2025 Reading Challenge discussion
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The Carousel Returns: Paul reads at least 250 books in 2019 probably
Book #137
Fullmetal Alchemist: Volume 11, written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa
192 pages
Read 5th to 6th May 2019
Why I read it: It's Fullmetal Alchemist.
Rating: **** - Looking back some of the meanings behind the revelations and the reasons our heroes went after them I don't entirely understand... OK, I just checked the wiki. That makes total sense, I'm still not convinced it was explained as well as it could have been, but fair enough. What I was also going to say is that I really dug the main confrontation here and that this volume continued the fine tradition of a lot of interesting and impactful stuff going on.
Book #138
Doctor Who: Mission to Magnus, by Philip Martin
2 hours, 34 minutes = 154 pages
Listened to 7th to 8th May 2019
Why I listened to it: Continuing to listen to the Doctor Who Lost Stories on Spotify.
Rating: ** - So bad. Meandering, unfocussed, may have had bad child actors in it, in a sense what Sil was doing was all right but also kind of "why is Sil here apart from this being a Philip Martin script", had some weird feminism to it, and all in all it just wasn't great. Stay away, I beg you.
Book #139
Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik
480 pages
Read 2nd to 10th May 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Novel, and I wanted to figure out where I'd rank it.
Rating: **** - Absolutely stunning, and honestly I still think it should have won. (At least it has a Locus so it won't leave this year completely empty-handed.) Not so much a retelling of Rumplestiltskin as Novik exploding the story and choosing the parts that interest her out of it, coupled with a bewildering profusion of themes. It introduces new perspectives like it's nothing. It doesn't completely work - the central romances could stand to be a lot more developed, and it ebbs and flows too much by the end - but when it's good, it's unparalleled. Like I keep saying (?), I came to this off the back of hearing Uprooted was very good and thinking, ooh another book like Uprooted, I don't know how good it'll be but it should be worth checking out, and what I got was one of the best books of last year and one of the finest fantasies I've read in an age. Indisputably not to be missed.
Book #140
The Salt Roads, by Nalo Hopkinson
410 pages
Read 1st to 10th May 2019
Why I read it: It was in a Humble Bundle, and I'd been wanting to read more Hopkinson since forever.
Rating: **** - I don't think this one quite came together completely for me, or that I didn't quite understand what it was going for, but the parts of it I liked were many, and I liked them a lot. It feels like it's very much about the legacy of slavery and black women, especially black queer women, up and down the years. Vividly-defined characters and exuberant yet controlled writing combine to make for a fascinating time.
Book #141
š! #26: dADa
164 pages
Read 8th to 11th May 2019
Why I read it: It was in a Humble Bundle.
Rating: *** - Undeniably interesting but also fairly scattershot. I probably bounced off as many pages as I was taken by. Still though, I'm fairly glad that it exists and that I read it.
Book #142
Doctor Who: Leviathan, by Brian Finch and Paul Finch
2 hours, 26 pages = 146 pages
Listened to 10th to 11th May 2019
Why I listened to it: Continuing with some of the Big Finish Doctor Who Lost Stories.
Rating: *** - Not really a ton to write home about, but still enjoyable. Big Finish still having trouble with getting good child actors in I see.
Book #143
The Vela, by Yoon Ha Lee, Rivers Solomon, Becky Chambers, and S.L. Huang
377 pages
Read 10th March to 13th May 2019
Why I read it: With a lineup of authors like that I couldn't refuse.
Rating: *** - I definitely enjoyed it, and it did touch solidly on a lot of good themes and conflict (also points for the good good queer rep), but I dunno, I expected to be blown away, and I wasn't. Looking back on it now it seems like for the most part the individual authors' strengths got flattened and what came out was somewhat Netflixy and committee-esque. Also I dunno if I didn't care that much for the ending because I expected it to be a one and done or if it's going in a direction that it seems like it shouldn't. Anyways, I liked this, and might check out other Serial Box stuff in the future (after I read all the stuff I got from that Humble Bundle of course - if I can), but this might be it for me and The Vela tbh.
