Tag: books

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted October 13, 2015 by Nicky in General / 17 Comments

This week’s theme for Top Ten Tuesday is picking authors you would like to see write together. I’ve taken a somewhat random approach, just throwing favourite authors together in some cases. Also, I’ve kept dead authors in the equation, because you never know. If anyone could find a way to talk to a dead author, it’d probably be another living author.

  1. N.K. Jemisin and Kameron Hurley. I can only imagine what evils they would create… it’d be amazing.
  2. Gail Simone and Kelly Sue DeConnick. A sudden thought: imagine Batgirl vs Captain Marvel. Or Captain Marvel vs Red Sonja.
  3. Jo Walton and Steven Brust. I like their work, Jo admires Brust’s books, and I know Brust at least has collaborated before…
  4. Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie. Mind you, it’d end with all the characters dead.
  5. Cherie Priest and Kelley Sue DeConnick. Maybe they could adapt Bloodshot and Hellbent into a comic, using Kelly Sue’s knowledge of how to script?
  6. Jo Walton and Dorothy L. Sayers. Farthing is a pastiche of Golden Age crime fiction. I’d love to see what Wimsey would do in Walton’s alternate Britain… or what Carmichael would do, face to face with Wimsey. I feel like he’d probably get along better with Parker.
  7. J.R.R. Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay. The Fionavar books were influenced by Tolkien, undoubtedly, and Kay worked with Tolkien’s son on preparing The Silmarillion. The two together would surely do some fascinating things with mythology.
  8. Ursula Le Guin and Jo Walton. Because what better way to short out my fannish circuits?
  9. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Because Good Omens was genius.
  10. Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman. Might be a bit of a mismatch, but they both deal in fairytales…

This was actually a really hard one to come up with. I’ll be interesting to see what other people have thought up!

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Review – The Fox’s Tower

Posted October 12, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Fox Tower by Yoon Ha LeeThe Fox’s Tower, Yoon Ha Lee

This is a lovely collection of microfiction, which often teasingly looks over the edge at poetry in the imagery, the choice of words, the spare precise nature of the prose. It’s a collection of fable-like stories, some of them more familiar than others, all of them given their own little twist. There were a few that didn’t really strike me, but microfiction is a very difficult art, and I think Yoon Ha Lee does an amazing job with the form. Each word has to be necessary — done. Each image has to evoke a picture, an emotion, a perfect still moment — done.

I also liked that gender is not a major thing in these stories. It shifts. Someone is referred to as someone’s son, and yet the pronoun is ‘they’. It’s noticeable at first because people don’t usually do it, but I quickly got used to it, and it’s a part of the narrative voice. (Some characters are ‘she’ or ‘he’; it also depends on the character, the story.)

I know Yoon Ha Lee has a sci-fi book deal with Solaris, and I’m definitely looking forward to that on the strength of this.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Hawkeye: L.A. Woman

Posted October 11, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Cover of Hawkeye: LA Woman by Matt FractionHawkeye: L.A. Woman, Matt Fraction, Annie Wu, Javier Pulido

This volume of Hawkeye collects a bunch of issues about the younger, cuter Hawkeye, Kate Bishop. What I kinda don’t get is how much like Clint she acts — she’s not the serious, dedicated leader of the Young Avengers here at all (and she doesn’t once that I can think of contact any of her team). The volume is mostly made up of new characters, aside from Kate and the antagonist, Madame Masque.

It’s fun, and the art is okay — I don’t like it as much as Aja’s — but I like Kate Bishop self-assured and telling Noh-Varr he’s a jerk, or helping Billy and Teddy save the world with love. We don’t get to see the Young Avengers off-duty like this much, which I guess is the format of these Hawkeye comics, but… I don’t know. And I half-expected her to come out with lines from Fraction’s Sex Criminals series: “This fucking guy”, etc.

