Posted September 15, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Love Everlasting
Genres: Fantasy,
Graphic Novels,
Horror,
Romance Pages: 137
Series: Love Everlasting #2 Rating: 
Synopsis: The mind-bending story of Joan Peterson's journey through love and horror continues in the second epic and heartbreaking arc of this critically acclaimed, Harvey-nominated series. After traveling from romance to romance, Joan finds herself trapped inside just one story, growing older with the love of her life instead of escaping again and again. And as she becomes a wife, a mother, a grandmother, she is on a bloody quest to discover if everyone in this new world is insane, or if she alone is broken.
Volume two of Tom King’s Love Everlasting is a bit different to the first: instead of multiple short romances, now Joan finds herself trapped in a different kind of love story. This time she gets married, has children and grandchildren, while all the while being haunted by the fact that she knows nothing is real: everything is happening in the year 1962.
The art style is great and expressive, and mostly I just want to be thrown a bit more of a bone story-wise. Just as it felt like it lingered too long on the random romances, it felt like it lingered too long on Joan’s fake family. We get no nearer to knowing why her mother(?) is putting her through this.
I’m still intrigued and would still pick up the third TPB if one gets released (seemingly not so far). But I do feel like as a reader I need a little more to hang onto here.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Clayton Cowles, Elsa Charretier, horror, Matt Hollingsworth, romance, SF/F, Tom King
Posted September 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Invisible Friends: How Microbes Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us
Genres: Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 304
Rating: 
Synopsis: As we continue to live through a pandemic, all eyes are on microbes: an imperceptible and pervasive threat that hangs heavy on the air and clings to surfaces. But the reality of micro-organisms is far more diverse and life-sustaining than such a notion would have us believe (hence the title of this book). Not only are they omnipresent, but we are highly attuned to their workings - both in the world at large and right here within our own bodies. Meanwhile, cutting-edge microbiome research is changing our understanding of reality, challenging fundamental concepts of free will and individuality. Threaded through everything are microbes: the very glue that holds ecosystems together.
This topical, engaging and original book counters the prevailing narrative of microbes as the bane of society, along the way providing much-needed clarity on the overwhelmingly beneficial role they play. We discover how the microbiome is highly relevant to environmental and social equity issues, while there's also discussion about how microbes may influence our decisions: even the way we think about how we think may need to be revisited. Invisible Friends introduces the reader to a vast, pullulating cohort of minute life - friends you never knew you had.
Jake M. Robinson’s Invisible Friends is a fairly basic discussion of microbes and what they do — how they don’t just make us sick, but also influence how we feel through their influence on our guts, immune systems and more. It really is very, very basic though, touching only lightly on important topics like antibiotic resistance, and extremely lightly on what we might do about that, barely giving half a page to the potential of bacteriophages. Which is a shame, because we need to move toward using methods like bacteriophages, and for that people need to know more about them and not be afraid of them. (Check out Tom Ireland’s The Good Virus, to that end.)
I know that I’m not exactly the target audience for this book, given my background knowledge and interests even before I started doing an MSc in this stuff, but it still felt excessively simplistic. Really, it seemed like a vehicle for Robinson to tell people to spend more time outside and stop being so germophobic.
It’s true that that’d be good for us, and he’s not wrong about the impact of city living on the human microbiome, nor about the potential benefits of trying to fix that. It’s just that sometimes it begins to feel like he’s self-aggrandising, discussing this project or that that he’s been involved with that aims to improve this or that in order to, you’ve guessed it, improve people’s exposure to microbes in the city environment. We also hear repeatedly about the fact that he’s writing the thing outside in a forest. He does at least touch on the fact that there is some serious inequality in ability to access natural landscapes, at least on an economic level, which is good. (He doesn’t discuss accessibility issues of other kinds other than location and money, though.)