Book #144
Vienna: The Memory Box, by Jonathan Morris
1 hour, 18 minutes = 78 pages
Listened to 15th May 2019
Why I listened to it: I think it might have been in a Humble Bundle at one point.
Rating: *** - Definitely fun, a little hard to follow at points, has some annoying Morrisisms but thankfully not too many, I probably would've been better off if I actually knew who Vienna was, though this still gives a good enough impression of her. As it stands this is something that I liked listening to but don't know if I'd necessarily go back for more, but I have assurances from friends that it gets downright brilliant at points, so I may come back to it at some point.
Book #145
"Blue Morphos in the Garden", by Lis Mitchell
22 pages
Read 16th May 2019
Why I read it: It's a Tor.com short story that I'd somehow managed to miss, I didn't see it until it came in Tor's short fiction roundup newsletter. Which I haven't gotten in ages now I think about it...
Rating: *** - Odd and intriguing, and definitely manages to get at something intangible and true. I also think it's just too darn short, and that the final decision the main character makes isn't given quite as much buildup as it arguably warrants.
Book #146
Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente
352 pages
Read 13th to 16th May 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for the Hugo for Best Novel this year - we did it! - and I wanted to read it again to see where it would rank.
Rating: **** - Look, I'll hand it to you - I don't think it does a particularly great job with character (though sometimes it shines, and shines amazingly), and for the most part this isn't really a book you read for the plot. Partly because there isn't that much of a plot there, as such, and also because I don't think the book entirely succeeds at melding together its two impulses of doing a Eurovision meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and examining art and the artist and the terrible, terrifying world we live in, and how one can possibly counteract the other. Couple it with the style and I can definitely understand why people would take a look at this and then run off frantically in the opposite direction.
That said though, they're still wrong. This book is brilliant, an absolute headrush of glitterpunk and desperate uncertain certainty, beamed straight out of Valente's whole being and into ours. Its sentences are a thrill to snake along and decipher, it's a book you just have to really take it as it comes and accept that this is how it's going to be, and it's laugh out loud funny at about several parts per chapter. I called it a book with two beating hearts last year, albeit a book where one of those hearts doesn't beat as effusively as the other, and I still stand by that. Despite, and with, all the razzmatazz and mind-twisting concepts and word choices, this book is still concerned with something relevant and true. I'm extremely reasonably glad it exists, and quite frankly it deserved better from the electorate than it got. I don't regret nominating it (even if I had to be talked into it), I don't regret putting it second in my final six, and I will defend the validity of its life choices for ever. The spring cannot be stopped.
Book #147
Uncanny Magazine Issue 28: May/June 2019, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas
197 pages
Read 11th to 16th May 2019
Why I read it: Another issue of Uncanny.
Rating: ****
Book #148
The Black God's Drums, by P. Djéli Clark
112 pages
Read 16th to 17th May 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Novella, and I hadn't read it yet.
Rating: **** - A lot of fun. A big, enjoyable romp around a vividly-described alternate history setting with appealing characters, that nimbly shifts tones as necessary. I wouldn't mind seeing more of this, or at least seeing the followup that the end promises, so on that count it's an unqualified success. I ranked it pretty low on my ballot, but that's largely just because what I ranked above it are doing things that are conceptually far more ambitious and intriguing, while The Black God's Drums I think is mostly aiming for a fine time. And there's nothing wrong with that! It's not the kind of thing I would normally see as Hugo-worthy, is all.
Book #150
Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells
160 pages
Read 17th to 19th May 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Novella, and I hadn't read it.
Rating: *** - Fascinating and infuriating. I'll be happy if I never read another Murderbot book, but I now understand why so many people like it so much. (I just feel like this should have been evident with All Systems Red, but moving on, and we'll come back to this later.) It starts out a little slowly, but is buoyed by a mild reboot of Murderbot's character - it's a bit less straightforwardly assholish and the reasons for its emotional pain are put into clearer relief (and I do realise how that sounds) - which is extremely refreshing though also quite infuriating. Refreshing because, yes, this is a character I can finally read about and be interested in, infuriating because Murderbot should have been written like this all along. It partly, though not entirely, serves to make me even more frustrated with All Systems Red and to conclude that that first novella does not even need to exist (for that and other reasons which I might get to). Which is quite bad when you're talking about a Hugo, Nebula, and Locus-winning novella, but what can you do.