She does still kick ass, but she also gets her ass kicked a lot, and often due to naivety and inexperience. Which is great, but, uh, the Young Avengers have taken down some pretty big threats, actually. Girl knows what she’s doing — and she has a support network other than Clint and her dad. A phone call to Billy or Teddy would’ve gone down well, Tommy could have been at her side in literally seconds, and America Chavez would gleefully have stomped Madame Masque’s faces. David could probably have set her up with a database, never mind files, if she’s gonna be a PI. Like, with Clint you can get him not asking for backup, because he’s a dummy. Kate isn’t. I’d at least have liked to see her think about calling her team, especially when she believes people are dying.

I don’t know, I guess one superhero being a dummy is kind of funny. Two is apparently overkill for me. Did like the gay couple who help her, though.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – The Traitor Baru Cormorant

Posted October 10, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 12 Comments

Cover of The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth DickinsonThe Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson
Received to review via Netgalley and a won proof copy

I first heard of this via Kameron Hurley’s enthusiastic response on Twitter, and requested it pretty much based on that. It was only later that I read critical reviews/thoughts, like Foz Meadows’ and Liz Bourke’s, and while it made me feel a little more wary, I decided I was going to give it a go anyway. And I did, and to me, that central thesis that this is a book with a message, “Homophobia Is Bad”, which brings the message across by all queer people being unhappy… isn’t true. Nobody here “suffer[s] unbearably because of their orientation”, but because of the imperialist, colonial reaction to their sexual orientation.

It’s not a Queer Tragedy story where the main character is gay and struggling. She’s not struggling because she’s gay. She’s struggling because the Empire of Masks believes that the customs of her homeland are wrong, she disagrees, and she is determined to fight it at whatever cost. Everything that happens to her is her choice. It would be more of a Queer Tragedy if she was eventually manoeuvred into the position she’s in at the end of the novel, if it wasn’t her choice. But it is. And I don’t think this is saying there’s no hope for Baru, either; yes, she has done some terrible things, betrayed every cause except the one closest to her heart. But she’s holding onto that. She’s not broken. She does not accept a gilded cage.

As for “the evil empire is too evil” criticisms… well. The British Empire used all these methods to assimilate colonies. Maybe not at the same time, in the same place, but they did. The issue is not whether those things are going on, but control of the information: these things do look very bad to us now, partly because we see them in our past and know the harm they caused, partly because we get a privileged view. If the Masquerade don’t publicise those things are happening, people might know that some of it is going on. They can write it off to bad management, to unfair application of policies, to a particular person being corrupted — rather than seeing it as a whole, a pattern, that defines the empire. That’s pretty clearly shown to be in effect here, as far as I can see. We see the Empire for what it is, and so does Baru with her carefully split and guarded identity, but just because we as readers can doesn’t mean we would’ve in real life when these things occurred.

And, a thought that I suspect is very uncomfortable for a lot of people, we don’t now. You can ignore an awful lot of shit when you’re not the one who directly faces it.

Anyway. Going back to just the story — I loved it. It’s a painful, wrenching story, and yes, it goes through the dark side of capitalism and colonialism a lot. It explores what one person has to do, has to change, to try and make a difference, and the pain it brings them. It’s really well written: this is a story with an accountant at the centre, as the hero, and yet her machinations are still as fascinating as any duel. It also deals with people being people: complex, split in their loyalties, unpredictable. Driven by emotion. I believed in every character here, and that they thought they were the hero of their own story.

I recommend it. Sending the proof copy to my sister ASAP, though I suspect she may kill me when she reads the end.

Rating: 5/5

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted October 10, 2015 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

Oops. This week has been one of wild indulgence. Granted, some of these were preordered — it’s been a heck of a week for books I wanted coming out! There’s one or two more I don’t even have, like Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley. Yeesh.

(Well, some of these I didn’t preorder, just picked up as soon as I could, with new money coming into my account for the start of the month. It hit me rather harder than I expected!)

