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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0425281183
| 9780425281185
| 3.91
| 6,373
| Jul 2015
| Jun 28, 2016
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liked it
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Much like my situation nearly a year ago when I read
The Rhesus Chart
, I was in a bit of a reading slump when I decided to tackle The Annihilation
Much like my situation nearly a year ago when I read
The Rhesus Chart
, I was in a bit of a reading slump when I decided to tackle The Annihilation Score. I’ve been in this slump for all of 2021, mostly because it is harder for me to get books (especially fiction) right now—consequently, my ratio of fiction to non-fiction is much lower than it used to be, and as much as I love non-fiction, fiction is my brain candy. Fiction wraps me up in this warm blanket of narrative, and Charles Stross is a perfect example of an author who understands this. The Laundry Files is a reassuring series, in the sense that I know what to expect from each book—an increasingly escalating series of mostly bureaucratic yet still supernatural threats—yet it is also a series that isn’t afraid to change and shake things up. That’s what we see here, with the first book told from the perspective of Mo. Set quite literally overlapping with the ending of The Rhesus Chart, The Annihilation Score has Mo seconded to a false-flag operation. With the rise of ordinary people developing “superpowers,” the Laundry has decided they need to create a fake “superhero department” to be a very public front for dealing with this issue. They tap Mo to be its director, and she is thrown into the special hell that is attempting to set up a new department while interfacing with law enforcement, the Home Office, etc. Her number two is a vampire with a history with her husband—oh, and she and Bob are somewhat estranged, because his recent power-up is orthogonal to Mo’s stressed relationship with her possessed, bloodthirsty violin. So the book starts in a pretty dark, depressing place, at least for Bob and Mo. That’s the point—this book is, in many ways, delivering on a promise Stross dangled in front of us in previous novels that Bob and Mo’s relationship was under incredible strain as a result of their involvement in the world of the supernatural. Although Bob himself is largely absent in this book, his and Mo’s relationship is not. But also in the foreground is Mo’s own fear about how being the carrier of Lecter, her semi-sentient violin, is going to affect her. While none of these tropes are particularly rare in fantasy, Stross uses them deftly, and Mo is such a sympathetic protagonist here. Much like the very early days of Bob’s involvement in the Laundry, we get the sense here that Mo is out of her depth. She had adjusted (albeit reluctantly) to her role as a field agent, and now here she is being asked to run a department on short notice in a way that is almost certainly set up to fail. Stross succeeds in making Mo’s voice distinct from Bob’s. Both are prone to the usual infodumping and third-order consequence-tracing that Stross loves to give us (but really, if you aren’t coming to a Charles Stross novel for the infodumping, why are you here?). Yet Mo’s speaks to her academic and musical backgrounds, and she also recognizes how her identity as a middle-aged woman affects the way the world perceives her. Finally, Mo brings a sense of urgency to what she is feeling: Lecter is this burden that is imploding her life, not some hypothetical problem later on down the road. Perhaps the other big development for the series in this book is the way Stross bumps up the profile of the supernatural for the public. Most urban fantasy series keep the supernatural low-key and under wraps. Although not entirely “out” yet, elements of the supernatural are leaking into the public consciousness here in interesting ways. Stross is clearly teasing this out towards a more climactic event related to the existential threat that is CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. I like the ways in which this manifests, the ways in which he is bringing in cultural elements like our obsession with superheroes. It speaks to the cleverness and care that Stross brings to plotting and writing this series. That’s about all I have to say about The Annihilation Score. I read it in a single Sunday, off and on throughout the day, plowing through the final half of the book in a couple of hours under my couch while I was feeling really upset and despondent. It’s urban fantasy but with lots of fun, thought-provoking takes on supernatural tropes. It’s a little meta, a little self-aware, but not so much that it gets overbearing. This is a good installment in a series that is very much in my “comfort read” territory. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Mar 21, 2021
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Mar 21, 2021
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Mar 21, 2021
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Paperback
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| 0356515176
| 9780356515175
| 4.07
| 938
| Jan 19, 2021
| Jan 21, 2021
|
it was amazing
|
You all know how much I love me a good confidence story, as much as I love a good heist story. Throughout the years, fantasy has handed us many such w
You all know how much I love me a good confidence story, as much as I love a good heist story. Throughout the years, fantasy has handed us many such wonderful stories and lovable rogues—some of which I have read, some of which I haven’t. The Mask of Mirrors will doubtless be compared to the most popular and celebrated of these, with merit and good reason. I’ll eschew such comparisons as de rigeur then, and get right into why this book is my first 5-star read of 2021. Under the pen name M.A. Carrick, authors Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms have created a stunning work of storytelling, characterization, and world-building. After losing her mother at an early age, Ren grows up as a member of a gang of street thieves overseen by a ruthless crime boss. The novel opens with a whirlwind flashback to this life, in which Ren poisons the crime boss to allow her and her chosen sister, Tess, to flee the city of Nadežra for a better life. Fast forward to the present day: Ren has returned to her home city as Renata, playing the role of the daughter of an estranged branch of House Traementis. She plans to get into the good graces of Donaia, the head of the house, and in this way, scam and take the nobility of Nadežra for all she and Tess (who takes on the role of her long-suffering but seamstressly-gifted maid) possibly can. However, Ren/Renata is not the only one with plans upon plans for this city. Soon, magic and mischief collide to result in twists, turns, and tragedies that I didn’t see coming. The Mask of Mirrors is what I can only describe as a sumptuous book. If it were a room, it would be decorated lavishly, extravagantly, yet it would contain cozy nooks and comfortable furniture. As every chapter unfolds, Carrick adds new layers—to the mysteries at the heart of the plot, and to the city of Nadežra. Like any good fantasy novel, Nadežra takes on a kind of character of its own—although, lest I get too far drawn into fantasy review tropes, let me emphasize that this is mostly about the cultures that clash within this metropolis. Though some of the language reminds me of Venice, Nadežra itself feels like Istanbul/Constantinople. Ren belongs to an ethnic group known as the Vrazenians, who view Nadežra as a holy city, even though it was conquered centuries ago. Now the Vrazenians are a minority, oppressed by the ruling Liganti, mostly shunned to live in the most impoverished areas of the city. Ren’s heritage is at the forefront of the story: she conceals it as Renata; brings it to the fore when playing Arenza, a card-reading fortune-teller; and her connections to her people and her birthright influence how magic interacts with her. From the beginning, it’s clear that Ren might indeed be able to get into the good graces of House Traementis, but she can never be one of them. This is an anti-assimilationist narrative, one that Carrick leaves tantalizingly unresolved at the end of the book, and I am so intrigued to see what happens next. Similarly, I appreciate that while Carrick has been influenced by various real-world cultures in creating the Vrazenians, Liganti, and others, they are also careful not to create cookiecutter fantasy countercultures as seen in the works of, say, Jacqueline Carey. In so avoiding that, Carrick can explore ideas of ethnic strife and oppression without inadvertently making inappropriate comparisons to what has happened in actual history. The result is a complex tapestry of society that feels a bit like ours yet has a rich and complex history all its own. Ren herself is such a great protagonist. She’s clever, but she isn’t a Mary Sue. Carrick deals her plenty of setbacks—some that I thought would surely sink her con—and much of the fun of this story is watching Ren and Tess adapt to the cards they get dealt. There are several intense climaxes to the early and middle acts of the book that result in sharp turns for the plot. (As I transition, I now better appreciate the pleasures of more than one climax!) Ren must pivot her con, somehow preserving its central purpose while also adapting to the new threat posed by House Indestor’s machinations. Along the way, she makes mistakes that ultimately contribute to people losing their lives, and this is something she is going to have to live with. Some other great tropes here—“unlikely/reluctant allies” abound, from Ren’s interactions with the Rook to Renata’s flirtatious partnership with Derossi Vargo. (As an aside, figuring out the Rook’s secret identity is pretty much the only thing in this book I saw coming—although I like that Carrick implies there is some supernatural force powering the Rook’s crusade.) As the book winds down towards its resolution, Carrick sets up the board for the next chess game. I love the ambiguity of certain relationships and the calculated coldness of others. (I am being deliberately vague here to avoid spoilers.) Let’s just say that while flirtation and romance exist in The Mask of Mirrors, it was not particularly important to the story. Also, lots of normative queerness going on, which I appreciate! As far as magic and worldbuilding goes, Carrick’s approach is refreshing. (I like this word better than “original,” because I agree that originality is a fraught concept in fantasy literature—but “refreshing” indicates that the approach, if not novel, is a welcome departure from the ideas and tropes currently in vogue.) Light on exposition, we’re left to fill in a lot of the blanks or understand that anything mentioned merely hints at a richer history and collection of cultures and nations, which I love. They don’t even really care to explain much of the rules of numinatria either—we get some really basic concepts, but so much is left to be guessed or inferred. In particular, the nature of Vargo’s relationship with Alsius is so intriguing yet never quite made explicit, and I adore this ambiguity. The Mask of Mirrors is a book that lives up to its title. The story itself feels like many layers of masks reflected in the mirrors that are the characters Carrick creates. Everyone in this book has an agenda, is out for themselves, has a goal, and the conflicts are so compelling right from page one. If you like refreshing fantasy, if you like confidence games, if you like stories of tough-as-nails women rising above inequities created by class and ethnicity, then do yourself a favour and pick up this book. Reading this over a weekend made me feel so energized, and the fact that the book is thicc reminded me of my youth spent reading doorstopper fantasy. Finally, Carrick manage the difficult feat of wrapping up the loose ends of this book’s plot while setting up for the sequel in a way that leaves me both satisfied and wanting more. Kara like. Kara like a lot. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Mar 10, 2021
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Mar 15, 2021
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Mar 12, 2021
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Paperback
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| 0571355110
| 9780571355112
| 4.19
| 12,176
| Sep 10, 2019
| Nov 07, 2019
|
liked it
|
Although Pet crossed my book radar a few times, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up if it hadn’t been recommended to me by my friend Emeline. The de
Although Pet crossed my book radar a few times, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up if it hadn’t been recommended to me by my friend Emeline. The descriptions of the book, despite its promise of a trans main character, didn’t leave me with the impression that it would be my jam. Indeed, for the first third or so, that was my initial conclusion: that I could understand Pet’s appeal for other readers, but its style didn’t work for me. As I continued reading, however, and as Akwaeke Emezi’s story unfolded into my mind, my appreciation for Pet grew. While I’m not as enthralled with it as many others, I’ve gone from “eh, it’s ok” to “ah, I see what you did there.” Pet begins allegorical, a utopian tale of the town of Lucille in a time after a revolution has removed all the “monsters” from power. Now the town is governed by angels, by people who are free of corruption, discrimination, etc. Explanations for how we got here are (necessarily) vague, nor is it clear how Lucille relates to the rest of the world. All we know is that Jam is a teenage trans girl who accidentally brings to life a figure from her mother’s painting. This figure, who names itself Pet, appears monstrous, but Pet insists it is here to hunt true monsters—and there is one within the house of Jam’s best friend, Redemption. What ensues is an examination of the nature of monstrosity and the boundaries of friendship. I struggled with Pet at first simply because I prefer much more straightforward narration than Emezi provides here. This is not an unusual issue for me to have with books, and I can often tell even just from the way a book has been summarized if it’s going to work for me. Despite this book being a scant 200 pages, 50 pages in I was struggling to cast an anchor into this story. I want more conversation and discussion, and more description, than I was getting. But, it’s 200 pages, right? So I persevered, and hey, this was one of those rare cases when it got better! To be clear, the style itself doesn’t change, but the substance of Jam’s adventure with Pet was enough to keep me going. I appreciate the conflict she experiences as she negotiates her loyalty to Redemption with her nervousness about telling him the full truth. Similarly, Emezi carefully establishes all the ways in which Jam (and then Redemption) try to put their faith in adults only to feel let down. This is a book for children and teens that acknowledges that they are not often believed by adults, even about the most serious things. The resolution of Pet is less about dealing with monsters as it is about reminding us that when we let down our guard and say, “No, that can’t be,” are opening ourselves up to harm from the unseen. Pet grew on me. In the end, I’m not going to rave about this book like I do others. I’d say, read the summary, read the first few pages, and trust your gut. If it sounds like your style, you’re going to love it; if, like me, you balk at the narration, you might struggle like me too. This is a book that is unapologetic about how it tells its story, which I respect. And at the end of the day, it is definitely nice to have more books with trans protagonists that are emphatically not about transition/coming out. So I love Pet for that alone. As a novel and a story, however, it’s so-so to me. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Mar 02, 2021
|
Mar 05, 2021
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Mar 02, 2021
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0765342804
| 9780765342805
| 3.88
| 4,999
| Jan 01, 1999
| Feb 06, 2007
|
did not like it
|
**spoiler alert** I am free! Over a year ago I embarked on re-reading the two trilogies that comprise The Wayfarer Redemption, and with Crusader I hav
**spoiler alert** I am free! Over a year ago I embarked on re-reading the two trilogies that comprise The Wayfarer Redemption, and with Crusader I have achived this goal. Sara Douglass no longer has any hold over me! (So, after I finished this book, I discovered that of course Douglass couldn’t resist writing another sequel trilogy, featuring Axis and StarDrifter, along with characters from other novels. I could, therefore, keep going. But I will not, and this review should make hopefully explain why.) In many ways, Crusader is like one of the Avengers movies. There are a lot of people with powers wandering around, stepping on each other’s toes, and internecine disputes abound. Everyone is out for the most screen time they can wrangle from the screenwriter, not realizing the director’s final cut is going to change everything…. Oh, sorry, did you want an actual summary? Fine. Set a hot second after the events of Pilgrim , Crusader throws us into Qeteb’s reign of terror and DragonStar’s utter lack of a plan for dealing with it. Caelum is dead, and pretty much all the good magic is gone, except for the magic that isn’t gone. DragonStar has no allies left, except for the ones he does have. People and entities die, except that they go to heaven and basically that’s the endgame—some kind of Narnia-esque “Tencendor was but a reflection of the true existence” bullshit. Anyway, this book is the same kind of hot mess that this series is, and honestly if you make it this far I think you deserve some kind of medal. I want to praise Douglass’ imagination. She can certainly come up with the kinds of creative ideas that make fantasy novels compelling. The subtle touches of science fiction, nods to Earth and other such elements are a nice way of further enhancing what might otherwise feel like a less interesting story. If there’s one thing you can’t accuse this series of, it’s unoriginality. This is a series packed to the brim with original concepts—and that, of course, is the problem. Douglass’ playground is so filled with toys that, like a child improvising a narrative on that playground, she doesn’t know how to bring it all together. She jumps from character to character, subplot to subplot, all to the detriment of the story’s unity and coherence. What, exactly, am I supposed to care about here? Qeteb and DragonStar’s ultimate grudge match? Axis feeling obsolete? Faraday feeling like she has to sacrifice herself? The fact that random characters with powers keep showing up at just the right time? Crusader reminds me of Malazan in terms of the cognitive strain this world places on me as the reader. Whereas in Malazan’s case it’s remembering cities’ worth of characters and their story arcs, in this book’s case it’s more about the various moving parts that interfere with one another’s plots. I admire Douglass’ attempt to make her fantasy feel more “realistic.” There’s certainly many fantasy novels that are too straightforward, and I would criticize them for it. Yet in her attempt to make her world more fleshed out, I fear Douglass has gone too far in the other direction. This book is unfulfilling for me because it tries to do too much. Also (and this is a nitpick but one I can’t shake), it’s just weird that all of this affects the land of Tencendor only, not the entire planet. So all this magic stops at Tencendor’s borders? All these creatures are somehow unique to Tencendor? Even the Gatekeeper lady? This was never explored in earlier books, and the fact that there even are other lands is kind of glossed over except for brief mentions in books 1 and … I think maybe 4. So when Crusader is like, “Yeah, the Corolean Empire is going to be weirded out by what’s happening here,” I was like, “What … this isn’t a global phenomenon?” Anyway. This is a flawed ending to a flawed series. With a few exceptions, I felt like each subsequent book brought me diminishing returns. Douglass is an author full of big ideas, but her eagerness to include every big idea in one story results in a cluttered playground with too many characters, too many grudges, too many stories for one book to contain coherently. Crusader isn’t bad, but it also isn’t good. And the incest and rape stuff continues to be creepy and uncomfortable AF. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jan 22, 2021
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Jan 23, 2021
