Tag: book reviews

Review – Over the Woodward Wall

Posted June 13, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Over the Woodward Wall by A. Deborah BakerOver the Woodward Wall, A. Deborah Baker (Seanan McGuire)

I loved Middlegame, but I didn’t expect to enjoy this spin-off so much! It shares DNA with Cat Valente’s Fairyland books, though the narrator is a little less intrusive and knowing. It also shares some DNA with McGuire’s own Wayward Children series, unavoidably.

It also manages to be something of its own, though, and I quickly stopped comparing it and started caring about Zib and Avery and the Crow Girl, and what will become of them. It’s a world based on fantasy/fairytale tropes and tarot cards, and there are giant talking owls and Bumble Bears and an improbable road to an Impossible City — what’s not to like?

I didn’t expect to get so caught up in it, but it was lovely; exactly what the doctor ordered. I know the second book is out, though, and I wish I’d got it before I started, because the story really doesn’t end at the end of the book.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Bruising of Qilwa

Posted June 12, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem JamniaThe Bruising of Qilwa, Naseem Jamnia

Received to review via Netgalley

The Bruising of Qilwa tries to tackle a lot. It’s a medical fantasy, with a mystery element, and it also delves a little bit into the question of what it means to be oppressed when you have also in your turn been the oppressor (or at least, your people have). The author is Persian-American, so obviously they have a lot of thoughts about this, though the story of Firuz and their work as a healer is at the forefront.

There were a few surprises here in how the story went versus what I’d expected, but mostly it’s surprisingly quiet for a book with some pretty dire consequences at stake. The climax of the story does become rather more energetic, but a lot of the story is just… trying to get on with life as a refugee. Firuz is trying to build a home for their elderly mother and their trans brother (who needs gender-affirming treatment only Firuz’s secret blood magic can provide), and for a foundling from the streets, and trying to help others as well, using their skills at one of the few clinics that provides care for the refugees.

Oh, and there’s a plague. Two separate ones.

It feels like a very slim number of pages to hold so much going on; I think it punches above its weight in that line. I found it a bit uncomfortable to read because certain elements of the second plague hit my anxiety just so, but it’s a really interesting setup.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances

Posted June 11, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances by Aliette de BodardOf Charms, Ghosts and Grievances, Aliette de Bodard

Received to review via Netgalley

Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances picks up on Thuan and Asmodeus from Aliette de Bodard’s Dominion of the Fallen world once more, and once more they’re in the world of Thuan’s birth rather than safe (well, relatively safe) in Asmodeus’ particular domain. As ever, they love each other very much, but Asmodeus is a stabby creature of revenge, while Thuan believes himself saner and more just… though it does become clear that Asmodeus is capable of love, self-sacrifice and reaching for justice, while Thuan is more hide-bound than he’d like to admit.

It’s not quite “together, they fight crime”, but it’s not far off either. While babysitting, they quickly stumble upon a mystery and a ghost, and following that to where it leads promptly exposes all the stress-fractures in their relationship, and all the flaws of both of them.

For fans of the characters, it’s lovely; it’s being billed as a one-shot, which I wouldn’t say is entirely true. I think it works on its own, probably, but there’s more to it when you can see it against the backdrop of the Dominion of the Fallen books, and the last of Asmodeus and Thuan’s relationship. That said, you don’t need to have read them recently (I haven’t), because it gives a lot of cues about their background to help make things clear.

It was a fun read, for sure, and I’ll pick up anything else that happens to come out about Asmodeus and Thuan.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Hidden Hands

Posted June 10, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Hidden Hands by Mary WellesleyHidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and Their Makers, Mary Wellesley

Hidden Hands is a book about manuscripts, and more than that, about the people behind the manuscripts. It’s not necessarily about the most beautiful or most impressive manuscripts, or the rarest, though it discusses manuscripts from all those categories. Wellesley isn’t just interested in the contents of the manuscripts, but also the people who composed the words, the scribes who wrote the actual script, the owners of the manuscript, and the potential readers of them.

I was familiar with most of the manuscripts mentioned, to the point where I’d have been interested in hearing more about the Pearl/Gawain manuscript or something for once, rather than the Beowulf manuscript yet a-fucking-gain. There were a couple of surprises too, though, like the discussion of the collection of letters from a particular family and how some of them were illiterate and thus the anxiety about the use of scribes. I’m not sure I’d normally count a collection of letters as a manuscript, but it was still an interesting section.

I also knew nothing about Gwerful Mechain, a medieval Welsh poet who wrote erotic poetry and protests against the misogynistic poetry circulating in her day. She was a definite and welcome surprise to me (as was the mention of a scholar who taught me, Katie Gramich).

All in all, I felt like there was so much to say that it would have merited a longer book, one which I would’ve read eagerly!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Wood for the Trees

Posted June 9, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Wood for the Trees by Richard ForteyThe Wood for the Trees, Richard Fortey

The Wood for the Trees is a ramble through the woods that Fortey owns and maintains (a small patch of woodland that once belonged to a large estate). With the curiosity of a lifetime’s work in science, he examines every little bit of the wood in all seasons of the year, lifting up rocks, turning over fallen branches, and digging around in the history of the woods.

