Tag: books

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted December 6, 2016 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

This week’s theme is Top Ten New-to-Me Authors I read in 2016. I’m having trouble coming up with anything off the top of my head, but let’s see if Goodreads can help.

  1. Seanan McGuire. Technically not new to me, as I’ve read one of her books written as Mira Grant. But it’s rather different stuff, so nuh. It counts.
  2. Mitch Benn. I don’t know why I never tried Terra when it was first out; I don’t think I even knew much about it, but it was so much fun; I’m glad I finally did pick it up!
  3. Ted Chiang. It took me ages, but I finally got round to reading Story of Your Life & Others, and I loved it.
  4. Hope Mirrlees. So late to the party, I know, but I looooved Lud-in-the-Mist.
  5. Pat Murphy. Again, late to the party, but The Falling Woman was really, really good.
  6. Marie Rutkoski. I did not expect to love The Winner’s Kiss, but it worked well for me.
  7. Gwenda Bond. I’d had some of Bond’s books on my list for ages, but it was Lois Lane: Fallout which I finally read, and definitely enjoyed.
  8. Robert Jackson Bennett. City of Stairs knocked my socks off, and now I’m impatiently waiting for City of Miracles. Soon, please? Please?!
  9. Sylvia Izzo Hunter. I enjoyed The Midnight Queen a lot; I must get round to reading the sequels.
  10. Elizabeth Hand. Wylding Hall was a super well-crafted novel; I should check out other books by Hand.

Most of these, I’ve only read one book, so there’s plenty to discover ahead of me!

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Review – In the Woods

Posted December 5, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of In The Woods by Tana FrenchIn the Woods, Tana French

I know I’m very much in the minority on this one, but I really didn’t enjoy it that much. The set-up is awesome: the whole mystery of what happened to the main character as a child is so tantalising, I think it’s probably why I picked the book up in the first place. We get so many concrete details, the whole crime scene report. It feels like a set-up for a mystery to be solved, particularly when elements of it crop up in the case that the protagonist is involved in now.

Spoiler: it isn’t solved.

I don’t necessarily demand that a murder mystery solves all the questions raised during the book — sometimes that even feels artificial. I’m not an advocate of adherence to Father Knox’s ten rules, or anything like that. But the fact that the book sets up such a compelling mystery, with so many concrete details, is just infuriating when you discover you’ll never know. Especially since the main character leaves the Murder Squad, and subsequent books do not address the issue either.

The mystery that is solved, by contrast, is too prosaic and easily solved, and I don’t care about it nearly as much. The relationship dramas of the main characters don’t attract me, and honestly, nor does the consciously literary style. It feels slow, and that doesn’t work for me as a stylistic decision. It feels like a slower, more contemplative novel about psychology and things that can’t ever be known, bolted awkwardly onto a standard police procedural — the combination is what fails to work, because each component of the story sets up an expectation about the other.

It’s odd that this worked for friends of mine so very well, and not at all for me; it might be partially the fact that I’ve actually studied stuff like the structure and set-up of crime novels, meaning I have stricter ideas of what I want from a detective novel. It’s probably worth checking out the book anyway if you want a fairly literary crime novel; other people love it, and it seems to be some vagary of personal taste leading me to dislike it so much.

Which is sad, because I was really hoping Tana French would be the next author whose books I’d tear through, a la Sayers and Greenwood.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Ultimate X-Men: Hellfire and Brimstone

Posted December 4, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Ultimate X-Men vol 4Ultimate X-Men: Hellfire and Brimstone, Mark Millar, Adam Kubert, Kaare Andrews

Isn’t Beast supposed to be really intelligent? I mean, I get that he feels isolated and stuff, but — argh, when a plot depends on someone being a total idiot, and on Professor Xavier not noticing what the hell’s going on with that even though he’s a telepath and we know from volume two that he wiped Bobby Drake and his girlfriend’s mind because they were a security risk?

Nope, back to two stars goes this series. It doesn’t help that the tension between Wolverine and Cyclops is just eyeroll worthy. More macho than thou and so on, fighting over Jean Grey, who… makes it pretty damn clear she loves Cyclops and was always interested in him. (Which does have some cute bits in this volume, actually, and it does help Cyclops unbend a little.)

The Jean Grey/Phoenix plotline seems a bit thrown away, considering that I know it’s a Big Thing in other versions of the X-Men. I assume it’ll recur in later volumes or something, but I don’t think I’m going to read any more of Ultimate X-Men now I’ve finished the volumes I had. Which is a shame, since Kitty Pryde just got introduced, and I did enjoy her in Ultimate Spider-man, but… this doesn’t have the same feel at all. It probably doesn’t help that it’s a team book, so there’s less time to focus on a particular character.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Dark Run

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

Cover of Dark Run by Mike BrooksDark Run, Mike Brooks

Dark Run is a fun, very Firefly-ish sort of story — in that, I mean both the setting (the world situation, the character lineup, the tone) and the actual storyline are quite like Firefly. There are a couple of lines which seem like homages, like the pilot saying “I am a leaf on the wind”… but since that doesn’t lead to disaster in quite the same way as it does in Serenity, it kind of ruins the moment? Like, I read the line and braced myself, and then it was just… a throwaway comment? Hm. It’s things like that which made me wonder how deliberate the references were.

