Posted August 12, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Cheltenham Square Murder, John Bude
The Cheltenham Square Murder is a pretty standard Golden Age murder mystery, without major surprises and tending towards being a police procedural, given that the two detectives are both police — and not even Scotland Yard, but local police, albeit one of them displaced from his usual area by a holiday — and the plot follows the step by step by step of their assembly of suspects, witnesses and evidence. There’s even a map!
I’ll admit I jumped ahead to the solution by guessing who seemed most unlikely and who had the absolute best alibi, because that’s how it goes with a lot of the Golden Age novels. It ends up being fun enough, a little puzzle with low stakes for the reader, without great attachment to the innocence or guilt of any particular character. Needless to say, at the end order is restored and justice will be done — and all ends very comfortably like that.
So, not inspiring or surprising, and the writing quality doesn’t elevate it (as I would argue E.C.R. Lorac manages with most of her novels) — but fun enough if you know that’s what you’re getting, which is exactly why I picked it up!
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, John Bude, mystery
Posted August 11, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Magic Strikes, Ilona Andrews
When I think about this book, I think about some of the pivotal scenes in the arena, and it was a bit of a surprise to read it again and realise how little fighting Kate and the shapeshifters actually do together in the arena. I mean, there are still a few battles, but I remembered it taking up a much bigger chunk of the book. It’s one of my favourite in the series so far, partly because of that strong impression about the arena, but also because there are some really funny lines (“turn your headlamps off” — in context, that’s just, ahaha).
It’s also one where things finally get really moving on the romance plot, and it becomes obvious what Curran’s intentions are. Which is the source of much of the funniness, but also a couple of really good scenes. In shapeshifter romance there’s sometimes the tendency to talk about how the instincts are stronger than anything, etc, etc, and sometimes it leads to kind of rapey stuff which is just ick. Curran, however, demonstrates really very strongly that a ‘no’ is a ‘no’, even if he thinks Kate doesn’t mean it.
Though how much does it say about her that she just has to say no, very explicitly to test his control? Oh, Kate.
Anyway, Kate continues to be both a total smartass and a total dumbass, and we also see some development for other characters like Derek, Julie, Andrea, Raphael and Jim. Speaking of smartasses, Raphael has some pretty great lines too.
So yeah, lots of fun.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Ilona Andrews, romance, SF/F
Posted August 10, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah
I am not the world’s biggest fan of short stories, in general, I must admit. There are some stories I’ve appreciated a lot, so it’s not that my mind is completely closed to them… but mostly I prefer something a bit meatier. Where I do like short stories, I often like the ones that surprise me, the ones with a sting in the tail. And there were one or two here that worked in that way for me, like the title story: a sudden moment of everything falling (ha) into place, and oh, oh, that’s what that was…
Overall, I didn’t really adore these stories, but there are some great moments that did catch my eye — ways of describing things, capturing a moment, etc — and some lovely writing. If you enjoy short stories more generally, I suspect there’s a lot here for you… but for me, they weren’t quite as striking or memorable as I’d hoped — which I know is more about me and what I like than the stories themselves!
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Lesley Nneka Arimah, short stories
Posted August 9, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Index, a History of The, Dennis Duncan
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 2nd September 2021
Indexes don’t exactly sound like the most scintillating of subjects, I guess. On the face of it, they’re such a utilitarian thing, and most of us don’t give them a second thought. But I really enjoy histories that dig into things we take for granted like this, and it’s usually surprisingly rewarding, so I thought this sounded like a good time — and I wasn’t wrong. It’s not just about the minutiae of how to create a good index (although that’s certainly part of it), but also about people’s attitudes to indexes, and what that says about people’s needs, wants and fears when it comes to literacy and scholarship.
The highlight of the book is probably Duncan’s delighted tour of how to use an index to be truly petty. Would you imagine that an index could cost a politician an election? Well, there’s at least one case where an index was a factor. Can you picture getting one over on your rival with a catty little index entry? There’s some really fascinating stuff lurking behind some indexes, and it’s fascinating.