I got it because he made geology really interesting in another book I read, though I find this book didn’t have quite the same touch — perhaps because it’s so wide-ranging, so unfocused. Instead of just looking at the geology or the biology, he digs into the archaeology as well, into literature and historical figures that touched upon the wood, into the way the wood used to be worked with.

His little cabinet of curiosity is interesting, and his enthusiasm for the wood admirable — but unlike his other books, this didn’t keep me picking the book up to pursue more of it.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Bitter

Posted June 4, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Bitter by Akwaeke EmeziBitter, Akwaeke Emezi

Bitter is a prequel to Pet, and it’s slightly unfortunate that some of the important details from Pet have now slipped my mind, because I think that would’ve helped significantly in finding my feet again in the world. Bitter is Jam’s mother, and this covers the period leading to the upheaval that made Lucille such a utopia for Jam. It makes more sense of Bitter’s reactions to Pet, and the world which Jam and Redemption live in.

I didn’t love it as much as I hoped; it felt very topical, particularly when a character loses an eye during a protest, and for the first half of the book seemed mostly to be a chronicling of current events in lightly fictionalised form. Then Bitter finds her magic, and things open up, giving us access to more of the background of Pet: the angels and the takeover of the city.

It’s a really quick read, and I enjoyed the background it gave to Pet, but it didn’t quite speak to me in the same way, even though I fully understood Bitter’s insecurities and fears. Maybe that’s part of why I didn’t get involved as much!

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Laziness Does Not Exist

Posted June 3, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon PriceLaziness Does Not Exist, Devon Price

I found this an interesting read more because of what I had resistance to than because of what it said, almost. Much of it is well known to anyone who’s had a course of CBT (yes of course I should turn notifications off on my phone, and of course I don’t because I have unrealistic expectations of how much I should work)… but it’s quite provocative to come out and say it’s due to the “Laziness Lie”, and see every case of “laziness” as something non-lazy.

It’s an easy enough read, and brings together some good points, but it could seriously use fewer anecdotes and more research-based conclusions. It’s sometimes self-contradictory, saying that people are more productive when they take time to rest and then saying at the end that if you take time to rest, you’ll be less productive… which I think is mostly the author not quite connecting dots where they meant to point out that if you’re taking time to rest, you might just find some other priorities arise that you care about more than the work that made you exhausted in the first place.

There are some things it made me think about doing; of course, its conclusions are about the opposite of what I do every day working for an app that helps people commit to their goals, often involving productivity… But mostly I didn’t think it was wrong, just that there’s room for me to find a lot of satisfaction in my job and find some more time to rest. I think it bangs the drum a bit too hard about the joys of not working, and forgets that security is really key too.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Built

Posted June 2, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Built by Roma AgrawalBuilt, Roma Agrawal

I didn’t get into Built at first, since this is not one of my major interests, but once Agrawal began to describe the challenges of levelling the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, I was sucked in. The problems there of subsidence — and uneven subsidence at that — and the history being built on were fascinating to me, and from that point I was all on board.

Agrawal explains things well, and has included helpful images as well — especially useful for me, as someone who can’t imagine anything. I don’t care enormously about skyscrapers, or bridges, but once I entered into the spirit of thinking of them as problems to be solved, I got interested despite myself. Which is of course part of why I picked this up in the first place!

One quibble would be with the way the book is organised. The chapter titles aren’t very informative, and it all seems to skip around quite a bit — I didn’t see any underlying logic to the organisation of the book.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – All the Horses of Iceland

Posted June 1, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of All the Horses of Iceland, by Sarah TolmieAll the Horses of Iceland, Sarah Tolmie

If you’re familiar with Icelandic sagas, this is probably especially delightful — certainly that familiarity enhanced this book for me, and I’m not sure what I’d have made of it without that background. Tolmie captures something of the rhythm and the language of the sagas (albeit of course in English, but you might be familiar with it even from translations), and the way of thinking.

It all felt so familiar, like surely it must really be part of that tradition, right down to the interpolations by a later Christian author. It’s pretty perfect mimicry, and an enchanting sort of fairytale.

I enjoyed it a lot, and enjoyed the thought she put into how to present the world and choose her words (as evident from the author’s note at the end).

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

Posted May 31, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky ChambersThe Galaxy, and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is the only book of this series which didn’t make me cry, and it felt the least consequential (which is not saying much, perhaps, when the previous books tend not to have galactic significance either). Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, but I do think it’s important to be open-eyed about that going in: in many ways, it’s just about people learning things about themselves. Those people are aliens in a much wider than we’re part of, true, but many elements of the story could be managed the same without being science fiction.

What I do enjoy is that Chambers puts thought into making each alien culture different, though with some rhymes in experiences and histories that give them common ground among the differences. This one features no humans at all, unlike the previous instalments, which was an unexpected delight.

The plot is basically “three stranded travellers and their hosts must get along for a brief period of time despite having reasons to be elsewhere”, and plays the characters and their histories against each other to delve into stuff that’s troubling in previous books (Aeluons and their war-mongering, for instance). At the end, everyone goes on their way safely — but not without having to have a think about themselves and what they’re doing, and where they might be going next.

Rating: 4/5

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