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Jan 22, 2021
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1775312976
| 9781775312970
| 4.28
| 36
| Jan 12, 2021
| Jan 12, 2021
|
really liked it
|
Full disclosure: I was a Kickstarter backer for this book. I was very excited for Common Bonds, because I am aromantic, but that’s an identity that is
Full disclosure: I was a Kickstarter backer for this book. I was very excited for Common Bonds, because I am aromantic, but that’s an identity that isn’t well-represented in mainstream media (and when it is, it’s usually conflated with/paired with asexuality—I am also asexual, but I like the split attraction model because it helps me discuss my experiences with nuance). A great deal of this review will be me talking about the importance of books like this. But first, stories! Honestly, none of these stories jumped out at me as stand-out entries. This is fine and something I’ve come to expect from anthologies—or rather, from how I experience anthologies. I find short stories challenging at the best of times, and the start of this year has been challenging for me in terms of reading in general. So I’m not surprised that I can’t pick out any one or two stories as the best of this collection. What I can say, however, is that these stories are incredibly varied and diverse in all senses—structure, plot, representation, theme. The editors of this collection did a great job selecting submissions that not only portray a wide range of aromantic experiences but also a wide range of speculative fiction. While I would say most of the stories tend towards fantasy, there is some science fiction—and beyond genre, we also have some poetry! Some of my favourite stories were the shorter, calmer ones that were a small number of scenes—but there are also longer, more adventurous stories here as well. Aromanticism is prominent in many of the stories and less so in others. For example, in “A Full Deck,” by Avi Silver, the antihero protagonist’s aromanticism is pivotal to taking on an incubus. In other stories, like “Shift,” by Mika Standard, the protagonist’s aromanticism is mentioned and important but not central to the story, which is mostly about trying to figure out how to tell your roommate you know she’s a werewolf. That’s the other thing I like about this anthology: the stories are just good in general at modelling excellent use of pronouns, of consent, of respecting boundaries and talking about relationships. This anthology is so much more than a collection of stories and poems about aromanticism. But it is definitely that too. And this is perhaps what surprised me about Common Bonds: despite the individual stories not making much impression on me, overall they … added up, I guess? About two thirds of the way through this collection, I began to feel a kind of weight settle on me, in a good way. It was a weight of recognition, or of feeling recognized. I realized that, while I have read a few books here and there with aro characters, the concentrated dose of aro experiences here was powerful for me. I’ll blog more about this next month when it is Aromantic Awareness Week, but I have been thinking lately about how being aro in a society that privileges romance over friendship stunted my making of adult friends until quite recently. The stories here in Common Bonds made me feel seen and filled me with joy, because they reflect back a life I recognize. These are stories of people with partners despite not desiring romance, of people who live by themselves because that is what they prefer. It made me think about how I have one platonic friendship that is, above others, so important and essential to me, a relationship that others could mistake as romantic because of its intensity but is, to its core, not. I appreciated the stories, like “Cinder,” by Jennifer Lee Rossman, that articulate the heady feelings of meeting your platonic soulmate. This anthology is important because we need to talk about how our society portrays romance as a higher good. I have nothing against romance, either as a concept or as a genre—but friendship, companionship, family (chosen or otherwise), and one’s own individual selfhood—those things are important too. This is a collection of stories and experiences that ask, “What if romance were not the end goal?” I think we should ask that more often. I hope this is not the last anthology of aromantic speculative fiction. Would back again. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jan 17, 2021
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Jan 20, 2021
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Jan 17, 2021
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 9781646140060
| 4.13
| 4,950
| Aug 25, 2020
| Aug 25, 2020
|
really liked it
|
There were many reasons I added Elatsoe to my to-read list when it started making the rounds on Twitter: supernatural mystery, asexual protagonist (wh
There were many reasons I added Elatsoe to my to-read list when it started making the rounds on Twitter: supernatural mystery, asexual protagonist (which I forgot until I started reading it), Indigenous author and protagonist, etc. It’s great when a novel has so many draws, isn’t just a single thing. Darcie Little Badger’s debut is one part ghost story, one part educational piece about stolen land and colonial ambitions—and all about a main character who embodies “spunky.” This eponymous protagonist goes by the name of Ellie for most of the book. In this alternative United States, magic exists in a variety of forms. For Ellie’s family, who are Lipan Apache like Little Badger herself, this means passing down traditional knowledge about summoning spirits. Ellie has been practising this skill from childhood, and she has a loyal companion in her ghost dog, Kirby! After her cousin, Trevor, dies near a small and mysterious town in Texas, Ellie receives a visit from him in a dream. Trevor tells her he was murdered and even reveals the murderer—but that’s all. And Ellie is forbidden from waking the spirits of dead humans, lest they return as vengeful ghosts. So as she and her parents visit her cousin’s widow to help out, Ellie launches an investigation, with Kirby and her best friend Jay by her side, against the most prominent and wealthy man in town. I enjoyed Elatsoe from the beginning, and it just gets better and better. Little Badger’s plotting and pacing is very smooth, and while there are moments of infodumping here and there, overall I like that she doesn’t spend too much time trying to explicate how this universe is different from our own. You just kind of get thrown into it—vampires and fairy rings and ghosts and all—and I appreciate that. There is room to grow if this turns into a series, and if this is a standalone then it strikes the right balance between plot and worldbuilding. There’s also a healthy balance with Ellie’s characterization. Ellie is a great protagonist in terms of her growth. At 17, she is on the cusp of adulthood and quite independent, yet her dynamic with her parents is a healthy one. She respects their boundaries but pushes them just a little when she believes she is capable of more. Her parents, in return, set those boundaries out of concern for her safety, but they also respect her agency and believe her when she says things like “my cousin’s spirit told me he was murdered.” People are classifying this as young adult, and that’s cool, I guess it technically is from the age of the protagonist, but if anything this is definitely crossover … regardless, more books with healthy relationships between the protagonist and her parents, please! Similarly, more asexual representation like this! I love, love books that emphasize and explore a character’s asexuality, of course. But I have said and will say again here: we need books where characters are just casually asexual. Ellie hints at this early in the book when she talks about not wanting children and not needing a partner—but of course, that doesn’t equate with asexuality. The word finally gets used on page later, when someone says, “I know you’re asexual,” suggesting Ellie is out to people in general, and that’s lovely! It’s not explained, not interrogated, just accepted. Moreover, it was so important to me that her friendship with Jay was platonic and lacked any hint of romantic/sexual tension or unrequited love. Just two peeps being pals, and I can stan that. This kind of casual representation extends to Ellie’s identity as Lipan Apache. This identity is asserted more often and firmly than her asexuality, and Little Badger drops in nuggets of education for us settlers about what Indigenous people, and the Lipan Apache in particular, suffered at the hands of settlers. She works ideas of land and belonging into the vampire mythos in a really cool way. And of course, the entire mystery itself is rooted in a group of settlers’ beliefs that they can take what they want, from the land and its people, over and over indefinitely, without ever paying recompense. Overall, Elatsoe grounds itself in Indigenous roots and integrates, on every level, lessons in the harms of colonialism and the extant colonial mentality within American culture and history. It’s sophisticated and powerful. Ok, ok, Kara—but what about the ghost story??? The mystery?? Does it work? Short answer: yes. My main fear as the story developed would be that Ellie would turn into a kind of Mary Sue, that her magic or detective skills would make solving, and resolving, the case too easy. Without going into spoilers, I’d say Little Badger averts this through careful foreshadowing, as well as the way she uses stories of Ellie’s ancestor. The connection between Ellie’s power and the land/her ancestors is so important, another example of what I was talking about above when I said that this book is grounded in Indigenous roots—Ellie prevails not just as a result of her own strength but because she knows who she is and where she comes from. Elatsoe is a book about the power of remembering yourself in the face of a world that wants you to forget. Sometimes you read books because you know what to expect: they are predictable, comfortable reads. Other times you read a book because you are expecting an experiment, something that might or might not work for you. Elatsoe fits comfortably into a third category of book: the type of book that isn’t really an experiment, but it is much more than a comfort read. It stretches you but in a way that does not demand cerebral contortions, educates you in a way that does not make you feel patronized, entertains you in a way that is fairly conventional for a novel yet layered and nuanced as well. If you like any of the things I listed at the top of this review, check it out. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Dec 31, 2020
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Jan 04, 2021
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Dec 31, 2020
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ebook
| |||||||||||||||
| 0735277184
| 9780735277182
| 3.76
| 5,271
| Sep 17, 2019
| Sep 17, 2019
|
really liked it
|
Empire of Wild is a supernatural thriller that combines the legend of the rogarou with a woman’s search for her missing husband. But it would be a mis
Empire of Wild is a supernatural thriller that combines the legend of the rogarou with a woman’s search for her missing husband. But it would be a mistake not to recognize that this is also a story about colonialism, about European/settler ideologies clashing with Indigenous ideas of hearth, home, and connection to one’s community and the land. Just as
The Marrow Thieves
showcases how settlers can go to any length to extract and exploit resources they see as necessary, Empire of Wild charts how we can lose ourselves to ambition and ego. Nearly a year ago, Joan’s husband, Victor, walked out on her and suddenly went missing. In the tight-knit, predominantly Métis town of Arcand, Ontario, this was a big deal for a long time, especially given that Victor’s entrance into Jean’s life finally allowed her to settle down in a way that her community never thought she would. Now, Jean stumbles across Victor—except he is the Reverend Eugene Wolff, preacher for a small group of touring Christian revivalists led by the enigmatic, entirely-too-slick Thomas Heiser. Reverend Wolff claims he doesn’t know Jean, isn’t Victor at all—yet Jean is convinced he is her husband. Her resolution to get to the truth leads her into the woods of magic and shadows, even as Victor tries to find the way out of his own woods. What stands out for me about Empire of Wild is the characters. There are so many interesting characters here: Joan, Zeus, Ajean, Victor, Heiser, Cecile—all of them are significant and, in turn, receive plenty of development from Dimaline. Yet even minor characters, like Jimmy Fine, take on this larger-than-life quality that make this book feel like a kind of modern fairy tale. Joan has gone off the path into the woods, and the people she encounters along the way aren’t just people but parables for her education. Joan’s relationship with Zeus, the way he tags along like a sidekick but she ultimatly decides she doesn’t want to put him in harms way, is adorable. I enjoy the complex interplay of the characters here, whether it’s the way Joan’s mom and brother give her tough love, or Zeus’ complicated teenage relationship with his mom. Perhaps the most surprising character for me was Cecile, whom I assumed was going to be a one-dimensional minion for the side of the antagonists. Dimaline instead gives us an entire backstory that makes her into an interesting, three-dimensional character whose betrayal both of Joan and of Heiser makes the book all the more fascinating. Then we have Heiser, whose rapport with canines forms the basis for the supernatural aspects of the book. Heiser isn’t just the leader of a small group of Christian revivalists—he is mainly a consultant for development projects that want to move north. Empire of Wild lays bare the depressing but not surprising ways in which mining companies, other similar corporate outfits, will use religion as a way to captivate and manipulate Indigenous communities whose land they want to develop or exploit. In this way, Dimaline illustrates how colonialism in Canada is ongoing. This book is pointed social commentary about the fact that neither government nor corporations truly treat First Nations, the Inuit, or Métis as sovereign nations. Their consent to development projects is seen as an obstacle to overcome rather than a collaboration to be earned. Heiser is a toxic, irredeemable character—not because he is a white man of European descent, but because he is a white man of European descent who willingly steeps himself in colonial tactics of control and exploitation for his own advancement. The inclusion of the rogarou mythos precludes reading this story as a simplistic tale of “settler = bad, Indigenous = good” though. Rather, Dimaline stresses (especially through the mouthpiece of Ajean) that there must be balance among the forces of nature. A rogarou is the most extreme example of someone who is out of balance, a man who succumbs to his most atavistic self until it consumes him and leaves him nothing but a beast. Without going into spoilers, the way that Dimaline portrays characters’ internal struggles against their rogarous is fascinating, and while it isn’t always straightforward to follow what’s happening, these dream-like sequences create an important backbone to the novel. They underlie the theme that connection is what is most important. The characters in this novel who succumb to the infection of the rogarou are characters who, in their hearts, feel disconnected as a result of their actions and the actions of others. This is more than a thriller. It’s a carefully crafted mystery laced with the supernatural the way a chef seasons a soup with the finest of spices. I became very invested in Joan’s quest to get Victor back, and the abrupt and shocking ending—which invites but does not promise a sequel—feels oddly fitting for a book that is simultaneously punk rock and rockabilly/blues. When you read Empire of Wild you need to grab and hold on, but if you manage to do so, this book will take you places. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Dec 18, 2020
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Dec 23, 2020
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Dec 18, 2020
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0732259320
| 9780732259327
| 3.90
| 5,218
| 1998
| Jan 01, 1998
|
it was ok
|
This is a marked improvement over the first book in this trilogy, but that isn’t saying much. Pilgrim is very much Drago’s redemption story, and Sara
This is a marked improvement over the first book in this trilogy, but that isn’t saying much. Pilgrim is very much Drago’s redemption story, and Sara Douglass is determined that we care for him as a person and a hero. And you know what? I think she might actually succeed. Not because Drago is all that great, but because our choice of other heroes is … not great. Axis and Azhure (well, to be fair, mostly just Axis in this book) continue to be the literal worst. WolfStar is awful. Caelum is, for reasons I won’t spoiler, not really in the picture on this one. StarDrifter and Zenith kind of get relegated to supporting roles, and the human princes are basically non-entities. Nope, folx, it is definitely the Drago and Faraday Show. The Timekeeper Demons are loose in Tencendor. Their plan? Gotta collect ’em all. Except instead of Pokémon, they need to travel to each of the 4 magical lakes and retrieve a part of their evil uber-colleague, Queteb. Once they’ve reassembled and reanimated him, they’ll be unstoppable! Until then, they are limited to each having sway over a specific span of hours in the day—during which time anyone not in shade can be mind-controlled and turned into a raving lunatic/zombie thing. I don’t think I’ve discussed how ridiculous the Timekeeper Demons are, so let’s pause and reflect on that. They are Metaphor Demons, in the sense that each represents a certain negative trait—despair, hunger, etc. Their personalities, however, leave much to be desired, and any time we spend with them makes me think of them as petty, squabbling children. This is the problem with personifying your nigh-unstoppable mystical forces: they feel small. Meanwhile, everyone is engaged in a race against time. The Demons are racing to the lakes. WolfStar is trailing them because he wants to reanimate Niah the same way the Demons plan to reanimate Queteb. What happens with WolfStar and Niah both … well … let’s just say, Douglass’ fascination with strange sex/sexual violenc stuff reaches new levels in Pilgrim. And that’s in addition to Zenith quite literally complaining that she is too disgusted by the idea of sleeping with her grandfather, StarDrifter, and how much that sucks because she really wants to sleep with him. And everyone is all, “Ooooh, Zenith, don’t worry, you’ll get over and it then the two of you can boink like proper SunSoars” and I just … I can’t. I can’t. This book goes beyond kink into a very uncomfortable place. I mentioned in my intro that Axis continues to Axis it up all over the place. Without spoiling things, suffice it to say that he is the oldest person I have ever seen to throw a temper tantrum. He would rather kill Drago on sight than admit that Drago might have a role to play in saving the entire world. Axis is the epitome of fragile, toxic masculinity—he always has been, right from Book 1, but whereas the original trilogy was about his growth into a hero, this trilogy seems determined to cast him as a crabby, closed-minded old man. And then we have Faraday. I fucking loved Faraday in this book, because Faraday is tired of your bullshit. Faraday is not having it anymore. She has spent 4 books being put through the wringer, being killed and transformed and assaulted and married off and basically told what to do for every major decision in her life, and she is done. She majestically and quite rightfully rejects all notions of destiny in Pilgrim, and it is the best part of this book. Finally, let’s talk about Drago. In the original trilogy he was a minor villain, an instigator of a plot to kill the baby Caelum so he could be the StarSon. His face turn is perhaps the most surprising aspect of this second trilogy, and Pilgrim works hard to explore that. Despite all my other criticisms of Douglass’ writing and storytelling, I will hand it to her: she does a good job here. Drago doesn’t suddenly embrace his new role, doesn’t immediately step up and say, “Yes, now I am the hero! Hahaha.” He struggles with it, much like Axis struggles with the idea, because Drago too has spent 40 years being told he is the worst person alive. So it makes sense that he needs to adjust to the new reality. Oh, and there is a lot of magic happening. Those races against time? They involve discovering magical secrets, magical sanctuaries, etc. This might seem like a weird remark for a fantasy series, but … sometimes I feel like The Wayfarer Redemption has too much magic. Like, everything and everyone in this book is mysterious and magical, and it’s likely one reason that this book is over 700 pages long. More importantly, when everything is magical, nothing is magical; if magic becomes the norm, if ordinary physics and logistics cease to matter to your storytelling, then you fall down a very deep rabbithole of handwavery. Douglass in particular seems fixated on closure and the idea that every character, every loose end, must be accounted for, wrapped up, tied off, and connected (Urbeth’s secret identity, revealed in this story, is a prime example). Yet I would argue that one of the most powerful actions a writer can take is to leave some mystery, leave some questions unanswered—not in a way that creates inconsistencies or continuity errors, and hopefully not in a way that leaves readers unsatisfied. Rather, leave enough room for interpretation and speculation and doubt, because that’s what keeps our brains hooked on your world. Pilgrim actually has some worthwhile moments in it. But it is buried beneath a torrent of weird violence, sex, and substandard storytelling. I have one more book in this series to go, and then I will be happy to draw a line beneath these books forevermore. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Oct 17, 2020
