Tag: books

Review – Spider-Gwen: Most Wanted?

Posted June 7, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Spider-Gwen: Most Wanted?, Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez

In the Spider-verse event, it turned out there was a world in which Gwen Stacey was bitten by the radioactive spider, and in the end Peter Parker actually died. The origins are a little murky, because thankfully they don’t rehash the origin story, leaving it just sketched in and suggested. This book has Gwen back in her own universe, leading her normal life… and leading her cop father an awful dance while she’s caped up. Her costume design is really cool (love the hood), and Rodriguez’s art works well — and it was a relief reading this so soon after The Movement, which was typically DC-ian in its gloomy colour palettes.

The story itself doesn’t really get on its feet here, I think; we’re still trying to get used to who Gwen is here and how her world has changed. Like, it turns out Mary Jane Watson is… a bit of a diva. And she and Gwen are in a rock band together. Which Gwen has been kind of letting down and might quit? Maybe? But then she turns up and it’s all good.

At times, it’s a little bit goofy — it might be less so if you’ve read Spider-verse, but suddenly having Spider-Ham (a version of Peter Parker who is a pig, no I am not kidding) appear as Gwen’s conscience is a bit outta nowhere from my point of view.

It’s not groundbreaking, except that it’s another female character stepping up and taking on a big role, and dealing in different ways with the same problems. I loved that Gwen went to speak to Aunt May, for example, and the way they talked things over. It’s not the level of quality of, say, Ms Marvel, but it’s fun and I’m looking forward to the next TPB. (And wondering why my pull list on Comixology has disappeared…)

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 7, 2016 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

This week’s theme is “Ten Reasons I Love X”, and for a minute I couldn’t think of a thing I wanted to gush about — or I could, but nothing I thought I could come up with a whole list for, or which might be interesting to anyone else.

Then it struck me. So here are ten reasons I love fairytales (and fairytale retellings)!

Something about them has spoken to people for a long, long time. These are really old stories that have been told by consensus, basically — by people deciding on the bits they like and adding new parts and ditching things which don’t make sense anymore. They’re like a well-worn shirt.
They’re still variable. We can still change them. Every day, if we want to. We can tell the same story with different characters (and even read the same stories with different characters) and explore all the little ways we can tweak the meanings, the messages.
They contain all kinds of magic. It doesn’t matter what magic you need, you can probably find it in fairytales. Alchemy? Ask Rumpelstiltskin. Fairy Godmothers? True love’s kiss?
We can use them to ask questions. Like, why would you love a Beast? What’s going on with this story?
They’re suitable for any age. These stories are timeless, and it’s because they contain stuff that appeals to children and adults alike. The child wonders about what’s there to find in the wood, other than the Big Bad Wolf. The adult knows the anxiety of Red Riding Hood’s mother, or the patience of the grandmother, or the hunger of the Wolf…
They can be universal. We could go around collecting dozens of variations on a fairytale, or collect them together and call it an archetype. There’s versions of these stories in so many cultures — doesn’t that say something?
They can be specific. Robin Hood lives in Sherwood Forest, and you can go there and walk where he walked. Or walk past a lake where a fairy came out of the water to marry a human man. This or that glade or grotto, somewhere you know and can visit and touch, has a secret magic.
You always know what’s coming. Once upon a time. A wicked witch. True love’s kiss. Happily ever after.
But they can surprise you all the same. It doesn’t have to happen the same way every time. Sleeping Beauty can fall in love with the Wicked Witch or a stableboy or serving maid. The important part is the kiss, the happy ever after. Cinderella can be an android.
We can make new fairytales with the old formulae. We know how it goes: sets of three, a stepmother, a tiny house in the forest…

For two writers who do really good takes on fairytales, try T. Kingfisher and Robin McKinley… Sarah Pinborough’s retellings are also interesting. And there’s a lot more out there.

