Third Quarter 2021 Reading

[JGP]

I've really enjoyed what of Christopher Buehlman I've read-- Those Across the River, Between Two Fires, and The Suicide Motor Club, but those were horror. So color me outside the lines surprised he's put out a fantasy, The Blacktongue Thief.  I thought perhaps I'd have nothing to read before Abercrombie's latest came out, so yay. Digging in.

[dog-days]

 I've tried to avoid mentioning spoilers in my comments, but I'm using spoiler tags because this would otherwise be a very long post. 

 The Invisible Library – Genevieve Cogman

Spoiler

 

I liked this more as I got into it, and the author’s grip on the tone and build of the series solidified. The central character, Irene, is a dimension-hopping librarian charged with stealing books to preserve the balance of the universe, a universe which vacillates between two poles, represented by the hyper-lawful dragons with orderly, techno-tyrannical impulses, and the individualist Fae, each of whom seeks to align himself or herself with an archetype e.g. master assassin, princess, libertine etc.   

It’s a very arch series that doesn’t so much wink at pulp fictions past as grab them and pull them into the story. Irene is a strong central character, both in terms of how she’s written and in terms of her personality. Though I’m still not sure what she sees in her love interest Kai – she really needs to throw him over and pick pretty much anyone else. (Admittedly, Kai’s become a bit more bearable over the last few books, though he’s still not very interesting).  The last book in the series is due to be released in December 2021, so I know what I’ll be buying as a Christmas present to myself alongside the last of the Alex Verus novels.

Red Sister (Book 1 of the Book of the Ancestor trilogy) – Mark Lawrence

Spoiler

I did listen to the whole of the first novel, but it didn’t grab me enough to want to press on with the rest of the trilogy. The characters all seemed pretty bland and uninteresting. The world felt grim-dark in the most boring way possible. Based on my response to Gideon the Ninth, I’m beginning to suspect that magic fighting nuns may be an area of fantasy I should avoid in future. That said, I didn't hate the book - I'd be willing to try Book 2 if people assured me it got a lot better.

The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss

Spoiler

I can remember this book making waves when it was released. I didn’t read it at the time, and now I’ve listened to it I’m not sure what the fuss was about. It felt very much like a by-the-numbers coming-of-age fantasy story that would have been acceptable but not hugely original as the basis for a CPRG. And the hero was tremendously irritating. Either have someone be a genius musician, or a genius magician, but don’t have them be a genius everything. On the bright side, at least the characterisation looks quite advanced in comparison to Book 1 of the Dresden Files, which I’ve moaned about in the UF thread.

The Privilege of the Sword – Ellen Kushner

Spoiler

I didn’t read the first book in the series before this; nevertheless, I didn’t struggle to understand what was going on. Girl from impoverished aristocratic background is taught about fencing and life through the intervention of her louche wealthy uncle. Enjoyed the story and read it quickly without being much moved or marked by it. Page-turning fun.

Newt’s Emerald – Garth Nix

Spoiler

Regency-ish fantasy. Deft, light and amusing. One of those books that you enjoy at the time but can’t much remember one week later. If books were baked goods, this would be 100% a souffle. ( I am currently reading Baking Bad, and this might be affecting my choice of language).

Sorceror to the Crown – Zen Cho

Spoiler

I was pretty indifferent to this one. Possibly if I’d read it before the Temeraire series and Newt’s Emerald, I’d have enjoyed it more, but by the time I got to it, I wanted a break from Regency Fantasy. It’s competently written, but it felt lacking. It needed an extra twist of peril, or humour, or pace, just something more to lift it to a higher level. Bits were strong – I enjoyed Zacharias’s complicated relationship with his owner/foster father. But there wasn’t enough to make me want to pick up the sequel. A souffle gone flat. 

Guns of the Dawn – Adrian Tchaikovsky

Spoiler

I’m so glad I saw this stand-alone book recced. Feels a bit like Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment rewritten by Naomi Novik in Uprooted mode, but is still very much its own thing. Set in a nineteenth-century-ish world, a kingdom uses up its sons in a hopeless bloodbath of a war, and moves onto its daughters. It’s the first Tchaikovsky I’ve read, and is apparently distinct among his oeuvre for its lack of bugs. Well-paced and thrilling with strong characterisation. I was sorry that the final section didn’t carry on a bit longer – I was expecting there to be something more done with the youngest daughter since she seemed to be set up to have a larger role at the start.  Still, the end was satisfying, and I’d love it if the author wrote more in this world.