Anyway, I know I’m a harsh judge of this kind of thing, but I’m perfectly capable of enjoying a good book aimed at laypeople for being clear and precise in communication, even when it’s the basics — like Philipp Dettmer’s Immune — so I don’t think it’s just that.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Jake M. Robinson, non-fiction, science
Posted September 12, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
The Murder on the Links
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 273
Series: Poirot #2 Rating: Synopsis: On a French golf course, a millionaire is found stabbed in the backâŚ
An urgent cry for help brings Poirot to France. But he arrives too late to save his client, whose brutally stabbed body now lies face downwards in a shallow grave on a golf course.
But why is the dead man wearing his sonâs overcoat? And who was the impassioned love-letter in the pocket for? Before Poirot can answer these questions, the case is turned upside down by the discovery of a second, identically murdered corpseâŚ
The Murder on the Links is the second Poirot book, and mercifully gets rid of Hastings by marrying him off. He’s just unbearable — one can believe there’s someone so self-absorbed and unable to learn from mistakes, but one would rather not have to. Not that I love Poirot as a character, either, but Hastings’ deficiencies are much more aggravating.
The plot here is a bit over-convoluted, to my mind, and of course relies on characters appearing and disappearing like jack-in-the-boxes. “Cinderella” and Hastings’ relationship is based on less than nothing, and Poirot’s posturing toward Giraud does him no credit in my eyes.
There’s a satisfaction in seeing the plot work out, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wonder if I’ll get along better with Poirot without Hastings — I know I liked The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, back when I read that.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: Agatha Christie, book reviews, books, crime, mystery
Posted September 9, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Sarpedon Krater: The Life and Afterlife of a Greek Vase
Genres: History,
Non-fiction Pages: 240
Series: The Landmark Library Rating: 
Synopsis: Once the pride of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Sarpedon krater is a wine-mixing bowl crafted by two Athenians, Euxitheos (who shaped it) and Euphronios (who decorated it), in the late 6thc BC. The moving image Euphronios created for the krater, depicting the stricken Trojan hero Sarpedon being lifted from the battlefield by âSleepâ (Hypnos) and âDeathâ (Thanatos), was to have an influence that endured well beyond Antiquity.
Nigel Spivey not only explores the vibrant Athenian civilization that produced the krater, but also reveals how its motifs were elaborated in later Greek art and in the Christian iconography of the Renaissance.
He tells the story of a small object, once consigned to the obscurity of an Etruscan tomb â yet a work of art whose influence extends far beyond its size and former confinement. The Sarpedon Krater is a fascinating case-study of the deep classical roots of the ideas and iconography of western art.
Nigel Spivey’s The Sarpedon Krater is part of a series about “landmarks” in world history and art. Obviously that’s a bit of a metaphor when we’re discussing this mixing bowl, since it’s not a landmark in the same way as Stonehenge is — but in metaphorical terms, it seems it (or at least the themes on it) really was a landmark. Spivey discusses not just the origin of the vase, the artist and their context, but also the afterlife, including the burial in an Etruscan tomb, the looting, and the sale to a museum, along with its brief involvement in the Marion True saga. It also discusses how the motifs may have been copied by — or at least influenced — later artists.
I didn’t know much about this specific object before I started, though I knew a certain amount about symposia, Greek vases, etc, so this filled in some interesting gaps. It’s beautifully illustrated, with close-ups of the krater and other artwork that’s related in some way.
In the end, I don’t know how to evaluate Spivey’s claims about how influential this art was, but it does all hang together pretty well and make sense as an argument — and regardless of that, I enjoyed the contextualisation of the krater and its afterlife.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, Nigel Spivey, non-fiction
Posted September 8, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Heaven Official's Blessing
Genres: Fantasy,
Horror,
Mystery,
Romance Pages: 476
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #3 Rating: Synopsis: SOMETHING TO FIGHT FOR, SOMEONE TO LIVE FOR
Gods should never meddle in the affairs of mortals, but Xie Lian is not one to follow the rules when lives are at risk. He spits in the face of heaven and its laws and descends in a fury to save his country from drought and civil war. Yet this golden child gets a harsh dose of reality when he discovers just how little one individualâeven a godâcan do to save a crumbling nation. As the people reject and betray him, one young soldier stands by Xie Lianâa boy with a face wrapped in bandages and a fierce loyalty in his heart. In this chaotic past, can an unshakable bond grow from the ashes of unimaginable destruction?
