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Books read in 2026
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Driving Home Naked, by Melinda G. McCall. Biography. Paperback, 291 pages. Dr. Melinda McCall’s very short stories of her work as a veterinarian from 1990-2022 (she’s still a practicing vet). Giving it to a vet friend to read and pass along. (2023)
This book is full of short stories of a long adventure into large animal veterinary work. It’s an easy read and good for filling quiet cracks of time over many evenings. It’s also unexpectedly funny in places; those readers with either animals or children will find a lot to love in these pages.
While her stories are definitely not for the squeamish, Dr. McCall does not linger on the spectacle but rather focuses on the work and the world in which she lives. She narrates the tragedy and triumph of each story in a close, friendly voice which remains authentic across the years as Dr. McCall goes from fresh graduate to owner of her own practice and mother of her own strong daughter.
Dr. McCall doesn’t linger on the negatives of the profession. However, she makes clear the absolutely grueling work and hours that large animal vets face and the dangers of burnout and suicide. If I am reading it right, she is still paying off her student loans 30 years after graduation. While she minimizes the emotional impact, she makes the rampant sexism very obvious. There is a lot of heartache in country medicine at any level. And there is also joy in seeing a community come together to help each other to make things right.
This book is full of short stories of a long adventure into large animal veterinary work. It’s an easy read and good for filling quiet cracks of time over many evenings. It’s also unexpectedly funny in places; those readers with either animals or children will find a lot to love in these pages.
While her stories are definitely not for the squeamish, Dr. McCall does not linger on the spectacle but rather focuses on the work and the world in which she lives. She narrates the tragedy and triumph of each story in a close, friendly voice which remains authentic across the years as Dr. McCall goes from fresh graduate to owner of her own practice and mother of her own strong daughter.
Dr. McCall doesn’t linger on the negatives of the profession. However, she makes clear the absolutely grueling work and hours that large animal vets face and the dangers of burnout and suicide. If I am reading it right, she is still paying off her student loans 30 years after graduation. While she minimizes the emotional impact, she makes the rampant sexism very obvious. There is a lot of heartache in country medicine at any level. And there is also joy in seeing a community come together to help each other to make things right.
Books: The Keeper’s Six
Aug. 13th, 2023 02:20 pmThe Keeper’s Six, by Kate Elliott. Fantasy. Hardback, 196 pages. Stand-alone about a mother searching for her kidnapped son and then for justice and balance. Also about traveling through the formless magical realms.
The plot of the book is that a “Light,” one of the six people/roles of a realm-traveling Hex, discovers that her son - a “Keeper” - has been kidnapped. She summons the rest of her suspended-for-breach-of-context Hex to help her find her son, rescue him, and restore him to his family. This was basically an expanded short story about contracts and dragons and inspectors. The expanded verbiage was all character color and worldbuilding that did not particularly aid or distract from the main line of chat.
The main character and her children are Jewish. The Earth setting is Oahu. Both of these contexts add flavor and color to the story in tones that I have rarely seen singly much less in conjunction. The novelty (ha ha) was refreshing at the beginning with both prayer and mezuzah and I was sad that the only gentile-noticed-it Jewish thing at the end was a brief bit of linguistic aside.
( more )
The plot of the book is that a “Light,” one of the six people/roles of a realm-traveling Hex, discovers that her son - a “Keeper” - has been kidnapped. She summons the rest of her suspended-for-breach-of-context Hex to help her find her son, rescue him, and restore him to his family. This was basically an expanded short story about contracts and dragons and inspectors. The expanded verbiage was all character color and worldbuilding that did not particularly aid or distract from the main line of chat.
The main character and her children are Jewish. The Earth setting is Oahu. Both of these contexts add flavor and color to the story in tones that I have rarely seen singly much less in conjunction. The novelty (ha ha) was refreshing at the beginning with both prayer and mezuzah and I was sad that the only gentile-noticed-it Jewish thing at the end was a brief bit of linguistic aside.