Spiderlight – Adrian Tchaikovsky

Spoiler

Another stand-alone. A lighter read than Guns of the Dawn, and not hugely innovative, sewing together and gently subverting various D&D tropes, but still enjoyable in its way – I imagine that it might appeal to Order of the Stick fans.

Alex Verus series – Benedict Jacka

Spoiler

This series had a shaky start, but gradually picked up pace – by the fourth book, it had become much more self-confident and exciting. I left a very positive (but spoilery) review for the series on GoodReads right after finishing it. I think now I’d be willing to admit to more problems with it – in the most recent book, for example, dialogue and character interactions were subordinated to combat. What characterisation there is in the series is often good, but there are fantasy books out there with deeper characters. I won’t really be able to decide how I feel about the series until I’ve read the last book (due in December 2021). I’m interested to see what Jacka’s next series is like, because I think he’s developed a lot as a writer in the course of this one. Like Novik’s Temeraire, the Verus books could be Jacka’s training ground on the road to something better.

Gideon the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir

Spoiler

Everyone else seemed to love this book and thought it was exciting/fun/page-turning. I listened to the whole thing uncomplainingly; nothing about it was bad. At the same time, I didn’t find it hugely engaging. *hands* I didn’t feel attached to any of the characters. Even if I could see that Harrowhawk, for example, was well-drawn, and a much better character than the ones in half the books mentioned in this post, I really didn’t care if she or Gideon lived or died. I yawned through the action scenes. That said, I yawn through a lot of action scenes unless they’re very well set-up. Probably not going to get the sequel. 

Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor

Spoiler

Another book that left me unimpressed. It was readable, but the first-person narrator felt oddly undefined. Detective novels have their misanthropic male heroes with alcohol problems and a long-lost love; female-led fantasy novels have sassy kick-ass heroines with difficult pasts. There’s nothing wrong with either per se, but sometimes it feels as if the author barely bothered to expand on the template.  And like the title says, the book is just one damned thing after another. There’s not much sense of cohesion – too much happens, and despite what the heroine thinks in the WW1 episode, it feels as if the scenes in the past are just there as a colourful background to the adventures of the (thin) characters from the Institute. There’s very little atmosphere. It would maybe work better as a film than a book. If the sex were taken out, it might do well as a book in the eight-to-twelve-year-old category.

The Witness for the Dead – Katherine Addison

Spoiler

 

Semi-sequel to The Goblin Emperor. I enjoyed both books, though they’re very different. As williamjm highlights further up the thread, the first book is all about high court politics. Witness for the Dead feels a bit like a few days in the life of a crucial but undervalued provincial functionary. Not quite Diary of a Nobody, but still a long way from assassinations, coups, and coronations.

The above description might sound as if Addison’s latest is a step down, but actually I liked it just as well, and was disappointed when I got to the end because I wanted to read more about Celahar, his investigations, and just the normal goings-on in his life. It reminded me a bit of Bujold’s Sharing Knife books, in that it’s mostly not high-stakes, but you feel you know the characters – and even that some of them could be fun people to sit down with in a tea house and spend a few hours chatting with over nothing much. I wonder if Addison plans to write more about Celahar? She seemed to be leaving a few threads open for a follow-up.

 

Ottoman Odyssey: Travels through a Large Empire  - Alev Scott

Spoiler

 

Enjoyable and fascinating book that introduced me to things I was completely ignorant of. For example, I had no idea that the Afro-Turks existed. This is partly because they do not fit in with the nationalist, ethnically homogenous myth of Turkey embraced by the state since Atatürk, and so at best seem to have been suppressed and ignored. Scott does a good job of highlighting the diversity and (relative) tolerance of the Ottoman Empire, while not being afraid to highlight its failures and inequalities. In places, her analysis could go a little deeper. She says that she views shared language as being key to peace, but I think this idea, though widespread, has been much contested, and she could do with examining it more.

Scott’s father is British, and her mother is Turkish-Cypriot. She spent several years living in Istanbul before being barred from Turkey in 2016. Her point-of-view is a rare and interesting one, and I look forward to reading more by her.

 

A Tale of Love and Darkness – Amos Oz, translated by Nicholas de Lange

Spoiler

 

If there’s a book I've read this year that I’d want to run around and press into people’s hands, this is it. (It’s a big book though, so running around with more than five copies at once would be difficult).

A Tale of Love and Darkness is Amos Oz’s memoir of growing up in Israel in the forties and early fifties. It describes the characters, histories, and circumstances of his extended family with a glee that would be Dickensian if Dickens had ever approached realism, but it can turn with a snake-like speed into tragedy, or hover in the no man’s land between the two, flicking first one way, then the other.

