Tag: book reviews

Review – Sockology

Posted April 30, 2015 by in Reviews / 5 Comments

Sockology, Brenna Maloney

I read this on Scribd after browsing through the craft books (where’s the crochet hiding?!). It’s a fun sort of book, with patterns and ideas about how to cut up and reuse socks to make various creatures. I didn’t always find the results attractive, but the patterns could be fairly easily altered. As soon as you figure out how to look at a sock for how you can cut it up and change it, instead of as a sock, you’ve got it.

Not something I’m going to get into, I think — I never seem to have enough socks anyway. But I have a friend or two who might enjoy it…

Rating: 3/5

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

Review – Mammoths of the Great Plains

Posted April 29, 2015 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

Mammoths of the Great Plains, Eleanor Arnason

I still need to read A Woman of the Iron People, which is the main work I’ve been recommended by Arnason. But I thought I’d read this on Scribd, since it was available and I find the Outspoken Authors series generally interesting. I was less interested in the interview and essay, though it’s interesting to know where Arnason comes from (in many senses!) and what her preoccupations are. I’m not sure how much general interest the essay has; certainly, if you’re not fond of non-fiction, I can’t imagine you’ll appreciate it.

The story itself is interesting: it’s alternate history, where mammoths survived into the last couple of centuries, and where humans drove them to extinction with hunting and tourism. The background of the Native American characters and customs was particularly cool, especially given the educated and successful Native American women at the heart of the story.

The contemplative tone is a bit Ursula Le Guin-ish, which I think Arnason says herself — and the structure, too, with the story within a story. It’s quite a slow narrative: not about things happening, so much as things that have happened, about the power humans have for good and bad (but usually bad) over our environment. I don’t know enough about Native American culture and belief to judge that aspect of the story: to me the ecological, intimate link with nature stuff seemed a little like an idealisation, more of the ‘noble savage’ persuasion than realism, but it doesn’t do so in a negative way and, like I said, I don’t know enough to judge.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, short stories

Review – Third Time Lucky

Posted April 28, 2015 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

Third Time Lucky, Tanya Huff

I’ve wanted to get this collection since it came out, so no surprises that I read it as soon as I got chance. I love Huff’s collections of short stories: they’re bite-sized, sure, but there’s enough there to get your teeth into. Especially in this collection, which is a group of stories about the same character/world: Magdalene, the most powerful wizard in the world. I loved that she is literally the most powerful wizard, and that Huff chose to deal with that not by making her less powerful, but by making her essentially her own worst enemy. (Which is particularly true in the last story.)

I like that Magdalene is lazy, indolent, sensual, sexual — and none of this is particularly judged by the stories in any kind of “teach her a lesson” way. She still does what needs to be done, she still cares about the people around her, and she doesn’t care to boast about her. That would take effort.

In fact, arguably the only “lesson” in these stories is that she must accept herself, whole and entire, the good with the bad. Not a bad message at all, if there’s going to be one.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, short stories, Tanya Huff

Review – Traitor's Blade

Posted April 27, 2015 by in Reviews / 4 Comments

Traitor’s Blade, Sebastien de Castell

Halfway through this one, I went on Netgalley and requested an ARC of the second one. It was just so easy to read. It’s definitely a fantasy world sort of Three Musketeers story, with plenty of historic and cultural background to the story to make it interesting.

The characters worked well for me, too: okay, I’m not so fond of the womanising Brasti most of the time (especially not when he wants to loot corpses, which is totally against the Greatcoats’ customs), but the relationship between him and the others was still important. My favourite was probably Kest, though. The relationship (in flashbacks) between Falcio and his king is also an important one, and at the heart of the emotional part of the story. The group also has a bantering Gentleman Bastards flavour, if you’re a Scott Lynch fan.

In terms of plot, I called pretty much all of the twists a bit before they happened, but I looked forward to seeing exactly how it played out, so I didn’t mind. I’m interested to see what comes next, particularly with the characters who gained in importance toward the end of the book: Valiana and Aline.

One thing jarred a bit. There are powerful women, female Greatcoats, etc, and yet “you hit like a girl” is still a joke. Buh? Granted, the first time it’s used someone points out it’s idiotic, but really, is that where we need to get our humour from? Do we have to impose the gender norms of our world on fantasy ones? Sigh.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Howl's Moving Castle

Posted April 26, 2015 by in Reviews / 9 Comments

Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

I don’t know how many times I’ve read this now, but it’s probably my favourite of Diana Wynne Jones’ work. I actually saw the Studio Ghibli adaptation first: it’s very different in some ways, but it still captures some of the ideas and tone. The thing I really loved, though, coming to the book after the film, was discovering all the Welsh background. The ‘saucepan song’, Howl’s family, his Welsh Rugby shirt, even some of the things he says — “there’s a welcome in the valleys”! As well as the Welsh background, there’s just a lot more in the book: Sophie’s sisters, her aunt Fanny, a different view of Howl…

And Sophie is a fun protagonist: capable, pretty, not stuck up, capable of making mistakes, admitting she’s wrong, and being really ratty about it. She’s not perfect, by any means — which is fortunate, because neither is Howl. Both of them have a lot to put up with, in fact! And yet it doesn’t go too far, either: most people have something redeeming about them. For a while we think of Sophie’s Aunt Fanny as rather exploitative and unfair; a wicked stepmother, in fact. But there’s another side to the story, and Jones makes sure we know it.

Then of course there’s the tone. It’s light, silly, and yet you come to care about the characters easily because they make you smile, and because sometimes you can see right through them to their real motivations. Like people, really. I love all the references to traditional folk tale structures, too, like Sophie thinking she’ll never come to much because she’s the eldest of three.