( more )
Midlife in Gretna Green, by Linzi Day. Urban Fantasy. Paperback, 478 pages. Midlife Recorder Book 1. (2022)
Let me start by saying that I enjoyed it as a lovely puddle to splash in without any investment. A book needs two out of three things for me to enjoy it enough to finish it: characters in which I can invest emotional time, interesting worldbuilding, and engrossing plot. This one utterly failed on the plot, but the characters and worldbuilding were enough fun to carry me through. That said…
Ahem.
Was there too much action for you in The Goblin Emperor?
Did you think there were too many characters in Legends and Lattes?
Are you longing to spend 400 pages watching someone decide to quit her job?
—- Then I have the book for you! —-
Presenting the Latest in Troperific “Paranormal Women’s Fiction!” (That’s what the book says on the cover.)
Starring… A middle-aged woman with no siblings or children, an estranged mother, and an odd magical inheritance from grandma. She is a skinny dishwater blonde one year out of a horrible marriage but still trapped at a dead-end job under an abusive female boss.
Also starring - The Black Woman Best Friend - the energetic, positive, single-mother, heart of gold, can do no wrong professional lawyer who is given all the fun roles and has no depth or dimensions beyond “energetic” and “foil.”
In supporting roles:
Memories of the abusive, manipulative ex-husband
Actions and comments by the abusive, manipulative boss
The (deceased) magical grandma who didn’t trust change or technology
The all-powerful, self-aware House that loves both change and technology
The wise, powerful, trustworthy old man from her past
The creepy younger guy who weaves lies and truths
The absolutely adorable, best-behaved, perfectly talented child of Black Woman Best Friend
The emotionally important little doggie (Bichon) named Tilly (though the editors missed a self-insert of the author’s dog’s name “Lucy” early on)
The big magic dog-friend from her childhood
Enough handwavium/magic pixie dust to cover a rainbow of plot holes
Concerned that you might have your emotions manipulated by surprises? Never fear!
All plot turns politely use their turn signals.
All characters are morally exactly as first presented.
Watch as our timid heroine discovers her past, frees herself from the present, and marches bravely into the future of being… The Recorder … and also tech support for seven magical kingdoms.
Let me start by saying that I enjoyed it as a lovely puddle to splash in without any investment. A book needs two out of three things for me to enjoy it enough to finish it: characters in which I can invest emotional time, interesting worldbuilding, and engrossing plot. This one utterly failed on the plot, but the characters and worldbuilding were enough fun to carry me through. That said…
Ahem.
Was there too much action for you in The Goblin Emperor?
Did you think there were too many characters in Legends and Lattes?
Are you longing to spend 400 pages watching someone decide to quit her job?
—- Then I have the book for you! —-
Presenting the Latest in Troperific “Paranormal Women’s Fiction!” (That’s what the book says on the cover.)
Starring… A middle-aged woman with no siblings or children, an estranged mother, and an odd magical inheritance from grandma. She is a skinny dishwater blonde one year out of a horrible marriage but still trapped at a dead-end job under an abusive female boss.
Also starring - The Black Woman Best Friend - the energetic, positive, single-mother, heart of gold, can do no wrong professional lawyer who is given all the fun roles and has no depth or dimensions beyond “energetic” and “foil.”
In supporting roles:
Memories of the abusive, manipulative ex-husband
Actions and comments by the abusive, manipulative boss
The (deceased) magical grandma who didn’t trust change or technology
The all-powerful, self-aware House that loves both change and technology
The wise, powerful, trustworthy old man from her past
The creepy younger guy who weaves lies and truths
The absolutely adorable, best-behaved, perfectly talented child of Black Woman Best Friend
The emotionally important little doggie (Bichon) named Tilly (though the editors missed a self-insert of the author’s dog’s name “Lucy” early on)
The big magic dog-friend from her childhood
Enough handwavium/magic pixie dust to cover a rainbow of plot holes
Concerned that you might have your emotions manipulated by surprises? Never fear!
All plot turns politely use their turn signals.
All characters are morally exactly as first presented.