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Rosemary and Rue

Posted June 6, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire

I’ve been told to read this series over and over again, for so ridiculously long I think there were only two books the first time (and now there’s nine, with a tenth on the way). Trying to put together a review is difficult: on the surface of it, this is Just Another Urban Fantasy, albeit with a more faerie court type background than a pack of shapeshifters or a coven of witches or whatever (though there’s plenty of potential for all sorts of fairytale characters and mythological beings, and we do see some of them). The main character is tough, determined, a little disillusioned, stubborn, reluctant to seek help…

And yet she’s definitely not Mercy Thompson or Kate Daniels. By about halfway through this, I knew I’d want to pick up more books in the series and follow Toby more. I love all sorts of little things: the fact that she’s essentially a knight errant in the faerie courts, not a lady. The fact that it’s the stubborn detective estranged from their family after tragedy, except this detective’s a woman. The fact that she spent fourteen years as a fish. Her relationships with the people around her (even if she trusts people that pinged my ‘nope’ radar from the beginning, and doesn’t trust the people she should).

Rosemary and Rue is a solid beginning, I think; it introduces you to Toby, to the world, and lets you get to know the rules. I’m more interested with where it goes from here. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why I instantly bought the next book: it just felt like something a bit different, maybe more of a direct answer to the urban fantasy of Jim Butcher than the likes of Mercy Thompson and Kate Daniels (much as I enjoy those books too). In light of that, I’m wavering over what rating to give.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Seanan McGuire, SF/F

Review – Ashoka

Posted June 5, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Ashoka: the Search for India’s Lost Emperor, Charles Allen

Ashoka was an emperor of India who, for around two thousand years, was virtually unknown. After war-like beginnings, he became a Buddhist and began to spread Buddhist values throughout his kingdom, with the hope of conquering neighbouring territories with moral force rather than military force. There’s a certain amount of idealism about this emperor and the good works he may or may not have done, but Allen’s book does show that he seems to have been dedicated to his vision.

However, this book is less about Ashoka himself and more about the search for him — the India enthusiasts, often British people coming over to run the colonies, who hunted down the references, visited the ancient sites, and began to put things together. He’s relatively sympathetic toward those endeavours, with the attitude that if Britain did no other good for India, well, we had these clever people who helped them figure out their own history. I don’t have anything to set against that (although he does often mention local experts in languages and religion), but if you’re sceptical of a colonial narrative, I would say this verges on that territory.

It is a fascinating story, though, and doubly so to me because I know so little of India in either time period. I did sometimes wish I was better at geography, so I could draw more of it together on a mental map, but alas, I couldn’t even sketch the shape of India. Ashoka’s story is definitely worth telling, and so too that of the people who reinstated his legacy, I think.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – Finn Fancy Necromancy

Posted June 4, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Finn Fancy Necromancy, Randy Henderson

The cover, with the classic gaming-like characters on it, suggests something… I don’t know, playful and referential. A fantasy equivalent to Ready Player One, perhaps. And a lot of people seem to have found that in it, calling it “dark and quirky”, noting the humour and the originality of it. I didn’t find it to be so; I could predict each turn of the story, and the characters didn’t endear themselves to me. The set-up is okay: guy has been imprisoned in an alternate realm for years for a crime he didn’t commit, while a changeling lived his body’s life for him. He gets out, he immediately gets set up again, what’s going on?

The story deals with the past framing at the same time as it goes into the current one, and this seems in many ways to be background for a bigger story to do with Finn’s changeling. That aspect of the plot was actually interesting; but the minutiae of Finn’s love life with women he hadn’t seen for years didn’t work for me, particularly not when he’d spent most of his life lying to one of them, and in the meantime they grew up and he didn’t really, and…

I don’t know, ultimately I just felt like it was completely typical, and I wasn’t drawn to keep reading it. I did, because I bought the paperback and darned if I’m going to waste my money, but if it was from the library I might’ve considered just returning it. There was some references to pop culture stuff — Doctor Who, Star Trek, etc — but it felt… incidental, not really integral to the story. A cute nod more than a necessity. Despite my interest in the changeling story, I doubt I’ll be picking up the second book. It just felt too… mediocre.