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Oct 18, 2020
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Oct 18, 2020
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0593199308
| 9780593199305
| 4.39
| 26,081
| Sep 29, 2020
| Sep 29, 2020
|
did not like it
|
**spoiler alert** You should read my review of Peace Talks before you read this review. Also, I don’t know how to talk about this book without spoiler
**spoiler alert** You should read my review of Peace Talks before you read this review. Also, I don’t know how to talk about this book without spoilers. So if you want a spoiler-free review: Battle Ground is a flawed attempt to give fans of the Dresden Files the climax Butcher thinks they want, but it falls short. There are definitely crowning moments of awesome, low moments, and the thoughtful moments we have come to expect. Spoilers from hereon out. Seriously, you have been warned. Battle Ground picks up quite literally where Peace Talks ended. This is kind of what happens when you split a book in twain because it has grown too large. Harry Dresden and his reluctant allies are facing off against Ethniu, the Last Titan, and an army of Fomor intent on destroying and conquering Chicago. We are told over and over that this is it, this is the biggest, baddest apocalypse to come since Storm Front. And, to be fair, it definitely is. People are comparing this to Avengers: Endgame because of its huge battle against a single, uber-powerful opponent and the assembly of so many characters from previous books. I get it. There is definitely a Marvel vibe here—but I haven’t seen Endgame, so instead let’s talk about Deadpool. Because Harry definitely has that kind of sarcastic, fourth-wall-breaking attitude that Ryan Reynolds brought so well to the screen. I’ve always enjoyed Harry’s snark, of course, along with his introspection into whether or not he has become a monster. But here’s the problem with trying to keep it going in the midst of a novel that is 100% battle. It gets old. Harry spends the book literally racing from one confrontation to the next. Each confrontation is supposedly bigger or badder than the last. Yet you can only say, “This was like nothing I had ever seen before!” so many times before it starts to wear thin. Butcher attempts to keep raising the stakes, but it feels like a sliding scale: suddenly the baddies from the first confrontation are easily being slaughtered by volunteers with shotguns, because the next set of baddies is even more powerful and more invulnerable. All the while, there is no sense of momentum to the plot, because we know what the climax has to be: Harry squaring off with Ethniu, trying to bind her. The rest of the book is literally filler until Butcher can bring us to that moment. I’m not saying nothing important happens. But I’m not happy about the important happenings. First, can we talk about how an entire book passes without nary a mention of Thomas? He was such a big part of Peace Talks! And sure, Harry has a lot on his mind tonight as he tries to save Chicago. But Butcher could at least have thrown us a bone—there is a coda called “Christmas Eve” that is supposed to be charming and heartwarming, but all I can think is, “It’s already Christmas and you haven’t saved Thomas yet???” He doesn’t even rate a mention then. Huge spoiler coming up soon, by the way. If you thought I was exaggerating earlier about spoilers, you are wrong and should stop reading now. Second, Harry’s excommunication from the White Council makes sense, and I am on board for that. However, I don’t understand the hostility from people like Ebenezar. Here’s what I mean: Ebenezar presumably knows Harry’s secret path, the whole starborn chosen one bullshit that I really wish weren’t in the background of this series. He and others, including Harry’s faerie godmother, have manipulated and shaped Harry’s life from birth onwards. Now he has the gall to turn around and chastise Harry for seeking power, chastise Harry for getting into bed with the fae, chastise Harry for his choices? You set Harry up for this, my dude. I mean, I guess Butcher is trying to support Harry’s contention that most wizards are hypocritical asshats who wouldn’t know an apology if one dropped on them from the sky. But it’s one thing for Ebenezar to support a political censure of Harry and quite another for him to be so incredibly rude to his grandson like that. Third, of course, is the unfair, unjust, terrible death of Karrin Murphy. (I warned you about spoilers.) Karrin Murphy dies because Randolph’s poor trigger discipline means his gun accidentally goes off and shoots her. Yeah. Murph dies from a stray bullet. The book seems embarrassed by this, because later it attempts the shittiest, laziest retcon within a book I’ve ever seen and tries to reframe her death as an honourable on that happened after slaying a Jotun. Seriousy, I felt gaslit and actually had to flip back and re-traumatize myself with her death a second time to confirm how it actually goes down. So, no, Murphy does not sacrifice herself to die a hero’s death. Even if she did, I couldn’t get behind this because one of the axioms of the Dresden Files is that Karrin Murphy does not die. She is our badass normal. She is Harry’s anchor to the mortal world that he is increasingly being pulled away from. One could argue, based on that point, that Murphy must die, that it’s thematically necessary in order to deepen Harry’s separation from mortality. After all, they just almost hooked up in Peace Talks; we can’t have Harry ever being happy, can we? Gotta kill the woman then! Look, others have written extensively at the misogyny within this series, so I won’t rehash all that. But the women of this series do not get treated well, Murphy no exception, and insisting her death is a necessary plot device is an extension of that misogynistic dehumanization. (Let’s not even mention that, after spending most of Peace Talks disabled as a result of the events of Skin Game, Murphy magically gets a boost that lets her fight tonight thanks to some handwavery from Butcher so she doesn’t have to sit this out and, you know, survive.) It would be hyperbolic to say that Murphy was the only good thing left in his series—Mouse and Maggie are pretty sweet. Nevertheless, whatever my qualms or reservations about certain developments in this series, Murphy was always there as a touchstone. Solid Murphy. Mortal Murphy. Love interest Murphy. Now she is gone and Butcher better fucking not cheapen that by bringing her back but you know he’s going to and oh my god am I hate-reading this series now? I think I might be hate-reading this series now. For a long time, I have praised the Dresden Files for the way it has gradually built out its mythos over these 17 books and some short stories. That is an achievement for which I am happy to praise Butcher. Where did it go wrong? I don’t think I can point to a specific book. Almost certainly things were going awry by Proven Guilty, what with Harry’s creepy relationship to Molly. But rather than lay the blame at any particular book’s doorstep, I’d rather critique the general storytelling decisions Butcher has made throughout the series. After 20 years, he has matured and improved as a writer, but he has also wrapped himself up in an incredibly complex continuity and demonstrated a devotion to the idea of “epicness.” This has always been at odds with the urban fantasy genre, particularly those books wherein the majority of the mortal world is unaware of the supernatural. Perhaps that tension, then, between the series’ epicness and its urban fantasy roots, has been one of the reasons it is so successful. On the other hand, this obsession with epicness is unhealthy. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to tell epic stories, there is also nothing wrong with searching for small stories that matter as well. I think that’s why Skin Game worked so well for me. Although the scale of its setting was epic, at its core it was a return to the original Dresden Files format of small plot, big ideas: Harry was pulling off a heist. That’s cool. Harry defending Chicago from a Titan alongside most of the supernatural world? That’s epic, but it isn’t as interesting, because we’ve lost the intimacy of the plot along the way. Battle Ground did what Peace Talks couldn’t, I guess … it has quashed what love I had for this series. Don’t get me wrong … I still appreciate and adore this series. I’m going to keep its books on my shelves, and if someone asks, I will recommend it (with caveats). But we have outgrown Dresden Files. There are newer series, newer authors, that strive for far more creative, original, breathtaking acts of storytelling. I don’t fault this series for being what it is, but like many book series I started reading as a child or a teen, I have grown and changed while it has largely remained the same. When that happens, you know it’s time to move on. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Oct 12, 2020
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Oct 13, 2020
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Oct 13, 2020
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 9780698173880
| unknown
| 3.97
| 1,700
| Nov 03, 2014
| Nov 04, 2014
|
liked it
|
Time travel. Like Captain Janeway, I hate it. I mean, I love stories about it (hello, I watch Doctor Who every Sunday with one of my besties). But the
Time travel. Like Captain Janeway, I hate it. I mean, I love stories about it (hello, I watch Doctor Who every Sunday with one of my besties). But the kinds of paradoxes in The Future Falls are not exactly my cup of tea. If you can look past that, this is another fun fantasy novel that benefits from being mostly set in Calgary, and you don’t see enough of those! If you liked the first two Gale novels, then this one is a nice conclusion to the trilogy. Trigger warning here, as with the previous books, for incest. Charlie features prominently in this book, as does her fellow Wild Power Jack. Kind of picking up where The Wild Ways left off, this book explores Charlie and Jack’s relationship and “forbidden love.” Meanwhile, an asteroid is on a collision course for Earth. When Aunt Catherine Sees the threat, she alerts Charlie in the hopes that she or the other Gales can avert this catastrophe. So this is very much an existential crisis, and at first there is no obvious solution. The Gales’ powers have always been good for smaller things: charms, influencing the weather or people’s decisions, etc. Moving or destroying an entire asteroid? Tall order. There are a few distinct things that make The Future Falls compelling. First, as always, is the way Tanya Huff weaves her magic through this urban fantasy setting. Since Charlie is once again the protagonist, magic and music intertwine, with frequent allusions to songs I am not cool enough to recognize. For Charlie and the other Gale women, magic is something you do even if it isn’t something you are, as in the case of Jack. So there’s this easy effortlessness with which Charlie slides into the Wood and visits Ontario or Vermont, for example, that makes the narrative compelling. Next we have the relationship between Charlie and Jack. It’s very much a star-crossed lovers situation: both Charlie and Jack feel a connection, but because their age difference is greater than seven years, the Gale family bylaws prohibit them from ever really being a thing. I guess we’re supposed to feel sorry for them, but it’s difficult for me to get behind a 30-year-old and a 17-year-old, especially when they are cousins. Huff seems determined to transgress certain boundaries in the romance/sexuality department, and I’m not always here for it. Nevertheless, it’s still the case that this is an interesting subplot and a thorny issue. In fact, I think what I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t pulled in so much by Charlie/Jack as I was by the family dynamics around them. Allie’s obsession with keeping Charlie at home, the interplay with Graham and the aunties, etc. … Huff writes family dynamics well, even if they can be too incestuous for my tastes. Finally we have the actual plot. Huff establishes, fairly quickly, the stakes. I like that we don’t spend too much time away from the Gales in the back offices of JPL; this is not a book about JPL. Rather, most of the book comprises Charlie investigating the problem, trying to understand it, and then considering a solution. There’s also a question of jurisdiction—she debates who to involve, starting only with Jack because he is also Wild and then gradually widening the circle of trust within the family as they realize they can’t sort this by themselves. The ending is … ok, I guess. As I said above, time travel can be annoying sometimes. I like what Charlie did, and I guess it puts a nice bow on the whole Gale family story. However, the way Huff presents it feels rushed and doesn’t come with as much exposition as I would have liked. We don’t get to sit with these revelations, don’t get to hear Allie’s reaction for example to the story that Charlie must have told. So in that respect I was disappointed. Overall, The Future Falls is another great entry in this series. I would read more Gale books. I like that Huff writes fantasy set in Canada and featuring compelling female magic-users. Still not on board with the incest or the low-key gender essentialism going on here, as I’ve discussed in previous reviews. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. My reviews of the Gale Women: ← The Wild Ways [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Aug 18, 2020
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Aug 19, 2020
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Aug 18, 2020
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ebook
| ||||||||||||||
| 0553248561
| 9780553248562
| 4.09
| 370
| May 1985
| Apr 10, 1985
|
really liked it
|
Delany remains one of the authors who most consistently fascinates, educates, and challenges me. His science fiction and fantasy novels are never exac
Delany remains one of the authors who most consistently fascinates, educates, and challenges me. His science fiction and fantasy novels are never exactly what they seem—or perhaps are exactly what they seem—and if
Dhalgren
is perhaps his most widely-known inscrutable work, his Return to Nevèryön series, and particularly Flight from Nevèryön, are the most obviously inscrutable. I’m not sure how to summarize this book. I wanted to say that the first two tales are fairly straightforward, but that isn’t true. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the first two tales take place solely in Nevèryön, whereas the last two parts of the book—the two appendices—begin to break down the fourth wall and deconstruct the allegorical conceit of that fantastical place. All four parts examine motifs for which Delany is well known: sex/sexuality and queer politics/power. If you’re someone who is wondering where the queerness is in classic SF/F, you really do need to read Delany’s work, because it is right here. Gorgik the Liberator, so prominent in the first two books, is present here but in a more subdued fashion. He is the object rather than the subject of “The Tale of Fog and Granite.” Here Delany revisits some of the ideas already trodden in Nevèryön, particularly around homosexual mores as well as sexual kinks and the master/slave dynamic. Once again, the seemingly foreign and strange land in this book serves as a good analogy for the cosmopolitan and conflicted 1980s in which Delany writes, particularly as it applies to sex. Yet in this regard it’s truly the last two parts of the book that steal the show. As Delany breaks down the fourth wall, he begins to talk explicitly of AIDS. The AIDS epidemic as recorded here happened prior to my birth; for me it is history but on these pages it is raw fact. And without trying to create a false equivalence, reading this during the COVID-19 pandemic did hit hard. Delany discusses how surreal it felt, to live with the spectre of AIDS around every corner yet never actually be touched himself by the disease, and even though our respective times and circumstances are very different, I see what he means. Delany peels back yet another layer in the final appendix, where he explicitly discusses the semantic and semiological aspirations of these books. As a writer and a reader, not to mention a huge fan of Umberto Eco, I found this part extremely fascinating. I love that Delany embraces what is regarded as a quintessentially pulp genre in order to play with and manipulate the boundary conditions of language. He pokes at and prods what he calls “patriarchal language,” and this is apparent throughout these stories. Many of his gay characters discuss their relationships, sexual or otherwise, with women, as well as their identities as fathers. While some of this might be attributed to autobiographical insertion, there’s more happening here. Delany in 1984 is doing what we nearly forty years later are once again attempting to do: queering queerness itself. Delany is pushing the boundaries, blurring the precision of labels like gay, not because he sees them as unnecessary or useless but rather because he wants people to be able to embrace them on their own terms. We see this today, as people embrace a variety of new or newly-reclaimed labels that better help them describe themselves. Will you get a little lost in this book? Almost certainly, and that’s the point. Everything from the title to the cover to the copy will lull you into a false sense of security, make you expect a simple pulp fantasy novel with some hot! queer! action!. But there’s so much more happening here, and it hurts my brain to even think about it. I know that, contrary to his pronouncements in this volume, Delany does revisit Nevèryön once more. Even if he hadn’t, however, this would have been a fitting conclusion. Eco was right when he says Delany “has invented a new style.” Metafictional, intertextual, steeped in semiotics—Flight from Nevèryön is challenging as a work of fantasy and philosophy. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Aug 03, 2020