Rating: 5/5

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

Review – Reasons to Stay Alive

Posted April 23, 2015 by in Reviews / 4 Comments

Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig

And it felt like a winter machine
That you go through and then
You catch your breath and winter starts again
And everyone else is spring bound

And when I chose to live
There was no joy
It’s just a line I crossed
It wasn’t worth the pain my death would cost
So I was not lost or found
–Dar Williams, ‘After All’

Reasons to Stay Alive is a sort of memoir, a sort of letter-to-self, a bit of a self-help book. It talks frankly about depression and anxiety, trying to put into words the sensations it can cause, the extent to which each is beyond simply feeling sad or worried. Most of the chapters are short; some seemed more useful than others. Some of it might help with understanding a loved one who has depression or anxiety, or any mental health issue, because Haig is a writer and knows how to communicate, and has been there feeling this. Some of it might be helpful in dealing with these kinds of feelings for yourself.

The thing I’ve found is that mostly, people with depression aren’t able to hear this sort of story. I certainly couldn’t. People could tell me until they were blue in the face that it could get better, that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, the fog would lift, etc, etc. I totally get the urge to share that understanding with people who don’t have it yet, but I’m not sure it works.

But if it does, even once, then it’s worth saying, so here’s my voice too: it can get better. No matter how scared or despairing or fucked up you feel, you can come back out of it. You’re never going to be the person you were before the depression, but you can be a new person who has learnt to cope with it, who has good times again.

I’ve been scared again, even desperately so, since I began to get better from my GAD. The important thing was that hard won knowledge that my brain was lying to me and it is possible to be okay again. I believe that for me, I believe that for Matt Haig, and I believe it for you, too, even when you can’t.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – The State of the Art

Posted April 22, 2015 by in Reviews / 7 Comments

The State of the Art, Iain M. Banks

The State of the Art is a collection of short stories, some of which relate to the Culture novels and some of which don’t (or at least, don’t overtly). I actually wasn’t much impressed by Iain M. Banks as a short story writer, it seems: the best of the stories was the titular story itself, which is both a Culture story and rather longer than the other stories in the collection, which gave it more space to interest me, and more space for him to set up the kind of story that’s grabbed me in his novels.

There’s nothing wrong with the stories per se, but they didn’t grab me at all (with the exception of the one already mentioned and ‘A Gift from the Culture’). Where I was interested was when it was closest to Banks’ other SF work, but otherwise the stories seemed fairly unremarkable. There are some interesting bits of humour; wry looks at staples of the genre.

I’m hoping that’s not a reaction to Banks’ work in general, as I know I did enjoy several of his Culture novels and I was looking forward to reading the rest. Perhaps he just isn’t to my taste as a short story writer.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Iain M. Banks, SF/F, short stories

Review – Ombria in Shadow

Posted April 21, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Ombria in Shadow, Patricia A. McKillip

I love all of McKillip’s work, as least so far. She can really manage enchantment: her Ombria is a strange world, decaying and bright, mysterious and intriguing. There’s a lot going on here: the magic behind Faey and her waxling, the magic behind Domina Pearl, Ducon’s father and Mag’s origins… And there’s characters you can’t help but care about: Kyel, so alone; Lydea, who loves him; Ducon, the bastard son with no designs upon the throne, who spends his time drawing, searching, learning the city and seeing it in ways others can’t. And the details, like Lydea’s bitten fingernails, the charcoal stains Ducon leaves on the bedsheets so everyone knows where he’s been sleeping and when.

And of course, the hidden passageways, the secrets, the two worlds side by side.

It cast its spell very quickly over me; McKillip writes beautifully, of course, and that itself is kind of mesmerising.

Towards the ending — perhaps the last twenty pages — I was less sure of what was going on. It might pull itself together more on a reread, I’m not sure, but I was left not quite knowing who knew what was happening, who understood what, why certain things changed and others didn’t (or if they didn’t change, but people acted like they had to make things easier). I have that feeling with McKillip’s work a lot, though, and it hasn’t deterred me from picking up more.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Patricia A. McKillip, SF/F

Review – Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts

Posted April 20, 2015 by in Reviews / 11 Comments

Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts, Jorie Graham

A somewhat random choice from Blloon’s catalogue. Some of this poetry is lovely — some just didn’t make an impression on me, but there are some gorgeous images, ways of tilting the world askew and looking at it anew, haunting ones…

I think unfortunately my overall reaction is of ambivalence, but things stick in my head — “The starlings keep trying / to thread the eyes / of steeples.” And looking at other reviews, it sounds like this was a first collection, and that perhaps I should’ve come across Jorie Graham before. I might look for more of her work, mostly for the language rather than the content.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, poetry

Review – Salt

Posted April 19, 2015 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Salt, Adam Roberts

Salt is an interesting sort of book; it does have a plot, but really the central point is not the setting (the planet Salt) or background, though we do see that, but a clash between two different ideologies. Roberts handles it pretty cleverly: as soon as you find yourself sympathising with one side, they do something awful. The voices are clever, too — more Barlei than Petja, because he reveals who he is and his self-satisfied, propagandist agenda with every word. I could never quite sympathise with his side of things, given that. I didn’t really side with either of them: it seemed like such a typical case of two different ways of life clashing, with no one really trying to understand the other — with the very act of trying to understand the other even being part of the problem, because they were just so incompatible.

The only place the voice really fails for me is when Rhoda Titus takes over narrating. It feels like the story just trickles to a stop there; there’s no resolution. Now, maybe the story warrants none; maybe there is none. But when you’re writing a book you can’t just let it dribble into silence in this awkward way.

It’s a clever/interesting set-up, and well-written for the most part — some of the passages about the landscape of Salt are gorgeous, and the voice of President Barlei is perfect too (unless, uh, you’re meant to like him and not see right through him). Just failed to satisfy when it comes to the ending.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F