Anyway, the start of the book apart from that is largely scene-setting until Murderbot joins up with ART, and from there it frankly comes to life. It becomes this brilliant exploration of what it's like to be a person and Murderbot itself and kind of trying to reform yourself and move forward, coupled with observations on media and diversity that, while they still feel like Wells pulling from other books, are much better handled than they were in All Systems Red. I really felt like I was starting to understand what Wells wanted to do, I finally felt I was reading the same series that everyone else was, and I was thinking I might not be putting this bottom of my final six after all.
Then it got to the mining planet and everything fell apart. It almost immediately collapsed back into All Systems Red shenanigans, as Murderbot meets up with some humans who have as much personality as the ones in the first book did (i.e., basically none) despite their being fewer of them, agrees to help them with their side quest, goes about that (it does introduce a new kind of robot, but the book doesn't particularly do anything with it), quickly finds what it was looking for in the process, and leaves once it's done without any particular plan in mind. And honestly? I'm done. I'm not just done, I'm (still?) not convinced that there needed to be three Murderbot novellas this year and not one more streamlined novel. But you know what? I took something from Artificial Condition. The title actually makes some sense this time. It's working with legitimately great characters and ideas, though only sometimes. Like I said, I finally understand what people see in this series. I'm still not sure why it got so many awards, though in fairness this winning the Hugo shouldn't have been as surprising as it was. Apparently this is really what people want out of their science fiction and fantasy novellas today, and who am I to argue.
(I did not, in fairness, put it under No Award.)
Book #151
Doctor Who: The Hollows of Time, by Christopher H. Bidmead
2 hours, 32 minutes = 152 pages
Listened to 20th to 21st May 2019
Why I listened to it: Listening to more Big Finish Doctor Who Los Stories.
Rating: *** - The setting was nice enough, but looking back I think this just got hopelessly caught up in itself and turned out only kind of all right as a result.
Book #152
Infomocracy, by Malka Older
382 pages
Read 20th to 22nd May 2019
Why I read it: The Centenal Cycle was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Series, and I'd been meaning to read it for a while now.
Rating: **** - Thrilling and fascinating stuff. A quintessential example of speculative fiction commenting on the present day with a bunch of political toing and froing that feels downright prescient at points, with compelling characters and a pleasingly genuine international focus. Definitely a book where you get the sense that the author put a lot of thought into all this. Did not disappoint.
Book #153
Doctor Who: Paradise 5, by P.J. Hammond and Andy Lane
2 hours, 31 minutes = 151 pages
Listened to 22nd to 25th May 2019
Why I listened to it: Another Big Finish Doctor Who Lost Story.
Rating: **** - Very enjoyable, and absolutely the kind of sock-it-to-em spirit the Colin Baker years needed. The fact that it's unexpectedly four episodes of 25 minutes long doesn't hurt either.
Book #153
Black Panther: Long Live the King, written by Nnedi Okorafor and Aaron Covington
136 pages
Read 20th to 25th May 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Graphic Story.
Rating: *** - Fine? It's... fine. What I don't think it is however is worthy of a Hugo finalist slot, never mind being a handful of votes away from winning the award outright. Maybe I just needed to be more into Black Panther to really appreciate it, though I also kind of question the judgment of people who are this into Black Panther. I don't know. All I really know is that I found these six issues pretty flimsy and insubstantial, and not doing enough in terms of either art or writing to really draw me in. In fact I'm positive that I needed to be more into Black Panther to appreciate this, as one of the issues isn't even about T'Challa. This isn't a problem, the character the issue's about is intriguing enough, but the issue on its own doesn't give you enough background context to go on if, again, you haven't been reading the latest volumes of Black Panther. Admittedly I may have liked this slightly more if I hadn't read it in the context of the rest of the finalists (though alphabetical ordering would've meant it was the first one I read, so not really), but this just... isn't good.