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Aug 10, 2020
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Aug 03, 2020
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0451464419
| 9780451464415
| 4.20
| 29,689
| Jul 14, 2020
| Jul 14, 2020
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it was ok
|
A podcast I listen to,
Read It and Weep
, has developed a metaphor for the films it’s watching during its current season. Movies that are mostly pl
A podcast I listen to,
Read It and Weep
, has developed a metaphor for the films it’s watching during its current season. Movies that are mostly pleasant diversions are soda (or pop as I would call it); movies that require a lot more effort to understand and enjoy are coffee (some are in fact very strong coffee). Like all metaphors this one has its limits, yet my mind kept coming back to it as I tore through Peace Talks. This book is mostly definitely soda pop of the sweetest variety. Trouble is coming to Chicago. As the book’s title implies, some of the most powerful beings in the world are meeting to talk peace, which is almost as dangerous as going to war. Harry gets tapped to liaise and secure this conference, yet he finds himself in a quagmire of divided loyalties. How will he honour his various obligations while still doing what he believes to be right? Harry Dresden is many things. He is a wizard and warden of the White Council, Winter Knight to Queen Mab, brother to a vampire of the White Court, warden of a semi-sentient island prison, father to a precocious young girl with a fierce dog bodyguard … the list goes on. It’s so extensive I’ve forgotten a lot of what Harry has got up to in the past 15 books. Did I forget, in 4 years, that Harry has a daughter? You bet I did. Yet I was so eager to read the newest Dresden Files book that I didn’t want to slow down and go back and re-read any or all of the previous books. Having finished Peace Talks, I honestly don’t think that was a bad decision, because I’m not sure being “up” on the lore would have done me much good. What makes Peace Talks sugary pop? Simply put, as longtime readers of this series are aware, Butcher is very good at setting up scenes and then knocking them down in such a way that you want to keep reading. From cracking the cover to putting down the book one day later, I was hooked on this story. Yet if I were to step back and stop to think about the story for even the slightest moment, it quickly becomes apparent that the plot is very thin on the ground. Unlike Skin Game , which had a very focused heist-related plot (it’s the heist that got me!), Peace Talks very much feels like a set-up for Battle Grounds later this year. On its own, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Yet Bucher has us flitting from scene to scene, each one laden with a hefty dose of foreshadowing, sometimes in a way that leaves me very unsatisfied. Here’s an example: one chapter takes place at the Carpenter house, with Butters and Sanya practice-duelling. The point of the chapter is to explain some new lore around Fidelacchius and around the Swords of the Cross in general. Don’t get me wrong: this is interesting lore for sure. One of my most favourite things about the Dresdenverse is Butcher’s seemingly boundless imagination when it comes to the interactions among mythological elements and beings. However, this chapter does absolutely nothing to advance the overall plot of this particular book. It sticks out quite obviously as something that needs to be mentioned before it comes up in Battle Ground (at least, I hope it’s important!). As a result of this structure, Peace Talks is missing something else I used to love about this series: a focused, unified plot. The earliest Dresden Files books always comprised a single mystery, with wider elements of the Dresdenverse arrayed and affected in the background. As the series has continued, the books have shifted to be less about events and more about Harry’s evolution as a powerful being in his own right. One reason I enjoyed Skin Game so much was that it felt, in some ways, like a return to the older Dresden days. In contrast, Peace Talks is a very big departure. And unlike many of the most significant Harry-centric books, Peace Talks shows very little in the way of forward-motion for our favourite wizard’s development. Perhaps the only significant growth we see is conflict between Harry and Ebenezar as they butt heads over how Harry should conduct himself re: Thomas, vampires, and the upcoming talks. What should be a very intense, very emotional and climactic confrontation is undermined by the sheer overwhelming amount of other information and ideas Butcher had recently thrown at us just prior to that scene. And the promised eponymous talks? Butcher derails these in characteristic sleight-of-hand fashion by dropping a new Big Bad on us in the final act, and it is … unsatisfying. I get that this is necessary to set up Battle Ground, but this goes back to what I was saying above: Peace Talks has the attention span of a stereotypical millennial doom-scrolling on Twitter. Just as I think we’re settling into the main thread of the plot, Butcher pulls on the stitch below and diverts me into a new—interesting, yes, but entirely different—thread. Perhaps the most real, most compelling part of Peace Talks occurs in a scene between Harry and Lara, when she remarks, “The more power one has, the less flexible it is, wizard.” This is the theme that keeps me coming back to the Dresden Files with each new book: problematic aspects aside, Butcher is plumbing one of my favourite themes to explore, especially in the context of being a magic user. We love nothing better than to see our characters get power-ups so that they have newer and better ways of beating the bad guys. Yet as Butcher’s characters, from Lara to Mab to Harry himself, observe in this book, those power-ups come at the cost of a slice of your free will. As Harry himself has acquired power, so too have his options been curtailed, and perhaps this is nowhere as evident as in Peace Talks. Sometimes that power comes with weird, uncomfortable side effects, like the supposedly animalistic desires of the Winter mantle. Erm. Kay Tilden Frost has a very detailed review that discusses these problematic elements, particularly how they relate to the female characters of the series. (After waiting all these years for Harry and Murphy to get together, Peace Talks treats this romance with the fumbling hands of a pair of teenage prom dates.) Frost’s review also has a good comparison of Dresden to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I find this comparison so apt: with this movie universe, and indeed with comic books in general, you reach a point of diminishing returns when it comes to continuity. This is why retconning and crisis reset events are so potent from a writing perspective. While I’m not sure that’s appropriate in this case, I hope that in future books Butcher can do the Dresdenverse justice without getting caught up in the minutiae of calling back to every single thing that has happened of late. Six years ago, in my review of Skin Game, I quipped about waiting one year for the latest Dresden Files book. Oh, past Kara. Poor, naive past Kara. Little did she know. After a much longer wait, we get not one but two new Dresden Files books in the space of a few months. That is, of course, because Peace Talks is really only the precursor to the climactic Battle Grounds. Reading this book was a paradox: it was incredibly fun yet also incredibly frustrating, and the reason is simply that the Dresden Files has entered the comic-book continuity zone, with all the pitfalls and perils that entails. Butcher is obviously building towards an intense confrontation, in a cinematic sense, in Battle Ground. Yet for my particular approach to Dresden fandom, this has me worried for what this means for Harry as an individual, as a character. I think sometimes Butcher wants to have his cake and eat it too, wants Harry to be a Big Action Hero and also Just Some Guy. Peace Talks is what happens when Butcher tries to balance these two characterizations with far too much fine-tuning. In his desire to fulfil the big-picture epic story arc that he has outlined for this series, Butcher risks losing sight of the smaller moments that made this series so appealingly human despite its plethora of supernatural beings. It’s not that I disliked Peace Talks, but I am disappointed that this is the book we get after six years, and I’m not sure it leaves me optimistic as we enter what I believe to be the final few books of the Dresden Files Also posted at Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
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Jul 14, 2020
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Jul 15, 2020
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Jul 14, 2020
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Hardcover
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| B07ZZ25BCX
| 4.05
| 1,421
| Jul 21, 2020
| Jul 21, 2020
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really liked it
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One of the reasons Brandon Sanderson took off, I suspect, is that he manages to bring an urban fantasy feel to more high fantasy or epic fantasy setti
One of the reasons Brandon Sanderson took off, I suspect, is that he manages to bring an urban fantasy feel to more high fantasy or epic fantasy settings. In Ashes of the Sun, Django Wexler accomplishes a similar feat. This is a book set in a world incredibly different from our own, a land reminiscent of the epic fantasy books that for a time dominated this genre, yet the pacing and style are much closer to urban fantasy. I find that very appealing, and even though it took me a few more days to read than normal, I was captivated by this book from beginning to end. I received this book for free from NetGalley and Orbit in exchange for a review. Maya and Gyre are brother and sister, torn asunder by the Twilight Order, a powerful group of magic-wielders who uphold the Dawn Republic. Taken from her family at age 5, Maya has is now 17 and on track to graduating from a magical apprenticeship to become a centarch, a magical guardian of the Order who can shape the force of creation to her own martial ends. Gyre, figuratively and literally scarred by the abduction of sister when he as only 8, now makes a living as a bit of a rebel in the city of Deepfire. His ardent passion: the destruction of the Order and the Republic, but to do that, he’s going to need some seriously powerful tools. Fate, of course, conspires to throw these siblings together at the most inopportune time while they are on opposite sides—and to be honest, if you think you know what’s going to happen, you’re probably wrong! But no spoilers. I mentioned Sanderson at the top for a reason: fans of Sanderson will recognize a lot of his worldbuilding style here, although to be honest, I prefer Wexler’s looser formulation of magic, etc.—Sanderson’s quite strict approach always left me a little cold. Nevertheless, the whole worldbuilding of this book is impressively deep and creative in scope. Some of the names—Twilight Order, Dawn Republic—in Ashes of the Sun feel a little clichéd, but this book’s world and story are anything but. We’re in fallen civilization mode; the Republic and surrounding kingdoms cling to the technological and magical remnants of two, much older and much more powerful non-human civilizations that fought a massive war sometime in the past and basically wiped each other out. Maya believes the Order is a force for good, albeit sometimes maybe too forceful—Wexler sketches out internecine politics within the Order that make for an excellent subplot with just the right amount of intrigue. Gyre, on the other hand, his mind poisoned against the Order ever since that fateful day on his parents’ farm, sees it as a restraint on the rest of humanity, holding them back from achieving something … well, he’s not sure what, but something great! In this way, the two siblings embody a kind of order/chaos duality, which is reinforced by the alternating chapter structure of the narrative. This doesn’t always work great in a book, yet Wexler stays committed to this structure for pretty much the entire book, and it really works here. I found myself so obsessed with one character’s story, only to be yanked away from them to the other character at the worst time, so of course I had to keep reading! The character development here is top shelf. Maya isn’t exactly a Chosen One, which I love, but she does have something special about her—something Wexler teases us with yet stubbornly leaves for a future book to explore further. Well done! In addition to the growth that Maya and Gyre experience, several of the supporting cast also grow. In particular, Tanax begins the story as a very stereotypical antagonist, and I was concerned that’s all he would remain. Yet his growth is some of the most impressive, most realistic of the entire book. The only character who truly remains static and somewhat melodramatic is Naumoriel, in my opinion, with his grating “boy” and “girl” every time he tries to sound condescending. Ok, boomer. And then we have the romance. As you may know, I’m aromantic, and romance in books tends to do little for me. At best I just ignore it. Yet Maya and Beq??? SO ADORABLE. That’s all I‘m going to say about that, really, except for two addenda: this is an f/f relationship (to be clear); also, this book very explicitly mentions masturbation and we need more of that kind of honesty. Ashes of the Sun has a kind of relentlessly queer undercurrent to it, and unlike some books where that’s the case, none of the bad guys ever stoop to homophobia as a way of insulting or belittling the protagonists. At one point, we learn that Maya’s mentor taught her that people might be attracted to men, women, both, or neither—hello shoutout to asexuality (even if the phrasing does perpetuate a gender binary)! All in all, I love the way Wexler handles the romance and sexuality in this book. If I haven’t given you enough reasons yet to read Ashes of the Sun, I don’t know what else to say. This is one of the most original fantasy books I’ve read in ages. I love how it ends; I want to read a sequel, which apparently isn’t far off; I even fell for the romance. How’s that for a trifecta? [image] ...more |
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Jul 06, 2020
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Jul 10, 2020
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Jul 06, 2020
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Kindle Edition
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| 1726727939
| 9781726727938
| 4.68
| 63
| unknown
| Oct 20, 2018
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really liked it
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**spoiler alert** I’ve spent a great deal of time these past two years helping a friend revise her PhD. dissertation, which was about the history of s
**spoiler alert** I’ve spent a great deal of time these past two years helping a friend revise her PhD. dissertation, which was about the history of sustainability in the Ontario forestry industry. Riveting, right? Anyway, one of the ideas she explores early in her thesis is that European settlers brought with them to the New World various prejudices regarding forests. The forest, in many European folkloric traditions, is a dark and scary place. We see this echoed in many a fairy tale. Julia Blake capitalizes on these traditions in The Forest. She weaves together an intricate story of passion, forbidden and unrequited loves and lusts, and cyclical prophecy. Full disclosure: I received a copy of The Forest as a gift from the author. (I also received a free bookmark, so, you know, that’s definitely biased my review. Free books are one thing but send me a bookmark and I’m yours forever.) The village of Wyckenwode has always existed on the edge of the eponymous and mysterious Forest. Only the Marchmant family and their duly-appointed Forester can enter the Forest; all other interlopers find themselves unable to travel very far inwards. The Forest exudes that subtle “old magic” familiar to readers of European folklore. The village has a timelessness to it, and a cyclical nature; people tend to stay in the village rather than leave it for work and life elsewhere in England. In almost all respects, life in Wyckenwode is veritably idyllic—that is, except for the intermittent appearance of the White Hind, which signals drama followed by death for at least three young people of the village. That’s where The Forest opens: the White Hind walks again, and naturally, we meet three young people who are perfectly positioned to be this cycle’s sacrifices to the darkness that lurks within the woods. It took me a while to get into this book. Rather than dropping us in media res, the story opens with a prosaic dramatis personae as Blake walks us through the characters who inhabit Wyckenwode. Additionally, Blake’s prose style here is heavy on narration and light on dialogue. These two points taken together mean that, while the exposition is never overwhelming, you do have to absorb quite a bit before it feels like the plot is moving forward. Once I became accustomed to the structure of the chapters, however, I came to appreciate what’s going on here. Many of the chapters are actually frame stories for a Forest-related folktale. After a couple, you begin to realize that the stories have these similarities to them, overlapping concepts or common themes that suggest some kind of common origin. I really like this portrayal of the fallible kind of collective memory that runs through old places like this village: each generation passes down the tales they heard from the generation prior, and with each telling the tales get a little mixed up, a little more muddled—yet they preserve some kernel of truth. The Forest is therefore a kind of spiralling narrative. With each chapter, Sally, Jack, and Reuben learn a little more about the potential nature of the threat to Wyckenwode, thanks to these stories-within-the-story. Meanwhile, each must deal with their own dramas. Sally struggles under the weight of Jack’s overbearing, jealous romantic love when all she desires from him is a platonic, sibling-like love (can I ever relate to this subplot)—and Jack is not the only one interested in Sally. And Reuben is coming more and more into his role as future Forester, learning more about the mysteries of the Forest and wondering how this relates to the recent sighting of the White Hind. Everything culminates on the night of the Autumn Festival, a most appropriate harvest-themed event for a story about forests and old magic. Here, too, Blake favours a spiralling approach to the action: rather than a single, climactic confrontation between good and evil, there are multiple, smaller confrontations. Each of our three protagonists has their chance to fight, struggle, and potentially succeed. Along the way, we finally learn the “truth” of what happened in the Forest all those centuries ago. Then we get a denouement I was initially ambivalent about—I won’t get into spoilers, but it’s a HEA and at first felt too saccharine for me. (Also the age difference between Jolyon and his eventual bride… umm …?) Yet, looking back on it with about a week between me and the book, time has tempered my ambivalence down to a fonder recollection wherein the ending really just fits with the narrative structure I examined above. The whole theme of this story is about the absolutely batshit destructive nature of jealousy and envy, cranked up to eleven, and so naturally if you break that cycle you deserve a pretty good reward. (Also, for some reason aspects of this book reminded me of Hex , by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, which is much darker and much less satisfying a story, and that makes me even more grateful for the HEA.) When you get right down to it, The Forest hits the spot if you’re yearning for a fantasy story steeped in traditional European tropes of magic, woods, and village life. Blake leans into these ideas hard, complete with chants and legends, allusions to fae creatures and changelings and the Green Man and other supernatural elementals of the forest—and this complete, intricate embrace of these tropes makes the story come alive. As Blake did with Erinsmore , she is reaching back into the traditions of her land for inspiration. As a result, this is also a great showcase of how white, Western fantasy authors don’t need to go around appropriating “exotic” tropes from other cultures to create their fantasy settings. I’ll conclude by saying that there are serious Charles de Lint vibes here, and overall, this is a story for people who are looking for an escape from the problems of our real lives in the hopes that there might be magic just around the corner. The thing about old magic, especially the magic of forests, is that it’s never really gone. Sometimes, it’s just slumbering, waiting for someone—or something—to wake it. [image] ...more |
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Jun 25, 2020
