Fantasy romance set in a magical realm based on Australia, which makes a change.
I enjoyed absolutely masses of this. The premise is really fun--a priFantasy romance set in a magical realm based on Australia, which makes a change.
I enjoyed absolutely masses of this. The premise is really fun--a prince studying magic is catapulted into kingship by his parents' murder, and struggles with trying to given and fix the mistakes of the past, revolution, the harassment of his deeply obnoxious compulsory fool, and his attraction to a mysterious man who won't give his name. (You get null points if you think you've figured out the plot twist, that isn't the point, ahaha.) The writing is energetic and fast moving, though with slightly episodic pacing, there are some very fun aspects to the set up especially the Fools, the romance (closed door) is really nice, and in general the author can tell a story, which is not a gift possessed by all.
To my mind, unfortunately, the book draws its own teeth with some plot developments in the latter half. (view spoiler)[Basically the Fool/Raven is forced to stop being a fool, and at that point the character basically becomes a cipher, there to support Leo the king who now takes centre stage. I can see why that decision was made from a structural perspective, but for me it stripped away so much of the fun and kind of wasted the frankly terrific build up with the whole Fool concept. (hide spoiler)] Others' mileage may vary on this, and it may well work better if you're more invested in the fantasy plot than the romance, but for me it took out one of the most enjoyable elements of the book. Which is to say, I wouldn't have made that writing decision. But writing mental editorial letters is something I only do when I'm highly invested in a book, so there you are. I will look forward to seeing more from this author. ...more
Putting both the weird and the wild in the West, this is a fantasy Western with stone cold rotten MCs: the Reverend Rook (hexslinger), his lover ChessPutting both the weird and the wild in the West, this is a fantasy Western with stone cold rotten MCs: the Reverend Rook (hexslinger), his lover Chess (freelance psychopathic murderer with issues) and their companion Morrow (a Pinkerton undercover), leading towards a sort of Aztec apocalypse. It's pacy, gory, amoral fun that I enjoyed a lot. There is a fair bit of racism since a) US historical setting, and b) as noted, all the MCs are pretty awful. the structure is somewhat chaotic but it moves so fast I didn't care, and clearly nothing is going to end well but you don't come to the Aztec pantheon for that, lol. ...more
Marvellous, of course. A terrific reimagining of the Snow White story, in which a poisons specialist is trying to find out what's killing the king's dMarvellous, of course. A terrific reimagining of the Snow White story, in which a poisons specialist is trying to find out what's killing the king's daughter...only the stepmother is already dead. Some lovely scares, deeply warped monsters, and a nice understated romance, plus an excellent talking cat: enjoyed every word. ...more
Jeez this was long. I think I should have read it twenty years ago when I wasn't so aware of my dwindling lifespan, but as it is I kind of felt that iJeez this was long. I think I should have read it twenty years ago when I wasn't so aware of my dwindling lifespan, but as it is I kind of felt that it didn't quite earn its length. (eg a A Memory called Empire is probably much the same length but the complexity and amazingly tight construction means you don't feel it. However, you can't go round demanding every book be A Memory called Empire or you'll just be perenially disappointed.)
I had a few niggles that might have bothered me less at a faster clip (because I had time to think about them, ahaha). The premise and characters are fairly straightforward though the plot twists and turns (it really isn't a murder mystery despite the blurb, it's immediately obvious to the reader whodunnit), and I had a few practical issues with the world itself. However, it's highly readable, well written and tell an engaging story, and if you're in the mood for lengthy immersion this will float your boat to perfection. ...more
I'm always a bit wary of fantasy novels centred around books/bookshops/libraries, in that it's pretty hard to do anything new and there's often a centI'm always a bit wary of fantasy novels centred around books/bookshops/libraries, in that it's pretty hard to do anything new and there's often a centripetal pull towards a kind of bookish smugness. This one managed that perfectly, because the magic is proper horrifying in its concept and in how it's been executed, including a reveal which is quite spectacularly sickening for reader and character alike.
The pacing is nice, with a good accelerating tempo and some proper ARGH tension. And the main characters are very enjoyable to spend time with. I do wonder if the author changed her mind about how the romance plot was going to go, because the one we ended up with wasn't the relationship that leapt off the page, but overall it's a really strong ensemble with well managed POV.
Highly enjoyable, intensely readable, had me glued for long stretches.
I really liked the idea behind this. It's a sort of Inception where the characters at a party keep going to deeper, stranger levels of unreality (EchoI really liked the idea behind this. It's a sort of Inception where the characters at a party keep going to deeper, stranger levels of unreality (Echoes), living through the same hour or so in different ways, while trying to prevent the bad guys from doing the bad thing. Along with this there's a low key but very enjoyable sapphic romance.