Plus it isn't even all written by Okorafor.
Book #154
The Concrete Jungle, written by Charles Stross
84 pages
Read 26th May 2019
Why I read it: It was included as part of the voter packet for this year's Hugo Awards.
Rating: *** - Honestly fairly enjoyable and raucous at some points, with entertaining descriptions, insights, and shenanigans. I also still think that this isn't just my kind of series, but on the positive side we haven't yet gotten to the point where I start feeling active contempt towards the Laundry Files's fans. At the same time, there's still something faintly odious about this series. It seems to be singularly aimed towards people who are kind of like Stross, or at least my assumed images at him, and if you're hip to that vibe and the references you'll love it, and if you're not then you'll have a good time now and then, but also get tripped up continually and then start thinking near the end that this really comes across as an outright revenge fantasy written partly out of spite. If that's your thing, fine. But it's not quite mine.
Book #155
Monstress #22, written by Marjorie M. Liu and illustrated by Sana Takeda
24 pages
Read 27th May 2019
Why I read it: More Monstress.
Rating: **** - Apparently this was one of the better issues in what's going to be Volume 4. I'll just have to take past me's word for it.
Book #156
Doctor Who: Point of Entry, written by Barbara Clegg and Marc Platt
2 hours, 33 minutes = 153 pages
Listened to 27th to 28th May 2019
Why I listened to it: Another Big Finish Lost Story.
Rating: ***- I don't remember anything about this, which has got to be a bad sign.
(can't believe I wrote over this, let me try to reconstruct it)
Book #149
Abbott, written by Saladin Ahmed and illustrated by Sami Kivelä
128 pages
Read 13th to 18th May 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Graphic Story, and I hadn't read it yet.
Rating: ***- There's a lot to like about this, but in certain aspects it simply didn't quite work for me. The art is bold and colourful, the characters are great to read about, the background historical detail walks the fine line between strongly implemented worldbuilding and bemusing filigree, and on a scene to scene basis it's paced very well. At the same time... I eventually kind of got fed up with its cliffhanger structure, it suffers slightly for only being five issues long (not just in a "I want more of this!" sense, which is fine, but also in a "this maybe could have done with some more time to set the situation" sense), and it's at its weakest when it leans most fully into urban fantasy, which is kind of a problem when you're reading an urban fantasy. I will say though that Abbott is really good about being resonant with the Times We Live In without being too on-the-nose about it, and I do like the villain's ultimate motivation in a weird way, even if it's also kind of galaxy brain. In the end, I'd happily recommend Abbot to anyone, and I'm not mad about where it eventually ended up in the final six, but I also stand by where I put it on my final ballot, as there were definite downsides that I couldn't ignore.
Book #157
Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire
368 pages
Read 27th to 30th May 2019
Why I read it: October Daye was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Series, and I'd been meaning to read it for ages.
Rating: ***- A solid start, building a finely thought-out world (albeit with some stereotyping which in fairness I think is par for the course for the genre so not an original sin for this series, but still awkward here and there), good characters, a consistent narrative voice, and a powerful and effective ending. It just wasn't quite what I expected. I'd come into this figuring it'd be a straightforward urban fantasy detective story, and while Toby getting turned into a fish for several years threw me in a good way, the rest of the book... wasn't that. She seemed not so much to investigate things as to spend a lot of time going around and catching up with the people she used to know and solidifying/clarifying old alliances. Which is fair enough, ultimately this is a book about Toby entering the world again, but it ultimately left me feeling nonplussed in that respect.
Book #158
On a Red Station, Drifting, by Aliette de Bodard
116 pages
Read 30th to 31st May 2019
Why I read it: It was included as part of the Hugo voter packet for the Universe of Xuya.
Rating: ****- Really good. Has the kind of setting you would expect from a Xuya story, and works very well as an exploration of that setting, but it's also largely the story of two women who don't like each other and have utterly reasonable yet seemingly irreconcilable viewpoints. Kind of surprised me how impressed by it I was tbh.
