Slow Bullets, Alastair Reynolds
Received to review via Netgalley

It’s been ages since I read any of Alastair Reynolds’ work, and I think it’s high time for a reread. This novella reminded me of all the things I loved about his series: weird unknowable aliens, amazing tech, mysterious cataclysms, and yes, a strong female character too. And maybe now, with the extra reading and studying I’ve done since, I’ll know more about the science aspect of the fiction as well, and be able to appreciate it more.

This is an engaging read, narrated by a survivor from a war that bears some similarities with conflicts of the modern day: two sides, fighting over different interpretations of a Book, in which there is beauty and power but also the potential for great division. Yet these survivors have to put that aside, because it’s no longer relevant. The story has elements of a generation ship set-up, along with exploration of a mysterious object — in this case, the ship itself, which is suffering from data loss for reasons that, at first, take some understanding.

If you’re really wedded to hard SF, then the Sickening might annoy you, coming as it does without an explanation of the mechanism. I don’t know if it’s explainable or not, but that didn’t matter to me; it was a backdrop for the situation Reynolds created aboard this ship.

There’s something rather dispassionate and unpredictable about the narrator, Scur. I was never sure what she was going to do, what exactly drove her. But I get the sense that that was, in many ways, intentional — and given the way she’s telling her story, unavoidable. Part of the way she’s telling the story bothers me a little — seriously, etching 50,000 words into metal? — but I don’t mind suspension of disbelief, and at least the style matches with that conceit: Scur doesn’t waste her words.

Overall, very enjoyable for me. My sister’s hopping with impatience for it already…

Rating: 4/5

Grave Mercy, Robin LaFevers
Received to review via Netgalley

I was a bit apprehensive about reading this, because some people whose reviews I like and whose taste I often share were not fans at all… only to find when I did read it that actually I disagreed with them almost point for point. There are some aspects of this that I’m not so sure of — Ismae’s ready acceptance that these nuns kill people, for example, and her eagerness to join in — but I did love it. I enjoyed the main character’s difficulty in trusting the people around her, and how hard she finds it to understand that the convent that took her in could be fallible, could be manipulated. And yet she doesn’t take the easy route: she goes against what she wishes was right to do what she knows she should do.

I liked Duval, too: his devotion to his sister, the grudging partnership between him and Ismae, his general decency. I liked that we don’t just see that from Ismae’s point of view: we see other characters around Duval responding to his goodness with loyalty and trust.

I’m not sure why this was marketed so heavily as YA, because I didn’t really read it that way. It might well be suitable for that age range, but it’s not particularly childish in any way. If anything, it doesn’t portray young people as well as it could — the duchess Anne seems much older than thirteen in the way she acts, though of course people matured earlier in that time period. It’s quite a complex plot of politics, treachery and backstabbing. Granted, I was suspicious of a certain character well before anyone in the story was, so I felt like that was telegraphed too clearly, but I enjoyed it all the same.

I know from looking at reviews that Dark Triumph and Mortal Heart are focused on Sybella and Annith, side characters from this book. Hopefully, other characters I’m concerned about will wind their way through those stories, too. I notice there’s no mention of what happens to Beast at the end of Grave Mercy…

Rating: 4/5

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling

And my reread/rediscovery continues! This is definitely not my favourite of the series, owing to an unfortunate two week trip to France for which my mother made me pack only two books. This was one of them, Prisoner of Azkaban, the other. The latter didn’t suffer from the multiple readings (sometimes multiple times in one day) as much as this one did. Still, it’s been a long time, so it wasn’t too annoying — and I’d even contrived to forget the sequence of some of the events.

Actually, I’m enjoying the reread more than I really anticipated. It’s nice to come back to Harry Potter now the hype’s died down a bit; to read it not because it’s a cultural monolith and people are saying I have to, but because I feel like it. Helps that I don’t have anything to prove, too; once it caught on in school, there were years where I just had to be reading more literary stuff, just because high school.

It’s nice to come to these books for the friendships between Ron, Harry and Hermione; for the funny moments with Lockhart; for Dobby; for that thrill when it comes to the idea of Knockturn Alley… for the bravery and heroism of Harry, who isn’t particularly strong or smart (Hermione is a better witch than Harry a wizard, it’s very clear), who has been thrown into the path of great events, and does what he can.

Rating: 3/5

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling

People who know me fairly well are probably stunned and shocked right now. I’ve resisted rereading the first few books for so long, even in the cause of finally finishing the series, because I got sick to death of the hype. I had my first Harry Potter books just before the hype really started, but I was also already into Ursula Le Guin and Tolkien at that point, so I wasn’t quite so impressed or swept up by it. It doesn’t help that I’ve also studied the books two or three times, starting with an exhaustive read through during my A Level English class. It really doesn’t help that an older review of mine, which is fairly critical, gets a lot of trolls and snark and even one or two people saying I can’t possibly have a degree in English Literature if I don’t like Harry Potter.

I mean, I get it. I was seventeen, I was a brat, and I was sharpening my tongue on something you love. But I’m twenty-five now. Let it go.