It didn't work so well in the execution for me. I'd have liked the Echoes to be more distinct, and to be used more. A lot of them we didn't even see because we were repeatedly in the same party environment. (Anyone who dies is restored at the next level down because it's not real till the end, which inevitably lowered the interim stakes considerably.) I really liked the heroines, and indeed having a nursing mother do the kickass things, and a lot of the ideas are terrific and ingenious; I just felt it needed more movement and propulsion to live up to itself. On the other hand, you might say that given the premise, the repetition and limitation of the setting are literally the point of the exercise, and I wouldn't argue. YMMV, I think. ...more
Shaman-based fantasy in the Five Gods world. Starts a bit slowly and I'd have liked the heroine's POV as well, but terrific atmosphere, I liked the maShaman-based fantasy in the Five Gods world. Starts a bit slowly and I'd have liked the heroine's POV as well, but terrific atmosphere, I liked the magic, and the antagonist is tremendous. Not as good as Curse of Chalion but what is....more
A truly marvellous fantasy in the Five Gods world. Beautifully structured, all clicking into place in a way that is deeply satisfying for the reader iA truly marvellous fantasy in the Five Gods world. Beautifully structured, all clicking into place in a way that is deeply satisfying for the reader if quite traumatic for the characters / tools of the gods. Proper villains, the good guys winning through kindness and determination, a really lovely numinous sense of awe. As excellent as I expected, no idea why this was on Mount TBR for so long....more
I glommed this entire novella sequence in a few days earlier this autumn. I glommed this. I will glom anything Bujold wishes to write in this series. I glommed this entire novella sequence in a few days earlier this autumn. I glommed this. I will glom anything Bujold wishes to write in this series. That is all.
(Please do not recommend that I should start other Bujold series, as I actually need to earn money, eat etc rather than spending all day going through her books like a cartoon chipmunk.)
(I have Paladin of Souls queued for the holidays)...more
This review is going to have to stand for the entire Penric and Desdemona series, all 11 books of which I have just glommed over a 36 hour period. AllThis review is going to have to stand for the entire Penric and Desdemona series, all 11 books of which I have just glommed over a 36 hour period. All the rest are novellas and I've been sick okay, leave me alone.
This series is now firmly ensconsced in my Favourites folder. The purest comfort reading--deeply kind but never sentimental or (shudder) cosy, lots of threat and tension but nevertheless a feeling you're in safe hands with both author and character, a deeply enjoyable, well developed world that you can sink into, and a steely moral spine underlying it all. Tremendous stuff. ...more
A carnival comes to a repressed Scottish town, all crab bucket, moral condemnation, and domestic violence, bringing queerness and fatness and disabiliA carnival comes to a repressed Scottish town, all crab bucket, moral condemnation, and domestic violence, bringing queerness and fatness and disability and sex and chaos.
There were a lot of things to like here--good descriptions, very powerful sense of the stifling awfulness of Pitlaw, the toxic masculinity, the stifled or distorted lives of adults, and the teenagers' desperation to escape. I mostly liked as well that the carnival isn't all powerful and definitely isn't an unalloyed good: in particular Nancy's desire to be free and powerful is done off the back of ruining the lives of a lot of teenage girls who never did a damn thing to her.
That was, actually, where I parted company with this book: it gave me a really uncomfortable deep-down sense that Ruth, aged 16, somehow deserved to be punished for...wanting to do an accountancy course? not liking her sister's baby? being a bit middle class? It's weirdly nebulous but something about the savage kicking she gets through the course of the book really got under my skin. (view spoiler)[Meanwhile the teen boy equivalent gets forgiveness and a happy ending. Hmm. (hide spoiler)]...more
This is such a good series - using British folklore to underpin very modern fantasy. This one takes a new tack by putting Dan (dryad's son) and Fin (sThis is such a good series - using British folklore to underpin very modern fantasy. This one takes a new tack by putting Dan (dryad's son) and Fin (swan maiden, for a given value of maiden) into a closed environment and timescale. (They find themselves stuck in a tiny village, cut off from communications, with a near-newborn baby who's been swapped for a changeling, and who must be kept alive long enough to sort it all out. This is not within Dan's comfort zone.)