When I was a little more than eight, in the last year of the British Mandate, a couple of fellow-conspirators and I built an awesome rocket in the back yard of our house. Our plan was to aim it at Buckingham Palace (I had discovered a large-scale map of central London in my father’s collection).

I typed out on my father’s typewriter a polite letter of ultimatum addressed to His Majesty King George VI of England and the House of Windsor (I wrote in Hebrew — he must have someone there who can translate for him): If you do not get out of our country in six months at the latest, our Day of Atonement will be Great Britain’s Day of Reckoning. But our project never came to fruition because we were unable to develop the sophisticated guiding device (we planned to hit Buckingham Palace, but not innocent English passers-by), and because we had some problems devising a fuel that would take our rocket from the corner of Amos and Obadiah Streets in Kerem Avraham to a target in the middle of London. While we were still tied up in technological research and development, the English changed their minds and hurriedly left the country, and that is how London survived my national zeal and my deadly rocket, which was made up of bits of an abandoned refrigerator and the remains of an old bicycle.

Before turning to memoir, Amos Oz wrote fiction and essays. The artfulness of this book – using art to hide art – is such that I’ve really no idea how much of it is true in the specifics as opposed to the general outline. (The writer did live through the 1948 war in Jerusalem; his mother did commit suicide when he was twelve, he did go to live on Kibbutz Hulda when he was fourteen. His great uncle’s autobiography and the diary of a family friend are used to supplement his own recollections). There’s an episode in the middle of the book describing the disastrous, symbolically-loaded encounter of a young Amos with an Arab girl, Aisha, and her brother Awwad that made me suspect the author was using at least a little artistic licence – but I’m not sure. Whether or not he was, I wish we knew what happened to them.  

One of those rare books that deserves every prize it won, and then some. 

 

[mix_masta_micah]

Currently having a fun time with The Pariah by Anthony Ryan. It may be his best outing yet imo and seems to be pretty heavily influenced by The Hundred Years War. 

[ljkeane]

Network Effect was good. Like all the Murderbot books it was a fun quick read. After that I read Anthony Ryan's The Pariah too. I really enjoyed his first book then I really didn't enjoy the next two books in the series. Given how much I did like Blood Song though when I saw he had a new series out I thought I might give it a try. It was decent, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I remember liking his first book but it was entertaining and a bit of a return to form I'd say.

[Plessiez]

I read Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor recently and it was ... fine?

 @dog-days compared the semi-sequel to Bujold's fantasy work, which I'd agree with: but I think I mean that in a somewhat more negative way.  The main character was certainly sympathetic (and there's a scene around 400 pages in that I'll admit to finding surprisingly moving), but despite the nominally high-stakes I never really felt particularly worried that anything bad or surprising would happen. 

On 8/26/2021 at 9:05 PM, williamjm said:

I then read Neil Gaiman's Stardust. I've seen the film adaptation multiple times but never read the book before. I think in recent years there has been a bit of a trend of modernised fairy tales, this was perhaps one of the first of those. It is an entertaining story although I found the supporting cast more interesting than Tristan himself who is a bit dull, particularly early in the story. The premise of a more adult take on traditional fairy tales does work well, although I think some other novels have perhaps done better at capturing the skewed logic and mixture of wonders and horrors of Faerie. I liked the book, but perhaps not one of Gaiman's greatest works.

I'd agree that Stardust isn't Gaiman's best work (I think his best work isn't found in any of his novels, really, except maybe Coraline: I like his work on Sandman and some of his short stories a lot more). 

But it's perhaps worth noting (if you didn't know already?) that Stardust wasn't orignally written as a conventional novel.  It's a bit like Pratchett's Eric in that the original version was written to be illustrated (and the illustrations are, I think in both cases, about as important as the actual text alone); and a bit like Eric too in that it was later released in a version without the illustrations.

[williamjm]

11 minutes ago, Plessiez said:

I'd agree that Stardust isn't Gaiman's best work (I think his best work isn't found in any of his novels, really, except maybe Coraline: I like his work on Sandman and some of his short stories a lot more). 

But it's perhaps worth noting (if you didn't know already?) that Stardust wasn't orignally written as a conventional novel.  It's a bit like Pratchett's Eric in that the original version was written to be illustrated (and the illustrations are, I think in both cases, about as important as the actual text alone); and a bit like Eric too in that it was later released in a version without the illustrations.