Bought

Cover of Last Song Before Night by Ilana C. Myer Cover of Every Secret Thing by Susanna Kearsley Cover of Updraft by Fran Wilde

Cover of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs Cover of Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie Cover of Fool's Run by Patricia A. McKillip

Cover of Carry On by Rainbow Rowell Cover of Lady of Mallow by Dorothy Eden Cover of The Parthenon by Mary Beard

Cover of India Black by Carol K. Carr Cover of The Last Witness by K.J. Parker Cover of Home by Francis Pryor

Cover of Court of Fives by Kate Elliott Cover of Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan Cover of All For Love by Jane Aiken Hodge

Cover of White Water by Pamela Oldfield Cover of Mythmaker by Marianne de Pierres

Uh. Yes. Quite the haul, I know. And I actually won Mythmaker, but putting it there stops there being one book hanging out on its own.

(Yes, I quite literally have OCD, I know this.)

Library

Cover of India Black and the Widow of Windsor Cover of Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

How I wish these numbers were the other way round and I had gone nuts at the library instead! Ah well. I have lots of reservations due in next week…

How’s everyone else been doing? I’m feeling pretty worn out and run down at the moment; there’s family stuff going on, and sometimes I think I might just need a good hug. Books make it a bit more bearable, though — coming out of the library with an armful of new pocket universes to hide in is a heady feeling.

Don’t forget to link me to your hauls! Direct links are helpful and save me having to track you down to return the comments.

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Review – The Annotated Hobbit

Posted October 9, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Annotated Hobbit by J.R.R. TolkienThe Annotated Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien, Douglas A. Anderson
Originally reviewed 11th October, 2011

The Annotated Hobbit is a really great edition of the book for fans of Tolkien, or anyone studying Tolkien’s work. It’s full of useful annotations, including the references to Tolkien’s sources and inspiration, and the history of corrections to the book (particularly the ones bringing it in line with The Lord of the Rings geography and canon). It also contains a lot of illustrations from different editions of the book, including Tolkien’s own — most in black and white, but with an insert in full colour. I didn’t realise Tolkien originally did his own illustrations.

For a casual reader, though, it’d be more distracting than not. There’s notes on practically every page, many of them lengthy — you might have to turn two or three pages to find the relevant note, as they don’t all fit in beside the text — and they aren’t all of interest to the casual reader. I wouldn’t recommend it for a first-time reader of The Hobbit. For me, as a fan and as a scholar, though, it was really fascinating. I especially loved the notes on the language — e.g. Tolkien’s wordplay in the chapter with the spiders, fully intelligible only to people with an enormous knowledge of different languages, including ancient ones.

The story itself, well. For me it’s an old favourite, warm and comforting, like eating Werther’s Originals in a warm corner, inside, on a windy night. Even reading it for a class didn’t get in the way of that. There’s no way for me to be objective about it, and I won’t try.

Rating: 5/5

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Review – Bookburners: Badge, Book and Candle

Posted October 8, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 7 Comments

Cover of Badge, Book and Candle by Max GladstoneBookburners: Badge, Book and Candle, Max Gladstone
Received to review via Netgalley

I like the idea of this serialised novel business; I’ll be checking it out again when Ellen Kushner’s Tremontaine world gets a serialised outing. But Bookburners didn’t really grab me; it doesn’t help that the file that ended up on my Kindle was a mess, of course, with the formatting all over the place, but there was nothing special about the style or set-up, as far as I was concerned. It’s a fairly typical urban fantasy opening, and there’s just not enough to hook me and keep me following it through the serial format.

It’s cool that this isn’t a damsel in distress or ‘fridged’ woman plot, that the victim and motivating factor is in fact a female cop’s brother. And there were some pretty cool details about the world-building, like the idea that demons (essentially) can get into you through anything that links one person to another, like a book. But… not convinced to subscribe and follow this particular story.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Pacific Fire

Posted October 7, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Pacific Fire by Greg van EekhoutPacific Fire, Greg van Eekhout
Received to review via Netgalley

Originally received to review, anyway, but I bought it as well after being a terrible person and not getting round to the ARC. Now I’m regretting that, because I liked this more than the first book — it takes all that background, and gives us some more emotional stuff. I’m always a sucker for loyalty stories, so the relationship between Daniel and Sam — gah. And the dilemma of them realising that Daniel’s actually harming him — double gah. And then the ending! Triple gah.