It works really well. The tension is strong after a very domestic start, the stakes are seriously high, the antagonist properly menacing, the folklore cleverly deployed. And yet another fantastic cover: these look so good. Great stuff. ...more
What a fascinating book. It's a fantasy of politics/manners (think Goblin Emperor, genre-wise) in which a party girl come to the Empire's bright lightWhat a fascinating book. It's a fantasy of politics/manners (think Goblin Emperor, genre-wise) in which a party girl come to the Empire's bright lights from rural Verantha finds herself the sole remaining Veranthan in the capital and thus, by default, the ambassador, when her country is invaded and obliterated by a rival expansionist empire, Clath. Luckily, our heroine's girfriend is a favourite of the emperor, and the two women, backed by the emperor's money and a host of loyal yet cunning servitors, manouevre to keep alive the ambassador herself, the name of Verantha, and eventually an increasing stream of refugees.
Which all sounds very cosy-politics (yes that's a genre, we live in strange times). But it's not cosy, and it's not in ways that the book does a staggering job of not talking about. Thus, we despise the expansionist Clath with its coloniser ways and aggression. We really feel Malance's loss and existential agony at the subsumation of her homeland, the attack on her identity, the brutal power that Clath now claims over her and her countrymen. That's properly horrifying. And yet, *at the same time*, Malance is perfectly happy with slavery. She buys two young men, has sex with them, calls these men 'her boys', and makes them available for her friends to have sex with (with their consent, as if consent is a meaningful thing when you buy people). Meanwhile, the Emperor's page system involves taking young children (some poor orphans with no choice), making sure he has their whole loyalty, and training them both to kill and to risk their own lives on his orders.
The entire book is very deep third person, entirely mediated by Malance's thoughts and feelings, and at no point do we see her object to this fundamental removal of other people's choices and liberty, even as she is traumatised by the loss of her own country's freedom. It's safer and more comfortable for Malance to go along with the Empire's ways because she is entirely dependent on the Emperor and the society he rules to survive. And thus we see her push down her discomfort and awareness of the constant manipulation going on around her, including in her relationship (with a spectacularly spoiled rich girl who floats on a cushion of privilege, but is also a highly trained and ruthless ex-page (absolute cow, we love her)) while it sits in the reader's mind like a stone in the shoe.
Malance doesn't actively confront a damn thing until the end (view spoiler)[at which point a revelation happens that cracks the shell of 'this is fine' like an egg, and upends Malance 's determination to buy into the society she's living in and not face the problems...for a couple of lines, until she accepts a doubly awful immoral act as necessary, leaving the reader gaping at the brilliance of the title (hide spoiler)].
In fact, this is a book that expects--demands--the reader to think about what's presented and draw their own conclusions, which are unlikely to be aligned with the heroine's feelings, even though her feelings are all we get. Which in turns makes me think, wow, we really are in a time where authors are expected to put up big moral signposts pointing "Correct Viewpoint This Way" and it's highly refreshing to read a book that doesn't hold your hand, let alone tug you by it.
I am sure some people are going to decide the author is pro-bad things because the book presents bad things without explicitly asserting they are bad. I would say, rather, this is a book that shows you exactly how people accept moral compromises and bad things happening to other people because [my comfort demands it/that's just how things are/you have to be realistic about politics, and if that's bad for other people, that's a risk I'm prepared to take]. I related it very much to ancient Athens while I was reading, a society that engaged sincerely and passionately with the philosophical underpinning of rights and freedoms, while kind of ignoring that this intellectual paradise was entirely propped up by slavery and the subjugation of women.
Highly readable, immersive, clever, and very unsettling. What an absolutely fascinating book.
Whacking great epic fantasy. There's a lot going on here--three major plotlines (of which two are very much setting up backstory and lining up the resWhacking great epic fantasy. There's a lot going on here--three major plotlines (of which two are very much setting up backstory and lining up the rest of the series), three very different cultures marked by some bold stylistic decisions. One group's speech identifies themselves in relation to the interlocutor instead of using 'I' so you say 'your brother/father/friend/lord thinks' instead of 'I think'. I thought this worked terrifically, as it's used to subtly illustrate out a lot of shifting relationships. and supports the very hierarchical nature of the society. Another has six pronouns for various genders, which is indicated with diacritics of which, honestly, I immediately forgot the meanings, probably because they aren't in the main plot. Overall, it underpins the dramatically different ways of thinking, which is vital for the narrative because this is absolutely a book about culture clash, and whether we let rigid thinking destroy us.
The main plotline is highly entertaining--Viking type raiders fleeing a monster pretty much demand to settle with another community, causing any amount of chaos as the two groups start to find an accommodation. I had a few queries (largely, I really couldn't see why the rigid, religious and patriarchal Naridans were entirely chill about homosexuality, while the homophobic raiders had women chiefs and warriors and were chill about casual sex and preventing pregnancy--isn't homophobia generally an aspect of patriarchal control and misogyny?) but I really liked the depiction of the two leaders desperately trying to make their situation work rather than settling in for war, and we come to care strongly about them both. Plus, there are rideable dragons, which are basically feathery dinosaurs, and a villain gets a very satisfactory comeuppance, so what's not to like.
