Books and comics read in November 2014
Wednesday, 3 December 2014 14:10![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements - Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Diamonds and Deceit - Leila Rasheed
Black Panther: Who Is The Black Panther?
Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution - Laurie Penny*
The Middleman: The Pan-Universal Parental Reconciliation
Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress - Sarwat Chadda
Green Arrow: The Sounds of Violence
Komarr - Lois McMaster Bujold
X-Men: Powerless
Amelia Cole and the Unknown World
Legend - Marie Lu*
Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories, ed. Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios*
Pratchett's Women: Unauthorised Essays on the Female Characters of Discworld - Tansy Rayner Roberts
Ship of Destiny - Robin Hobb
Athena's Daughters ed. Jean Rabe
50 Roman Mistresses: Scandal, Virtue and Womanhood in Ancient Rome - Tansy Rayner Roberts*
Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth Century Britain - Lucy Lethbridge
The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters
Unspeakable Things
Angry, infectious, inspiring feminist writing. Not perfect, but very good.
Legend
The worldbuilding in this trilogy was really excellent; it felt coherent and plausible and got more and more interesting as it went on. I also loved how the politics got increasingly complicated. I did not, however, love the ending, which threw in a couple of tropes I really dislike. A shame, as up until then I'd being really enjoying how the plot kept going in unexpected directions. :/ Recommended, but brace yourself for things going a bit wrong in the last couple of chapters.
Kaleidoscope
I really enjoyed this diversity-focused anthology of YA SFF: not all the stories were perfect or to my taste, but overall the hit rate was excellent. I particularly liked Tansy Rayner Roberts's "Cookie Cutter Superhero" (and would love more in the same universe), Ken Liu's "Seventh Day of the Seventh Moon", Amal El-Mohtar's lovely "The Truth About Owls" and Karen Healey's "Careful Magic". Recommended.
50 Roman Mistresses
Fun and chatty mini-biographies of a selection of Roman woman. Very slight, but intentionally so, and it did make me want to know more about women in Ancient Rome. (Any recs, anyone?)
Diamonds and Deceit - Leila Rasheed
Black Panther: Who Is The Black Panther?
Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution - Laurie Penny*
The Middleman: The Pan-Universal Parental Reconciliation
Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress - Sarwat Chadda
Green Arrow: The Sounds of Violence
Komarr - Lois McMaster Bujold
X-Men: Powerless
Amelia Cole and the Unknown World
Legend - Marie Lu*
Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories, ed. Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios*
Pratchett's Women: Unauthorised Essays on the Female Characters of Discworld - Tansy Rayner Roberts
Ship of Destiny - Robin Hobb
Athena's Daughters ed. Jean Rabe
50 Roman Mistresses: Scandal, Virtue and Womanhood in Ancient Rome - Tansy Rayner Roberts*
Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth Century Britain - Lucy Lethbridge
The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters
Unspeakable Things
Angry, infectious, inspiring feminist writing. Not perfect, but very good.
Legend
The worldbuilding in this trilogy was really excellent; it felt coherent and plausible and got more and more interesting as it went on. I also loved how the politics got increasingly complicated. I did not, however, love the ending, which threw in a couple of tropes I really dislike. A shame, as up until then I'd being really enjoying how the plot kept going in unexpected directions. :/ Recommended, but brace yourself for things going a bit wrong in the last couple of chapters.
Kaleidoscope
I really enjoyed this diversity-focused anthology of YA SFF: not all the stories were perfect or to my taste, but overall the hit rate was excellent. I particularly liked Tansy Rayner Roberts's "Cookie Cutter Superhero" (and would love more in the same universe), Ken Liu's "Seventh Day of the Seventh Moon", Amal El-Mohtar's lovely "The Truth About Owls" and Karen Healey's "Careful Magic". Recommended.
50 Roman Mistresses
Fun and chatty mini-biographies of a selection of Roman woman. Very slight, but intentionally so, and it did make me want to know more about women in Ancient Rome. (Any recs, anyone?)