Books and comics read in January 2022
Tuesday, 22 February 2022 19:44![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats(we are in no way three quarters of the way into February, everything's fine here, no one's super late with this, shhhhh)
A Clash of Steel - CB Lee
Anastasia, Absolutely - Lois Lowry
Critical Role: Vox Machina: Kith and Kin - Marieke Nijkamp
A Song Below Water - Bethany Morrow
Critical Role: Mighty Nein Origins: Jester Lavorre
A Marvellous Light - Freya Marske
Unnatural Magic - CM Waggoner
Invisible Kingdom: In Other Worlds
Jillian vs Parasite Planet - Nicole Kornher-Stace
Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices
The Black Tides of Heaven - Neon Yang
The Red Threads of Fortune - Neon Yang
The Descent of Monsters - Neon Yang
The Ascent to Godhood - Neon Yang
The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett
A Spindle Splintered - Alix Harrow
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls - Aliette de Bodard
Incomparable World - SI Martin
The Foretelling of Georgie Spider - Ambellin Kwaymullina
The Companion - EE Ottoman
A Clash of Steel
This f/f retelling of Treasure Island* was fun but not amazing. The setting was great but only really appeared in glimpses, the plot was fine (though I don't understand why there was such a fuss about the treasure map having been divided up if the treasure could be found from just the last section), the characterisation was somewhat slim. The crew our heroine joins are presented as both a ragtag family of outcasts and a group of people with their own interests who can't be trusted, and I felt like the writing just wasn't quite good enough to have both those things coexist. I also didn't love the way Zheng Yi Sao was more or less just a villain here, rather than the complicated person she surely was.
Despite all that, I did enjoy reading it - it's a perfectly decent YA adventure, it just could have been a lot more.
*the word "retelling" is here used very loosely
Critical Role: Vox Machina: Kith and Kin
This isn't amazingly written but I had a great time with it anyway - I loved the way it filled in Vex and Vax's backstory, and I loved how casually queer it was. I'm not sure how much someone who doesn't know Critical Role would get out of it (less than I did, but I think not nothing?), but I had a lot of fun.
(Content note: implied and threatened sexual assault)
A Marvellous Light
Really delightful m/m Regency-England-with-magic novel. I blazed through it in a day and am eagerly anticipating the sequel.
Unnatural Magic
Thoroughly excellent fantasy novel set in a kind of Victorian-ish secondary world. The plot isn't the most complicated, but the characterisation and world building are wonderfully deep and rich, and the two sets of protagonists are brought together in an extremely satisfying way. It's very funny, and very intense in places. I loved it a lot.
Jillian vs Parasite Planet
This is very like The Martian, but middle grade, and with a pre-teen girl with anxiety trying to keep herself and her parents alive on an alien world until help arrives. I read an early version of this on the author's patreon and loved it then; the finished version is even better.
Didn't finish: The Grace of Kings - Ken Liu
I knew going in that this was a slightly rocky start to the series, and that there were basically no women in it, but the later ones sounded good enough to at least give it a try. But I got to 17% and just couldn't bring myself to keep going - the prose style really didn't work for me and none of the characters really landed. It's a shame because I've heard such good things about the later ones (and that there are a lot more women in them), and the world seemed potentially really interesting, but it was just too much book to keep going with in the hope that I'd like the next one more.
Crier's War - Nina Varela
This was fine, it was a decent YA fantasy f/f novel, but it just didn't really hold my interest.
A short story I enjoyed this month:
To Embody a Wildfire Starting - Iona Datt Sharma: Aftermaths and reconstruction and duty and art, and also socialist dragons. I just have a lot of feelings ok.
A Clash of Steel - CB Lee
Anastasia, Absolutely - Lois Lowry
Critical Role: Vox Machina: Kith and Kin - Marieke Nijkamp
A Song Below Water - Bethany Morrow
Critical Role: Mighty Nein Origins: Jester Lavorre
A Marvellous Light - Freya Marske
Unnatural Magic - CM Waggoner
Invisible Kingdom: In Other Worlds
Jillian vs Parasite Planet - Nicole Kornher-Stace
Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices
The Black Tides of Heaven - Neon Yang
The Red Threads of Fortune - Neon Yang
The Descent of Monsters - Neon Yang
The Ascent to Godhood - Neon Yang
The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett
A Spindle Splintered - Alix Harrow
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls - Aliette de Bodard
Incomparable World - SI Martin
The Foretelling of Georgie Spider - Ambellin Kwaymullina
The Companion - EE Ottoman
A Clash of Steel
This f/f retelling of Treasure Island* was fun but not amazing. The setting was great but only really appeared in glimpses, the plot was fine (though I don't understand why there was such a fuss about the treasure map having been divided up if the treasure could be found from just the last section), the characterisation was somewhat slim. The crew our heroine joins are presented as both a ragtag family of outcasts and a group of people with their own interests who can't be trusted, and I felt like the writing just wasn't quite good enough to have both those things coexist. I also didn't love the way Zheng Yi Sao was more or less just a villain here, rather than the complicated person she surely was.
Despite all that, I did enjoy reading it - it's a perfectly decent YA adventure, it just could have been a lot more.
*the word "retelling" is here used very loosely
Critical Role: Vox Machina: Kith and Kin
This isn't amazingly written but I had a great time with it anyway - I loved the way it filled in Vex and Vax's backstory, and I loved how casually queer it was. I'm not sure how much someone who doesn't know Critical Role would get out of it (less than I did, but I think not nothing?), but I had a lot of fun.
(Content note: implied and threatened sexual assault)
A Marvellous Light
Really delightful m/m Regency-England-with-magic novel. I blazed through it in a day and am eagerly anticipating the sequel.
Unnatural Magic
Thoroughly excellent fantasy novel set in a kind of Victorian-ish secondary world. The plot isn't the most complicated, but the characterisation and world building are wonderfully deep and rich, and the two sets of protagonists are brought together in an extremely satisfying way. It's very funny, and very intense in places. I loved it a lot.
Jillian vs Parasite Planet
This is very like The Martian, but middle grade, and with a pre-teen girl with anxiety trying to keep herself and her parents alive on an alien world until help arrives. I read an early version of this on the author's patreon and loved it then; the finished version is even better.
Didn't finish: The Grace of Kings - Ken Liu
I knew going in that this was a slightly rocky start to the series, and that there were basically no women in it, but the later ones sounded good enough to at least give it a try. But I got to 17% and just couldn't bring myself to keep going - the prose style really didn't work for me and none of the characters really landed. It's a shame because I've heard such good things about the later ones (and that there are a lot more women in them), and the world seemed potentially really interesting, but it was just too much book to keep going with in the hope that I'd like the next one more.
Crier's War - Nina Varela
This was fine, it was a decent YA fantasy f/f novel, but it just didn't really hold my interest.
A short story I enjoyed this month:
To Embody a Wildfire Starting - Iona Datt Sharma: Aftermaths and reconstruction and duty and art, and also socialist dragons. I just have a lot of feelings ok.