In fact, I feel obliged to quote: frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 4, 2016 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

This has been a less busy week, thankfully, and I’ve got some work done on tackling my backlog — including an epic sweep removing about 70 books from the backlog that I’m no longer interested in, or where I didn’t enjoy the first book of a series, etc. I really should get back to work again, though, because my next deadline is approaching fast…

Oh well, books first!

Received to review:

I’ve been interested in this for a while, particularly since my mother actually writes to Yoon Ha Lee regularly, and I’ve read The Fox’s Tower and enjoyed the stories in it.

Books bought this week:

I wasn’t 100% in love with The Sin-Eater’s Daughter, but I love the covers of these books and I’m curious enough… Kameron Hurley’s The Geek Feminist Revolution is obviously going to be awesome, though I don’t know how much new content it contains (since I’ve read We Have Always Fought). Aaaand the Max Gladstone means I have all the books so far, until the next one is out.

Reading wise, it’s been a relatively light week. The M.C. Beaton books aren’t even that great, but they were just the right brain candy for me at the time.

Books finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:
–Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean. It took me a long time to really get into this, and then suddenly at 85% it made things work. Also, love the setting. 4/5 stars
–Spider-Woman: Spider-Verse, by Dennis Hopeless and Greg Land. Fun enough, and if you didn’t bother with Spider-verse in general, this does give you some info. Involves a lot of the Spider-ladies! 3/5 stars
–The Sudden Appearance of Hope, by Claire North. A very interesting one-sentence idea (“what if nobody could ever remember you?”) combined with a technology thriller type plot. 4/5 stars
–The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. More complex than the first book, The Thief, this pushes the characters we’ve already been introduced them and develops them beyond the thumbnail sketches we had before. It was a reread, so maybe no surprise I loved it. 5/5 stars
–Hawkeye: Rio Bravo, by Matt Fraction and David Aja. This run of Hawkeye has been fun, and I appreciate a lot about it, but I think the storytelling style wasn’t ideal for me. It relied a lot on the art, and I am not a visual person. 3/5 stars
–Tales from Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin. My main comment on this one is that you really need to read ‘Dragonfly’ to understand The Other Wind. 4/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: Debatable Space, by Philip Palmer. Fun and compulsive read, even though it didn’t seem like it would be my thing at all. 4/5 stars

Other posts:
–Top Ten Beach Reads. Except I was difficult about the theme, because I don’t do “beach reads”.

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Debatable Space

Posted June 3, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Debatable Space, Philip Palmer

Originally reviewed July 5th, 2012

Randomly selected in the library. the narrative is annoying — very fragmentary, many different narrators and time periods, rapid POV switching — and the typography makes me roll my eyes (I don’t need a page of the letters d o o o o o w n dripping down the page to get that she’s falling). The characters are universally unlikeable; the main female character egotistical and self-justifying, the main male character smug and unprincipled. There’s a lot of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. None of this is my thing.

And yet. I loved it. I gulped it down practically whole. I was on the edge of my seat. The book has an undeniable energy and joy which swept me up despite myself. It made me root for the characters despite the fact that they are all incredibly flawed. There are sciency infodumps and I do not mind. There’s a deus ex machina and it just made me whoop.

I’m sure it has other flaws, but while reading it, I couldn’t care less. That, in my view, is a good book — and I’m very glad I picked up two more books by Philip Palmer on the same whim.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Flashback Friday, SF/F

Review – Tales from Earthsea

Posted June 2, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Tales from Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin

If you read nothing else from this collection, you should grab this to read ‘Dragonfly’. The other stories fill in bits and pieces of the background, or use the world to tell a new story that is small in scope compared to Ged’s. ‘Dragonfly’, on the other hand, is necessary (to my mind) to really understanding The Other Wind, and should definitely be read first. It introduces a character who becomes important, and events which are referred to throughout the novel.

