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Books and comics read in June and July 2024
Friday, 9 August 2024 08:47The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport - Samit Basu
Shubeik Lubeik
When Among Crows - Veronica Roth
The Sign of Four - Arthur Conan Doyle
The Iliad - Homer trans. Emily Wilson
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Suzanne Collins
Glorious Exploits - Ferdia Lennon
Lady Eve's Last Con - Rebecca Fraimow
Winter's Gifts - Ben Aaronovitch
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America - David Hadju
Voyage of the Damned - Frances White
The Inimitable Jeeves - PG Wodehouse
The Spear Cuts Through Water - Simon Jimenez
The Book of Witches ed Jonathan Strahan
A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? - Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Half a Crown - Jo Walton
The Wings Upon Her Back - Samantha Mills
Urban fantasy novella steeped in Polish mythology. I really enjoyed this! It didn't set my world on fire, but it was very well done and I would absolutely read anything else Roth writes in this world and with these characters.
Glorious Exploits
Two unemployed Syracusan potters attempt to stage Medea using a group of Athenian prisoners of war. The summary and the googly-eyes-on-a-statue cover make it sound like this is going to be a comedy, but it's really not, although it is funny: it's a brutal world, and a lot of awful things happen (and have happened) to characters we care about. It's very moving, and in places very hard to read.
The author is Irish and the characters talk like contemporary Irish people, which works really well both in and of itself, and in support of some of the book's themes: how far can we understand people, especially those who are very different from us? And how far are we willing to try? One of the book's strengths is that it avoids easy moral lessons, but it does believe that it's important to try.
Lady Eve's Last Con
F/f con artists in spaaaaaaace! This was an absolute delight - frothy and fun, but with enough care for the characters and their world to give it plenty of substance too.
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons
Absolutely loved this take on the history of the Amazons. The first section was the best for me (not least because of how stunning Phil Jimenez's art is), but it was all great, I really hope DeConnick gets to do the rest of the planned volumes.
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America - David Hadju
Really enjoyed this history of not just the moral panic around comics, but also their history more broadly - very engagingly written.
Voyage of the Damned
Definitely three stars (affectionate) rather than three stars (derogatory) here. There's a lot about this book that didn't work for me - the worldbuilding is Not Amazing being the key thing - but the main character was just so engaging that I had a great time anyway. He's a queer fat weirdo with an entirely understandable chip on his shoulder, dripping sarcasm but with an incredibly good heart; I really loved that even with the villains he would have a moment of "oh, I see how you're in pain here too, I'm sorry".
Half a Crown
I've liked a lot of things about this alt-history trilogy: they're overall absorbing and convincing, and particularly strong on how easy it is for a fascist society to back people into corners where it feels like there's nothing they can do. But WOW did this final volume not stick the landing.
Shubeik Lubeik
When Among Crows - Veronica Roth
The Sign of Four - Arthur Conan Doyle
The Iliad - Homer trans. Emily Wilson
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Suzanne Collins
Glorious Exploits - Ferdia Lennon
Lady Eve's Last Con - Rebecca Fraimow
Winter's Gifts - Ben Aaronovitch
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America - David Hadju
Voyage of the Damned - Frances White
The Inimitable Jeeves - PG Wodehouse
The Spear Cuts Through Water - Simon Jimenez
The Book of Witches ed Jonathan Strahan
A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? - Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Half a Crown - Jo Walton
The Wings Upon Her Back - Samantha Mills
When Among Crows (four stars), Glorious Exploits (four stars), Lady Eve's Last Con (five stars), Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons (five stars), Voyage of the Damned (three stars), Half a Crown (? stars)
When Among CrowsUrban fantasy novella steeped in Polish mythology. I really enjoyed this! It didn't set my world on fire, but it was very well done and I would absolutely read anything else Roth writes in this world and with these characters.
Glorious Exploits
Two unemployed Syracusan potters attempt to stage Medea using a group of Athenian prisoners of war. The summary and the googly-eyes-on-a-statue cover make it sound like this is going to be a comedy, but it's really not, although it is funny: it's a brutal world, and a lot of awful things happen (and have happened) to characters we care about. It's very moving, and in places very hard to read.
The author is Irish and the characters talk like contemporary Irish people, which works really well both in and of itself, and in support of some of the book's themes: how far can we understand people, especially those who are very different from us? And how far are we willing to try? One of the book's strengths is that it avoids easy moral lessons, but it does believe that it's important to try.
Lady Eve's Last Con
F/f con artists in spaaaaaaace! This was an absolute delight - frothy and fun, but with enough care for the characters and their world to give it plenty of substance too.
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons
Absolutely loved this take on the history of the Amazons. The first section was the best for me (not least because of how stunning Phil Jimenez's art is), but it was all great, I really hope DeConnick gets to do the rest of the planned volumes.
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America - David Hadju
Really enjoyed this history of not just the moral panic around comics, but also their history more broadly - very engagingly written.
Voyage of the Damned
Definitely three stars (affectionate) rather than three stars (derogatory) here. There's a lot about this book that didn't work for me - the worldbuilding is Not Amazing being the key thing - but the main character was just so engaging that I had a great time anyway. He's a queer fat weirdo with an entirely understandable chip on his shoulder, dripping sarcasm but with an incredibly good heart; I really loved that even with the villains he would have a moment of "oh, I see how you're in pain here too, I'm sorry".
Half a Crown
I've liked a lot of things about this alt-history trilogy: they're overall absorbing and convincing, and particularly strong on how easy it is for a fascist society to back people into corners where it feels like there's nothing they can do. But WOW did this final volume not stick the landing.