I think The Ocean at the End of the Lane is my favourite out of Gaiman's novels that I've read (although there are at least a couple I haven't read yet). I did know there was an illustrated edition, but perhaps I didn't realise how important that was.

I've now started Steven Erikson's The God Is Not Willing. The last time I read anything by Erikson was when The Crippled God was released (although I've read some of Esslemont's Malazan novels in the interim), so far it does feel very familiar.

[Peadar]

Starting Charlie Stross's The Bloodline Feud -- a Merchant Princes omnibus.

[Plessiez]

16 hours ago, Peadar said:

Starting Charlie Stross's The Bloodline Feud -- a Merchant Princes omnibus.

It's been a few years, but I remember really liking this when I read it.  (As I recall, it's not just a collection of the previously published novels but also a slight rewrite/edit, although I didn't ever read the originals so I don't know how big any of the changes made were.)

There's a sequel series in progress too (the third book of which comes out this month, I think?), but for some reason I found that I didn't like the first book of that quite as much as I was hoping to, and I've not got any further with it yet.

[Peadar]

5 hours ago, Plessiez said:

It's been a few years, but I remember really liking this when I read it.  (As I recall, it's not just a collection of the previously published novels but also a slight rewrite/edit, although I didn't ever read the originals so I don't know how big any of the changes made were.)

All I can say is "so far so good". Looking forward to getting a bit deeper.

[Wilbur]

Yesterday I finished off Black Orchids by Rex Stout, one of the Nero Wolfe double mysteries, featuring the story of Black Orchids and then Cordially Invited to Meet Death.

Black Orchids is fine, and one of the better short mysteries in that it touches on most of the Nero Wolfe universe tropes.  If it was longer and more fleshed out with those elements, I would have been happy.  Wolfe at a flower show is always a good setup.

Cordially Invited to Meet Death is less successful, at least to my tastes.  It sets up as a Country House / Manor murder, but because of the short form, it never really gets going in the way you would like.

The short double mysteries are just too short for my tastes.  I feel like Rex Stout's real power band is the mystery story in full novel length, although "novel length" in mid-century publishing terms meant 150-250 pages, much shorter than today.

Both stories read on an audio book by Michael Pritchard, and his reading of a Nero Wolfe mystery is about as perfect a combination of reader and book characters as I have ever experienced.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I finally read Piranesi.  I am now bereft.  It was so good - Clarke has such a wonderful touch.  

[Peadar]

I'm moving on to The Traders' War by Charles Stross, the second Merchant Princes Omnibus. 

[Plessiez]

I recently finished Aliette de Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings, which I enjoyed well enough but perhaps not so much that I'm going to be rushing to buy the sequels.  I think it has a certain New Weird energy to it, in some respects, though apparently it came out in 2015.

Now reading Ada Hoffman's The Outside, which I've been meaning to start for a while.  I'm a little bit over a hundred pages in now and liking it a lot so far:  it's a nice mix of space opera and philosophical horror (it reminds me a little bit of Adam Roberts' The Thing Itself in that regard).  Without going into spoilers, it feels at the moment that there's an obvious twist the book is pointing towards, though I'm sort of hoping that that's a red herring.  But I guess I'll find out soon...

[polishgenius]

4 hours ago, Plessiez said:

I recently finished Aliette de Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings, which I enjoyed well enough but perhaps not so much that I'm going to be rushing to buy the sequels.  I think it has a certain New Weird energy to it, in some respects, though apparently it came out in 2015.

Now reading Ada Hoffman's The Outside, which I've been meaning to start for a while.  I'm a little bit over a hundred pages in now and liking it a lot so far:  it's a nice mix of space opera and philosophical horror (it reminds me a little bit of Adam Roberts' The Thing Itself in that regard).  Without going into spoilers, it feels at the moment that there's an obvious twist the book is pointing towards, though I'm sort of hoping that that's a red herring.  But I guess I'll find out soon...

 

lol I read these exact two books in reverse order back in April. 


I enjoyed The Outside, particularly the character work, but I did ultimately think its premise and setting fell a little short of what was built up- as I put elsewhere in a post about it, I'd recommend it, but I'd recommend other weirdness-infused sci-fi first. 

House of Shattered Wings just hit the spot of adventure and derring-do that I wanted at that time, so I had fun with that. 

[Wilbur]

Yesterday I finished up Dave Duncan's third book in The Seventh Sword series, The Destiny of the Sword.  Finally in this book, the Seventh Sword actually plays a major role, and the plot includes several instance of actual swordplay.  However, this book is a much longer work than the first two, and the emphasis is on the politics of ideas and change in a society moving from a pre-literate to a literate social organization.