Watch as our timid heroine discovers her past, frees herself from the present, and marches bravely into the future of being… The Recorder … and also tech support for seven magical kingdoms.
The Were Chronicles: Random, Wolf, Shifter, by Alma Alexander. YA Urban Fantasy. Paperback omnibus, 612 pages.
YA series about were-kind, but as second-class citizens trying to fit into a society that feared and shamed them. (2014, 2015, 2015; omnibus 2020)
Random was a lot of girl teen angst and a drug overdose/death. Jazz, the third child of a Random shifter family, grew up without any understanding of her older sister's death and absolute silence from her family about it. Just as Jazz started rebelling against her parents' overprotectiveness, she found her sister's diaries and began to blog about it. Jazz's older brother, Mal, was a hostile, discontented boy who was late coming to his Turn. When Jazz turned first, things went sideways across the family.
Wolf was a lot of boy teen angst and guilt about the overdose. This second book takes Mal's point of view. He is as angry and reactive as portrayed in the first book, with an overloading of perspective. He's scared of his role in his sister's death, he's beyond the end of his emotional rope with regards to being a shifter at a regular public school, and he has only one friend in whom he confides.
Shifter... was another level entirely. It was personal, political, exciting, and dangerous. I am not ashamed to say I cried at the end. This story was from Mal's best friend's point of view. He grew up with an unstable mother, no schooling, and no friends. He learned that computers were the best window to understanding who and what he was, and how to protect himself from the world. Then the world - in the form of Mal - came to him anyway.
I admit I skipped some of the first book's diary entries. I don't care all that much about the details of school cliques and upsets. I got more into the second book; Mal had more purpose and drive than Jazz, and the plot moved more than Jazz did. But the third book, about Chalky, was the one that really got to me. He had a richer story while also being a walking Deus Ex Machina for Mal's plot. Yes, the amount of handwavium flowing through these stories was epic, and the constriction of the plot back down to only a few people at the end was masterful.
Content warnings for death of a teenager, child abandonment, medical experiments gone wrong, and parents never knowing what happened to their children.
I put this book on my wish list after I read a note about it from the author Jim Hines.
Recommended for what it was: emotionally YA.
YA series about were-kind, but as second-class citizens trying to fit into a society that feared and shamed them. (2014, 2015, 2015; omnibus 2020)
Random was a lot of girl teen angst and a drug overdose/death. Jazz, the third child of a Random shifter family, grew up without any understanding of her older sister's death and absolute silence from her family about it. Just as Jazz started rebelling against her parents' overprotectiveness, she found her sister's diaries and began to blog about it. Jazz's older brother, Mal, was a hostile, discontented boy who was late coming to his Turn. When Jazz turned first, things went sideways across the family.
Wolf was a lot of boy teen angst and guilt about the overdose. This second book takes Mal's point of view. He is as angry and reactive as portrayed in the first book, with an overloading of perspective. He's scared of his role in his sister's death, he's beyond the end of his emotional rope with regards to being a shifter at a regular public school, and he has only one friend in whom he confides.
Shifter... was another level entirely. It was personal, political, exciting, and dangerous. I am not ashamed to say I cried at the end. This story was from Mal's best friend's point of view. He grew up with an unstable mother, no schooling, and no friends. He learned that computers were the best window to understanding who and what he was, and how to protect himself from the world. Then the world - in the form of Mal - came to him anyway.
I admit I skipped some of the first book's diary entries. I don't care all that much about the details of school cliques and upsets. I got more into the second book; Mal had more purpose and drive than Jazz, and the plot moved more than Jazz did. But the third book, about Chalky, was the one that really got to me. He had a richer story while also being a walking Deus Ex Machina for Mal's plot. Yes, the amount of handwavium flowing through these stories was epic, and the constriction of the plot back down to only a few people at the end was masterful.
Content warnings for death of a teenager, child abandonment, medical experiments gone wrong, and parents never knowing what happened to their children.
I put this book on my wish list after I read a note about it from the author Jim Hines.
Recommended for what it was: emotionally YA.