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Jun 26, 2020
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Jun 25, 2020
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Paperback
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| 3.91
| 5,771
| 1997
| 1997
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it was ok
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Wait, was it November when I finished the first trilogy?? How is it June already? Wow. Anyway, as promised, I’m back with the first book of the second
Wait, was it November when I finished the first trilogy?? How is it June already? Wow. Anyway, as promised, I’m back with the first book of the second trilogy set in Sara Douglass’ Tencendor universe. Whereas I am certain I read the first trilogy as a teenager, I’m not sure if I ever read the entire second trilogy. So some of these books might be new to me? They all kind of blurred together. If you want to read my reviews “from the beginning,” here’s my review of The Wayfarer Redemption, aka BattleAxe, book 1 of the Axis Trilogy. Sinner picks up 40 years after the conclusion of Starman, just in time for everything to go to shit again because Axis and Azhure are the worst parents in the universe. This is not hyperbole. We shall put them on trial soon, but first … the plot summary. Minor spoilers in this review for this novel. So yeah, it’s 40 Years Later. All the SunSoar children are all growed up. Caelum is in charge but doesn’t know what he’s doing, and there’s strife between two of the human princes because one of them can’t manage money and the other is weak-willed enough to be swayed by power-hungry noblemen into demanding concessions he should know better than to expect Caelum to grant him. Meanwhile, an existential threat from beyond the StarGate looms ever closer. It’s coming for artifacts buried beneath the magical lakes of Tencendor, and it’s bringing all the children that WolfStar threw into StarGate 4000 years ago. WolfStar is back, by the way, and not happy about this turn of events. So he has to work with the Star Gods, and with Caelum and the others, because as this enemy approaches, the Star Dance fades and therefore the Icarii enchanters are losing their powers. Meanwhile, Drago SunSoar, whom you may remember as the little shit of an evil baby who tried to have his older brother killed when Caelum was still a child, is moping around now that he’s a boring mortal like the rest of us. Embittered by his treatment at the hands of … well, everyone, almost … and unable to remember being an evil baby, Drago becomes a fugitive. Is he evil? Or just misunderstood? You be the judge!! I’d forgotten how redonkulous these books are! Seriously, Douglass’ characterization is all over the place. One minute a character is thoughtful, seemingly three-dimensional, cognizant of the weightiness of their deeds. The next, they’re petty and flying off into rages. Yes, we humans contain multitudes, and no one can be sensible all the time. But Douglass seems to think that everyone has two modes: totally rational, thoughtful, honourable versus completely batshit psychotic. Some minor examples: Leagh vacillating every two pages about whether or not she wants to be with Zared; Caelum flipping out the moment anyone suggests he even consider being a little nicer to Drago (this is why you should talk to a therapist about your childhood trauma, especially if you’re the ruler of a multi-racial empire, just saying). The most significant offenders, far and away, however, are obvious Axis and Azhure. Let the trial begin. The charges? Gross parental negligence. Exhibit A: Axis and Azhure left Caelum on his own to rule Tencendor by himself. You might argue that, at about 40 years old, Caelum is an “adult” capable of making his own decisions. I would counter by reminding you that this is a very special circumstance. Axis and Azhure are directly responsible for the current state of Tencendor because they carved it up into its current territories. Now they’ve left to go play at being gods while their son has to deal with some cantankerous princes? It’s inadvisable for Axis to step in and save Caelum’s butt, of course. But that shouldn’t stop him from showing up and advising behind the scenes. (Then again, maybe we are all better off not having rocks-for-brains Axis around.) Exhibit B: Axis and Azhure don’t care about Zenith and what she’s going through with Niah. Indeed, when Faraday so much as hints to Azhure that Zenith might not enjoy what’s happening, Azhure flips into complete-batshit-psycho mode and justifies Niah supplanting Zenith’s consciousness like NBD. Azhure literally doesn’t care about her daughter. Exhibit C: Axis and Azhure’s mistreatment of Drago. This is a big one, and I’m totally on Drago/Zenith/Faraday’s side here. Was DragonStar wrong to help Gorgrael abduct Caelum? Of course! Yet Drago does not remember that crime, and he has paid for it. Worse still was the decision to keep him around his family in Sigholt when he could never truly belong to them or be trusted by them. If you were going to exile him the way you did instead of executing him, then exile him and get it over with. Exhibit D: RiverStar. Because Axis and Azhure let her grow up into a shallow, self-entitled twit who is fridged for vague plot purposes. The prosecution rests. Speaking of fridging RiverStar … can we pause for a moment to reflect on all the violence against women in these books? To be fair, terrible things happen to men as well—yet the violence is still quite gendered. People single out Game of Thrones for its grimdark reading of fantasy, but Douglass is particularly inventive in the ways women are violated. From Leah to Faraday to RiverStar to Zenith to StarLaughter … I’m struggling to name a female character in this series who hasn’t been raped, assaulted, gaslit, or otherwise abused and mistreated, often in the name of “destiny” or something like that. It’s very interesting to me, how many fantasy authors decide to replicate the structural injustices of our world in their fantasy worlds when you can literally build your worlds however you want. Douglass’ world runs on prophecy, of course. Destiny. I’ve reflected in previous books why I find that boring, and that hasn’t changed here. Is the science-fictionalesque nature of the Star Gate and Timekeeper Demons and the ancient craft intriguing? Absolutely. I don’t think I would ever deny that Douglass has creativity and talent, nor do I question her ability to plot. At the end of the day, Sinner is exactly what you would have come to expect, had you read the first three books of this series. [image] ...more |
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1
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Jun 08, 2020
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Jun 11, 2020
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Jun 08, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0857664131
| 9780857664136
| 3.45
| 596
| Feb 26, 2014
| Feb 25, 2014
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liked it
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I’m slowly working my way through my Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry backlog from back when I had a subscription to every book they published. Anna Kash
I’m slowly working my way through my Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry backlog from back when I had a subscription to every book they published. Anna Kashina’s name was familiar: turns out I read a similarly named Shadowblade that also features cool sexy sword-wielding ladies. I’m not saying these books are clones, but yeah … Kashina has a theme here. In Blades of the Old Empire, an ancient enemy has returned and has an outsized interest on the Crown Prince, Kyth. Fortunately, Kyth is protected by a mercenary named Kara (when I got this book, of course, I had no idea I would one day come to share the name of one of its main characters, yay). Kara seems to be the only one immune to the magic that Kyth’s attackers use to disable everyone in their path. Oh, and Kyth and Kara have a thing for each other—because of course they do. Determined to find out more about these new (old) enemies, Kyth and Kara and their retinue set off on a little quest, only to be waylaid (of course). Meanwhile, Kyth’s daddy (that would be King Daddy to you and me) sets off on his own little quest, with some politics and shenanigans for him to enjoy. Also there is some death and a fair amount of scenery-chewing. Don’t let my insouciance fool you: I liked most of this book well enough. Kashina has some interesting ideas in here, from the whole Majat’s gem ranking setup to the evil cult brotherhood to the various powers within this world—the Church, the Keepers, the crown, etc. It’s clever, very detailed, with lots of hints that the lore goes deeper. Exactly what I like in my fantasy. As much as the romance between Kyth and Kara annoys me, I’ll also praise their characterization. Kyth isn’t a Marty Stu with a whole bunch of random powers that lets him get out of scrapes: Kashina develops his powers gradually and in a logical way from the beginning of the book to the end. Similarly, even though Kara is literally the most elite warrior in existence, she has her flaws too. I’m less satisfied with the plotting. The parallel storytelling structure works well enough for me, but the actual plot leaves much to be desired. So much that happens is just very convenient, from the way that Mai conveniently knows how to disable instead of kill someone important to the way that Kyth and Mai meet up again with the others at just the right time. Similarly, while some of the characters are great (as noted above), others, like the Duke, seem like cardboard left in the rain too long. Blades of the Old Empire has a lot going for it, and while I wouldn’t jump at recommending it, I’ll say this: I wanted a nice fantasy novel to read on my deck in the sun, and Kashina delivered on that. [image] ...more |
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1
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May 31, 2020
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Jun 02, 2020
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May 31, 2020
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ebook
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| 1908844973
| 9781908844972
| 3.92
| 24,029
| Apr 01, 2014
| Apr 01, 2014
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it was ok
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This is one of those books where you kind of like it but also kind of don’t like it, and you're low-key impressed you don’t actively hate it? Yeah, I
This is one of those books where you kind of like it but also kind of don’t like it, and you're low-key impressed you don’t actively hate it? Yeah, I think that's what this is. Stolen Songbird is a hot mess of paradox: the plot is straightforward but also convoluted; the romance is broken but also kind of believable; the main character is annoying but also grew on me. I liked it enough that I almost want to read the sequel, yet I kind of never want to read anything else in this world again. How has Danielle L. Jensen caused such tumultuous emotions? Read on to find out! Cécile has been groomed her whole life to be a singer. Born and raised in a backwater village to an undistinguished farmer, Cécile’s mother is a singer from the big city. Cécile has reached the age where she is expected to move to the city to begin her formal training. One wrinkle: Cécile gets kidnapped and sold to trolls! Yes, trolls. She ends up in Trollus (ugh), the city of the trolls, who are magically confined there. Forced to wed the Prince of Trollus in the belief that this will help to break that curse, Cécile finds herself trapped in a city with precious few allies or options. Can she escape Trollus and return to her old life? Does she even want that when her hubby Tristan is the hottest troll and the best at magic and also really kind and cool in a thorny bad-boy way? You’ll have to read the book! From the get-go, the obvious romance between Cécile and Tristan grated on me because it is so forced. I’m not a fan of "girl falls in love with her captor," and no matter how you slice it, that’s what Tristan is. It doesn’t matter whether or not he eventually reciprocates: there is a power dynamic there that neither of them can fix, and that makes for an unhealthy relationship. That being said, Jensen seems to be aware of the problematic elements and wants to avert them. She makes the interactions between Cécile and Tristan believable in terms of their nuance. They bicker and they work together; they agree and disagree at different points. That’s the frustrating thing about this book: the plotting is madcap (we’re going to get to that) but the characterization isn’t bad. Jensen has a handle on how to write dynamic, interesting heroes and villains and all the side characters in between. When it comes to throwing them into a believable, interesting, captivating world with conflicts? I don’t know. There’s a moment about 2/3 through the book where Tristan reveals some very juicy hints about the true origins and nature of the trolls. Very cool—I see what you did there, Jensen, and that alone is almost enough to make me want to read the next book to see if you take it anywhere! Almost. Yet the rest of this world just feels … unencumbered by complexity. Trollus is conveniently mythical yet also prosaically available to trade with a bunch of humans Cécile knows (this is handwaved away with magic, but still…). The world beyond Trollus and Cécile’s home is not fleshed out much. That’s excusable, given that almost all of the book takes place in Trollus, but it’s not very interesting. Trollus itself doesn’t seem that fully realized to me. And then we have Cécile and her voice. When you name a book Stolen Songbird and you make a big deal about the protagonist’s singing and you intimate this protagonist might have some magic in her … it’s reasonable for a reader to expect this magic is going to be song-based, or at least song-related, yes? Yet with the exception of Cécile occasionally singing in captivity to lure Tristan into her presence or whatever, the title seems to be more for its alliteration than anything else. Big disappoint there. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Stolen Songbird is a story of squandered opportunities. It’s not bad, but it could have been so, so much better than it is. There are parts that made me cringe. There are parts that made me want to stand up and cheer. There are parts that left me cold or bored and other parts that had me calling Jensen a genius. This book is incredibly, frustratingly uneven, and having written this review, I still don’t know if I want to read more. Stay tuned, I guess! [image] ...more |
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May 22, 2020
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May 28, 2020
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May 22, 2020
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ebook
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| 0345522931
| 9780345522931
| 4.12
| 8,102
| Jun 14, 2016
| Nov 29, 2016
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liked it
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So here we are, over 2 years after I read
Blood of Tyrants
: the last Temeraire novel! It’s times like these I always want to take a deep breath bef So here we are, over 2 years after I read Blood of Tyrants : the last Temeraire novel! It’s times like these I always want to take a deep breath before I dive into writing this review. Let’s get the verdict out of the way: League of Dragons is a good conclusion to the series, but it is not without its strange elisions. Naomi Novik proves up to the task of wrapping up her sprawling and epic alternative history of the Napoleonic Wars (plus Dragons!). In so doing, she reprises the characterization and charm that has suffused this entire series since I started it 8 years ago. These books are damn fun to read, and I wouldn’t change that for the world. Laurence and Temeraire are in Russia, pressing Napoleon on the Prussian front with their allies. Soon, they are flying across the world to rescue Temeraire and Iskierka’s egg, however, from Lien’s clutches. After a series of events I won’t spoil here, our buddy cop protagonists end up pressing Napoleon to the brink of defeat. Do they win? How much does Novik depart from established history? I’m not going to tell! I shall limit this review to my observations on this book and the series overall, spoiler-free. Let’s start with the obvious: Laurence and Temeraire. This book is our last chance to see them in action together, and I love it. There is a certain depth of trust here that is a nice contrast to the events of the previous book, when they hardly knew one another. Yes, they don’t always do what the other expects or desires, as both of them demonstrate at different points in this story. Yet they always find their way back to the other again. This is a love story in the strongest, richest sense: a love story of family bonded by mutual trust and aid, not blood. Laurence and Temeraire’s love is the strongest love there is in this series, and it’s beautiful. Laurence’s growth over the past 9 books is on full display here. From stuffy Navy captain from a somewhat well-off family to traitor and now to … well, no spoilers … Laurence has had his share of ups and downs. He has gradually come around to the idea that dragons are intelligent creatures deserving rights commensurate to human beings. It’s cool to see how his tireless championing of such rights, and the impact he and Temeraire have had on European attitudes towards dragons, all come together in this final book. League of Dragons is probably too short to ever fully satiate my need for closure with this series. Novik seems to be aware of this issue, for she does her best to draw together many of the threads began in earlier books. We at least hear about the Incas, the Tswana, China, etc. We are left with a likely trajectory—the title of the book is a hint—along with the promise that there is still more, always more, left to accomplish. I love the little hints that the Industrial Revolution is approaching, particularly Perscitia’s ruminations over cannon that will fell even the mightiest dragon in a single shot. There is a richness to this world that, after so many novels, is so evident in every page and every exchange. Four hundred pages is just not enough! I want to know what happens to all the side characters! Moreover, while I’m satisfied with the overall conclusion to the story, I am very disappointed by the climax. Without going too far into spoilers here: Lien plays a very small role in this book, and after building her up to be this master strategist, we see precious little of her in League of Dragons. It’s perhaps the one bit of closure I really miss from this book. So, where does that leave us? I already rendered my verdict up top, and I’m not about to betray you now. If you have stuck with this series, you will not be disappointed. I suspect that, like me, you’ll find that some aspects leave you wanting more, both in a good way and a bad way. Would I read more books in this series? Hells yes. Maybe a spin-off set fifty years in the future, at the height of industrialization? (Dragons do live a long time after all.) However, I know that Novik has moved on to writing other, different fantasy series—and I’m all for that too. It’s always bittersweet when a long-running series of books comes to an end. All I can say is that I’m happy I have these to return to, any time I feel like wrapping myself in the warmth of the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire, and distracting myself with this alternative history of the nineteenth century, but with dragons. If any of this sounds appealing to you, I can’t recommend this series enough. [image] ...more |