It seems like maybe the author was trying to wedge two different stories into a single novel, but because it was published in 1988, the novel length was still a reasonable number of pages, so the book contains two different "linking paragraphs" where the plot jumps forward in time, unlike the first two books, which covered much shorter periods.

The ideas in the book, and how it describes the process of a committed, righteous leader becoming a despot, are interesting.  However, the action and plot are sort of pinched in the final 10% of the book, which ends in either a real downer or else a political cliff-hanger.

Further supporting the idea that maybe this was two stories merged into a single book are the characters' actions and attitudes, which make sense in the first part of the book, and also in the latter half of the book, but don't necessarily reconcile between those two parts.  I feel like I missed something happening about 60-70% of the way through that changes the positions and attitudes of some of the important actors in the plot.

Still, this book serves as a good capstone for the first two books in the story, and apparently the author wrote a fourth book a couple of decade later.  This story casts some of the events in the first two books in a different light, given new learning and understanding gained by the main characters, and it closes off many of the key plotlines.  Dave Duncan was clearly doing good work in the 80s, and I am sorry that the cover illustrations of the print editions put me off reading these books back in the day.

[williamjm]

8 hours ago, Plessiez said:

I recently finished Aliette de Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings, which I enjoyed well enough but perhaps not so much that I'm going to be rushing to buy the sequels.  I think it has a certain New Weird energy to it, in some respects, though apparently it came out in 2015.

I read that a couple of years ago and had a similar reaction. I thought it was reasonably good, but I didn't find myself compelled to find out what happened next.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Finished the Saxon Stories.  I'd read all but the last 5 books awhile ago.  So good, so much going on that I'd missed the first time through.  I also listened to some on audiobook at work and the installments read by Matt Bates were excellent.  

Now reading Mao II, which is a change of pace.  First three chapters were very engaging and sucked me right in.  Waiting for boring DeLillo to show up; most of his stuff I cruise through and then BAAAMMM hit a wall where I'm rereading the same paragraph 50 times, maybe I'll dodge that bullet on this one.

[ljkeane]

I'm reading Emily St John Mandel's The Glass Hotel, which is a little strange. It's quite well written but I'm not sure I really see the point of all the somewhat interconnected vignettes it's made up of so far.

[Plessiez]

On 9/8/2021 at 3:07 PM, polishgenius said:

I enjoyed The Outside, particularly the character work, but I did ultimately think its premise and setting fell a little short of what was built up- as I put elsewhere in a post about it, I'd recommend it, but I'd recommend other weirdness-infused sci-fi first.

Finished this today.  Think my take is basically the same as yours (but maybe slightly more positive?). 

I enjoyed the premise. I liked both the main POV characters and (most of) the supporting cast, and I thought some of the more mystical/nihilistic passages when Yasira experiences the Outside were really nicely done (I'm thinking in particular of the start of Chapter 17, but there were other similarly evocative moments).  But at the same time I was slightly disappointed by the direction the plot went in towards the end of the story.  I think I was hoping for either something weirder or, alternatively, some more concrete revelations about the backstory.  Still, I see that the sequel is already out, so I might try that soon.

What other weirdness-infused sci-fi would you recommend instead?  (I couldn't find the other post you mentioned.)

[polishgenius]

23 minutes ago, Plessiez said:

What other weirdness-infused sci-fi would you recommend instead?  (I couldn't find the other post you mentioned.)

Yeah I could have been clearer that was on another forum. I also didn't actually mention the candidates which is just shoddy of me.


Anyway, off the top of my head, Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire trilogy is the prime candidate. I really liked that. It's a bit less eerie (or intending to be eerie) I guess, but it mixes some military SF bombast with just being very odd. 

There's also M Suddain's Hunters and Collectors, a half-comedy half-noir all fruitloop  crazy veering into horror tale of space-based restaurant criticism. The premise might make one think of Hitchhiker's Guide but that's really, really not what it is.

Less space based (well, no space based, though the first has creatures from space, ish), but Tade Thompson's Rosewater trilogy is an excellent alien intrusion thriller and you'll probably be aware of them but Jeff VanderMeer's more recent stuff, the Area X trilogy and Borne/Dead Astronauts. Dead Astronauts in particular is absolutely bonkers and I'm still making my way through it, but you do have to read Borne first coz it's hard enough to follow  with the earlier book setting the context.

More recently I read The Skyward Inn by Aliya Whitely, which I can't say I personally loved but it was definitely a good book that very much committed to being fucking strange and creeping you the fuck out.