I also thought the examples of using indexes as a format for telling fiction were interesting; as Duncan says, they don’t quite work because they can’t quite imitate the random, non-chronological format… but there are some really imaginative stories out there which give it a go.
Overall, this was everything I’d hoped for.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Dennis Duncan, history, non-fiction
Posted August 8, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer
From the reviews and blurbs I read for this, I was expecting something that used scientific knowledge a little more than this. It is there, woven into how the author understands the world… but much of it is autobiography, a memoir of how the author came to understand the world through an amalgam of scientific knowledge and training (she is a botanist) and the teachings of indigenous people. She is Potawatomi herself, though those are not the only traditions she references.
I’m afraid that far from being a spirit-nourishing breath of fresh air, as others have found it, it ultimately struck me as very sentimental. She romanticises indigenous lives and teachings to a huge degree. It’s difficult, because of course much of what she says about the changes colonisation brought to the US is true, and I agree with her about the need to live more constructively with other beings on Earth — I don’t think there’s much I actually disagreed with at all! (I can think of one point: she wants to see ecosystems restored to exactly what they were, while I’m not sure that is always possible or desirable. The clock can’t simply be turned back.)
…And yet, still, I found the whole book very sentimental and a little, I guess, vicariously embarrassing? I’m sure the author would view that to some extent as my poverty of spirit, but on the one hand, I don’t find science so devoid of wonder and warmth as she says, and on the other, I don’t think I need to imbue inanimate objects with innate purpose and souls in order to treat the world with respect.
Admittedly, it also does not help that I don’t share her experiences. Britain has different flora and fauna, obviously, and it’s that which would be more likely to spark off that sentimentality in me; talk about wild blackberries on the side of Caerphilly mountain and I can summon up the right warmth, but I have no idea what sweetgrass even looks like beyond the very vaguest outline.
In the end, just… didn’t enjoy it. Had hoped for more science and less sentiment.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, Robin Wall Kimmerer, science
Posted August 7, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Ouch!: The New Science of Pain, Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, Margee Kerr
I’d somewhat feared when I picked this book up that it would be unsympathetic to those with chronic pain, in the way that some doctors are at the moment, because the overprescription of opiates is so much on their minds that everyone reporting pain sounds like a drug seeker to them. There is a bit of commentary on the fact that modern people are more likely to report pain and to be afraid of pain, etc, etc, but overall I found that the two authors were fairly sympathetic and willing to seek out multiple views.
One of the authors has experience with chronic pain and a degenerative illness, and both of them make sure to position themselves so the reader understands where they’re coming from — perhaps too autobiographical for some when it comes to popular science, but I think it was valuable in this case. Either way, both seem to have done a lot of research, including hands-on. Their attitude does lean toward “pain is a good thing and painkillers are generally the wrong treatment”, but doesn’t exclude the usefulness of painkillers for some people. It’s mostly sensitive and sympathetic, as I said, including toward the BDSM community, whose attitudes toward pain they also discuss.
It’s a layperson-friendly guide to what we understand about pain, not just biologically (although it does discuss that) but also psychologically and socially… and it discusses not just physical pain, but to some degree emotional pain as well (particularly as you can’t really have one without the other: human experience isn’t neatly divided like that). It was what I’d hoped for from another book which was much more about responses to pain, so that was nice. Overall, it’s super readable, and I flew through it.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, science
Posted August 6, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Elephants on Acid, Alex Boese
I was warned by reviews that Boese covers some abhorrent experiments on animals without any kind of critique, and that’s correct. Boese seems more interested in the shock and amusement factor of some of these experiments, including expecting people to be rather shocked that scientists have tried to study sex in the lab. I actually knew about most of these experiments and findings before, so there was nothing much shocking or surprising for me — except his casual tone about animal experimentation.