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May 13, 2020
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May 18, 2020
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May 13, 2020
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Mass Market Paperback
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| B0034KYUWC
| 3.67
| 225
| 1994
| unknown
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it was ok
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And so, dear reader of reviews, my journey into revisiting cheesy ’90s epic fantasy that I may or may not have read as a kid continues. Last year I di
And so, dear reader of reviews, my journey into revisiting cheesy ’90s epic fantasy that I may or may not have read as a kid continues. Last year I dipped into
The Far Kingdoms
to keep myself company with a broken elbow. This year, with a pandemic stalking close, I decided it was time to return to that universe with The Warrior’s Tale. Allan Cole and Chris Burch place Rali Antero in the narrator hot seat. Several years have passed since Amalric Antero returned from finding the Far Kingdoms. Orissa prospers, but it is also on the verge of war. Rali Antero leads her all-female Maranon Guard into battle against the Lycanthians alongside the regular Orissan army. What should have been simple cleanup—chase down and dispatch the last Archon of Lycanth—turns into a years’ long quest worthy of Homer’s Odyssey. Along the way, Rali will fight pirates, wizards, demons, and her own internal turmoil. Is she a warrior? A wizard? Something else? Some praise for this book: for the 1990s, it’s progressive in terms of sexuality. Rali is openly lesbian, and there’s no hint of disapproval from the authors or titillation. Granted, she is still a lesbian written from the perspective of two dudes, so take this praise with the large shaker of table salt that accompanies it. But it really is nice that the hero of this book isn’t some burly white dude warrior, and it is very amusing that Burch and Cole reward Rali with the kind of scenes we might expect from such a protagonist: she gets the love-making, the praise for her prowess, and to butt heads with the less savoury leaders of the mercenaries and other groups she must align herself with. Yes, there’s a fair amount of, “It’s tough being a woman in a man’s world” to the book, and that might start to sound repetitive after a while. Also, the cringey sexytimes descriptions do not stop in this book just because Rali et al boink their own sex. That’s what all the different battle sequences are for. This is an adventure tale, and it lives up to that promise. Rali & Co. lurch from one scrape to the next, yet Burch and Cole remember to give us enough time to breathe between each chapter. Along the way, Rali develops as a character. At the beginning of the book, she perceives her responsibilities very narrowly: she is the commander of the Maranon Guard, and she is responsible for the lives and honour of her women. As the journey to find the Archon, and then to return to Orissa, continues, Rali realizes she has to widen her perspective. She must take into consideration the entire ramshackle fleet under her command, and she needs to use everything at her disposal—that includes magic, and also guile. Rali at the beginning is merely a soldier; by the end, she is truly a warrior. The structure of the story might start to feel repetitive, but I consider it reassuring. As with the first book, there isn’t much here if you’re hoping for a fantasy novel that shakes up the status quo. There are glimpses of something greater—towards the end, Rali meditates on how power corrupts and how the Archon’s attempts to elude death mean he must constantly expand his appetite for power. These are themes and ideas better explored in other fantasy series. Similarly, some of the episodes in this story are a little predictable, like the whole debacle with the Sarzana. There is a methodical and therefore mediocre quality to the plotting here, and it’s nothing to write home about. This series continues to be the kind of tonic I like in my ’90s fantasy revisit. It’s not going to surprise you, but it won’t disappoint either. My reviews of the Anteros series: ← The Far Kingdoms [image] ...more |
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Apr 19, 2020
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Apr 23, 2020
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Apr 19, 2020
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Kindle Edition
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| 1775312917
| 9781775312918
| 4.02
| 249
| Jun 26, 2018
| Jun 26, 2018
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really liked it
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What's better than a magical mystery? A magical mystery featuring baked goods, you say? Sign me up! Baker Thief is a conventions-busting, inclusive, f
What's better than a magical mystery? A magical mystery featuring baked goods, you say? Sign me up! Baker Thief is a conventions-busting, inclusive, fun alternate world urban fantasy novel with mysteries and thrills and no small amount of underdogs taking on the corrupt underbelly of corporations. It is, in short, a good read. Adèle is a detective recently relocated and transferred to a new unit. Shortly after moving in, a masked, purple-haired thief named Claire breaks into Adèle’s new place, stealing an exocore. These are like magical batteries, and Claire believes there is something wrong with them. Claire is also Claude, the owner of a bakery Adèle has begun to frequent—but, of course, in the requisite dramatic irony, Adèle doesn’t know that. Claire’s genderfluidity isn’t out in public yet. As the mystery of the exocores mounts and more witches go missing, Adèle and Claire begin to develop feelings for each other. But when one is demisexual and the other is aromantic, what exactly do you call that kind of relationship? Although this book certainly has some dark motifs to it—witches being persecuted and subject to science experiments, violence and murder, etc., there is a mirthfulness to Claudie Arsenault’s writing that is so enjoyably evident here. Baker Thief features little touches to the narration that let you immerse yourself in this world and its characters, whether it’s Claude discussing how relaxing he finds baking bread or Adèle feeling bolstered by her new captain’s sardonic responses to twists of fate. From chapter titles in French to wordplay and sarcastic remarks, there’s enough levity and humour here to keep the book feeling light despite the serious, high stakes of the plot. That’s not an easy tight rope to walk! Elements of the mystery are going to be familiar to regular fantasy readers. Arsenault reaches deep into some rich fantasy tropes when it comes to the interactions between magic users and the environment. Nevertheless, she deploys these tropes with creativity and accuracy such that they land in fresh and interesting ways. She also understands pacing and scene/sequel construction, so even though I wasn’t always surprised by the turn of events, my brain was kept quite satisfied. Like a freshly-baked croissant, the plot makes your mouth water because of this familiarity rather than in spite of it. My main critique of the book, and its plot, would be the handling of the climax and falling action. Don’t get me wrong: Arsenault sets up quite a confrontation between the bad guys and our ragtag band of intrepid heroes. Nevertheless, there is a smoothness to it that doesn’t pay off the way I’d like. I hope that, in future books, as the series develops and we learn more about the exocores and the persecution of witches, Adèle and Claire are faced with some more difficult choices in their quest to right these wrongs. Baker Thief also strives to be inclusive and diversely representative in a very positive way. As an aromantic/asexual and trans person, it’s nice to see a society depicted where characters like me exist and our queerness is not persecuted. There is persecution and injustice in this society, but it’s directed at witches. Even the bad guys don’t misgender people in this world. Yes, Claire is still reluctant to reveal her “secret identity” to the world—but that’s wrapped up in the complications of her nightly activities. Moreover, I think Arsenault has it right that a world with less persecution of LGBTQ+ people doesn’t mean everyone is going to be 100% out right away. Questioning is still often a very personal and private thing! There’s also fat rep, and some disability rep (both mental health and at least one character with a prosthetic limb). All in all, I loved the world of Baker Thief. I loved that I could almost smell the food, and that the “romance” between the two protagonists was not, in fact, a romance. Let’s have more of that, shall we? ...more |
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1
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Apr 06, 2020
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Apr 13, 2020
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Apr 06, 2020
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ebook
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| B07VFL4WZQ
| 3.35
| 135
| Aug 07, 2019
| Aug 20, 2019
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did not like it
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I originally received an eARC from NetGalley, but for reasons that escape me (probably my own incompetence) I forgot to download it. Out of a desire f
I originally received an eARC from NetGalley, but for reasons that escape me (probably my own incompetence) I forgot to download it. Out of a desire for completionism, I bought a copy of The Weaver so I could read and review it. Although the basic premise is sound and interesting, Heather Kindt’s writing style didn’t work for me. This attempt at a combination of thriller, romance, and fantasy lacks what I enjoy about those three genres. Laney is a college student writing a historical novel in her spare time. She is accosted by a man who resembles the antagonist of her novel. Gradually, Laney discovers that she is one of a small number of people—Weavers—whose literary works take on a life of their own. Her characters are coming to life, moving from the world of her novel to this “real” world. The antagonist seeks to control the ending of the story, while the protagonist could potentially protect her. There’s also some love triangle stuff happening, although it gets sidelined. Kindt’s narration is very much of the tell rather than show variety. That isn’t always a bad thing, but in this case I had trouble connecting with the main characters. The characterization feels flat and often very stock. For example: His best friend grew up, nd just looking at her drove him crazy. She was beautiful. Not the high heel, short skirt, plastered on make-up, I’m all that type of beauty he usually dated, and nothing like Jennifer, his current girlfriend. Laney was striking, and she didn’t even know it. Oh, I get it: she’s not like other girls . Cue my eye rolling. The ratio of dialogue to narration in this book is very low, but the narration lacks the richness that I prefer in books that take such a tactic. There’s a lot of exposition, and it feels very odd from a third-person limited narrator. Maybe if the book were in the first person? Anyway, this stylistic choice made it difficult for me to enjoy The Weaver in general. The plot has a nice setup, but there isn’t much payoff. Kindt walks us through a gradual building of tension as Laney discovers more about what it means to be a Weaver. However, it takes way too long for Laney to learn about the Weavers. When we do, the actual conflict seems very mundane. As with the narration, there’s just something about Kindt’s choices here, in terms of how to construct scenes and manage conflict/action/suspense, that doesn’t work for me. In the end, The Weaver leaves me frustrated and wanting more—not in the good way, though. Don’t even get me started on the love triangle! Firmly “not for me.” ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Mar 16, 2020
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Mar 18, 2020
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Mar 16, 2020
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Kindle Edition
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| 0756413648
| 9780756413644
| 4.00
| 15
| Sep 10, 2019
| Sep 10, 2019
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liked it
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Is this the year of me finally reading sequels closer to the previous book? First I read
The Obelisk Gate
, and now Master of the World hot on the
Is this the year of me finally reading sequels closer to the previous book? First I read
The Obelisk Gate
, and now Master of the World hot on the heels of
Worldshaper
? Who even am I? As usual, spoilers for the first book but not for this one. Edward Willett picks up the story where he left off in the first book: Shawna Keys has abandoned the world that she Shaped to the Adversary. She has fled to the next world over, whose Shaper she must locate—on her own, because her ally Karl Yatsar was trapped in her world when the portal snapped closed behind her. Shawna must navigate through a world built out of Jules Verne stories and steampunk fantasies. With no power to Shape this world and only a suspicion as to the identity of its Shaper, Shawna has few assets and fewer allies. Master of the World promises to be an even more suspenseful adventure than Worldshaper. I was somewhat critical in my review of Worldshaper regarding the cliffhanger ending and the way Willett seems determined to draw out the overall labyrinth arc for what seems to be the whole series. Now, though, I get it. There is so much potential here for adventure that the overall story actually feels like it’s going to be disappointing in comparison. I did not miss Karl Yatsar and the Adversary. Shawna’s challenges in this world, including her contentious, uncomfortable interactions with its Shaper, are interesting enough to carry this whole book. Without going into details, I’m satisfied with how Willett leaves us on another cliffhanger yet also drives forward the overall arc somewhat too. The writing here is just better as well—it feels like it lacks a certain amount of the self-consciousness that I noticed in the first book. Maybe it’s because Shawna, having left her world, can no longer Shape people and event to her liking. She really fucks up with one of the first characters she tries to befriend, and I like that Willett doesn’t let her paper over the mistake at all. Shawna’s fallibility makes her a lovely, three-dimensional character whose clever ideas keep the plot moving forward even as her mistakes or miscalculations make things more interesting. If you think that the inability to Shape anything means Shawna doesn’t continue to wrestle with the moral philosophy of Shapers, think again. If anything, Willett takes the dilemma up a notch; once Shawna meets the Shaper of this world and learns a little more about her old life, she is faced only with more questions. First, she wonders if she is as amoral and thoughtless as she evaluates the other Shaper to be. Second, she isn’t sure if not re-Shaping this world is any better than re-Shaping it would be. Once again, I’m pleased that Willett takes the time to properly consider the full ramifications of making a human being a god of their own world rather than just exploring the powers that such status brings. This series is some fairly thoughtful fantasy fiction. Again, there is a “wow” factor missing that holds me back from endorsing it whole-heartedly. But I would be lying if I pretended not to enjoy or be impressed with the skill and storytelling on display here. [image] ...more |
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none
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1
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Jan 29, 2020
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Jan 30, 2020
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Jan 29, 2020
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Paperback
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| 075641346X
| 9780756413460
| 3.18
| 66
| Sep 04, 2018
| Sep 18, 2018
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liked it
|
