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usuallyhats) wrote2014-04-02 02:36 pm
usuallyhats) wrote2014-04-02 02:36 pm
Books and comics read in March 2014
Have I really not posted since the last one of these? Huh.
A Local Habitation - Seanan McGuire
An Artificial Night - Seanan McGuire
Alif the Unseen - G. Willow Wilson
Late Eclipses - Seanan McGuire
Devil's Kiss - Sarwat Chadda*
One Salt Sea - Seanan McGuire
Runaways: Homeschooling*
Consorts of Heaven - Jaine Fenn
Secret Avengers: Mission to Mars
Ashes of Honor - Seanan McGuire
Doctor Who: Wheel of Ice - Stephen Baxter*
Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett
Chimes at Midnight - Seanan McGuire
Valour's Choice - Tanya Huff*
Huntress: Year One
The Governess Affair - Courtney Milan*
The Midnight Mayor - Kate Griffin*
Devil's Kiss
This YA book about a mixed-race teenager who belongs to the Knights Templar, an organisation dedicated to evil-fighting, was mostly pretty enjoyable. I found some of the story beats a bit predictable, and I was sad that there were so few women in it - the heroine, Billi, is the first woman ever to join the Knights, but since nothing's really made of this it seemed a shame not to have other women there. Also, I've been rewatching Buffy recently and this suffered a little by comparison; I've always appreciated how consistently BTVS validated Buffy's desire to have a life as well as being the Slayer, and this book... didn't really do that. That being said, it was a good (if dark) read with a likable heroine and an interesting setup, and I'll probably be reading more in this series.
Runaways: Homeschooling
So this ended on a cliffhanger, and JUST when it was getting good again. COMICS. *shakes fist* Despite the lack of MORE, I really enjoyed this: Sara Pichelli's art is great and Kathryn Immonen's writing was really good, plus I flapped my hands with delight at the hint that [spoiler] might be back. But then it just stopped with nothing resolved, sigh. And the "What if the Runaways became the Young Avengers?" one off didn't really do enough with the premise to justify itself, I thought, though it wasn't exactly bad.
Doctor Who: Wheel of Ice
I enjoyed this Two, Jamie and Zoe story a lot: it managed to capture the feel of a sixties story whilst also offering a very modern future, with kettling and 3D printers. It did really well by our heroes, too, and managed some gratuitous clinging, which always pleases me. The sixities-esque international cast was full of women, which earned it points, but sadly it lost most of them when (skip) the black guy (and only gay character) died first, and was also the only named character to die. OH BOOK NO. Some of the writing was a bit early-draft, with some repeated phrases, slightly clunky prose, and a bit too much phonetic dialogue from Jamie and also MMAC the Scottish robot (...better than it sounds). But there were some cool sci-fi ideas in here and overall it was definitely worth reading.
Valour's Choice
The military sf genre has never particularly appealed to me, but this one promised humour and a female lead (ladies in space: basically my kryptonite), plus I've been meaning to read some Tanya Huff for a while and this one was in the library, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was a great read: nothing particularly new or spectacular, but a solid space adventure with lots of cool aliens and likeable characters. My enjoyment of it was somewhat punctured, however, when I hit the afterword, which compared the plot to the Battle of Rorke's Drift, with the part of the British being played by the Confederation (a mixture of humans and aliens, Our Heroes) and the part of the Zulus being played by the Silviss (aggressive lizard warrior race, The Enemy). ...let's not do that, please. This bumped it down from 3.5 stars rounded up, to 2.5 stars rounded down. :/
The Governess Affair
I've seen a lot of recs for Courtney Milan, so I thought I'd give this free prequel novella a try, to see if I like romance genre stuff. Which it turns out I don't. This isn't a criticism of the book itself, which was pretty good, it's the tropes (in the non-pejorative sense) of the genre which leaves me cold. I did quite enjoy it but my interest dropped off rapidly after the relationship between the main characters became explicitly romantic. Oh well.
The Midnight Mayor
I read the previous book in this series in January and my feelings on this one are much the same: not quite there yet but still pretty great, with lots of potential that I am excited to see fulfilled. It's full of amazingly precise and vivid description, which makes it feel a bit dense at first but sucks you in and is very appropriate give the nature of the main character (which I can't explain because spoilers). Also the last thing that happened in it made me flap my hands with delight.
