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Books and comics read in January 2023
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 12:22The Stars Undying - Emery Robin
Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052-2072 - ME O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi
The Map and the Territory - AM Tuomala
Even Though I Knew the End - CL Polk
Lent - Jo Walton
Lumberjanes: Bonus Tracks
Paladin's Strength - T Kingfisher
Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes - Rob Wilkins
Thud! - Terry Pratchett
Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance - Atul Gawande
The Misadventures of an Amateur Naturalist - Ceinwen Langley
Unreal Alchemy - Tansy Rayner Roberts
Holiday Brew - Tansy Rayner Roberts
Deeply entertaining start to an SF series with the premise: what if Cleopatra, Caesar and Marc Antony, but in space (and also Marc Antony's a woman). I feel like I had just the right amount of historical knowledge for this to work incredibly well for me, ie I could go "I understood that reference!" every now and then, and it was very satisfying. (Possibly people with more knowledge would get even more out of it, possibly they'd get less, I don't know!) The worldbuilding and character work was very solid, and this was one of two books I read this month where the last line basically earned the fifth star all by itself.
OH ALSO here is the tweet that originally sold me on it: https://twitter.com/emwrobin/status/1566548504503353345?s=20
The Map and the Territory
Very solid fantasy novel in which a wizard and a cartographer are thrown together in the immediate aftermath of a series of world shaking catastrophes, which follows them as they attempt to piece together what's happened and who has survived. It's just quietly very good - I especially enjoyed the variety of ways the people they met were choosing to deal with what they'd experienced.
Even Though I Knew the End
Really excellent novella featuring angels, demons and magic in 1940s Chicago, as well as a beautifully written central f/f relationship. The writing is very good - this was the other book I read this month with a killer final line.
(Content notes: state sanctioned homophobia, medical violence)
Unreal Alchemy/Holiday Brew
Very fun compilation of... long short stories, I suppose, about a group of Australian undergraduates in a world where magic is real (and also some of them are in a band). They're mostly pretty light on the whole, but very enjoyable - definitely recommended if this is the sort of thing you're in the mood for. (Note that Holiday Brew gets into some slightly heavier stuff about dysfunctional families.)
Didn't finish:
This is about a deadly plague, specifically one that largely affects children, at least in the initial stages, and it turns out I was just not prepared for that level of bleak. Other reviewers found that it was ultimately hopeful, but either that didn't come through as strongly for me, or I just didn't get far enough (I noped out around 32%). I suspect it didn't help that it's structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes, which hit my pickiness around short stories: I really liked the first one, in which an archaeologist goes to the site of his daughter's death to both pick up her work and make sense of his grief, but the next two I struggled with. So this was just really not for me, rather than necessarily being a bad book.
(Though I will also note that as per a reviewer on goodreads, sounds like the protagonists of each section continue to be mostly male, and that there are no indications that queer people exist at all in this world.)
Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052-2072 - ME O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi
The Map and the Territory - AM Tuomala
Even Though I Knew the End - CL Polk
Lent - Jo Walton
Lumberjanes: Bonus Tracks
Paladin's Strength - T Kingfisher
Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes - Rob Wilkins
Thud! - Terry Pratchett
Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance - Atul Gawande
The Misadventures of an Amateur Naturalist - Ceinwen Langley
Unreal Alchemy - Tansy Rayner Roberts
Holiday Brew - Tansy Rayner Roberts
The Stars Undying (five stars), The Map and the Territory (four stars), Even Though I Knew the End (five stars), Unreal Alchemy/Holiday Brew (four stars)
The Stars UndyingDeeply entertaining start to an SF series with the premise: what if Cleopatra, Caesar and Marc Antony, but in space (and also Marc Antony's a woman). I feel like I had just the right amount of historical knowledge for this to work incredibly well for me, ie I could go "I understood that reference!" every now and then, and it was very satisfying. (Possibly people with more knowledge would get even more out of it, possibly they'd get less, I don't know!) The worldbuilding and character work was very solid, and this was one of two books I read this month where the last line basically earned the fifth star all by itself.
OH ALSO here is the tweet that originally sold me on it: https://twitter.com/emwrobin/status/1566548504503353345?s=20
The Map and the Territory
Very solid fantasy novel in which a wizard and a cartographer are thrown together in the immediate aftermath of a series of world shaking catastrophes, which follows them as they attempt to piece together what's happened and who has survived. It's just quietly very good - I especially enjoyed the variety of ways the people they met were choosing to deal with what they'd experienced.
Even Though I Knew the End
Really excellent novella featuring angels, demons and magic in 1940s Chicago, as well as a beautifully written central f/f relationship. The writing is very good - this was the other book I read this month with a killer final line.
(Content notes: state sanctioned homophobia, medical violence)
Unreal Alchemy/Holiday Brew
Very fun compilation of... long short stories, I suppose, about a group of Australian undergraduates in a world where magic is real (and also some of them are in a band). They're mostly pretty light on the whole, but very enjoyable - definitely recommended if this is the sort of thing you're in the mood for. (Note that Holiday Brew gets into some slightly heavier stuff about dysfunctional families.)
Didn't finish:
How High We Go In the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu
How High We Go In the Dark - Sequoia NagamatsuThis is about a deadly plague, specifically one that largely affects children, at least in the initial stages, and it turns out I was just not prepared for that level of bleak. Other reviewers found that it was ultimately hopeful, but either that didn't come through as strongly for me, or I just didn't get far enough (I noped out around 32%). I suspect it didn't help that it's structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes, which hit my pickiness around short stories: I really liked the first one, in which an archaeologist goes to the site of his daughter's death to both pick up her work and make sense of his grief, but the next two I struggled with. So this was just really not for me, rather than necessarily being a bad book.
(Though I will also note that as per a reviewer on goodreads, sounds like the protagonists of each section continue to be mostly male, and that there are no indications that queer people exist at all in this world.)