**spoiler alert** As I’ve said before and will say again, one reason I love the library is for book discovery. I had zero idea what I was in for with
**spoiler alert** As I’ve said before and will say again, one reason I love the library is for book discovery. I had zero idea what I was in for with Worldshaper. In this case, I saw book 2 on the New Books shelf, and fortuitously book 1 was also present in that very same library branch. So I borrowed both on a wing and a prayer, and here we are. Perfectly serviceable portal fantasy for some holiday reading from Edward Willett! Heads up that I put a spoiler flag on here for the allergic, but I’m not really going to spoil much of the plot. The whole next paragraph is paraphrased from the back cover. Later in the review I’m going to talk about the resolution of the book in very general terms. But you have been warned. Shawna Keys is having a perfectly fine life in the world she didn’t know she created until one day everything comes crashing down. This guy named the Adversary shows up and tries to kill her, and this other guy named Karl, who doesn’t seem particularly trustworthy beyond not trying to kill her, pulls the whole “come with me if you want to live” routine on Shawna. As a result, she spends an entire novel running from the Adversary while getting a crash course in her ability—Shaping. Shawna and Karl need to escape her world and find their way to the heart of the Labyrinth of Worlds so that she can help her patron, Ygrair, stand against the Adversary. If she doesn’t, all of the Shaped worlds are in jeopardy. So, you know, no pressure. So many things to like about this book. First, Shawna is a great protagonist. She’s smart and sarcastic, but not in the “I’m trying really hard to be sarcastic because sarcasm is cool” kind of way that seems to be a trend these days. A lot of her sarcasm is actually channelled anger and fear; she lashes out at Karl because she is tired, hungry, and, oh yeah, people are trying to kill her. Willett ensures that her reactions are always justifiable given the circumstances, and if at times she behaves somewhat irrationally, I think that makes a lot of sense given the pressure she’s under. I love how Shawna questions Karl constantly and doesn’t fully trust him. When someone shows up claiming to want to help you avoid getting killed, you don’t instantly become best friends. Similarly, I appreciate that Willett doesn’t develop any obvious sexual/romantic tension between the two of them. Second thing I like about the book is how Willett handles exposition. Karl provides minor infodumps here and there when the breaks in the running permit it, and the perspective jumps to him or the Adversary help us fill in some of the blanks. There’s still a lot we don’t know about worldshaping, and I’m fine with that. (Oh, I should probably mention right now that this is one of those fantasy books that is actually science fiction in disguise. If that is a pet peeve of yours, just take it off the list. Otherwise, carry on!) Also, the off-brand references to things like HiPhone and a lunar colony stick out at first and seem strange until you make the connection that this is evidence Shawna is in a different world that merely shadows the First World (which is supposed to be Earth, I think, though you never know). So that was a retrospective “nicely done” from me. Finally, Willett doesn’t shy away from the moral questions raised by Shawna creating sentient beings ex nihilo and having the power to Shape them to her will. Although Karl repeatedly warns her that she is not a god, that doesn’t obviate her ability to rewrite people’s personalities, memories, and desires—to remove their volition and replace it with her own. Shawna is rightly freaked out when she discovers she has this power, and throughout Worldshaper she ponders the implications. What does that mean for her relationships with her parents, her too-perfect boyfriend? Despite all the good, Worldshaper never get made me love it. Mostly this has to do with the plot. I appreciate that Willett goes into so much detail regarding Shawna and Karl’s flight west. He certainly succeeds in creating an atmosphere of tension and raising the stakes as they work first to destroy one Portal and then try to find the location where they can open another. He avoids the temptation to make Shawna too powerful yet allows her to exercise her power just enough to keep things interesting. Nevertheless, none of this really changes the underlying truth: this is a fugitive story, a chase story, and so the overall story arc of fighting the Adversary is never resolved. So, Worldshaper is definitely not a standalone novel. It ends on a mighty cliffhanger, and I’m glad I have book 2 waiting for me on the shelf. The antagonist, the Adversary, is also as generic and bland as his moniker implies. Yes, we get a little bit of a backstory for him. Yes, it makes sense. But that’s all—and it’s all very impersonal. The best villains have a very personal stake in this, and we have yet to really see that from him. It’s often said a story is only as good as its villain, and while that’s reductive and not always true, I think it’s true for this story. Worldshaper’s mediocre villain is a good synecdoche for its mediocre story in general (in contrast to its interesting worldbuilding and protagonists, as noted above). I read Worldshaper in an evening and morning/afternoon (I kept having to take breaks to shovel snow). So it’s an enjoyable, fast-paced read—it just never quite creates that “wow” factor I want in my fantasy novels. But you never know … the series might Shape me to believe differently after I read the sequel. [image] ...more |
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none
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1
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Dec 30, 2019
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Dec 30, 2019
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Dec 30, 2019
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Paperback
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| 4.07
| 79,964
| Sep 24, 2019
| Sep 24, 2019
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liked it
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This is a book by a Black man about slavery in the United States, and I wanted to open this review by boosting the thoughts of Black reviewers—after a
This is a book by a Black man about slavery in the United States, and I wanted to open this review by boosting the thoughts of Black reviewers—after all, their take on this book is going to be more salient than the opinion of a white woman like me. Unforunately, as I browsed reviews of The Water Dancer on Goodreads, I was dismayed to see that the majority of them are from white people (mostly judging by avatar), and particularly white women. Never has it been more starkly evident to me that we need to boost and promote the voices of book reviewers of colour. I finally found a review by Monica Reeds, and so I recommend you check that out (and like it on Goodreads!). I do have an opinion, of course, and that is what this review is about. But I would be remiss if I didn’t knowledge my peculiar positionality, not only in terms of my race but also the fact that I am Canadian, and therefore I’m reading this book as an outsider to the history it inhabits. The Water Dancer is a first-person narrative with a frisson of the fantastic. Hiram Walker is a slave on a plantation in Virginia. Traumatized at a young age by the sale of his mother, Hiram eventually discovers he has an eidetic memory linked to a mysterious power for translocation called Conduction. Coates doesn’t really explain the nature or functioning of this power for most of the book, and even when we get details, they remain vague. Hiram eventually becomes involved with elements of the Underground (Railroad), even meeting Harriet Tubman. However, his brush with freedom doesn’t last forever, for he discovers that the pursuit of abolition and the freeing of slaves are not always synonymous. In this way, Coates tries to illustrate for modern readers the complex, conflicting dynamics of abolitionist and Underground movements. Monica’s review says that this book “demands that you take your time and sit with what Coates is exposing you to,” and I couldn’t agree more. Many will pan this book for the lyrical nature of Coates prose, and honestly, I agree with them. The style of The Water Dancer doesn’t appeal to me. Yet I suspect that this is at least partially Coates intention—not to be unappealing, of course, but to write the narrative in such a way as to challenge a reader to unpack its metaphors rather than interpret it as an historically-authentic, cinematic retelling of this period in time. I firmly believe The Water Dancer is an attempt to tell a story about slavery in a way that truly challenges readers to understand not just the intense physical and psychological trauma inflicted upon slaves but the complex social and spiritual relationship between slaves, free Black people, and white people of various classes. This is evident from the start with the epithets Hiram uses to describe types of people. Slaves are the Tasked, and the work they do is tasking. Owners are the Quality, the rich and high-born Virginians; poor white people are the Low, and Hiram remarks how there is a peculiar, contextual hierarchy in the power dynamics among Quality, Tasked, and Low. Coates doesn’t use these terms to be cutesy or to disguise the nature of slavery. Rather, by using these epithets, he allows Hiram to tell this story from his point of view and averts some of the tropes and stereotypes that have seeped into narratives of slavery over the decades. I don’t watch a lot of films about slavery—partly because they are depressing, yes, but also because they tend to be directed and written by white people. Hollywood has a hard-on for telling slave stories, but only a particularly type of slave story. As with most of American history, slavery has been romanticized—and even when attempts are made to restore some of the “grim truths” of this era, that restoration essentially amounts to trauma porn. That is to say, narratives of slavery in the States are extremely messed up because they have essentially been colonized by white people in positions of power to tell these stories. The Water Dancer is a decolonization of the slave narrative, and that’s what fascinates me about it. Here’s another example: Corinne. Here’s Corinne described in Hiram’s words:
I don’t know about you, but as a white person I feel called out by this passage—and I should feel that way. Because Coates is critiquing the attitudes of white people towards the Black people they were claiming to help in a way that has striking parallels to what continues to happen here and now in the 21st century. White people (and particularly white women) love to champion trendy anti-racist causes, yet we often appropriate these causes and quash the very Black voices that we should be lifting up and listening to. The same goes for Indigenous movements, particularly here in Canada. And Coates nails it when he writes that “their opposition was a kind of vanity”—when we throw ourselves behind a cause out of a sense of white guilt, out of a hope that this absolves ourselves of our racialized privilege, we do so at the risk of failing to see and treat and help Black people as people and as individuals. So it’s moments like that in The Water Dancer that moved me and gave me chills and made me realize Coates was speaking to me in that particular way. Did the book keep me captivated all the way through? No. As I mentioned, its style isn’t to my tastes, and Hiram as a character feels more like a conduit for Coates’ themes rather than a person. He is more memory and story rather than desire and flaw. Yet my personal hang-ups aside, I’m able to recognize that this book attempts something very interesting when it comes to narratives about slavery in the US. And I would like to praise that and point it out, so that if this seems intriguing to you, you can at least give this book a chance. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
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none
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1
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Sep 2020
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Sep 03, 2020
|
Dec 08, 2019
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||||
| 4.28
| 104,836
| Aug 16, 2016
| Aug 18, 2016
|
really liked it
|
In a very rare move for me, I picked up The Obelisk Gate on my visit to the library after reading
The Fifth Season
. N.K. Jemisin’s sequel picks up
In a very rare move for me, I picked up The Obelisk Gate on my visit to the library after reading
The Fifth Season
. N.K. Jemisin’s sequel picks up where it leaves off, with a little backtracking to fill in Nassun’s story. Short review? If you liked the first book, you’ll like this one. The mysteries of this world deepen, the characters grow and both gain and lose. Longer review? Well, keep reading. Spoilers for book one but not for this book. Essun, aka Syenite and Damaya, recently arrived at the concealed comm of Castrima. There she finds her former lover/protégé, Alabaster, who is slowly turning to stone as a side effect of harnessing orogeny in strange and unsanctioned ways. Alabaster is desperate to teach Essun enough for her to finish what he tried to start. Unfortunately, a combination of the dysfunction in their relationship and Essun’s other involvement in Castrima’s society makes progress difficult. Meanwhile, far to the south, Essun’s daughter Nassun has been recruited by the former Guardian Schaffa, who is not at all right in the head. The central question of The Obelisk Gate is this: whose side are you on? The problem, as Essun soon discovers, is that it’s really hard to see what the sides are, let alone what side you’re standing on. Mad props to Jemisin for not giving us easy answers. Some burning questions one might have after The Fifth Season include whether this is a future version of Earth. Certainly it’s possible. But does it matter? Absolutely not. It doesn’t matter if orogeny and its related phenomena are magic or sufficiently-advanced science or whatever. Jemisin sweeps aside this curiosity in favour of a far more pressing issue: power. As I opined in my review of the first book, power and who has it is the primary axis around which this story revolves. Essun’s power dwarfs that of the orogenes in Castrima, even the feral Ykka who has just barely held things together to this point. Her power is such that Alabaster thinks she is his only viable successor. Her power is such that a stone eater, Hoa, has chosen to protect and elevate her as his champion. Her power is such that, as Essun comes to realize over the course of this book, although she will always be a pawn in some ways, she can also make a lot of choices for herself. A similar, slightly more scoped version of this narrative happens with Essun’s daughter. While it seems like Schaffa has the power, as a Guardian (or something of that ilk), Nassun is special. She has inherited Essun’s innate talents (and perhaps, with enough experience, might even exceed her mother’s abilities). So, like Essun, other powers want to co-opt, coerce, or otherwise influence her. But Nassun (who is only 10!) has some ideas of her own. I find it very interesting, the way Jemisin uses this nested mother-daughter arc, with both women being manipulated while they simultaneously explore their abilities and redefine their goals. The Obelisk Gate cements this series as a type of fantasy that I only sometimes enjoy, but when I do, I love it. I’m talking about fantasy series that are largely character-driven and less concerned with the war between good and evil than they are with how much a single person can fuck it up. There is this backdrop of a grand war between the “evil” Earth and … others. But that’s not really the story here. The story here is about a small number of people struggling against literally epochal forces, and the realization that while it is impossible for a single human or group of humans to survive such forces, even the biggest rocks can be moved by the application of a smaller force at the right fulcrum. My reviews of The Broken Earth: ← The Fifth Season [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jan 26, 2020
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Jan 28, 2020
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Dec 08, 2019
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||||
| 1096166151
| 9781096166153
| 3.77
| 164
| Apr 15, 2019
| Apr 28, 2019
|
liked it
|
I backed this on Kickstarter, but of course, then it sat on my shelf for a bit. Recently Gwen Benaway has been a prominent voice against Toronto Publi
I backed this on Kickstarter, but of course, then it sat on my shelf for a bit. Recently Gwen Benaway has been a prominent voice against Toronto Public Library allowing Meghan Murphy to host a talk at one of their branches. In following that news, I decided this was a good time to get to Maiden, Mother, Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes. I really wish I could gush about this book and say I loved it, because it’s so important to support trans voices and get more #ownvoices stories with trans rep out there. Alas, I did not love this book. It’s not bad, but the stories and the writing in it are largely not my style. Also, it could have used another copyediting pass. Some of the stories had typos and duplicated lines. Benaway’s opening story, “Mountain God” and Kylie Ariel Bemis’ “Dreamborn” were probably my favourite stories in this collection. The former is a take on sword-and-sorcery style fiction but with a more romantic twist, and despite being a very short story, it features a lot of character development and worldbuilding. I’d read a whole novel set in that world. The latter is an interesting take on “the humans are the invading aliens” trope, highlighting the plight of Indigenous peoples by casting invading humans as the Other, and I appreciated the emotional arc of this story. The other stories are, to Benaway’s credit as editor and curator of this collection, quite varied in style and substance. There are vampires, witches, healers, dwarves … there are transdimensional beings as well as transgender beings, and the level of imagination and creativity on display is high quality. The ways in which trans women are represented, voiced, depicted, are diverse. In these respects, this is a great collection, and I don’t want my lukewarm praise to dissuade you from this book should you think it’s more your speed. Short stories are hard sells for me at the best of time, short story collections from different authors even more so. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Nov 05, 2019
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Nov 13, 2019
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Nov 05, 2019
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0765342812
| 9780765342812
| 4.00
| 9,044
| 1996
| Jan 20, 2003
|
it was ok
|
It’s time to finish off my re-read of the first trilogy of The Wayfarer Redemption with Starman, the conclusion of Axis’ battle against Gorgrael to fu
It’s time to finish off my re-read of the first trilogy of The Wayfarer Redemption with Starman, the conclusion of Axis’ battle against Gorgrael to fulfil a Prophecy and recreate the land of Tencendor. I seem to have stumbled into a more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts situation here: I want to give this book two stars, but the series as a whole has actually been much more enjoyable than the individual books ever were. Spoilers for this book and the previous two books, because I want to dig into this whole trilogy. So Axis and Azhure get to be gods … yay? Although gods in this universe are not quite omnipotent beings, but rather just extremely magical, and “Lesser” creatures like WolfStar can hold their own against individual gods at times … yeah, the rules of this universe are frustrating sometimes. This series is a good example of falling in love with one’s own worldbuilding. Whereas the previous two books privileged plot, Starman stops pretending with that bullshit and just surrenders to the temptation to drown us with exposition. Almost every scene offers up an excuse to have a metaphysical conversation about the nature of the universe, the various gods, etc. Now, the geeky part of me loves the ideas that Sara Douglass provides us. The idea that the Star Gods, Artor, etc., all showed up through the Star Gate or otherwise, and that they are perhaps just Sufficiently Advanced Aliens (this can be inferred but isn’t outright stated) is so cool to me. The problem is that if all you have are cool ideas, without much in the way of interesting plot, then this might as well be a RPG universe instead of, you know, a story. Moreover, some of the exposition goes a little too far. In previous books, WolfStar/the Dark Man were intriguing antagonists because his motivations were so murky. Was he on the side of Axis or Gorgrael? Or Prophecy? (His identity as the Prophet is pretty easy to deduce if you pay attention, although given the monotonous length of these books, I don’t fault anyone whose attention lapses.) Starman clears that up fairly easily. WolfStar declares his intentions repeatedly and clearly for anyone who wants to know … and that caused my interest in him as a character to drop to zero. I don’t really care to sympathize with him on the basis of being a slave to the Prophecy he himself developed. Similarly, Douglass seems to be in a rush to cast each main character into a crucible so that they can achieve their Final Form as soon as possible. Axis, Azhure, Faraday, etc., all experience major changes and powerups in terms of their abilities and understanding of their place in the world. Yet none of them, with the exception perhaps of the woobie Faraday, really earn this. It’s just dropped on them because it’s part of the story. Whereas Axis spends most of the first two books earning the loyalty of his men through his courage and honour, in this book he’s fairly useless and even petulant. It’s all the fault of the damnable Prophecy, honestly! Take the whole Rainbow Scepter thing. Multiple people tell Axis he has to show up on Fire-Night to get the scepter from the Avar. Everyone seems to know about this scepter and the role it plays in Axis defeating Gorgrael. What was once a cryptic Prophecy now seems crystalline, and in this way the story transforms from one of epic fantasy into a middle-of-the-road fantasy RPG full of NPCs who direct you in your quest. “Get Rainbow Scepter.” “Go to the Ice Fortress.” “Kill Gorgrael.” This applies to characters other than Axis. It started with Timozel in book one; he switches sides mostly because of WolfStar’s mental assault than because of any true decision to betray Axis and Faraday. But we’ve got situations like Azhure showing up in Smyrton to help Faraday not through any decision of her own but because another, otherwise pointless character tells her that’s her role in the matter. It’s not that it’s predictable, because Douglass doesn’t even try to maintain anything approaching suspense. It’s linear, straightforward, and entirely telegraphed ahead of time. I’m not sure if this is because Starman is worried that the readers just aren’t smart enough to get it, or if it’s just the way in which Douglass is captivated by the Prophecy she has woven throughout this trilogy. In any event, the result is a serious lack of suspense for almost the entire book. Nothing seems to be in jeopardy, even when traumatic events (like the abduction of Caelum) happen with maximum melodrama. Speaking of which—the whole thing where Azhure unilaterally mind-wipes her own kid because he plotted to sell-out his older brother to Gorgrael? That’s fucked up. I mean, DragonStar’s behaviour is fucked up, but he’s still ultimately a vulnerable child, whereas Azhure is a fully-grown woman and Icarii Enchantress. One of the main themes of this series seems to be that powerful people make for terrible parents. Despite all these criticisms, I still enjoyed reading these books, even if perhaps my opinion of the series isn’t very high. Douglass has a stunning fantastical imagination, and she is great at creating unique and complex characters. Her stewardship of those characters through three books, however, leaves much to be desired. If Starman succeeds, it is in spite of its use of what are now considered cliché fantasy tropes, not because of those tropes. I’m not even sure I would go so far as to say it succeeds. The series is a feverish dream of so many cool elements tied together by a plot that doesn’t quite work and characters who are either too powerful, too prideful, or too underutilized (sometimes a combination of all three) to really be interesting or sympathetic. But wait … my journey will continue with the sequel trilogy! Because I am a glutton for punishment and also I bought those three books cheaply when I bought these three, so … onwards! My reviews of The Wayfarer Redemption: ← Enchanter [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Oct 25, 2019
