Book Reviews
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Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Things I like: scifi stories starring women characters; robots; self-aware spaceships; visions of the future which don’t focus on straight white males; societies which aren’t just a copy-paste of current American/European society; space aliens; people enacting long, drawn-out plans of revenge. Things Ancillary Justice has: all those and more! This is one of those books where I’m just so happy to have read it that I had hard time coming up with a coherent review explaining exactly WHY I liked it. (Which is why this review has been so delayed!) I liked the little details of the story, as mentioned above, but there’s tons more good stuff to pick through.…
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Sand and Ruin and Gold by Alexis Hall
This is a very short novella or a long short story about a space prince who really likes mermaids (and one particular merman). It feels experimental, and not just because it’s set on a scifi world where mermaids are treated like trained whales in an aquarium. The writing is luxurious and dreamy, quite different from the other Alexis Hall books I’ve read. And the content is very thought-provoking. It’s not really a romance, except it is? Except nothing happens but a lot of longing looks and face-touching. Is it bestiality if one half of the romantic couple thinks the other is basically just a marine animal? Except then he starts…
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Jackdaw by K.J. Charles
This is set in the same world as The Magpie Lord, but stars two different characters! And it’s so great, because Jonah and Ben could not be further from Stephen and Crane, both personality and relationship-wise. Which is great! It’s nice seeing the different kinds of people who populate a favorite series. Plus, I really enjoyed seeing how KJC dealt with Jonah and Ben’s tragic history and its repercussions within the larger Magpie Lord context. Turns out she’s super good at constructing characters who make me both want to cry from empathy and also bash their heads together because they just need to KISS already sheesh. Jonah is a criminal,…
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Fighting Gravity by Leah Petersen
I really wanted to like this more. It’s a scifi romance, with a space prince and a scientist! But the writing style just didn’t click with me. The worldbuilding was very light and character development was pretty much non-existent. Without those things as a solid foundation, the rest of the book fell apart. The first chapter has one or two mentions of aliens and how the space!empire is structured, and then it just tapers off to nothing. More details about, like, EVERYTHING would’ve been nice, especially when certain aspects of the world weren’t as advanced as you’d expect in a futuristic society. Medical care, for instance, is basically at the…
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The Bone Key by Sarah Monette
So apparently I have a thing for books about repressed introverts who’re plagued by the paranormal when they’re not working in a museum. I’m not really surprised. It combines my love of books, antiques, mysteries and the paranormal, plus there’s a character with the potential for some sort of clam situation if they have a cute enough sidekick. (Spoiler: Kyle doesn’t have a sidekick (or friends). He also doesn’t go anywhere in a character development sort of way. It’s the only downside to an otherwise wonderful book.) Sarah Monette is the lady who wrote The Goblin King (as Katherine Addison), one of my favorite books from 2014! This is the…
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Lady Knight by L.J. Baker (2007)
Show me a story about a lady knight who falls in love with a noblewoman and I will show you MY HEART omfg this was so good! Crazy stressful, because it’s set in pseudo-medieval times where everybody is against a woman knight (even if she can kick all y’all’s asses) and nobody wants a rich noblewoman to date her and there is ALSO a religious fanatic who wants to start a holy war and it’s so, so stressful.
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The Second Mango, The Money Book, The Franchise Affair
The Second Mango – Shira Glassman A newly-crowned queen and a lady knight go on an adventure to find the queen a girlfriend, and on the way end up rescuing a bunch a people and defeating an evil wizard. It’s super fluffy and super adorable! Everybody is Jewish and the queen has food allergies and it’s great. And for about half of the book I appreciated the humor and the light-heartedness, but then it tried to be more serious and things went awry. Because I was so attached to all the fluff in the beginning, I couldn’t make the transition over into seriousness, and I ultimately didn’t like the writing…
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Recently: Peripheral People
I, too, have seen and loved Taylor Swift’s new music video, Bad Blood. Such a fun video! Winner: The Crimson Curse as best super spy name. This past week was the Bout of Books, which went pretty well for me! I ended up reading five books, four of which were comics. I got a little sidetracked on Friday when my shiny new computer showed up[1. It has a matte screen! 10 hours of battery life! And Windows 8.1, which I’ve never used before but which I kinda like. It also only weighs about 2.5 pounds. It’s AMAZING.] and all I wanted to do was transfer files and set up preferences…