Tag: SF/F

Review – Rosemary and Rue

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

Cover of Rosemary & Rue by Seanan McGuireRosemary 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

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Review – Finn Fancy Necromancy

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

Cover of Finn Fancy Necromancy by Randy HendersonFinn 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

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Review – Debatable Space

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

Cover of Debatable Space by Philip PalmerDebatable 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

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Review – Tales from Earthsea

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

Cover of Tales from Earthsea by Ursula Le GuinTales 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

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Review – The Queen of Attolia

Posted May 31, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen TurnerThe Queen of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner

It’s been ages since I reread The Thief, but fortunately the two books don’t rely on each other too much. The Thief introduces Eugenides and the pseudo-Greek world he lives in (along with its other, less congruous features, like pocket watches and the real and tangible presence of gods); The Queen of Attolia goes on to develop the character and his place in the world. It does a skillful job of developing a character who starts off completely unlikeable, slowly unpicking the difficulties of being a queen in a man’s world, of hardening your heart so that you can live to fight another day. And it touches on disability and recovery and betrayal and love, and of course there’s still some political maneuvering, because the characters just can’t resist.

There’s one aspect of the book that, both times, threw me somewhat and made me doubtful that it could pull it off. It does, albeit awkwardly: more with a sense of hope and promise than a sense of security or surety (though that comes later, in The King of Attolia). Eugenides’ relationship with Irene, the Queen of Attolia, is an interesting one, marred by their shared past and the terrible things Irene did in the effort to secure her throne, and yet… perhaps not beyond hope. There are aspects of it that feel a little sudden, like Irene suddenly realising that she actually likes Eugenides, but at the same time, you can look back through the book and see it happening.

It’s certainly not, at least, insta-love, or an easy romance. It always acknowledges that these two people are very different, that they hold power over each other, that they’re playing at politics as much as they’re reacting to each other as people.

Oh, and the Queen of Eddis continues to be awesome, of course.

This is a book that definitely hasn’t suffered from rereading; it was probably more satisfying than I remembered, I think, because reading it a second time just allows you to see the way all the threads come together, the way everything falls into place.

Rating: 5/5

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Review – Tam Lin

Posted May 28, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Tam Lin, by Pamela DeanTam Lin, Pamela Dean

How to review this? I have complicated thoughts. For a start: I love the ballad(s, there’s various versions), and I’ve read quite a few Tam Lin retellings now too. I expected to like Tam Lin, per Pamela Dean, quite a lot, because it came highly recommended and because of all the other things I was told were involved in this retelling — the ‘college as magic garden‘ aspect, primarily. And there’s a lot to like about that, because I did experience university as a magical garden in many ways, and I loved the utter focus on college, on learning, on cramming in everything you can. And that lovely feeling of finding something you didn’t expect to love through study and the right teacher, and all the possibilities, and…

It is a bit thick with references; though Jo Walton’s review suggests that it never leans on the references without explaining them, sometimes that led to the weird sense of being told the plots of all the plays mentioned within the novel. It’s a little bit infodumpy, even though it suits the whole atmosphere.

And I do like the portrayal of women being different and finding ways to get along anyway; young couples working out things like contraception and how to fit in seeing each other between their studies; men and women forming friendship groups together that aren’t completely rife with sex and jealousy (although there is some of that).

I liked the slow unfolding of it, too. It helped to know (again from Jo’s review) that the pacing of it is based on the pacing of the ballad (not sure which exact version), with the build-up taking most of the song and the denouement a verse: that is very much how it is in the novel, too. And I did like that I needed to watch for the references, keep my eyes open for the hints, that somehow ghosts and people who could’ve stepped out of Shakespeare’s plays came to seem normal.

It did frustrate me, though, how long it took for there to be payoff — how long it took for it to be confirmed as a fantasy novel, and not as, say, Janet being unstable (I knew it wasn’t that, but I apparently like my fantasy more overt), and how long it took for the two characters who turn out to be the main ones to actually really find each other. It took literally until 85% before I could see how the relationships could possibly work out like the ballad.