I know, I’m very coherent.

We see some characters from the previous book: we find out a touch more about Daniel’s mother and his golem; we see Otis again, Cassandra, Moth; there are parts featuring Gabriel and Max… I love that Moth is casually gay and has a guy; I love that Gabriel is really powerful but still doesn’t seem to want it, only to use it because he has to and no one else will do so responsibly. I want more of Max, really — I want to know what drives him, what’s going on in his head. It’s exactly as fast-paced as the first book: my Kindle started out by calculating I’d take three hours, and then quickly halved that as I raced on through.

And, after that ending? I want Dragon Coast right now.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Hawkeye: Little Hits

Posted October 6, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Hawkeye vol 2 by Fraction and AjaHawkeye: Little Hits, Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth, Chris Eliopoulous

Clint Barton continues to be a trainwreck in everyday life. And Kate Bishop continues to care about him even though he’s really kind of a loser in many ways. And Clint has a really great dog. That pretty much sums up book two. And the whole run could probably summed up with, “Clint Barton makes poor life choices.”

I’m not 100% into this comic, but I do enjoy it, and Fraction and Aja are certainly very creative, funny, and willing to take risks. Sometimes I find that their style of storytelling doesn’t work for me — I’m not a visual person, so the 95% visuals issue “Pizza Is My Business” was difficult for me, and that’s not the only time they rely on very visual storytelling. So I think my reaction is a pretty idiosyncratic one; it’s a bit weird that I’m even into comics, since visual storytelling is hard for me, and the best comics really make use of that in combination with the words, instead of illustrating the words.

Still, reading it again helped somewhat with comprehension, and I’ll keep that in mind as I get onto LA Woman and Rio Bravo.

Rating: 3/5

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted October 6, 2015 by Nicky in General / 17 Comments

This week’s theme from The Broke and the Bookish is ‘Ten Bookish Things I Want to Quit’. Wait, there’s things about books that people might want to quit?!

Kidding, kidding, I totally have a list too.

  1. Getting caught up in my latest shiny. It’d be so nice if I could manage to keep my attention on one book or series at a time. Or maybe a couple at a time.
  2. Buying something and then not getting round to it. I’m sorry.
  3. My ridiculous backlist of ARCs. I’m actually behaving myself better now, so maybe this is an ‘I Have Quit’ one.
  4. Carrying like fifty books around the country when I travel. I have an ereader! I have no need to do this! Which leads to…
  5. …Wanting to read every book but the ones I’ve got with me. Just no, brain. Just no. Behave yourself.
  6. Being cranky about ebooks. I actually love my ereader! It is adorable and it can carry a lot of books. But lately, I don’t know, I’ve been cranky about reading in ebook and I’ve wanted to have something in my hands. (Except with my Kindle Voyage, because new shiny.)
  7. Skipping bedtime reading. What’s with that? Come on, brain, you know that reading before bed is good for you.
  8. Feeling guilty about ‘guilty pleasures’. You know what sort of book I’m talking about, probably. If you know me. But my guilty pleasure is another’s favourite book, and it’s silly to feel guilty about something that makes you happy, even if it’s a brief pleasure. (I actually wrote a whole post about this.)
  9. Rebuying books to reread. Somewhere, I have a copy. Patience, self. You can wait.
  10. Planning ridiculous reading lists… and consequently getting nothing read. Pressure works, sometimes, but not when I try and plan months ahead. Maybe plan the next book ahead, singular. But be flexible. Reading is meant to be fun, right?

Anyone else resemble these remarks? Heh.

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