|
Oct 28, 2019
|
Oct 25, 2019
|
Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0316436941
| 9780316436946
| 4.04
| 336
| Oct 15, 2019
| Oct 15, 2019
|
really liked it
|
It isn’t often that a book wins me over like The Throne of the Five Winds did! I usually know my general sentiment towards a book within the first fif
It isn’t often that a book wins me over like The Throne of the Five Winds did! I usually know my general sentiment towards a book within the first fifty pages or so. My mood will change for better or worse as the story unfolds, and a 2-star book might make it to 3 or vice versa, and once in a while, a 4- or 5-star book plummets to 1 star because of an unforgivable sin. When I began this book, which I received as an eARC from Orbit and NetGalley, I was not feeling it. Moreover, I really dislike it when someone tries to sell me a series by saying “for fans of Game of Thrones.” Because, like it or not, Game of Thrones is mainstream now. It’s like saying “for fans of Harry Potter” or “for fans of Marvel movies”—that’s not a useful category any more. And I honestly don’t think this book is very much like Game of Thrones, for many reasons, but hey, that’s not what this review is about. Lady Komor Yala (house name, first name) has been sent from her home country of Khir to Zhaon. She accompanies her princess, Mahara, who is a bride and tribute to the Crown Prince of Zhaon following Khir’s rout at the battle of the Three Rivers. Yala and Mahara are alone in Zhaon, with no other Khir around them, forced to adapt to a strange culture. There are 6 princes of Zhaon, from 3 different women—two queens and a concubine. A second concubine of the emperor has adopted a son, General Zakkar Kai, who is unpopular with some because of his humble origins. Yala and Mahara barely have time to catch their breath before the latter is wedded and the assassination attempts begin. People are going to tell you this book is long. Boy is it ever—but I don’t see that as a particular stumbling block, and I don’t think that’s even what those commenters are really picking up on. Sure, it’s long, and we could discuss how the story might be streamlined. But perhaps what we’re actually noticing is that almost all of the scenes in this book are two-handers, or perhaps three-handers in a pinch. There are certainly some larger crowd scenes, often action scenes. Yet so much of this book comprises private conversations between two characters, often involving intrigue veiled behind courtesy. That’s why this book feels longer than it is: everything is embedded within subtext, and so it takes twice as long to say. There is a lot of dialogue but also a lot of stillness, and S.C. Emmett’s description tends towards the poetic, with many quotations from writers in this world and comparisons of people’s movements to calligraphy. Emmett also tends towards the “hard no” side for exposition and is even so hardcore as to put “untranslatable” terms into the book with footnotes explaining their meaning in English. So that adds to the initial learning curve. Frankly, I don’t blame anyone for noping out within the first twenty or fifty pages. It’s not easy to get into this book. But if you persevere, you might decide it’s worth it. The Throne of the Five Winds has so many tropes of fantasy/historical fiction: palace intrigue, succession crises in the making, subtle love triangles, capricious queens and princes, a dying emperor, and assassins lurking behind every arras. Despite this surfeit of tropes, though, the book never feels that clichéd. The cornucopia of characters allows Emmett to wend and wind the plot through this world with a narrative deftness that keeps us on our toes. There are downsides, of course. Another reason I couldn’t get into the book at first is that I didn’t feel invested in any of the initial protagonists. Why did I care about Yala being sent away from her home country? Who is this Kai dude, and why should I care about him and this emperor? Which of these princes am I supposed to care about? Similarly, the antagonists are two-dimensional. We’re supposed to like most of the protagonists and dislike most of the antagonists. Even Takshin, who is a fairly obvious antihero, is supposed to be the “lovable rogue,” in contrast to the Second Prince, Kurin, who is portrayed as an inveterate schemer. Emmett tries to give Queen Gamwone some depth by making it seem like her gambits are merely a way of ensuring the survival of herself and her sons in the limited ways she can as a woman in this world … yet the narrative voice of the book is so biased towards portraying her as a rude, vindictive, and petty woman that this little attempt at balancing the scales is insufficient, to say the least. And as far as the Khir nobility goes … we get, what, 4 scenes with them? In other words, The Throne of the Five Winds has all the intrigue I love in a political fantasy novel. Nevertheless, it is still quite messy in some ways, and its characterization is shiny yet not always substantial. Emmet’s writing is beautiful in most cases, particularly as we watch Yala grow in her appreciation of her new home. I recommended this book to a coworker who enjoys reading sprawling court epics. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Oct 14, 2019
|
Oct 18, 2019
|
Oct 14, 2019
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0765341964
| 9780765341969
| 4.00
| 11,667
| 1996
| Apr 15, 2002
|
liked it
|
Back for round 2 of my review of this classic ’90s fantasy series. In my review of
The Wayfarer Redemption
I was cheeky but also tried to be serio
Back for round 2 of my review of this classic ’90s fantasy series. In my review of
The Wayfarer Redemption
I was cheeky but also tried to be serious. I didn’t want to be too hard on Sara Douglass, because after all, the clichés in these books weren’t quite clichés when she was writing. At the same time, it’s hard to call these books great. They‘re good, for a certain entertainment value of good. In this sequel, Axis has embraced his heritage as an Icarii Enchanter and plans to reunite Tencendor under his leadership. To do this, he must deal with his half-brother, Borneheld, while also defending the territory and people under his protection from Gorgrael. Oh, and he’s still learning magic. And he’s in love with two women! Fun times. If anything, Enchanter made me think more about Douglass’ goals with this series and how she constructs it. Maybe it’s because I spent a lot of Sunday morning reading this while listening to the classical radio station, but Enchanter really strikes me as embodying the most operatic qualities of high fantasy. This is a tragedy in its purest literary form. The stakes are high; the sets are big; the characters are larger than life. That allows me as the reader to give Douglass more leeway with this whole prophecy thing. Yes, Axis is unlikable and a dick, but he’s still a sympathetic character because he’s the protagonist of this tragedy: he might save his peoples from the Big Bad, but he himself isn’t going to get a personally happy ending in the process. The same can be said for Faraday and Azhure and perhaps a handful of supporting characters—the closer you are to the centre of this story, to the prophecy, the less likely you are to come out of it with anything resembling happiness. Similarly, there are no “real” people in this story. We speak to precious few people who are not within the inner circles of the plot. We speak to very few people who might be considered your average everyperson—it’s like all the extras in this story are far in the background. Because the opera doesn’t care about those people; it only wants to give page time to the people whose actions are sustaining the plot (prophecy). This constraint can make for a very one-sided, very contrived story. Why do these stories appeal to us if they are so over the top? Of course no one like Axis or Faraday exists in real life. Few people are the same combination of powerful yet petty as Borneheld (although, you know, I can think of a few leaders and billionaires who come close). Nevertheless, writers turn time and again to these stock characters and their stories because they do appeal to us. I think when you remove human agency from parts of the equation, it’s like controlling for a variable: the writer themselves then has a little more freedom to dig into another part of the human condition. By wrapping Axis & co. so tightly in prophecy as to practically smother them, Douglass can explore the edge cases of fighting for survival against incredible odds. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if this story were being told by people in fancy costumes singing on a stage, I’d be more sympathetic to it. It’s made for that grand scale. With novels I usually yearn for something that has a little more humanity to the characters, but it’s hard to fault Enchanter for being consistent with the form it’s emulating. I’d be a lot harsher if I thought Douglass were actually trying to make her characters more real, but that’s not what I see here. I’m starting to see now why this particular series from this time period might hold up in the sense of being a good example of the craft. I’m still not sure that it holds up as a series that I, personally, am enjoying reading. My reviews of The Wayfarer Redemption: ← The Wayfarer Redemption (aka Battleaxe) | Starman → [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
|
Sep 10, 2019
|
Sep 17, 2019
|
Sep 10, 2019
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1984817205
| 9781984817204
| 3.85
| 1,642
| Mar 05, 2019
| Mar 05, 2019
|
it was ok
|
I grabbed this book off my library’s new books shelf, and I’m glad I did. I’m happy to live in an era where we can have a blurb on the cover of a book
I grabbed this book off my library’s new books shelf, and I’m glad I did. I’m happy to live in an era where we can have a blurb on the cover of a book that says, “#MeToo and #Resistance through the lens of epic fantasy.” Count me in! The Women’s War posits a world where men control the direction of women’s lives and a woman’s worth is largely determined by the children she has or could bear—wait, sorry, that’s our world. In this fantasy world it’s … oh, is it the same? Oh snap. Except in this case, there’s magic, and at the start of the book a conspiracy of three women aim to smash the patriarchy by working a reproductive rights spell: that’s right, women (well, people with uteruses, I’m guessing, but this book doesn’t seem to acknowledge that trans or even queer people in general are a thing) will only conceive if they truly want to conceive—and that doesn’t mean under duress. Also, there’s a bunch of ancillary effects that change how some women can do magic, etc. Glass teases the actual spell for the first few chapters and keeps us guessing, which definitely helps you get into the book. I will confess to being underwhelmed by the actual “Curse” as it becomes so named. My first reaction was, “I feel like this could really easily backfire,” i.e., women could now be punished for failing to conceive. I worried that this was a surface solution to a much deeper issue. Fortunately, Glass anticipates this objection, and indeed, the Curse doesn’t magically improve life for women—it turns out it will take a lot more to smash the patriarchy than that. If anything, The Women’s War is all about how small, ongoing acts of resistance matter just as much, if not more, than grand, dramatic gestures. The three women who kick off the Curse give their lives, which is huge—but they don’t have to live in the world they create. Alys, Shelvon, Ellin, etc., are the ones who have to live with the consequences and continue fighting, day in and day out. That takes more strength. There’s also an interesting magic system in this book. It’s an interesting mixture of alchemy and a kind of third-eye that lets the caster locate and manipulate “elements” to combine them into different spells and potions. I really like that Glass doesn’t infodump too much about this system; we get a good understanding of its basics and its limitations without a lot of unnecessary exposition. I wish the same could be said for the political intrigue … sigh. This is the part of the book that really didn’t interest me, and it’s such a significant part! The political structures of the countries in this book are extremely simplistic and undifferentiated. There are “kingdoms” and “principalities,” and every country apparently has the exact same cabinet/council structure—lord chamberlain, lord commander, lord high treasurer, etc. Glass attempts to introduce some cultural diversity in terms of the dress, manners, and expectations of the various kingdoms. But it’s all a little too cookie-cutter for a book that spends so much time talking about dynastic matchmaking, trade agreements, and land disputes. Moreover, the religious dynamic is almost entirely absent. There is some generic mention of holy text known as a Devotional, but beyond that, it’s extremely unclear how many religions there are, what their power structures are like, and how much influence they wield over various governments. Glass’ storytelling style also isn’t the most appealing to me. There was a time when I would have drooled to see a 560-page fantasy novel and yearned for more and more of them. Yet the more of them I read, the more I realize that they seldom need to be that long. We don’t need pages and pages of scenery-chewing by the bad guys lamenting that these nasty women are making them do terrible things. We don’t need pages and pages of scenery-chewing by the good guys lamenting that these bad guys are making them become revolutionaries. Paradoxically, however, I’d say that this means The Women’s War would be extremely familiar to those of us who grew up, as I did, on classic fantasy along the lines of Eddings and Modesitt. Every so often I have a nostalgia-fuelled craving for such fantasy, and you know what? This book would scratch that itch for sure. It’s just the right amount of over-the-top-taking-itself-too-seriously fantasy that would fit right in with what 14-year-old me would have loved. I’m sure some people are going to pan The Women’s War for being too progressive and attempting to cash in on what they might call the “SJW hype,” although I suspect most of those people wouldn’t even bother reading this book. On the other hand, it’s possible to criticize The Women’s War for not going far enough. I don’t really know if it’s that revolutionary in terms of the story it’s telling, to be honest, and maybe that’s part of the reason I liked but did not love this book. No queer people, unclear whether there are really any people of colour involved, no women outside of the nobility as far as I can tell … and, once again, we have a fantasy novel that replicates the patriarchal structure of our world. Granted, Glass only does this to challenge it extremely explicitly. Yet I appreciate that so many people are trying to shift the conversation within fantasy towards imagining worlds that aren’t oppressive in the way ours is, and playing with the types of conflicts that might exist in those worlds. Now, I’m not going to criticize The Women’s War for not being something it isn’t trying to be. For that very reason, however, I also can’t sing its praises at the top of my lungs. This book is trying to be a feminist fantasy novel full of resistance and rebellion. It only kind of succeeds. I always appreciate it when stories swing big, of course, and that gives this book a lot of credibility with me. I just wish either the themes had gone further or the storytelling had been more to my personal tastes—I think if either of those elements were a bit different, I’d be all over this. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Aug 09, 2019
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Aug 11, 2019
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Aug 10, 2019
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Hardcover
|
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my rating |
|
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| 3.91
|
liked it
|
Mar 21, 2021
|
Mar 21, 2021
| |||||
|
| 4.07
|
it was amazing
|
Mar 15, 2021
|
Mar 12, 2021
| |||||
|
| 4.19
|
liked it
|
Mar 05, 2021
|
Mar 02, 2021
| |||||
|
| 3.88
|
did not like it
|
Jan 23, 2021
|
Jan 22, 2021
| |||||
|
| 4.28
|
really liked it
|
Jan 20, 2021
|
Jan 17, 2021
| |||||
|
| 4.13
|
really liked it
|
Jan 04, 2021
|
Dec 31, 2020
| |||||
|
| 3.76
|
really liked it
|
Dec 23, 2020
|
Dec 18, 2020
| |||||
|
| 3.90
|
it was ok
|
Oct 18, 2020
|
Oct 18, 2020
| |||||
|
| 4.39
|
did not like it
|
Oct 13, 2020
|
Oct 13, 2020
| |||||
|
| 3.97
|
liked it
|
Aug 19, 2020
|
Aug 18, 2020
| |||||
|
| 4.09
|
really liked it
|
Aug 10, 2020
|
Aug 03, 2020
| |||||
|
| 4.20
|
it was ok
|
Jul 15, 2020
|
Jul 14, 2020
| |||||
|
| 4.05
|
really liked it
|
Jul 10, 2020
|
Jul 06, 2020
| |||||
|
| 4.68
|
really liked it
|
Jun 26, 2020
|
Jun 25, 2020
| |||||
|
| 3.91
|
it was ok
|
Jun 11, 2020
|
Jun 08, 2020
| |||||
|
| 3.45
|
liked it
|
Jun 02, 2020
|
May 31, 2020
| |||||
|
| 3.92
|
it was ok
|
May 28, 2020
|
May 22, 2020
| |||||
|
| 4.12
|
liked it
|
May 18, 2020
|
May 13, 2020
| |||||
|
| 3.67
|
it was ok
|
Apr 23, 2020
|
Apr 19, 2020
| |||||
|
| 4.02
|
really liked it
|
Apr 13, 2020
|
Apr 06, 2020
| |||||
|
| 3.35
|
did not like it
|
Mar 18, 2020
|
Mar 16, 2020
| |||||
|
| 4.00
|
liked it
|
Jan 30, 2020
|
Jan 29, 2020
| |||||
|
| 3.18
|
liked it
|
Dec 30, 2019
|
Dec 30, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.07
|
liked it
|
Sep 03, 2020
|
Dec 08, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.28
|
really liked it
|
Jan 28, 2020
|
Dec 08, 2019
| |||||
|
| 3.77
|
liked it
|
Nov 13, 2019
|
Nov 05, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.00
|
it was ok
|
Oct 28, 2019
|
Oct 25, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.04
|
really liked it
|
Oct 18, 2019
|
Oct 14, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.00
|
liked it
|
Sep 17, 2019
|
Sep 10, 2019
| |||||
|
| 3.85
|
it was ok
|
Aug 11, 2019
|
Aug 10, 2019
|
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