Books: Knot of Shadows, by Lois Bujold
Oct. 22nd, 2021 09:04 pmI wrote this review for Amazon, because there was only one review already posted and I feel pretty terrible about part of the ending where the lost child is [spoiler].
As posted:
This story takes place some months after Assassins of Thasalon and in the cold wet of a coastal winter, Penric is called on to solve a medical mystery. This one mystery at the Mother's compound expands into a tangle of puzzles, deaths, and small troubles across Vilnoc. For those like me with a love of smaller characters, I celebrate that we get to see more of Master Tolga, a few moments of Learned Siaonn, and spend more time with Alixtra and Arra.
Knot of Shadows is far less manic and hustling than some others in the Penric series. It is neither deliciously uplifting nor amusing at the end. It is a story of persistence, loss, and small grace in dark places. The gods have a place in the lives of souls, and in the end it is their hands which grant justice when justice is denied in human realms.
I adore the Penric series, and this is a solid story that has all the hallmarks of Bujold's resonant prose. Her writing echoes in my heart long after I put her stories down. I am so pleased that she is continuing the Penric series in her retirement, and I look forward to many more tales.
As an aside: Bujold does not shy away from the tragedies and concerns of parents in her works, and this time her prose is worth a content warning regarding accidental harm to a child. (I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but.)
As posted:
This story takes place some months after Assassins of Thasalon and in the cold wet of a coastal winter, Penric is called on to solve a medical mystery. This one mystery at the Mother's compound expands into a tangle of puzzles, deaths, and small troubles across Vilnoc. For those like me with a love of smaller characters, I celebrate that we get to see more of Master Tolga, a few moments of Learned Siaonn, and spend more time with Alixtra and Arra.
Knot of Shadows is far less manic and hustling than some others in the Penric series. It is neither deliciously uplifting nor amusing at the end. It is a story of persistence, loss, and small grace in dark places. The gods have a place in the lives of souls, and in the end it is their hands which grant justice when justice is denied in human realms.
I adore the Penric series, and this is a solid story that has all the hallmarks of Bujold's resonant prose. Her writing echoes in my heart long after I put her stories down. I am so pleased that she is continuing the Penric series in her retirement, and I look forward to many more tales.
As an aside: Bujold does not shy away from the tragedies and concerns of parents in her works, and this time her prose is worth a content warning regarding accidental harm to a child. (I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but.)
Books: Mind over Magic
Sep. 29th, 2021 08:30 amMind over Magic, by Lindsay Buroker. Urban Fantasy (Amazon lists it as "humorous fantasy" even with a body count.). E-pub, 247 page equivalent. Book 1 in A Witch in Wolf Wood series.
A recently divorced, recently laid-off database programmer inherits a house in rural Washington state. Other groups want that land, including a resident lone wolf, a greedy condo developer, and the local witches.
This story avoided some tropes by having fewer and more diverse female support characters: the sister who only cares about science research, the real estate friend who fills in some plot holes, the witch who doesn't appear to have much interest in the goings-on. The dog is not even humor relief, just good company and scene-filler. And our main character is a vegetarian for her health, not for soap box morality.
There was a real failing of opportunity in the crafting of the main character's resistance to the evil witch during the climactic scenes. Were I able to pull Buroker back in time, I would say that this little trick should be the character's anxiety go-to since the beginning, not just a suddenly-discovered and wildly useful mental block.
This is obviously the first in a series. Despite no massive cliff-hangers at the end, there were so many loose threads that it almost didn't count as a complete book.
This is also obviously hetero and headed towards some kind of romance. Thankfully, there wasn't any grunty-alpha she-is-my-destiny nonsense. The two characters develop some respect and understanding with each other. This feels more like a slow burn, might-get-to-romance in the next book.
A recently divorced, recently laid-off database programmer inherits a house in rural Washington state. Other groups want that land, including a resident lone wolf, a greedy condo developer, and the local witches.