Whatever that situation is, the book is fun enough on its own merits, and it does things Firefly should have done, like introduce more diversity. Asian characters, most obviously, but also a Maori character, which is an interesting choice. I tried not to think too much about how things related to Firefly, and instead enjoy the book for its own merits: the pacing is pretty good, the crew is a mismatched bunch who come together in that endearing sort of way without it being ridiculously easy, there’s interesting background stuff, and there are character backstories which have yet to be unravelled and dug into… In short, there’s a lot of potential.

I’m not sure I succeeded in not thinking of it as an imitation of Firefly, but I did enjoy reading it for what it was as well. Enough that I’ve ordered the second book and am ready to dig into it right away. It’s fun without requiring too much thought, and if you do want a bit of a Firefly feel (though it can be hard for stuff to match up, given the way we’ve all built Firefly up!) then this delivers.

Rating: 4/5

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted December 3, 2016 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

It’s been a better week for me, though I still have one more assignment to eke out. But I did manage some reading! Hurrah.

Books to review:

Cover of Fair Chance by Josh Lanyon Cover of Weird Dinosaurs

I’m going to assume Fair Chance is related to Fair Game and Fair Play, so, awesome. And Weird Dinosaurs, well, who wouldn’t want this one?

Books received:

Cover of Late Eclipses by Seanan McGuire Cover of One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire Cover of Ashes of Honour by Seanan McGuire

Because my wife is awesome.

Books finished this week:

Cover of Carry On by Rainbow Rowell Cover of How To Clone a Mammoth by Beth Shapiro Cover of The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas Cover of The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

Reviews posted this week:
–Ultimate X-Men: World Tour, by Mark Millar et al. More enjoyable than the first two volumes, but still not doing much for me. 3/5 stars
–The Lost Child of Lychford, by Paul Cornell. If you enjoyed the first Lychford novella, you’ll probably enjoy this too. Judith continues to be completely badass. 3/5 stars
–Everything Belongs to the Future, by Laurie Penny. Enjoyable, but rather predictable, to me. 3/5 stars
–Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee. A good survey of, well, pretty much what it says on the tin. 4/5 stars
–The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Do I have anything new to say about this one? Possibly not. 5/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: The Empty Kingdom, by Elizabeth E. Wein. The close of the series, which I’ve been re-posting my reviews of for the last few weeks. Greatly enjoyable. 4/5 stars

Other posts:
–On giving up, but positively. Why I’ve given up on my reading goals for 2016, and why that’s a good thing.
–Top Ten Tuesday: Best Places to Read. A departure from the given theme, forgive me.

How’s everyone else doing?

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Review – The Empty Kingdom

Posted December 2, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Empty KingdomThe Empty Kingdom, Elizabeth E. Wein

Flashback Friday review from 13th February, 2011

The Empty Kingdom is quite a long way away — in time, in distance, and in the kind of story it is — from The Winter Prince. Medraut and the Arthurian characters are much less in evidence now, and Telemakos is definitely our hero, and one I enjoy completely independently from his links to the Arthurian story, which is almost unimportant by this point in the story.

Unlike The Winter Prince and The Lion Hunter, this book is less about healing and focuses more on the political intrigue. One thing I found very interesting about these books was how unpredictable I found them: I’ve read a lot of books and usually am able to predict their twists and turns. While some parts of this were easy to guess, most were not. So it’s a breath of fresh air in general, as well as an interesting and — so far as I know — new addition to the Arthurian tradition.

I can easily imagine that more might be written for this series, and I’d be interested to read it.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Two Towers

Posted December 1, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Two Towers by J.R.R. TolkienThe Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien

As with The Fellowship of the Ring, it’s hard to know how to review this with objectivity. I’ve been trying to think which of the three sections is my favourite, but even that is difficult; I think the whole they make — and were intended to make, by Tolkien, who did not view them as a trilogy but as a single book — is most important. It’s a little odd in this book to go straight from the whole fellowship at the end of the first ‘book’ to such a fragmented company, spending the whole first half with Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, and then the whole second half with Frodo and Sam. It feels a little unwieldy, like that — I could wish for more alternation between the two.

But really, Tolkien knew what he was doing very well. What I find interesting having read it now is that I know the land of Rohan well, from playing LOTRO. Yet as soon as Frodo and Sam reach the Emyn Muil, I can no longer visualise the world, because I haven’t been there in LOTRO. That says a lot more about me than about Tolkien, though: the physical description is still there, and LOTRO is built on that rich resource. But for me… suddenly, there are no pictures in my head for Mordor. And perhaps that’s for the best!