A Local Habitation - Seanan McGuire
An Artificial Night - Seanan McGuire
Alif the Unseen - G. Willow Wilson
Late Eclipses - Seanan McGuire
Devil's Kiss - Sarwat Chadda*
One Salt Sea - Seanan McGuire
Runaways: Homeschooling*
Consorts of Heaven - Jaine Fenn
Secret Avengers: Mission to Mars
Ashes of Honor - Seanan McGuire
Doctor Who: Wheel of Ice - Stephen Baxter*
Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett
Chimes at Midnight - Seanan McGuire
Valour's Choice - Tanya Huff*
Huntress: Year One
The Governess Affair - Courtney Milan*
The Midnight Mayor - Kate Griffin*
Devil's Kiss
This YA book about a mixed-race teenager who belongs to the Knights Templar, an organisation dedicated to evil-fighting, was mostly pretty enjoyable. I found some of the story beats a bit predictable, and I was sad that there were so few women in it - the heroine, Billi, is the first woman ever to join the Knights, but since nothing's really made of this it seemed a shame not to have other women there. Also, I've been rewatching Buffy recently and this suffered a little by comparison; I've always appreciated how consistently BTVS validated Buffy's desire to have a life as well as being the Slayer, and this book... didn't really do that. That being said, it was a good (if dark) read with a likable heroine and an interesting setup, and I'll probably be reading more in this series.
Runaways: Homeschooling
So this ended on a cliffhanger, and JUST when it was getting good again. COMICS. *shakes fist* Despite the lack of MORE, I really enjoyed this: Sara Pichelli's art is great and Kathryn Immonen's writing was really good, plus I flapped my hands with delight at the hint that [spoiler] might be back. But then it just stopped with nothing resolved, sigh. And the "What if the Runaways became the Young Avengers?" one off didn't really do enough with the premise to justify itself, I thought, though it wasn't exactly bad.
Doctor Who: Wheel of Ice
I enjoyed this Two, Jamie and Zoe story a lot: it managed to capture the feel of a sixties story whilst also offering a very modern future, with kettling and 3D printers. It did really well by our heroes, too, and managed some gratuitous clinging, which always pleases me. The sixities-esque international cast was full of women, which earned it points, but sadly it lost most of them when (skip) the black guy (and only gay character) died first, and was also the only named character to die. OH BOOK NO. Some of the writing was a bit early-draft, with some repeated phrases, slightly clunky prose, and a bit too much phonetic dialogue from Jamie and also MMAC the Scottish robot (...better than it sounds). But there were some cool sci-fi ideas in here and overall it was definitely worth reading.
Valour's Choice
The military sf genre has never particularly appealed to me, but this one promised humour and a female lead (ladies in space: basically my kryptonite), plus I've been meaning to read some Tanya Huff for a while and this one was in the library, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was a great read: nothing particularly new or spectacular, but a solid space adventure with lots of cool aliens and likeable characters. My enjoyment of it was somewhat punctured, however, when I hit the afterword, which compared the plot to the Battle of Rorke's Drift, with the part of the British being played by the Confederation (a mixture of humans and aliens, Our Heroes) and the part of the Zulus being played by the Silviss (aggressive lizard warrior race, The Enemy). ...let's not do that, please. This bumped it down from 3.5 stars rounded up, to 2.5 stars rounded down. :/
The Governess Affair
I've seen a lot of recs for Courtney Milan, so I thought I'd give this free prequel novella a try, to see if I like romance genre stuff. Which it turns out I don't. This isn't a criticism of the book itself, which was pretty good, it's the tropes (in the non-pejorative sense) of the genre which leaves me cold. I did quite enjoy it but my interest dropped off rapidly after the relationship between the main characters became explicitly romantic. Oh well.
The Midnight Mayor
I read the previous book in this series in January and my feelings on this one are much the same: not quite there yet but still pretty great, with lots of potential that I am excited to see fulfilled. It's full of amazingly precise and vivid description, which makes it feel a bit dense at first but sucks you in and is very appropriate give the nature of the main character (which I can't explain because spoilers). Also the last thing that happened in it made me flap my hands with delight.
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(Best to read the HH series in order because they do follow her career from its outset. On Basilisk Station (http://www.amazon.co.uk/On-Basilisk-Station-Honor-Harrington-ebook/dp/B00ARPJBS0/michelefry00) and Honor of the Queen (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Honor-Queen-Harrington-ebook/dp/B00BBI9WD6/michelefry00) - the first two books in the series - are available free for the Kindle. Also, if you've got one of the more recent hardbacks - think it's the anthology 'Beginnings' - it has a CD-ROM in the back with all the ebooks on it...)
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Of course, when I say "strong" women, I really mean awesome kick-arse women who know their own minds and are treated as human beings, not a separate species.
There's an arc in some of the later stories that begins with Honor being sent to help safeguard a planet where men have more than one wife, because there are far fewer men than women around - and the women have no roles outside those of wife/mother - but Honor's arrival on the scene starts a gradual revolution which is then referenced at intervals in the ensuing books - and he does it very well, showing the slow and often difficult process of change in a patriarchal (and very religious) society.
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This is one of the reasons I love the series - quite apart from Honor herself being so kick-arse - it's wonderful to see how fast some of the Graysons adapt (and some of the women find almost as hard as the men to make the adjustment) - and how much slower many more of them are. And since the HH series covers many years, some of the girls in the first book involving Grayson are young women later in the series - and you see the choices they get to make as a result of Honor's arrival.
And of course, the fact it's written by a fella - who's treating women as people, not second class citizens, makes it even better, in some ways...
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