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usuallyhats) wrote2019-09-02 04:16 pm
usuallyhats) wrote2019-09-02 04:16 pm
Books and comics read in August 2019
Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life - Samantha Ellis
Binti - Nnedi Okorafor
A Larger Reality / Una Realidad más Amplia ed. Libia Brenda
The True Queen - Zen Cho
Doctor Who: Blood Heat - Jim Mortimore
This Is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
The Cloud Roads - Martha Wells
The Serpent Sea - Martha Wells
The Siren Depths - Martha Wells
Stories of the Raksura vol 1 - Martha Wells
Midnighter: Hard
The Edge of Worlds - Martha Wells
The Harbors of the Sun - Martha Wells
Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life
I really enjoyed this. It's not a straight biography, more a chatty account of the author's encounters with Anne Brontë, riffing off various important figures (real and fictional) in Anne's life. It's very readable and, when Ellis finds herself having to discuss the last few months of her life, and goes to visit her grave, quite moving. (Slight caveats: it's very straight, though to be fair not aggressively so; also Charlotte does not come off amazingly for the most part.)
The True Queen
WHAT A DELIGHT. I had a few nitpicks - I guessed the twist on about page 3, and though I was rooting for the f/f relationship it did feel a little underdeveloped - and personally I could have done with less eating of people, but those aside I wholeheartedly loved this. It's so funny and so charming, the worldbuilding is great, and I adore all of Zen Cho's no nonsense heroines: Prunella, Muna and Henrietta are all very different but they all share this streak of practicality and I love them to bits.
Doctor Who: Blood Heat
This was actually pretty solid, it's just that "grimdark post-Doctor Who and the Silurians AU" isn't really my cup of tea, and poor Jo really got the short end of the stick. That said, it was very readable and I appreciated that the ending swerved away from being gratuitously grim into a more melancholy key. I also really liked Ace meeting the AU version of her friend Manisha, who survived in this timeline* - their interactions were interestingly complicated.
*iirc it's not clear in the show whether or not she survived the firebomb attack on her flat that we hear about in Ghost Light, but this book establishes that as far as NA canon goes, she didn't.
This Is How You Lose the Time War
Glorious f/f epistolary time travel thriller, highly recommended.
The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Siren Depths
I really enjoyed this fantasy series, in which everyone is pansexual and polyamourous and also a shapeshifting dragon. (Also as a culture they're kind of aro? They explicitly don't really do romance, just friendship and sex.) The main character, Moon, spent most of his life living in groundling communities, trying to hide the fact that he can turn into a dragon, and when he finally does find a community of his own people where he doesn't have to hide, he really struggles to believe that they actually want him around and aren't just tolerating him. His main emotional arc is about him learning to trust that they really do care about him - slightly too relatable tbh, but still lovely.
My only major criticism is the binary nature of some of the gender roles in Raksuran society: it's a matriarchy in which (almost) everyone is born into a certain role, and although only two of these roles are strictly gendered, there's no explicit space for trans or non binary Raksura.
I feel like the ending of the last book was a bit rushed (the last 20% or so could have easily been split off and expanded into a sixth book), but otherwise this was a very satisfying series. I was a little concerned when the last two books broke away from solely following Moon's pov, but ultimately I really enjoyed seeing more of the other characters. I'm very glad I still have a few short stories and novellas to read in this world.
(Content notes: non graphic discussion of sexual assault. Also the villains eat people sometimes. I'm not into it.)
Midnighter: Hard
I remember really liking the first volume of this comic, but this one was only so-so - there was a bit too much "how can we find new ways for the Midnighter to get beaten up/beat people up" for my taste. I did like the stuff with M's circle of friends, though, and Apollo's appearance (though the new 52 thing of him having an actual name seems to be sticking, tragically), and I quite liked what it did with Amanda Waller, but otherwise, eh.
Binti - Nnedi Okorafor
A Larger Reality / Una Realidad más Amplia ed. Libia Brenda
The True Queen - Zen Cho
Doctor Who: Blood Heat - Jim Mortimore
This Is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
The Cloud Roads - Martha Wells
The Serpent Sea - Martha Wells
The Siren Depths - Martha Wells
Stories of the Raksura vol 1 - Martha Wells
Midnighter: Hard
The Edge of Worlds - Martha Wells
The Harbors of the Sun - Martha Wells
Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life
I really enjoyed this. It's not a straight biography, more a chatty account of the author's encounters with Anne Brontë, riffing off various important figures (real and fictional) in Anne's life. It's very readable and, when Ellis finds herself having to discuss the last few months of her life, and goes to visit her grave, quite moving. (Slight caveats: it's very straight, though to be fair not aggressively so; also Charlotte does not come off amazingly for the most part.)
The True Queen
WHAT A DELIGHT. I had a few nitpicks - I guessed the twist on about page 3, and though I was rooting for the f/f relationship it did feel a little underdeveloped - and personally I could have done with less eating of people, but those aside I wholeheartedly loved this. It's so funny and so charming, the worldbuilding is great, and I adore all of Zen Cho's no nonsense heroines: Prunella, Muna and Henrietta are all very different but they all share this streak of practicality and I love them to bits.
Doctor Who: Blood Heat
This was actually pretty solid, it's just that "grimdark post-Doctor Who and the Silurians AU" isn't really my cup of tea, and poor Jo really got the short end of the stick. That said, it was very readable and I appreciated that the ending swerved away from being gratuitously grim into a more melancholy key. I also really liked Ace meeting the AU version of her friend Manisha, who survived in this timeline* - their interactions were interestingly complicated.
*iirc it's not clear in the show whether or not she survived the firebomb attack on her flat that we hear about in Ghost Light, but this book establishes that as far as NA canon goes, she didn't.
This Is How You Lose the Time War
Glorious f/f epistolary time travel thriller, highly recommended.
The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Siren Depths
I really enjoyed this fantasy series, in which everyone is pansexual and polyamourous and also a shapeshifting dragon. (Also as a culture they're kind of aro? They explicitly don't really do romance, just friendship and sex.) The main character, Moon, spent most of his life living in groundling communities, trying to hide the fact that he can turn into a dragon, and when he finally does find a community of his own people where he doesn't have to hide, he really struggles to believe that they actually want him around and aren't just tolerating him. His main emotional arc is about him learning to trust that they really do care about him - slightly too relatable tbh, but still lovely.
My only major criticism is the binary nature of some of the gender roles in Raksuran society: it's a matriarchy in which (almost) everyone is born into a certain role, and although only two of these roles are strictly gendered, there's no explicit space for trans or non binary Raksura.
I feel like the ending of the last book was a bit rushed (the last 20% or so could have easily been split off and expanded into a sixth book), but otherwise this was a very satisfying series. I was a little concerned when the last two books broke away from solely following Moon's pov, but ultimately I really enjoyed seeing more of the other characters. I'm very glad I still have a few short stories and novellas to read in this world.
(Content notes: non graphic discussion of sexual assault. Also the villains eat people sometimes. I'm not into it.)
Midnighter: Hard
I remember really liking the first volume of this comic, but this one was only so-so - there was a bit too much "how can we find new ways for the Midnighter to get beaten up/beat people up" for my taste. I did like the stuff with M's circle of friends, though, and Apollo's appearance (though the new 52 thing of him having an actual name seems to be sticking, tragically), and I quite liked what it did with Amanda Waller, but otherwise, eh.