(I’m not personally against animal experimentation when necessary, when there’s a possibility of great benefit. I think. It’s a stance that wavers across time, something that I have great difficulty with. What I never change my mind on is unnecessary experimentation: harming animals just to see what happens. Like giving them a massive and deadly overdose of acid, for example.)
It’s a good overview of some “weird” experiments, some of which have produced useful results. Otherwise, meh?
Rating: 2/5
Tags: Alex Boese, book reviews, books, non-fiction, science
Posted August 5, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment
The Library of the Dead, T.L. Huchu
I found it a bit unfortunate that the cover design for this book was so reminiscent of the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. Maybe a tad more unfortunate again that he actually blurbed it, bringing the comparison even more forcibly to mind. There’s much that is different, of course, from the location (Edinburgh) and the setting (a future in which the divisions between rich and poor are even greater, a world where magic is a known thing, etc)… but there were some similarities that just wouldn’t stop getting between me and the story.
It didn’t help, too, that I found the narrative voice a little unconvincing as that of a fifteen-year-old. Sure, people grow up fast in adversity, but I could never picture her the way she kept describing herself. I mean, not that I “picture” anything anyway, but what I mean is that things just didn’t quite add up for me, and it was really distracting.
There were some parts I loved, like pretty much every interaction between Ropa and her grandmother, and the idea of the hidden Library of the Dead, and the badass wheelchair-user who gets involved to help Ropa solve the mystery. I was intrigued by the world as well, how things came to be the way they are: it never over-explains that, leaving you to glean it from the details, and that was kind of frustrating at first because I didn’t know, going in, whether this was “real” Edinburgh or not… but it’s always an interesting reading experience.
I don’t know if it’s an experience I’d care to repeat with more books in the same series, which is obviously where things are going with the repeated mention of the Tall Man. Meh? Maybe I’ll pick it up if this first book sticks with me more than I expected — that happens, sometimes.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, T.L. Huchu
Posted August 4, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Seashaken Houses, Tom Nancollas
This was a complete impulse-buy on my part; something about it just really drew me, in the moment, so I went ahead and grabbed it. I read it right away to try to capitalise on that, and it was the perfect thing for my mood: it’s a history of a number of specific lighthouses and how they relate to the development of rock lighthouses in the UK, but also a personal response to them in many ways –Nancollas’ enthusiasm and interest, along with his imaginings about the lighthouses, really shine through. Do I really care about how the light of a particular lighthouse was installed? Only because he did, and made it sound interesting.
There were a couple of bits I found a bit overly sentimental or kinda purple-prose-y, and I had a roll of my eyes when he referenced King Arthur and got something wrong (Arthur died at Camlann, not anywhere else, in most versions of the Arthurian stories)… but mostly it just really hit the spot. I love it when someone can take a topic that I have very little personal connection to, and make it fascinating. If that sounds interesting to you too, then I recommend this!
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, Tom Nancollas
Posted August 3, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
A Fatal Waltz, Tasha Alexander
In this book, Lady Emily is now engaged to Colin, and gets drawn into his world of espionage in her quest to clear the name of someone close to her. The trip takes her to Vienna, where she consorts with the best and worst… and with a woman Colin once loved, and who still wants to be with Colin herself (despite her marriage). Jealousy isn’t a good look on Lady Emily, and I was embarrassed for her when she slipped and revealed her lack of trust in Colin. I joke about being the relationship advice Dalek, but really, communicate!
Aside from the plotline of jealousy, it turns out someone else is in love with Emily (groan), so there are two jealousy plotlines here, both involving unrequited love. I admit that this book is not my favourite so far because of that, though the investigation plot was actually fairly engaging. I enjoyed Emily’s dip into espionage, even if it all got a little melodramatic.
In the end, it’s a fun read, just didn’t quite capture me the way the previous books have!
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, historical fiction, mystery, romance, Tasha Alexander