This story avoided some tropes by having fewer and more diverse female support characters: the sister who only cares about science research, the real estate friend who fills in some plot holes, the witch who doesn't appear to have much interest in the goings-on. The dog is not even humor relief, just good company and scene-filler. And our main character is a vegetarian for her health, not for soap box morality.
There was a real failing of opportunity in the crafting of the main character's resistance to the evil witch during the climactic scenes. Were I able to pull Buroker back in time, I would say that this little trick should be the character's anxiety go-to since the beginning, not just a suddenly-discovered and wildly useful mental block.
This is obviously the first in a series. Despite no massive cliff-hangers at the end, there were so many loose threads that it almost didn't count as a complete book.
This is also obviously hetero and headed towards some kind of romance. Thankfully, there wasn't any grunty-alpha she-is-my-destiny nonsense. The two characters develop some respect and understanding with each other. This feels more like a slow burn, might-get-to-romance in the next book.
Books: The Giver of Stars
Jul. 15th, 2021 04:59 pmThe Giver of Stars, by Jojo Moyes. Fiction. Hardback, 387 pages. Standalone. (2019)
I'm not a regular historical fiction reader, but this one caught me and kept my interest. It's a rural setting of women librarians riding circuit through the hills. The plot centers around two women who want to be true to themselves and loyal to their friends. One of them is a complete foreigner, while the other one suffers under the weight of generational history and feuds in the town.
The setting is poor rural eastern Kentucky a little way away from a mining town. The book touches on themes of literacy, racial segregation, mining violence, and how difficult it can be to emerge from the traps of day-to-day survival.
The ending was better than I expected, and likely a little too HEA, but Moyes took the time to weave the reasons for each ending solidly through the book, not as optional sprinkles.
CW: on-screen abuse, racial tensions, off-screen rape/incest, off-screen murder, flood trauma
I'm not a regular historical fiction reader, but this one caught me and kept my interest. It's a rural setting of women librarians riding circuit through the hills. The plot centers around two women who want to be true to themselves and loyal to their friends. One of them is a complete foreigner, while the other one suffers under the weight of generational history and feuds in the town.
The setting is poor rural eastern Kentucky a little way away from a mining town. The book touches on themes of literacy, racial segregation, mining violence, and how difficult it can be to emerge from the traps of day-to-day survival.
The ending was better than I expected, and likely a little too HEA, but Moyes took the time to weave the reasons for each ending solidly through the book, not as optional sprinkles.
CW: on-screen abuse, racial tensions, off-screen rape/incest, off-screen murder, flood trauma
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, by Nghi Vo. Fantasy. ePub, 128 pages. (2020)
This was a short and fun story told in the "It was told to me..." vs. "No, that's not the true story" format. It was a compare/contrast of a love and adventure story between an aspiring scholar and a tiger queen. One narrator is a monk-scholar and the other narrator is one of three tigers looking to eat the humans.
I enjoyed the flow of the story and the descriptions of the characters through how they discussed and reflected the story.
Of note, this featured multiple lesbian characters, a non-binary main character ("they/them"), and a lot of magical realism.
This was a free download from the Tor Book Club.
This was a short and fun story told in the "It was told to me..." vs. "No, that's not the true story" format. It was a compare/contrast of a love and adventure story between an aspiring scholar and a tiger queen. One narrator is a monk-scholar and the other narrator is one of three tigers looking to eat the humans.
I enjoyed the flow of the story and the descriptions of the characters through how they discussed and reflected the story.
Of note, this featured multiple lesbian characters, a non-binary main character ("they/them"), and a lot of magical realism.
This was a free download from the Tor Book Club.
That was REALLY GOOD: "Absent Gods, Absent Catastrophes : The Sharing Knife and The Lord of the Rings," by Jack Lennard
https://bracketyjack.livejournal.com/55942.html published August 14, 2014.