Volume three of Heaven Official’s Blessing is very up-and-down. The first part is the conclusion of the second arc, which is an extended flashback filling in details of events we pretty much knew about already. Much as I liked seeing Xie Lian in an earlier stage of his life, that quickly palled. While I know the significance of seeing Honghong-er and the unnamed little soldier, and it was important to see Xie Lian fallible and foolhardy, and you gotta appreciate the rudimentary epidemiology (at least, you do if you’re me)… it feels like it all just took too long.
That said, the third arc hits the ground running and had me quickly grabbing volume four to continue the story. It feels like so much happens in the “present” arc, including a lot of delightful moments like the lanterns for Xie Lian and his utter freakout about the underwater “kiss”; the second arc really suffers in comparison to that as well, because the third arc is just one thing after the other, adventure leading into adventure… and of course, it also features more Hua Cheng. The second arc is predictable because it’s covering details we already know, and Hua Cheng isn’t present — at least, not in the way we know him by now.
In some ways, I feel like there was a similar problem in The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System. The character whose mind we most wanted to understand was Luo Binghe, but the narrative sticks close to Shen Qingqiu, who doesn’t understand what’s going on. Xie Lian is a different flavour of oblivious, but he’s still oblivious, and I really want to know what Hua Cheng is thinking.
Not that that relationship is the be-all and end-all — there’s also a fascinating story going on with other characters, which I’m excited to dig into. As ever, the cut-off happens mid-arc, so have volume four at the ready.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, horror, Mò XiÄng TĂłng XiĂš, mystery, romance, SF/F
Posted September 6, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment
Clear
Genres: Graphic Novels,
Science Fiction Pages: 137
Rating: 
Synopsis: In the not-too-distant future, mankind no longer sees the world as it truly is. The invention of neurological filters has made it so one can view reality however they may chooseâOld Hollywood monochrome, zombie apocalypse, anime⌠the possibilities are endless.
Neo-shamus Sam Dunes is one of only a handful who choose to live without a filter. When the death of an old flame reveals foul play, Dunes is set on a wild and twisting mystery that will take him from the cityâs deadly underworld to the even deadlier heights of wealth and power.
Scott Snyder’s Clear is set in a world where the US lost World War III, and all its citizens go around using “veils” to hide reality from themselves. Everybody’s using a different veil, there’s very little shared reality now. It’s unclear how that’s meant to work when people with different veils are interacting: at times it seems like it’s just a visual thing, and then it says that you can go around with everyone in the world desiring you. How? Does it change behaviour, then? Then how does anyone ever interact? How would you ever know what anyone else is doing? And yet people are interacting, throughout the comic.
There’s a twist that makes very little sense, as well. Isn’t it obvious, I mean? If you have to pay to have a veil but you also have to pay — even more! — to have no veil (“clear”), then how does that work? What happens if you don’t pay for anything? I guess the answer is that that only happens if you can’t pay, and then you probably become a “wrk” or something and you’re not able to tell anyone what’s going on, but to me it was obvious that the twist was coming as soon as Dunes said he was paying more and more each year for clear.
The more I think about it, the more it all falls apart. Maybe with a bit more time/world-building it could resolve those issues — and also I’m sure there are people content to just fill in the gaps themselves, take it as read, and not ask “why” too much. It’s also possible there are explanations I missed; I’m not very visual, and graphic novels can be a bit overwhelming in terms of the amount of information they give me. Still, the impression I was left with was one of swiss cheese.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Francis Manapul, Scott Snyder, SF/F
Posted September 5, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The Mysterious Affair At Styles
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 298
Series: Poirot #1 Rating: Synopsis: With impeccable timing Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective, makes his dramatic entrance on to the English crime stage.