Book #159
"Droplag", by Angela Ambroz
22 pages
Read 1st June 2019
Why I read it: Slowly reading Giganotasaurus's backlog.
Rating: ****- I liked this one a lot for some reason. It doesn't have much of a plot as such, as far as I remember it's almost more of an excuse to string a collection of shenanigans and ideas for a future, and it does a very good job at that.
Book #160
Strange Horizons 2019 May, edited by Vanessa Rose Phin
190 pages
Read from May to June 2019
Why I read it: More Strange Horizons.
Rating: ****
Book #161
Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 12, written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa
192 pages
Read 1st to 3rd June 2019
Why I read it: More Fullmetal Alchemist.
Rating: **** - More twisty good stuff.
Book #162
Monstress, Vol. 3: Haven, written by Marjorie M. Liu and illustrated by Sana Takeda
152 pages
Read 30th May to 4th June 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Graphic Story, so I thought I'd read it again.
Rating: **** - Very good, but there's a sense that the wheels may be starting to come off. Though this is mostly because I've been reading Volume 4. The art is gorgeous, the characters are as we've come to expect and then significantly deepened, and it does have a genuine arc that opens and concludes within the volume. At the same time, this feels very much a middle volume, one where you probably need to read the first two volumes again to fix things in your head, and one where you might need to go back and read it again once the series ends to get it to clarify more. So this time dispelled the spell slightly, though I'm still a big fan of most of what got done here, and the series as a whole. It can also get a little circular at points? Gets a bit caught in the weeds, reiterates things too much, I don't know.
Book #163
Null States, by Malka Older
432 pages
Read 2nd to 5th June 2019
Why I read it: Continuing with the Centenal Cycle.
Rating: **** - A little awkward near the end, where it's very much setting itself up for the final book in the trilogy, and some of the worldbuilding wrinkles threw me a little, I never quite got around to working them out. That said though, this is still a very fine book. Continues in the same lovely vein as Infomocracy did, but broadens it in new and fascinating ways.
Book #164
Doctor Who: The Song of Megaptera, by Pat Mills
2 hours, 24 minutes = 144 pages
Listened to 4th to 7th June 2019
Why I listened to it: Still listening to the Doctor Who Lost Stories.
Rating: *** - Loses its way in the back half by treating with a new and unexpected cast of characters, but until then and to some extent after that it's quite good. Does a nice job with its dynamics and interactions, and the setting is fairly fresh as well.
Book #165
A Local Habitation, by Seanan McGuire
390 pages
Read 6th to 10th June 2019
Why I read it: Reading more October Daye.
Rating: **** - Combines urban fantasy (with actual investigations! quite a lot of them actually) with the tech world, to brilliant though not really satirical effect. Builds up the characters well enough that it's generally sad when they go, sad even when you never knew them, and the ending is suitably devastating. Feels like the series really establishes itself as one to watch here.
Book #166
Equoid, by Charles Stross
65 pages
Read 10th to 11th June 2019
Why I read it: Continuing with what I got of the Laundry Files in the Hugo packet.
Rating: *** - I'm surprised I rated this as highly as I did considering I skipped the bulk of the HP Lovecraft pastiche. Not to mention that some of the stuff that goes on in there from what I saw and from what I heard has some serious "... dude did you just do that" vibes, and not in a good way. Still though, the rest of this was enjoyable enough, albeit with a little too much "what if this thing you thought was lovely... wasn't" to it all.
Book #167
"Down on the Farm", by Charles Stross
32 pages
Read 11th June 2019
Why I read it: Continuing with what I got of the Laundry Files in the Hugo packet.
Rating: ** - Not entirely devoid of merit, but falls flat near the end, and it doesn't help that I'm progressively becoming more aware that this series just isn't for me.
Book #168
Doctor Who: The Macros, by Ingrid Pitt and Tony Rudlin
2 hours, 25 minutes = 145 pages
Listened to 11th to 12th June 2019
Why I listened to it: Continuing with the Doctor Who Lost Stories.
Rating: *** - Hmmm. Strange. Sometimes intriguingly strange, sometimes just kinda awkwardly strange.