I rarely have the stamina for brick-thick epic fantasy these days but I enjoyed this a lot, and I will definitely want to continue the series, given a run up. ...more
Utterly fabulous concept (sapphic vampires in the Harlem Renaissance!) and gorgeous cover but the writing didn't engage me and it felt a bit, IDK, youUtterly fabulous concept (sapphic vampires in the Harlem Renaissance!) and gorgeous cover but the writing didn't engage me and it felt a bit, IDK, young despite the violence. I dunno, YMMV, just a non click for me. ...more
A Mexican-set retelling of the HG Wells Dr Moreau story, in which the doctor has a daughter. Told in alternating POV between Carlota and Moreau's EnglA Mexican-set retelling of the HG Wells Dr Moreau story, in which the doctor has a daughter. Told in alternating POV between Carlota and Moreau's English assistant Montgomery, an alcoholic hollow man.
Beautiful writing, lovely well-realised setting, and does interesting things with the original in terms of feminism and colonialism. I liked the depiction of Carlota in particular, and the interplay of the main characters. I'd have liked to see more deeply into the hybrids, who are for the most part rather background.
This is decidedly less horrifying than the original: the House of Pain isn't nearly as awful and the hybrid creatures are part of the family. That's very much part of the conception, which has a lot to say about family, forgiveness, and the way love for someone can interact in very difficult ways with who they are and what they do. But...IDK. I am always here for a 'the real monsters are the colonial supremacist patriarchs' story, but is it Dr Moreau if what he's doing isn't in fact that abominable? It loses the bizarre nightmarishness of the original in favour of focusing a great deal more on relationships (love, lies, exploitation). Which are very well done, but I will admit I missed the weird a little, especially since the author gives such great horror....more
A riff on the Sumerian myths of Gilgamesh and Inanna. I know a smidge about Inanna, nothing about Gilgamesh, though the author's note suggests it's noA riff on the Sumerian myths of Gilgamesh and Inanna. I know a smidge about Inanna, nothing about Gilgamesh, though the author's note suggests it's not particularly accurate to the epic.
I enjoyed this a lot. The writing is rather affectless in a saga-ish way, which worked for me as part of the weird atmosphere created by this very alien (literally in some ways) and different culture. It's deeply warped in lots of ways with horrible sexual mores (not a criticism, it's part of the setup, but heads up for readers that there is rape, incest, underage sex and obligatory public sex, all treated as pretty normal in this society). It's in no way erotica.
The whole thing is kind of nuts, honestly, but has a propulsive fairytale quality and a lot of hidden deep feeling under the affectless writing, and I found it highly readable. I look forward to more. ...more
Absolutely gleeful ride of a novella based on Filipino mythology. Maria is a woman whose boyfriend has juOkay now *this* is how you riff on folklore.
Absolutely gleeful ride of a novella based on Filipino mythology. Maria is a woman whose boyfriend has just declared his love, but whose boss and PT are both pursuing her. At which point she abruptly remembers that she's the goddess of a mountain, and the four of them have been playing out the same sequence for years: boyfriend declares love, Maria goes to wild lengths to protect him including capturing a tikbalang (half-horse half gym bro) but one of the other suitors eventually kills him. Restart.
This time, though, Maria decides to do things differently, including asking for the tikbalang's help instead of enslaving him, and it all plays out differently from there.
Tons of action, lots of highly entertaining banter, but touching on some very serious themes, plus the appearances of some terrific mythical creatures, also Margaret Atwood. What, it's half set in Canada, it's virtually compulsory.
I can see why this is so beloved. I was--I think it's perhaps fair to say appreciating it more than enjoying it, in that the characters are not terribI can see why this is so beloved. I was--I think it's perhaps fair to say appreciating it more than enjoying it, in that the characters are not terribly likeable and the plot is slow in part because of all the POV shifts and framing, devices, but those things it's doing with POV are brilliant. But I'm midway through and the grimdark violence is more than I can currently manage. Which I regret a lot, but I keep picking it up, going back into the scene, and going 'oof no'. Hopefully to return to. ...more
Conclusion of this highly entertaining series about a Wild West where mathematics have been outlawed. Full of puns while pretending to take itself verConclusion of this highly entertaining series about a Wild West where mathematics have been outlawed. Full of puns while pretending to take itself very seriously, and hits the balance just right. Good fun. ...more
