Joe Kessler > Recent Status Updates

Yeah, so this is pretty dreadful so far. The worst sort of pompous middle-aged male angst.

Okay... but why are you both working so hard to retrieve your abuser's soul from hell?

"That was one of the joys of specializing in linguistics: the escape from pure maths."

Extremely weird, but I'm digging it so far. (Read this much on this morning's flight to Seattle.)

This is probably going to be a two-star, and I do feel bad about that. Oh well.

1) This is too far into the book to still be playing coy about how the two main protagonists are connected.

2) Why so many flashback's to Alice's childhood? I really feel like they're doing nothing to flesh out her character or her current predicament.

"I was so turned around by now I couldn't have pointed to the way out if you'd put a gun to my head. I was seriously considering leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind me, or unreeling a long thread, or carving directional arrows in the polished woodwork. But that would have been uncouth, and I hate running out of couth in the middle of a case."

Good AU history / worldbuilding, but I still feel like I don't know anything about the narrator except that he's Jewish and a kid. This book needs more of his presence in it.

Book #145 of this year apparently isn't on Goodreads yet (Olive and the Dragon by Victoria Goddard; just came out this week). Gonna post the review on my blog and try to remember to come back and add it here at some point when I can.

I know all worldbuilding has to draw a line somewhere and use real-world concepts at some point, but referring to a lesson as something 101 just totally took me out.

This is hovering somewhere between 3 and 4 stars so far.

Someone talk me out of reading the new Dan Brown book, please.

‪Fun fact, I once played George Putnam in a very bad three-person play about AE. Curious to see how much that script got wrong, lol‬

No, sorry, this twist is dumb and retroactively makes the cool earlier one worse. That alone might have just dropped this book from a 5 to a 4 for me.

There's another twist I'm assuming is coming that feels pretty obvious, but I'm still so delighted by that last one that totally blindsided me.

Okay, THAT is a good twist.

This book came out in 2006, which means that while the sonic screwdriver earlier was definitely a reference to Doctor Who, the mention of weeping angel statues just now was a sheer coincidence.

(Or, you know, time travel.)

This relationship is honestly what Fitz and the Fool could/should have been, if he wasn't such a phobe.

“There was no coffee in Sky Ocean,” he informed his friend solemnly. “Nor tea. Nor chocolate.”

“Not my idea of the realm of the gods,” Ludvic replied, with barely a smile.

“Most of the time, I have come to realize, our loved ones wish for two things: that they are happy, and that we are happy.”

“Very simple.”

“Indeed. The problem comes when they think they know what makes us happy—or even more, when they see us unhappy and assume that if only we did what they think is right, we would be content.”

“Don’t drown yourself to make a point, Cliopher Mdang. You don’t need to be anything but who you are.”

"He almost wished they had the Empire of Astandalas back, simply so they could destroy it even more thoroughly."

“You did not shatter the chains and burn down the Empire, which is what my friends of the Red Company would have done if they had come for me[...] No. You picked apart the knots and made the locks no longer necessary."

“You didn’t even notice the sirens.”

Cliopher blinked at him. “There were sirens? I heard singing …”

The god cackled like a kookaburra. “Not a glance at them! They came crying to me, all those lusty beauties. A mortal man sailing by, caught on the reefs, lonely—so lonely! And then! Not even a glance!"

The benefits of an asexual protagonist! Haha

Eh. This could pick up and become a 4 by the end, but it sure feels like a 3-star so far.

That was an utterly fascinating interlude, but I'm glad it's not going to be the whole rest of the book. On to whatever's next!

I'm listening along to the official Spotify playlist for this, and most of these songs I do not actually like lol. But the book is good!

Penpal confirmed!!