About John Lennard: I'm a professional academic, teaching literature, and a voracious reader across classics, history, sf&f, crime, YA writing, children's lit., and romance. Also an ailurophile, a smoker, a hillwalker, a published critic, a scholar of punctuation history and theory, a partner in Humanities-Ebooks LLP, a grammar-school boy, a traveller, a wikipedia contributor, and a Gemini. I've lived in the UK, US, and (for my sins) Jamaica, for five oddly hard years. I own more tons of books than are good for my house, an indefensible SUV I brought back from Jamaica (where it was highly defensible), a 160GB iPod that's filling up, a ludicrously expensive set of B&O earphones that give great sound and actually stay in my ears, several fossils, many rugs, and a fantastic painting by Julian Bailey.
( brought over here for my reference in case LJ is ever eaten )
https://bracketyjack.livejournal.com/55942.html published August 14, 2014.
About John Lennard: I'm a professional academic, teaching literature, and a voracious reader across classics, history, sf&f, crime, YA writing, children's lit., and romance. Also an ailurophile, a smoker, a hillwalker, a published critic, a scholar of punctuation history and theory, a partner in Humanities-Ebooks LLP, a grammar-school boy, a traveller, a wikipedia contributor, and a Gemini. I've lived in the UK, US, and (for my sins) Jamaica, for five oddly hard years. I own more tons of books than are good for my house, an indefensible SUV I brought back from Jamaica (where it was highly defensible), a 160GB iPod that's filling up, a ludicrously expensive set of B&O earphones that give great sound and actually stay in my ears, several fossils, many rugs, and a fantastic painting by Julian Bailey.
( brought over here for my reference in case LJ is ever eaten )
Books: The Sound of Stars
Apr. 20th, 2021 03:45 pmThe Sound of Stars, by Alechia Dow. YA Sci Fi. Hardback, 426 pages.
An ace black girl teams up with a rebel alien to save Earth after the invasion.
This book is part dystopia, part sci fi, part road trip, and alllll YA.
I would recommend it for bookish, unfashionable girls who need to see themselves as heroes without changing themselves at all.
An ace black girl teams up with a rebel alien to save Earth after the invasion.
This book is part dystopia, part sci fi, part road trip, and alllll YA.
I would recommend it for bookish, unfashionable girls who need to see themselves as heroes without changing themselves at all.
Books: Piranisi, by Susanna Clarke
Apr. 7th, 2021 05:04 pmI know that at least one person on my Bibliophiles FB group enjoyed Piranesi, and the reviews/recommendations have been reasonably positive. I finally took it off my TBR stack and sat down to read it over lunch today. I read two sections to be sure of the following:
I am noping out right here, right now.
1. It is in first person.
2. It is in present tense.
3. It has far too many Proper Noun Capitalizations because Every Thing is a Title.
There is only one thing that I've read worse than the above, and that was a Hugo-nominated short story in second person present tense.
I've already committed to giving my copy away to someone who has a book club reading on it coming up soon.
I am noping out right here, right now.
1. It is in first person.
2. It is in present tense.
3. It has far too many Proper Noun Capitalizations because Every Thing is a Title.
There is only one thing that I've read worse than the above, and that was a Hugo-nominated short story in second person present tense.
I've already committed to giving my copy away to someone who has a book club reading on it coming up soon.
Books: Howl's Moving Castle
Mar. 12th, 2021 10:07 pmI finally read a book that came out when I was in elementary school. While I regret that I am too old to find it fascinating, I don't regret the time I spent reading it to fill in a knowledge gap.
It... wasn't good. It wasn't bad. It was... lumpy. There were pieces which were fun or thoughtful or silly or vibrant, but there were also a lot of pieces that felt unnecessary and awkward too. The plot did not flow and motivations were unclear. It was also really long for a middle-grade book.
It was written with the matter of fact attitude that many children's books have and I find alternately comforting and annoying. The handwavium was prolific.
The most annoying thing about the book was how the main character, Sophie, accepted what other people said about her. Even though it was news to her, she never questioned why she had magic or how she used it.
I shall ponder. And maybe watch the Ghibli movie version one day.
... And now I know both parts of the recommendation for "Fireheart Tiger" as a combination of Howl's and Goblin Emperor. Now I can say with confidence it is completely wrong.
