Didn’t get time to read anything this week.
What about all of you? What have you all been reading or listening to lately?
Book Bingo midpoint is also up, check it out!
Just finished A Woman of No Importance, by Sonia Purnell. As a French speaking Belgian, I never before heard about this resistance hero. I enjoyed very much this history book which is just very well written. On the story itself, it produced some thinking about why Virginia Hall is so lowly known. I therefore learned a lot with another point of view of WW2 than what the after-war propaganda wanted the people to retain and therefore what remained in history books. All about how she was badly considered just because she had not the right gender was very disturbing too. I advise anyone interested in history to read this book.
I’m going to start reading As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow, by Zoulfa Katouh.
Finished “a swim in a pond in the rain” by George Saunders. Quite good, sort of a writers analysis of Russian short stories. Reading “Mind the science” which is also pretty enjoyable.
I’ve finally started The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I’m not sure when I’ll finish it, but so far, it’s much better than I was expecting. At the very least, I hate Danglars and am hoping there’s not some stupid parable of Christian forgiveness at the end, because I want that guy to get destroyed.
I often have a hard time enjoying older books, but I’m surprised so far at how very human all these characters Dumas is writing feel. Aside from the obviously dated aspects of the novel, it feels very much like they could be anyone I know today.
Also recently finished Queen of Faces by Petra Lord, which I picked up by mistake thinking it was an adult novel for some reason, lol. But I gave it a chance since I had it, and stuck with the YA novel anyway because the world was somewhat interesting. Honestly, it felt like it should have been an adult book. It barely made use of the magic academy, which in hindsight should have been a redflag that it was indeed YA. The anime vibe was strange (they kept using ‘manga’ instead of ‘comic’ in a fictional world with no Japan, and their ‘unique’ magic had names). The characters were pretty flat, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to find Ori as the most interesting character. Also, the real villain of the story was obvious. If you like YA, it’s good enough. I’m certainly not the audience, but it was enjoyable for what it was.
To learn more about this fictional countryman of mine, I’ve started reading (only) the Hercule Poirot books by Agatha Christie. Currently in the middle of number 3: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Finished reading, “The Thrice-Bound Fool” by Christopher Buehlman. The ending to it was great, but I still think the “The Daughter’s War” was the best of out all three books out so far.
I’m almost finished reading, “The Maidens” by Alex Michaelides. It’s an interesting read so far. I enjoyed his previous work, “Silent Patient”
Been reading Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, yes that one, it’s pretty good, I enjoy that autism is the thing that allows you to see demons. It’s genuinely sinister, especially knowing this evil isn’t imprisoned to the page.
The chronicles of narnia.
Didn’t really think about it, but they are way more children’s book than I expected. Which is not the most entertaining I guess, but it’s also funny that you expect a twist behind everything an then there isn’t.
I finished the Takeshi Kovacs novels (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies) from Richard K Morgan. They were good. He likes to use the word ‘laconic’ a lot though lol.
Now Im reading Leviathan Wakes (1st book of The Expanse series) by James S.A. Corey which I learned a bit ago is actually 2 people: Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham. It has also been good.
One of them is also George RR Martins understudy, or was.
They also each wrote different perspectives, and tied them in together during meetings. How it was done was fantastic in my opinion.
If you enjoy it, you should also check out their new trilogy, only two books are out so far. The Captives War.
Ill add them to the list!
Be warned, it’s not entirely the same type of story, where The Expanse is politics forward, this one’s more about the bueuracacy of science, or anything for that matter. But has the same type of story telling, delivery, and
Tap for spoiler
Zero fucks about who you are to the plot.
My husband and I started rewatching the show (The Expanse to be clear) after I finished the books recently. Plenty of differences but the spirit is there and the actors are awesome. But I think my favorite is listening to the books while imagining the actors as their characters.
They were really committed to adapting the overall story, which helps. Small stuff gets changed and characters are shifted around some, but basically all the events are the same. It’s an excellent adaptation.
Oh and not too long ago I read the two books from the upcoming Exodus game, written by Peter F. Hamilton (Exodus: The Archimedes Engine, and Exodus: The Helium Sea), Neat setting and some good characters, but there was too much detail on seemingly unimportant things for my tastes. I felt like they could have trimmed it more. But I suppose others might like the extra details
Both great series. I’m re-listening to The Expanse right now, and I love it.
Both of these series are on my list, and I was thinking about Altered Carbon next.
I watched the first season of Altered Carbon a long time ago, and liked the premise. I haven’t seen the Expanse yet, so figured I might read them before watching the show.
Altered Carbon S1 is really good, but its still different from the book. Maybe by like 30%, so some key things change, but the show is still solid. S2 of AC is entirely different from what I recall of the show though so Im not sure I can advise going beyond season 1.