When it did come together, it was very satisfying. But it takes time, and you have to want to spend the time in the magical garden, spend time with these very young, very serious, very earnest characters who are just beginning to go about meaningful work and love and relationships. I can see why some people bounce off this one, I really can. I think without the strong recommendations I received plus my knowledge of the ballad (and my love for Fairport Convention’s version of it!), I might not have stuck it out.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Cruel Beauty

Posted May 25, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Cover of Cruel Beauty by Rosamund HodgesCruel Beauty, Rosamund Hodges

There were some aspects of this Beauty and the Beast reworking I found really interesting — mostly, the Greek mythology that was mixed in. It didn’t feel like a typical woodsy-castle-y faux-medieval-y setting, which was refreshing, and the references to the Kindly Ones — aka the Furies — worked pretty well for me. The complex relationship between Nyx and her sister was actually kind of interesting too; it’s not straightforward, because everything is not as it first appears, and neither of them are honest to each other.

But otherwise, there were a lot of aspects of this I just couldn’t get into. Both the relationships the main character had just felt off, despite the attempt to show a dichotomy between the two where one, to borrow Tolkien’s phrasing, ‘looks foul and feels fair’ and vice versa (except mostly acts/feels; they’re both handsome, as I recall). The romance tends to the insta-love trope, and given that Ignifex never makes himself really pleasant (unlike, say, T. Kingfisher’s Beast in Bryony and Roses).

There are some interesting aspects, as I said, but looking back at it as I write this somewhat belated review, it definitely never came together for me, and it didn’t really become memorable either.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Tehanu

Posted May 24, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Tehanu by Ursula Le GuinTehanu, Ursula Le Guin

This still wasn’t a favourite book for me in the Earthsea sequence, because it deals so much with the consequences of what happened to Ged in The Farthest Shore. Considering I’m not a great fan of that plot (though I have come to appreciate it more as an artistic choice and for the way it changes Earthsea), I guess it’s not surprising that I’m not such a fan — even though, like The Tombs of Atuan, this brings the female point of view to the fore and deals with some of the issues of sexism in the world.

The brief glimpse of Lebanen as the young king is lovely, and the understanding Tenar and Ged eventually come to is too. The stuff about the friendship between women, and the way Tenar realises that she’s totally failed to raise the kind of man she’d like for a son, also works pretty well.

But it takes away Ged’s dignity — and that, more than the loss of his power, I dislike intensely. He’s always been proud, and here… he can’t fight, can’t save himself. He needs Therru and the dragons.

So as with The Farthest Shore, I see the thematic importance. I just… don’t like it that much.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Sin Eater’s Daughter

Posted May 19, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 9 Comments

Cover of The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda SalisburyThe Sin Eater’s Daughter, Melinda Salisbury

The cover for this book is just gorgeous, and between that and the first chapter, it really drew me in. There are some interesting concepts and politics, actually: I was worried from some of the reviews that it really wouldn’t hit that mark, but the way the queen uses the people around her, even her son, does actually manage to hit some interesting notes. There are a couple of twists I wasn’t really expecting, but in that way where they made sense when they happened, so kudos on that.

Overall, though, thinking about it now, it feels rather thin. I liked the concept of Twylla’s power and was quite prepared for it to be real; the way the plot plays out is actually a little disappointing, since the original idea is so tantalising. It’s also pretty heavy on the romance, and though there are one or two good scenes, mostly I wasn’t that taken with it. The title is disappointing, too; Twylla might be the sin-eater’s daughter, but that’s not really important to the plot, doesn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. A lot of what I found interesting — like the sin eating — was background, or not real, while the elements I was least interested in were focused on.

Enjoyable enough, but not something I’m desperate to read more of. I’m glad I haven’t already picked up The Sleeping Prince; I might in the end, but not immediately.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Bread We Eat in Dreams

Posted May 15, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Bread We Eat in Dreams by Catherynne M. ValenteThe Bread We Eat in Dreams, Catherynne M. Valente

If you’re a fan of Catherynne M. Valente’s work, then you probably know what to expect: prose that touches poetry at times, often an influence of Japanese folklore, strange dream-like logic… This is a wide-ranging collection which includes some stories I read elsewhere, or could’ve read elsewhere, like the Fairyland novella about Mallow. The writing is generally beautiful; that’s never really something I doubt with Valente. The choice of stories is also generally good, even though I have encountered some of them in multiple other collections.

It’s probably most worthwhile for the pretty cover and for people who either haven’t read much Valente and want a sampler, or people who read everything she writes and don’t want to miss anything.

Confession: I mostly skipped the actual poetry. I prefer the lyricism of Valente’s prose to anything about her poetry.

Rating: 3/5

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