It... wasn't good. It wasn't bad. It was... lumpy. There were pieces which were fun or thoughtful or silly or vibrant, but there were also a lot of pieces that felt unnecessary and awkward too. The plot did not flow and motivations were unclear. It was also really long for a middle-grade book.
It was written with the matter of fact attitude that many children's books have and I find alternately comforting and annoying. The handwavium was prolific.
The most annoying thing about the book was how the main character, Sophie, accepted what other people said about her. Even though it was news to her, she never questioned why she had magic or how she used it.
I shall ponder. And maybe watch the Ghibli movie version one day.
... And now I know both parts of the recommendation for "Fireheart Tiger" as a combination of Howl's and Goblin Emperor. Now I can say with confidence it is completely wrong.
A Dark and Hollow Star, by Ashley Shuttleworth.
I started reading this book a week and a half ago. At page 117 I seriously considered if I wanted to go on, as the plot was lacking and there were too many characters about whom I didn't care. I decided to continue on because I was enjoying the premise of two of the characters. I got to page 317, then chucked it aside for Paladin's Strength. I then read Fireheart Tiger. Then I came back to this.
The last quarter of the book had all of the things I wanted from the beginning: mystery, mayhem, witty banter, a heroine who does more than stand around confused and the blunder into trouble. You get my drift. Shuttleworth could have significantly tightened the story if she had made the majority of the characters closer to each other both emotionally and physically. I'm sadly certain that the length of time spent bouncing among the character duos for the majority of the book was because this will be some kind of epic series. Also, the Big Reveal on page 420 could have been the book setup in the first third. It would have traded mystery for urgency and significantly assisted in reader investment in the heroes quest.
I appreciate the unnecessary and lovely slow burn of proto romance. We didn't need to have any romance in this plot, so Shuttleworth draped it in as decoration. Also while sexuality is not on specific display, the readers meet at least one specifically genderfluid Force (uses "they" pronouns specifically) and should find the revelations of character sexuality entirely unsurprising even though they aren't key to any of the activities taking place. We get one foxhole lesbian kiss and one humor-from-stress conversation towards the climax:
... she beamed. "Ha! You think I'm pretty."
"I think you are not unattractive. There's a difference."
"Oh, wow, easy on the love confessions... I'm flattered, really, but I'm afraid - as I'm a lesbian - you're not exactly my type."
"I'm afraid, as I'm gay, you're really not mine either."
(As onnipresent readers, these declarations were not surprises.)
And as a final, plaintive sigh - does everyone have to quote The Good Place now? ("holy forking shirt," pg 411)
If I recall correctly, this was a Seanan McGuire recommendation. I recommend it to people who like Canadian city elf/urban Fantasy stories, since that's kind of it's own sub genre at this point.
I started reading this book a week and a half ago. At page 117 I seriously considered if I wanted to go on, as the plot was lacking and there were too many characters about whom I didn't care. I decided to continue on because I was enjoying the premise of two of the characters. I got to page 317, then chucked it aside for Paladin's Strength. I then read Fireheart Tiger. Then I came back to this.
The last quarter of the book had all of the things I wanted from the beginning: mystery, mayhem, witty banter, a heroine who does more than stand around confused and the blunder into trouble. You get my drift. Shuttleworth could have significantly tightened the story if she had made the majority of the characters closer to each other both emotionally and physically. I'm sadly certain that the length of time spent bouncing among the character duos for the majority of the book was because this will be some kind of epic series. Also, the Big Reveal on page 420 could have been the book setup in the first third. It would have traded mystery for urgency and significantly assisted in reader investment in the heroes quest.
I appreciate the unnecessary and lovely slow burn of proto romance. We didn't need to have any romance in this plot, so Shuttleworth draped it in as decoration. Also while sexuality is not on specific display, the readers meet at least one specifically genderfluid Force (uses "they" pronouns specifically) and should find the revelations of character sexuality entirely unsurprising even though they aren't key to any of the activities taking place. We get one foxhole lesbian kiss and one humor-from-stress conversation towards the climax:
... she beamed. "Ha! You think I'm pretty."