I always find The Two Towers the quickest read, yet perhaps my least favourite; so much of it is about getting the players into position. But at least it features Faramir, who in the books has a nobility to match Aragorn’s.

Rating: 5/5

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Review – Rare Earth

Posted November 30, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Rare Earth by Brownlee & WardRare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee

Having read David Waltham’s Lucky Planet, there isn’t much in this older book which is new to me, even though he recommended it for further reading. It’s less up to date, of course, but that’s because it’s older — and at least it does acknowledge stuff like the Viking lander biological experiments, which Waltham did not. If you’re interested in the evidence that’s out there for the fact that our planet might be rare indeed in producing complex life, I’d recommend Rare Earth over Lucky Planet. The science is solid and thorough, and well explained.

My problem with all books like this is always going to be: we have a sample size of one. How can we extrapolate anything? Sure, we know that intelligent life like ourselves can’t exist in a solar system that doesn’t have the right kind of habitable zone. And yeah, we think carbon is the best possible atom to base biochemistry on. But we only think or know these things because that’s what we need, that’s what we can use, under the conditions in which we find ourselves observing. (In other words, it’s the weak anthropic principle.) None of the data presented convinces me that we can do more than guessing in the dark on this subject.

That’s not a reason not to be curious, of course, but it’s also not a reason to give up looking. Obviously, we won’t find anything if we don’t look. It doesn’t make Rare Earth less worth reading, but it does mean that I think readers should stay aware that Ward and Brownlee have made up their minds, and are presenting only the evidence supporting their case. I honestly don’t find either side convincing, though you, of course, may differ.

Rating: 4/5

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted November 29, 2016 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

This week’s theme is a Holiday Gift Guide freebie, and honestly, I’m a little tired of wracking my brains to think of gifts. So instead, have my top ten places to read.

  1. On a train. You wouldn’t think it’d be comfortable, but something about just being stuck on a train for ages means I can settle into the reading mood and carry on interrupted. Especially in the quiet coach, with my phone off, or on the Eurostar.
  2. In bed. Of course. This is mostly with my ereader, because I can never quite get comfortable with a paper book in bed. Toasty warm toes!
  3. With my back against the radiator. I don’t know why, but I really like having a heat source at my back while I read. If the whole room is too warm, I get sleepy. If the room is cooler but I have a radiator or a hot water bottle? Perfect.
  4. With the rain lashing down outside. Doesn’t everybody love this one?
  5. Draped over my chair in my wife’s flat. With a bit of wriggling, you can get into the perfect comfy position with a leg up. Or even with my feet practically in my wife’s lap. She’s resigned to it.
  6. While petting a rabbit. I get a lot of quality time in with our bunny when I’m reading. She’ll come up to my knee and get her ears rubbed.
  7. In a blanket fort. At my parents’ house, I have a bunk bed. So I can hang a sheet down from the side of my bed and underneath there’s a sofa. Very cosy.
  8. While crocheting. Only for audiobooks, obviously!
  9. In the car. Again, only for audiobooks, but a nice long drive can eat up a big chunk of story. Or a big chunk of story can eat up the journey…
  10. With chocolate. The perfect companion.

Anyone else feel rebellious this week? Or have you stuck to the theme?

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On giving up, but positively

Posted November 28, 2016 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

I’m giving up on my reading goals for 2016.

They were useful for quite a while — right into November, after all. But right now, they’re actually getting in the way: making me feel pressured, making reading feel like a chore, closing down my options instead of reminding me how many I have. Generally, I don’t like giving up, but I feel like this is a good time. It doesn’t mean that I won’t read 200 books brought prior to this year, or that I won’t read 366 books overall… but it does mean I’ll stop beating myself up about it.

I think the problem for bloggers sometimes is that you feel the need to keep pushing out reviews, gathering new followers, and gaining likes. After all, that’s how you know your blog is useful and worth the time you’ve put into it — and even the money, for people who self-host. But that also makes it feel like a chore. I have to finish X to get my review out in time for Y…

But the thing is, there’s no point in having a blog if you’re not enjoying it. That’s what most of us get out of it, not money — although free books can be a perk that some reviewers see. It’s been stopping me rereading books as much as I normally would, making me postpone enjoyable books because they’d take too long and I need to write a review now, now, now —

(Which I don’t; I’m scheduled up to the 7th of January 2017, as I write, and probably a week beyond that by the time this goes up.)

I know I’m not the only one.

So, bloggers, readers: take the time at the end of this year to make reading, reviewing and blogging fun again, if it has lost its shine. Or even if it hasn’t, but you just want a little break. I dare you to reread a favourite, for no other reason than that you want to. It doesn’t have to be popular, it doesn’t have to be part of a series, it doesn’t have to fit in with your goals or tick your boxes. I dare you to reread a book you only reviewed six months ago, just because you love it. I dare you to pick up your guilty pleasure reading or that book everyone else seems to hate.

And if you won’t, I still will. Let’s love the heck out of books.

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