Book #169
"Overtime", by Charles Stross
30 pages
Read 12th June 2019
Why I read it: Finishing up the Laundry Files section of the Hugo packet.
Rating: ** - Errrrrrgh. In fairness after months away I'm starting to become more lukewarm to the Files, but I'm also still not convinced I'd ever enjoy them. The general vibe of self-satisfaction and superiority and its cliquishness near to overwhelms everything else and makes me wonder why I should bother pushing through to experience the good stuff. Not to mention that I didn't like the start of The Concrete Jungle at all. The remit of the Laundry has always seemed more nebulous than it was originally defined as well. Eh, I dunno. I gave it a shake at least.
Book #170
On a Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden
544 pages
Read 5th to 15th June 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Graphic Story.
Rating: **** - Lovely. Gets a bit too saccharine and straightforward near the end, but those are only small caveats. Makes gorgeous use of colour and layout and lettering, has characters you fall in love with, and a story that's a delight to discover. Got done dirty at the Hugos this year, though in fairness it technically wasn't included in the packet, and people may have been aggrieved with/unsure of its eligibility. Or else it got ignored due to not being from one of the big three or some other confluence of factors. In any case, I really liked it, and I'm glad I put it at the top of my ballot.
Book #171
State Tectonics, by Malka Older
432 pages
Read 12th to 17th June 2019
Why I read it: Finishing the Centenal Cycle.
Rating: **** - The weakest in the trilogy, mostly because it goes full tilt into "this society is wrong", and it's not wrong for doing that, but I was just never in the right head tilt to appreciate what the series was really doing. That said, it's still the Centenal Cycle, and it's still quite a lot of fun, even if its power diminishes with time and experience. It'll never be the same again, but I wouldn't mind rereading this someday, let myself really get my head around Older's new society, how it's like ours, how it's not like ours, what it's doing right, what it's doing wrong, and why it ultimately needed to be overhauled.
Book #172
The Dragon That Flew Out of the Sun, by Aliette de Bodard
77 pages
Read 17th to 18th June 2019
Why I read it: It was included in the Hugo packet for the Universe of Xuya.
Rating: *** - Three quite decent short stories published together combine to make something that's ... only all right really.
Book #173
Doctor Who: The Foe from the Future, by Robert Banks Stewart and John Dorney
2 hours, 55 minutes = 175 pages
Listened to 13th to 18th June 2019
Why I listened to it: It was part of the Fourth Doctor Box Set, made available on Spotify.
Rating: **** - A lot more enjoyable than I was expecting actually, considering it goes full tilt Hinchcliffe. Appealing characters, multiple settings playing well off each other, sustains the six episodes, which isn't always a guarantee, and it really is good to hear Tom Baker again. Worth checking out.
Book #174
Doctor Who: The Valley of Death, by Philip Hinchcliffe and Jonathan Morris
3 hours, 17 minutes = 197 pages
Listened to 19th to 22nd June 2019
Why I listened to it: Finishing up the Fourth Doctor Box Set.
Rating: *** - Grand enough, but straightforwardly hits a bunch of Hinchcliffe beats without doing a whole lot with them.
Book #175
Paper Girls Volume 4, written by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated by Cliff Chiang
128 pages
Read 17th to 22nd June 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Graphic Story.
Rating: **** - Now this is the stuff I want. The distasteful stuff I thought happened in this volume doesn't happen until Volume 5, so I could relax and enjoy all that happens here. The fantastic, colourful art, continuing forward with all the revelations from the previous volumes, some solid explanations, people meeting their future selves and learning from each other... this will never be one of my favourites, but I had a real good time with this.
Book #176
Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 13, written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa
192 pages
Read 19th to 23rd June 2019
Why I read it: It's Fullmetal Alchemist.
Rating: **** - Fantastically strange and twisty and intense and hilarious. Definitely a strong volume.
Book #177
An Artificial Night, by Seanan McGuire
350 pages
Read 19th to 23rd June 2019
Why I read it: Reading one more October Daye book for the Hugo for Best Series.