So anyway, I finally came back to Harry Potter by way of a HabitRPG challenge to re/read all seven books, and obviously, the only place to start is the beginning. So here I am. I still have a lot of my old reservations; there’s a lack of subtlety, a lack of originality, and Le Guin still wipes the floor with Rowling. And Malfoy is still eerily similar to Jasper in some ways. But if I put that aside and just try to enjoy it for the magic, and for the nostalgia of reading it for the first time, it’s fun. There is a lot of world building — Quidditch, the history of the wizarding world, the types of spells, how Hogwarts works, etc, etc. It captures some of the really ordinary stuff about school (everybody has their Malfoy, right?) and some of the really cool stuff about fantasy and imagination, and sometimes it’s really funny and clever about the types of people Harry has to deal with (Malfoy again, also the Dursleys).

So yes, I am enjoying this now for what it is. We’ve got Le Guin, we don’t need Rowling to give us the same kind of story; here we have a main character with plenty of room for us to identify with him, a humble guy who isn’t too cocksure about his powers, an Everyman. An ordinary boy who through love and friendship can be a hero.

Okay, yeah. I get the appeal. Now sit down and shush until I’ve finished the series (yes, Ruth, I’m looking at you, not a word).

Rating: 3/5

The Mechanical, Ian Tregillis
Received to review via Netgalley

This one took me a weirdly long time to read, considering the fact that I don’t have major criticisms. I just… didn’t feel like reading it. In part that’s because of emotional stuff: tortures, transformations, losses… Tregillis writes well about these, and I tend to be bad at reading that. There’s one aspect of Visser’s character arc in particular that still has me cringing now. It’s worse with characters I feel more involved with, which is maybe the place that Tregillis failed to capture me. I’m not fascinated by his characters, so I didn’t have that drive to carry on reading and find out what happens, how they get out of their messes. I’m not sure I’ll read future books, because I only sort of want to know what happens to the characters, and I’m not sure if that’s enough to keep me going through the bad stuff.

And Tregillis definitely demonstrates he isn’t afraid to hurt his characters. There’s no real reassurance that there’ll be a happy ending. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it shapes my idiosyncratic response to the story.

In terms of plot and setting, it’s pretty awesome. He sets up an elaborate alternate history with mechanical servitors and alchemy, and a war between the French and the Dutch in consequence. There’s all sorts of philosophical stuff explored around this: concepts of the soul, theology, practical and societal changes… Tregillis doesn’t skimp on that kind of detail and background development at all. There’s room and to spare for more development as well: this isn’t a concept exhausted after the first book.

If I sound ambivalent, that’s a personal reaction; there’s a lot here to fascinate and absorb.

Rating: 4/5

The Explorer, James Smythe

I’ve been vaguely meaning to read something by Smythe for a while. This doesn’t really encourage me: the idea is interesting enough, but my interest waned from the very first chapter, because the narration is so flat and lacking in affect. I couldn’t care less about Cormac (or indeed, the rest of the crew), and the science was inconsistent enough that it didn’t capture my attention as a novel of ideas, either. (I mean, be clear: are you or are you not breaking Newton’s laws of the conservation of motion? If yes, why?)

It seemed… just rather too similar to various other books and sci-fi films that are around, without giving me anything that made it stand out. Which is a disappointment given that this book has been vaguely on my radar for a while, but not too surprising when I look at the reviews on Goodreads and such. Ah, well.

Rating: 1/5

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

I originally received this to review, but have actually bought a copy in the meantime because I took too long about getting to it — and some of my friends were very enthusiastic about it.

I’m actually finding this one a difficult one to review, anyway. The prose is great, and the interweaving of the plots, the character arcs, and the way the different time periods are handled… all of that worked very well for me. The set-up of the world, too: the plague, the way people survive, the existence of something like the Travelling Symphony (though it did remind me of Genevieve Valentine’s Mechanique). It just… doesn’t seem to be sticking with me. I finished it last night and I’m already forgetting details and connections.

Maybe part of it is that I didn’t really form an emotional connection to anyone. The way it shifts between central characters caused that, somewhat: I was never sure who was coming back, who was incidental. And sometimes the characters were just… drifting through their lives without purpose. The actor, for example, his hopping between wives and his callousness to his friends; he’s a well-written character, and yet not one I can be passionate about.

I think maybe what it really lacked for me was a sense of destination. “Survival” is all the characters aim for, and there’s no one unifying thing that they’re all drawn toward, so that their coming together feels unimportant. I don’t usually need some big epic event as a book’s climax, but it didn’t seem like this had a climax — it was more a character study, a world study, which normally I would enjoy, but because I didn’t really connect with any of the characters, it didn’t elevate the novel beyond “well, objectively I can see it’s well-written”.

I hesitate over giving it a rating, because I normally rate by enjoyment, but also by a sense of ‘okay, I’ll take a star off for x and y’. I don’t want to dock it stars, though, and yet it doesn’t merit the highest accolades I’ve given to books like The Goblin Emperor. I’m going to have to go with three stars (‘liked it’) — which is not to say it’s not a good book, maybe even a five star book in some ways, but it just can’t touch the involvement I’ve had with books I’ve given five stars.

Rating: 3/5