look on my works ye mighty, and despair

(apparently I didn't post my november reads, oops)

The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin

I really enjoyed this; my notes for this read have gone astray but basically I had a blast and love Alabaster and especially love the romance towards the end (and was VERY grumpy that it wasn't allowed to persist).

The Mage Storms by Mercedes Lackey (trilogy)

I love love love Karal. He's such a great POV character. I also love An'desha's whole evolution, and the way that he and Firesong manage to remain friends (if distanced) and the engineering stuff is great and, yes, okay, I just really like these books.

The Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin

The sequel to The Fifth Season. I read most of it in one day and I think that was the way to do it, inhaling the story in one big gulp. I still love Alabaster very much, and the way the story and the motivations all unspool. Really looking forward to the next novel.

The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Zen Cho

I can remember people being all over this and I'm not quite sure why? It's… okay. The main character has a distinct voice, I'll give it that, but it didn't delight me the way it seems to have delighted others.

The Awakened Kingdom by NK Jemisin

This is a novella, set after the Inheritance trilogy, focusing on Shill. Eino is just wonderful and I loved Shill's growing wisdom and comprehension. The self-claiming was pretty awesome, and the magic was beautifully expressed.

Shades in Shadow by NK Jemisin

I will admit I skimmed the last of the three stories (Glee as a narrator does nothing much for me alas) but I enjoyed the Hado story and love love loved the Nahadoth one for being twisty and satisfying and delicious. I babbled the plot of the Nahadoth story to Pez afterwards because I liked it so much. Beautiful men who are rebelling against captivity, which I guess is a thing for me because that's twice in a row it's made me go yes yes please, though Eino and Haan (and Nahadoth too) are very, very different despite that superficial resemblance.

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

Okay, I tried. And it was fun, apart from the four pages entirely of mast and rigging names -- aka 'fuck you, readers, I did research for this and you will all suffer while I get it out of my system' -- but I don't think I can bear to work my way through more of the series. Pez and I were talking about how hard we find it to follow battle scenes in novels, and how we both end up skimming them and in this series that means I'm left with not a lot worth reading the books for.

Our Better Secret Lives by Matthew Amster-Burton

I backed this on kickstarter, because I'm a friend of Matthew's and have loved his non-fiction writing and hey, indie music focus in the 90s is my jam. Not surprisingly, I really enjoyed this novel as a result! I inhaled it in one happy go, and then went and listened to some of the music that meant a lot to me in my teenage years.

I also started Permutation City by Greg Egan and Golden Hill by Francis Spufford and set them aside.

I think possibly I read other books but unfortunately I didn't write them down and now, poof, the memory is gone.