Rating: **** - The pacing ... well, not quite the pacing... is more than a bit erratic here, as Toby goes back and forth to Blind Michael's Realm maybe just one time too many. Other than that, this is very good, a real heady mix of ideas and genuine thread that combine brilliantly. I don't think it's quite as good as A Local Habitation, but I definitely don't want to end my journey here.
Book #178
"After October", by Ben Burgis
15 pages
Read 24th June 2019
Why I read it: Still going back through the Giganotosaurus archives.
Rating: *** - I think this might have been one of these stories that works better without the speculative stuff. The overview of Revolution-era Russia and after was compelling and the rumination on magic intermingled with it quite well, but the rest of it I'm not so convinced by.
Book #179
Doctor Who: Mother Russia, by Marc Platt
1 hour, 19 minutes = 79 pages
Listened to 24th to 25th June 2019
Why I listened to it: Listening to the Companion Chronicles for Doctor Who that are available on Spotify.
Rating: *** - The framing device doesn't do it any favours, but I'm a big fan of the way we just get to luxuriate in the historical period for a while.
Book #180
Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, by Alec Nevala-Lee
544 pages
Read 23rd to 26th June 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Related Work.
Rating: **** - An impressive and enjoyable work, though not quite... astounding. I feel like it got done dirty in the voting this year, but I can understand why. It just about justifies its reason for existence, and I'm not convinced it ends up really appealing to anyone who's not already playing the inside baseball. That said, it does a very good job of juggling the disparate perspectives and sketching out its overall broad arc - it pulls a lot of research and sources together. All in all, I liked it quite a bit.
Book #181
Doctor Who: Helicon Prime, by Jake Elliot
1 hour, 19 minutes = 79 pages
Listened to 26th to 27th June 2019
Why I listened to it: Listening to the Companion Chronicles for Doctor Who that are available on Spotify.
Rating: *** - Quite enjoyable, but in hindsight it probably raises more questions than it should have, and definitely more than it's equipped to really handle.
Book #182
Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, by Ursula K. Le Guin and David Naimon
150 pages
Read 29th to 30th June 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Related Work.
Rating: *** - One last glorious reminder of Le Guin's prickly, generous genius. A reminder is all that it really is though. Not that that's a bad thing, but it felt a little jarringly short at the very end, even if this is arguably as long as it needs to be. Credit of course needs to go to Naimon as well for being a wonderful interviewer, drawing insight from Le Guin and knowing the right questions to ask. All in all, there were far worse "we're very sad that this legendary figure died" award decisions this year.
Book #183
Saga Volume 9, written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples
152 pages
Read 23rd to 30th June 2019
Why I read it: It was a finalist for this year's Hugo for Best Graphic Story.
Rating: *** - Hmmm. I think I might not have been in the mood for it this time, but at the same time, you know what? This isn't what I was looking for this time. this overwhelming grimness and abrupt character death and (though I realise depiction is definitely not endorsement in this case) homophobia. Don't get me wrong, the art is lovely and there's quite a good few charming interactions within all the rest of it, but there's a good reason I put Paper Girls above it in my final six, and I stand by that.
Book #184
A Larger Reality: Speculative Fiction from the Bicultural Margins, edited by Libia Brenda
190 pages
Read 30th June 2019
Why I read it: It was part of the Mexicanx Initiative's voter packet for the Hugo for Best Related Work.
Rating: *** - Unexpectedly quite weak. None of the stories are very good, only a few of them really reach towards being good, and there's a general lack of care and copyediting throughout the entire volume. I don't like saying it at all, but this definitely caused my enthusiasm towards the Initiative to take a real dive when I read it.
2025 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 23 (other topics)Touchstone (other topics)
Pokémon Adventures, Vol. 1 (other topics)
Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 22 (other topics)
Doctor Who: Energy of the Daleks (other topics)
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Book #136
Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Archives Vol. 2
288 pages
Read 29th April to 4th May 2019
Why I read it: Reading more of my Doctor Who comics.
Rating: *** - Solid enough, but ultimately quite disposable for the most part and too wildly varying in art styles.