"I think you are not unattractive. There's a difference."
"Oh, wow, easy on the love confessions... I'm flattered, really, but I'm afraid - as I'm a lesbian - you're not exactly my type."
"I'm afraid, as I'm gay, you're really not mine either."
(As onnipresent readers, these declarations were not surprises.)
And as a final, plaintive sigh - does everyone have to quote The Good Place now? ("holy forking shirt," pg 411)
If I recall correctly, this was a Seanan McGuire recommendation. I recommend it to people who like Canadian city elf/urban Fantasy stories, since that's kind of it's own sub genre at this point.
Books: Fireheart Tiger
Mar. 4th, 2021 12:36 pmFireheart Tiger, by Aliette de Bodard. Novella, 99 pages.
The copy advertisement is "... reads like The Goblin Emperor meets Howl's Moving Castle." I guess I need to go read Howl's because this novella was a disappointment in most fronts. And to add to the insult, it was in present tense. Time was difficult to understand, particularly with regards to the letters supposedly exchanged. The blackmail didn't make much sense either in how it played out with the second scene in the garden.
I bought it because Tor said "Goblin Emperor." Sigh.
The copy advertisement is "... reads like The Goblin Emperor meets Howl's Moving Castle." I guess I need to go read Howl's because this novella was a disappointment in most fronts. And to add to the insult, it was in present tense. Time was difficult to understand, particularly with regards to the letters supposedly exchanged. The blackmail didn't make much sense either in how it played out with the second scene in the garden.
I bought it because Tor said "Goblin Emperor." Sigh.
Books: Paladin's Strength
Mar. 1st, 2021 02:40 pmThe second in the Saint of Steel series, fifth in the Clocktaur universe.
Ursula sent this out to her Patreons on Saturday night and the epub should drop tomorrow for the rest of the world. Argyll Productions has the hardcopy on pre-order as well.
I laughed until I cried. It was just what I needed.
Ursula sent this out to her Patreons on Saturday night and the epub should drop tomorrow for the rest of the world. Argyll Productions has the hardcopy on pre-order as well.
I laughed until I cried. It was just what I needed.
Books: Calculated Risks
Feb. 24th, 2021 09:08 amI read the main story last night, but haven't read the included novella yet, so I can't claim I finished the book yet. In no particular order:
YAY GIANT SPIDER NAMED GREG. Greg was my favorite part of this story.
For all that Sarah talked about math a lot, and "the equation," we never got to see much of it as math.
For a rather thick book, it felt really shallow. We were stuck in Sarah's head for most of it, so we got all the traumatic and frustrating moments IN. Great. Detail. but the pages and pages of stewing didn't really go that far towards advancing either character development or the plot.
We met a pile of possibly interesting walk-on characters who did not affect the plot at all. Nice ta meetcha? I hope at least some of you reappear in the next books. I love the idea of cryptids in college.
What was Terrence doing there at the end? It felt like a forced confrontation, and removing it would not have caused much change to the plot.
The ending was disappointing. All that build up to then jump over the immediate results (consequences?) of the climatic decisions.
... And then the magic wand of ResolveItAll appeared.
YAY GIANT SPIDER NAMED GREG. Greg was my favorite part of this story.
For all that Sarah talked about math a lot, and "the equation," we never got to see much of it as math.
For a rather thick book, it felt really shallow. We were stuck in Sarah's head for most of it, so we got all the traumatic and frustrating moments IN. Great. Detail. but the pages and pages of stewing didn't really go that far towards advancing either character development or the plot.
We met a pile of possibly interesting walk-on characters who did not affect the plot at all. Nice ta meetcha? I hope at least some of you reappear in the next books. I love the idea of cryptids in college.
What was Terrence doing there at the end? It felt like a forced confrontation, and removing it would not have caused much change to the plot.
The ending was disappointing. All that build up to then jump over the immediate results (consequences?) of the climatic decisions.
... And then the magic wand of ResolveItAll appeared.