As for the writing of the stories themselves, well: Ursula Le Guin’s prose is as fine as you would expect, and the words are precise and crisp and each placed exactly right. The glimpses of history and other places which we get in these stories is worth the price of entry, too. I think ‘Darkrose and Diamond’, for instance, is incredibly slight compared to Ged’s story, but on the other hand it does reflect on some of the same themes as Tehanu. As does ‘Dragonfly’, in different ways.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, Ursula Le Guin

ShelfLove June Update

Posted June 1, 2016 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

ShelfLove Update!

And now it’s June… it’s been a busy month for me, with a big assignment to complete and wedding stuff to organise. Still, towards the end of the month I did start to catch up again, so I haven’t lost progress, and I’m hopeful for the month ahead. I’ve also read some books which have been on my TBR since 2010, and gone through my TBR piles to get rid of some books I’m no longer interested in. I still have 1,071 books on my owned-unread list, but it’s a start!

Last month I brought in more stats and colour coding, so here’s the rundown. The goals where I’m ahead are in blue; bang on are in green; behind by up to five books are in orange; anything else is in red. I now have a running total to show where I should be for the month (so for example, in books read overall, I should’ve read 121 by now, and I’m on 109).

Targets:
- 250 or less books bought;
- 366 books read overall;
- 200 books read which I owned prior to 2016;
- no more than 10% of income on books per month.
Books bought this year so far: 92/100.
May books bought: 25/20.
May budget: N/a; not calculated this month because it’s been in both euros and pounds. Pretty sure it’s in the red though.
Owned books read this month: 18/16.
Books read this month: 29/31.
Owned books read overall: 72/84 (12 books behind).
Books read overall: 139/152 (13 books behind).

As in past months, I’m going to include a TBR pile for the month here — especially since this update post more or less covers this month’s theme of a check-in. If you want to actually check out my progress, check out the Mount TBR menu on my blog; everything red and struck through has been removed from my list, either by reading it or by deciding it’s no longer interesting!

Aaaand the TBR for this month focuses on reading books I’ve owned since before the end of 2015, and finishing some of the series I’m reading.

Diane Duane, The Door into Shadow.
Diane Duane, The Door into Sunset.
Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, The Tempering of Men.
Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, An Apprentice to Elves.
M.C. Beaton, Sick of Shadows.
M.C. Beaton, Our Lady of Pain.
Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie.
Kristin Cashore, Bitterblue.
John Crowley, Little, Big.
Kerry Greenwood, Murder & Mendelssohn.
Tanya Huff, Blood Lines.
Tanya Huff, Blood Pact.
Tanya Huff, Blood Debt.
Robin LaFevers, Mortal Heart.
Juliet Marillier, Tower of Thorns.

No doubt I’ll read lots more, but I really hope to finish this bunch! Not to mention my personal challenge of rereading The Hobbit, this time in a French translation.

Tags: #ShelfLove, books, TBR

Review – Hawkeye: Rio Bravo

Posted June 1, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Hawkeye: Rio Bravo, Matt Fraction, David Aja

I know that everyone thinks Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye run has been the best thing since sliced bread, and I wish I could feel it too. I can see objectively that it’s good — I like Aja’s art, I like the inclusion of Kate Bishop as Hawkeye, I like that Clint’s a doofus and I love the experimental storytelling like the issue from Pizza-Dog’s point of view and showing Clint’s sign language. Hell, I love the inclusion of Clint’s brother, the way Fraction re-introduces Clint’s deafness (which I think was originally a story in the 70s?).

But somehow it just doesn’t quite come together for me — possibly because there’s a lot of visual storytelling, and I am a dunce when it comes to visual skills. I can’t even imagine rotating a simple shape, or picture someone’s face in my non-existent mind’s eye, so even if I spoke American Sign Language (which I don’t and wouldn’t, since when I learn it I’ll learn British Sign Language) I wouldn’t be able to read Clint’s signs, and… the dialogue in a comic really helps to orientate me.

I still think this run on Hawkeye is fun, but I just don’t appreciate it in the way other people do, and I’m sure there are awesome parts I’m not even appreciating. I suppose that’s, in part, why I’m an unlikely comics fan. Still, I get some enjoyment out of it, and I do see why this run has been so popular!

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel, Matt Fraction