Listening to the reworked Antimemetics book, after having read the original SCP story a while ago
It’s a bit weird with the SCP licence name changes, but still great
Down to the last 10% or so of Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. I complained last week that it was taking a long time to get where it was going, and it still is, imo, even though I’m in the part frostypanda said was the good bit. (They were right, for the record.) I don’t dislike it, or regret reading it, but I do want to be done already.
I’ve had that feeling with so many books. Glad you’re liking the last bit though 👍
I couldn’t get into the first one, for some reason. People love it but it didn’t work for me.
It took me a couple tries to get through Gideon, tbh. And it was fine, but it didn’t wow me. Harrow was touted as weirder and more challenging and “oh, you’re gonna have to do a reread after”, so I figured I’d give it a shot, but I think maybe I’m just not the demographic for it.
I’m almost done with The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, and I have to admit, I have no clue what’s going on and am totally disengaged. The beginning and middle were so much more compelling and the book takes such a strange turn when he leaves the citadel. Everything afterwards reads like some sort of dream sequence where no one’s actions or behaviour make any sense.
I read this recently and also found it kinda underwhelming. I know there’s a massive kinda cult following of this series and supposedly this massive layering in the writing that makes it amazing or whatever, but for me, it was just a dull read. It was a bit of a slog for me.
Yeah, the dream sequence vibe is why I love this series so much. It’s one of those, “it’s the journey, not the destination” kind of things, where you savor the prose while enjoying the ride while not thinking too much about where it’s headed. At least, for Me. I get it if you’re not as into it, and you’re far from alone in that.
I’m rereading Dune Messiah.
I was reading The Garden of Rama, but I had to take a break from it.
I’ve been on “break” from Garden of Rama for over a year now. That book went off the fucking rails.
One of the things that made me go on a break was when the earth side group were assigned quarters and Clarke writes something like “This is going to go bad”, my response was okay I’ll just read some other book then. And this is after making it through the (first?) teenage bride stuff, a bit too republican for my taste.
And the sigh of relief when I read Dune, “A writer that knows how to tell a story!”.
It by Stephen King. I have seen the made for TV movie with Tim Curry and the first part of the recently made movies. Finally getting around to reading the book now.
Currently halfway through listening to a collection of short stories called Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar
And about 1/3 through We are Legion (We are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
Enjoying both so far! Have already placed a request for the next Bobiverse book from the Library.
Bobiverse is great
Just finished the latest book. Now I’m slightly annoyed I need to wait for the last book, as it ends on quite a cliffhanger…
I read Sigyn’s Sigil by Megan Trotter. I’ll write a more thorough commentary here than I sometimes do because this is self published by a local (?) writer and I expect you’ll have difficulty sourcing you own copies. It wasn’t even listed on Storygraph until I added it myself.
Last time I left the used book sale with a self-published book like this, I complained here about offensive restrictions on the copyright page. No such objections can be made about this book, and that’s because it … well, it doesn’t have a copyright page. The front cover is nicely illustrated, the half-title page is autographed by the author, and then it’s straight into chapter one. Not even a list of the author’s other works, although I suspect this is a sequel to Sigyn’s Song.
Sigyn used to be a mermaid, possibly one heavily inspired by HCA’s Little Mermaid. Now in Sigil, she has fresh legs and lungs in her humanoid form. She also has the hots for the Norse god Loki, but is insecure about it because as a siren, she can make anyone fall in love with her and isn’t sure if Loki’s feelings are real or magic. Anyway, she and Loki are hanging out with Thor because he needs help getting his hammer, Mjollnir back from the giants. Apparently he mislaid it while whoring it up with some festival wench. The giant king is apparently willing to return it if Freya marries him, which isn’t going to happen. So Loki shapeshifts Thor into the form of the goddess Freya, and himself into her handmaiden and the three ‘girls’ set off to trade her for Thor’s hammer. Other than Sigyn’s involvement, this plot line is from Thrymskvidha in the Poetic Edda, portions of which are excerpted for the chapter headings. Amazingly, they manage to pull this ruse off, despite the gods’ unladylike behavior. Giant shaman Ymir knows the truth and doesn’t out them, but isn’t as helpful as they’d hoped although he seems to not want to get Sigyn killed for her part in this. They learn the hammer is hidden in the ocean, and Sigyn displays heroism and her mermaid background to recover it, while protecting the team from a deadly horse shaped water Nokk. Thor gets his hammer back and Ymir bestows Sigyn with a magic water sigil. They also liberated the Egyptian god, Set from Thrym’s dungeon and might be setting up for a sequel involving him.
Romantasy isn’t a genre I usually seek out, although I found this more humorous than erotic, and better writing and proofreading than some more commercially successful authors I’ve read. As appropriate for a polytheistic setting, the characters never say “goddamn”, it’s always “godsdamn”. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a book like this, but I think it satisfied my expectations anyway.
That sounds fun. It’s nice to see a review for self-published stuff, too!