Recently, there had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn, constant companion to old Mrs Inglethorp, had stormed out of the house muttering something about âa lot of sharksâ. And with her, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security; now the air seemed rife with suspicion and impending evil.
A shattered coffee cup, a splash of candle grease, a bed of begonias... all Poirot required to display his now legendary powers of detection.
For someone who loves Golden Age mysteries, I’ve read shockingly little of Agatha Christie’s work. So when I had the random thought to try using the app Serial Reader again, the first serial I picked was Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In the past I haven’t been the greatest fan of Poirot per se (while thinking that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was pretty genius), and I can’t say my mind was changed like a lightning bolt by this one.
Which is not to say it’s not a fun mystery, but I disliked Hastings quite a bit. It’s the whole trope of a helper to the detective, who is a lot less clever, draws wrong conclusions, and both leads the reader astray and bigs up the detective in comparison. It’s a trend that started with Holmes and Watson (though Watson’s cleverer than many of the type, including Hastings), and just… not one I particularly enjoy. Perhaps that’s why, by and large, I prefer Sayers and Lorac.
Still, the solution is fun, and I enjoyed the read — it’s just inclined to make me think that Christie’s enduring popularity is in part due to her sheer prolific output, and thus the memorability of her name. Lorac is, for my money, a better writer, and much less well-known.
This does come across as rather negative, evaluating the book by what it’s not, but I find I have very little to say about the book in and of itself. It’s a fun mystery, I didn’t immediately see the solution, and if you’re interested in the Golden Age of crime, it’s definitely of interest.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: Agatha Christie, book reviews, books, crime, mystery
Posted September 2, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
They Were Here Before Us: Stories from Our First Million Years
Genres: History,
Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 208
Rating: Synopsis: An epic and highly readable investigation into our very earliest ancestors, focusing on the land corridor thorough which humans passed from Africa to Europe and the evidence left behind of their lives and deaths, struggles and beliefs.
This is not a book about archaeological sites. We shall come across flint tools, bones, skulls, surprising structures, and layers of earth that we can date to different periodsâbut they are not the heart of the matter. This book is about us, human beings, and about our place in the world. About what we have done, where we came from, which other humans used to be here, why they are no longer with us, and how and why our lives have changed. Itâs also about where we went wrong. What did early humans do because they had no choice and what is the price we paying for this now?
Taking as the focus ten sites in Israel, the land corridor through which the human species passed on its journey from Africa to Europe, the story ranges far and wide from France, Spain, Turkey and Georgia to Morocco and South Africa, North America, Columbia and Peru. The authors follow the footsteps of our ancestors, describing the tools they used, the animals they hunted and the monuments they built. Fascinating revelations include:
- The earliest evidence of human use of fire;
- The meaning of cave art and the transformative effect of touching rock;
- The woman for whom 90 tortoises were sacrificed;
- What happened in the Levant following the disappearance of elephants;
- The monumental tower built at the lowest place on earth;
- Why we should envy modern hunter-gatherers â and much more ...
This provocative and panoramic book shows readers what they can learn from their ancestors, and how the unwavering ability of prehistoric people to survive and thrive can continue into the present.
There isn’t much in Eyal Halfon and Ran Barkai’s They Were Here Before Us that will come as much of a surprise if you’re already familiar with the stories of humanity’s origin, though they do mention a few new-to-me theories and go into some of the history of how things were discovered which I didn’t know. The broad strokes are familiar, but they write very clearly and explain things well. At times there’s a touch of the travelogue, because they describe visiting various of the sites as part of giving their context, but it’s not the main point of the narrative.
They do some imaginative reconstruction in the course of this, trying to figure out why people might have put a swan’s wing here or built a tower there, but I felt like they didn’t go wild: they presented these ideas as theories, as a way of understanding the data, and it’s pretty clear when they’re guessing and when they’re stating a fact.
