Anna Tan's Blog, page 30

#bookreview: Kingdom of Souls | Rena Barron

Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

All Arrah wants is to have just a little magic. The way her parents have it, the way her Grandmother, the great Aatiri chieftain, wields it and sees visions of the future. But she doesn't, and when children start disappearing in Tarah, Arrah does the forbidden: exchanges years of her life for the taste of magic.

Kingdom of Souls is involved and complex. Gods walk the earth, the Demon King is manipulating humans for his freedom, and Arrah...

Of Endings and Goodbyes

There’s always a sense of leaving.
Today I sit on the 607 to White City, to what may be my last Ealing write-in. I usually read on the bus, but today I watch the scenery and feel a sense of... nostalgia? A sense of saying goodbye? It doesn't make sense. It’s only been a year.

Not long enough to set down roots. Not long enough to belong. Not really.

But there is a sadness in saying goodbye. I’m maudlin. I don’t leave the UK until mid-December but I am moving away from this neighbourhood in West...

#Dublin2019 #AnIrishWorldCon in tweet threads

I was looking up my own notes for the panels I attended at Worldcon 2019, so here's a listing of the threads I made. Also so I can find it later on. lol. I dunno how this embedding thing works, I'm assuming you can click it to open the full thread.

We'll see.

Insanely popular Dragons, wyrms, and serpents panel. #Dublin2019 #AnIrishWorldcon

Marie Brennan, Karen Simpson Nikakis, Aliette de Bodard, Naomi Novik, Joey Yu pic.twitter.com/pvesGD15z4— Anna Tan (@natzers) August 19, 2019

No lines this morning. Everyone must be hungover after the Hugo’s.

#bookreview: Skyward | Brandon Sanderson

Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a brilliant, brilliant book, and the long reading time recorded is only because Worldcon came in between the first half and the second half of my reading!

Skyward was entrancing from beginning to end, driven by the sheer focus and desperation of Spensa (Callsign: Spin). She grates on you a little at times, but if you can see past the bluster, you feel how she hides her vulnerability and fear in the most outrageous fighting words she...

#bookreview: Speak No Evil | Liana Gardner

Speak No Evil by Liana Gardner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. Liana Gardner sure pulls at your heartstrings with Speak No Evil.

Melody Fisher has been shunted from foster home to foster home ever since the death of her mother and the disappearance of her father. Every time she has spoken up to defend herself, something even worse happens, so she gradually falls into silence. But now, she needs to speak again, to tell her side of why she stabbed Troy.

Gardner brings you on a journey of recovery th...

#bookreview: Claiming T-Mo | Eugen Bacon

Claiming T-Mo by Eugen Bacon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The most I can say about this book is that it wasn't quite what I was expecting. The narrative flits between the lives of the women in T-Mo's life and how his dual personality and subsequent disappearance impacted them.

It was interesting, in a way, but also felt disjointed as you jumped from his mother to his wife to his daughter and his granddaughter and it's really not about them, but it is. It's mostly still about him, in a roundabout way...

#bookreview: Pale Kings | Micah Yongo

Pale Kings by Micah Yongo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pale Kings starts off slowly, picking up where Lost Gods left off. Yongo takes his time to orient you: The Shedaim Brotherhood is broken, magic is stirring once again, dark beasts have arisen… and gods now walk the land. Strange visions come upon Neythan, Sidon must navigate his way through court intrigue and betrayal, and Daneel and Josef wrestle with the choices that pull them in opposite directions. The slow-build and the changing POVs are sl...

#bookreview: Etania's Worth | M.H. Elrich

Etania's Worth by M.H. Elrich
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

On the planet Tearah, where the various human races possess different Neuma, or powers and gifts granted by God, Etania doubts herself and her gift. Chosen to help save the world? Yeah, right. Cute bodyguard falling in love with her? Double yeah, right. Why would anyone, especially Melchizidek the God of Tamnarae, love or believe in her when she can't even keep the attention of her own father?

Etania's Worth is a Christian allegorical quest f...

#bookreview: The Escape Manual for Introverts | Katie Vaz

I know it's not my usual book review day! And also I've missed a couple of weeks. I've been away on a roadtrip and in my head, I thought I would have time to keep reading and reviewing. Obviously not. So I'll be slowly catching up a little over the next few weeks.

Here's a short one to tide you over until I actually get stuff done.

The Escape Manual for Introverts by Katie Vaz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a cutesy, off-kilter "manual" on how to escape social situations you really don't want to...

#guestpost: Why Writing Poetry is Valuable | Matt Nagin (@mnagin)

When I was 16, I wrote tons of poems. I must have filled up fifty notebooks with random scribblings. One day, completely entranced by my new hobby, I told my mother I wanted to be a writer. She was less than pleased. She goes, ‘Oh Matthew! Become a doctor and you can write prescriptions!’

I still write poems today, at 42 years old. Some say I have a bit of a Peter Pan Complex. I still live in a bachelor pad, I’m unmarried, no kids, still have many of the same habits I developed as a teen. This...