this closer to when I read Company of Liars, as it took me a while to remember who the characters were and what exactly was going on — and I still can’t quite remember how it fits in. It’s basically like a missing chapter from Company of Liars; nothing essential, but some characterisation stuff and a little bit more of the world, and the dangerous situations travellers faced.

It’s not a great or vital addition to the world, but if you enjoy the characters and their interplay, you might want to pick it up. It’s readable, just not special.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Karen Maitland, short stories

Review – The Selection

Posted April 4, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Selection, Kiera Cass

I didn’t expect to like The Selection, and I’m not sure any regulars here thought I would, but surprisingly, well… I kind of read it all in one go. It’s not a favourite or anything, but I found it very readable, and there were some points I definitely liked: the sensuality between Aspen and America, despite his rather sexist attitude of having to provide for her, for example. I didn’t like Aspen, but I liked the bond between them (if that makes sense), and I also liked that at the end of the book, America was ready to consider it and state that she would be doing herself a disservice if she just leapt into making a decision between Maxon and Aspen. Like.

Maxon is, well, too good to be true — considerate, friendly, hoping for romance, etc, etc, especially when you compare his behaviour to Aspen’s. It makes sense, though, and hopefully in later books he’s developed a bit more: I did enjoy the fact that he and America struck up a friendship, and that he relied upon her.

The other thing I liked was that, for the most part, the participants wished each other well and helped one another. There’s always a mean girl, of course, and there wouldn’t be much drama if there wasn’t a stumbling block like that. But the feeling of sisterhood that grows between the contestants is a nice touch.

I don’t know if I’ll read the other books. It may have been that I just read this at the right time, tired and wanting something easy! But I am a little curious, so I probably will. I’ve never been one for reality shows and soap operas, so it might not hold my attention if the drama builds up, but it’s fun enough from what I can see in The Selection.

Rating: 3/5

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

Review – The Darkest Part of the Forest

Posted April 3, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Darkest Part of the Forest, Holly Black

I’m having a hard time putting together what I thought of this book, but perhaps it boils down to one thing: communication, damn it! Between brother and sister, between friends, between parents and their children, between faerie princes and the people they hope will help them. And especially with people you want to kiss.

Seriously, half the issues here would be mitigated by communication; if Hazel talked to Ben, if Ben talked to Hazel. Jack’s the only one I somewhat let off the hook, because he’s part faerie and geasa/odd restrictions are part of the stock in trade. (Actually, I mostly liked the portrayal of the faerie people; cruel and wild and sometimes beguiling, with bits of traditional fairy stories all over the place, and fairytale narrative styles as well — things coming in threes, for instance. The portrayal of people, in general, the suspicions of Jack, the apathy regarding anything that doesn’t touch directly on the community — that all worked quite well.)

I can’t help but feel that I would’ve been more interested in Ben’s story, because Hazel is so necessarily divided from herself by the plot. There’s stuff happening to her, and you don’t really know what or why, because even though she’s the focus character, there are gaps and omissions. It makes sense, but I kind of wanted Ben’s story more — probably especially because he’s not straight, and he is in the end the most entangled with the faerie world.

I do enjoy Jack’s characterisation a lot; his resolution to get the best of both worlds, to be a human while he can. His caring for his brother (double), his human parents, and the call to the faerie side of him as well — his insistence on living a mortal life while he can and appreciating his human family, his human connections, because he has all the time in the world for the rest.

I think ultimately, the book didn’t stand out enough for me, but it is interesting.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic, SF/F