The book doesn’t have numbered references, but it does have a solid bibliography including both books and papers, most of which look reasonably well-related to the topic to my eye (though this isn’t my field).
I found it enjoyable, and the translation (by Eylon Levy) is very readable.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Eyal Halfon, history, non-fiction, Ran Barkai, science
Posted September 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World
Genres: Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 304
Rating: Synopsis: In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries, and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Lifeâs losses were sharp and deeply-felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.
Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. Itâs a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. A Triceratops horridus ambles along the edge of the forest. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. Lush verdure will be replaced with fire. Tyrannosaurus rex will be toppled from their throne, along with every other species of non-avian dinosaur no matter their size, diet, or disposition. They just donât know it yet.
The cause of this disaster was identified decades ago. An asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanished seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life on Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years.
Riley Black’s The Last Days of the Dinosaurs is not entirely about dinosaurs — in fact, a large chunk of it is about what came after the dinosaurs, the period of renewal in which the avian dinosaurs and mammals recovered from the Chicxulub impact and dinosaurs didn’t.
The main body of the text is an imaginative reconstruction, based on the data we have, choosing examples from particular species to illustrate how the impact (and aftermath) affected different kinds of animals, and how some may have survived. It’s followed by an appendix which discusses some of the scientific evidence behind the reconstruction. None of this is footnoted or explicitly linked in any way to a specific source, unfortunately (though it accords with my knowledge as far as that goes).
So as a casual read for laypeople, this is fine — Black’s writing is clear and her enthusiasm for the subject spills out at all turns, but for those who read a claim and then want to see what it’s based on, this would be pretty frustrating.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Brian Switek, non-fiction, Riley Black, science
Posted August 30, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Heaven Official's Blessing
Genres: Fantasy,
Horror,
Mystery,
Romance Pages: 438
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #2 Rating: Synopsis: THE TOUCH OF A HAND, A ROLL OF THE DICE
Xie Lian has confirmed that the bewitching youth San Lang is actually Hua Cheng, one of the Four Calamities and a supreme ghost despised by all heavenly officials. Still, he has trouble matching the terror of his companionâs reputation with the charming, clever, and protective young man heâs come to know.
When a distress signal leads Xie Lian into Ghost City, a bustling metropolis containing all the horrors and delights of the dead, he sees Hua Cheng in his elementâand his true formâfor the first time. But despite their chemistry and care for one another, there are missions to fulfill and secrets to uncover, and Xie Lianâs centuries of troubled history are never far behind.
The second volume of Heaven Official’s Blessing finishes up with arc 1 and begins arc 2: I can see why some readers complain that the volumes are split in weird places, but I think it’d end up with ridiculously chunky volumes and then really skinny ones if it was split by arcs or something, and I bet you people wouldn’t like that either. Still, I agree it feels weird that it’s basically one continuous story, and you can’t stop and feel satisfied at the end of a volume; that’s kind of unavoidable, given it was a webnovel first.
As with the first volume, I’m sure that there are critiques of the translation, but it’s pretty internally consistent and it’s definitely readable, and not significantly better/worse than the translation of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, for example. I believe the translators are different, but something of the underlying style does seem to come through — though at times I could do without it (stop yelling, Qi Rong).
The end of arc 1 gives us a visit to Hua Cheng’s domain, followed by some answers about Xie Lian’s past in the form of confronting Qi Rong, his cousin, with Hua Cheng figuring out what happened during an infamous and bloody event, and manipulating matters so that Xie Lian can no longer claim all the blame for himself. There are some really nice character/relationship moments there, and then act 2 begins, which seems to be all a long flashback to Xie Lian’s life before godhood (going into his first ascension afterwards, in book 3).
All in all I’m really enjoying it. There’s a lot more detail and complexity than in SVSSS, which makes sense since there are eight books in total. I fear how MXTX is going to torture Xie Lian and Hua Chung… but I’m all-in.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, horror, Mò XiÄng TĂłng XiĂš, mystery, romance, SF/F
