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alobearFour more books read during my week-long reading retreat!
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older:
This is a sapphic murder mystery set on Jupiter, which sees two university lovers reunited to investigate a death. It's a bit overwritten, with very dense prose, a lot of unnecessarily complicated vocabulary and often quite torturously unnatural dialogue. And it focuses more on plot than character, which is not what I prefer. But I still quite enjoyed it because it raised some interesting ethical questions (the motivations of the bad guys were arguably justifiable, if not their methods) and I liked the viewpoint protagonist.
The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino:
The first of these novellas is about a suit of armour animated by some kind of personality, who has to go on a quest to defend his knighthood when it's suggested the maiden he rescued from brigands may not have been a virgin... It's a clever parody of medi-eval knighthood, but the women in the story don't get very good treatment or representation, which I guess is to be expected.
In the second novella, a Viscount is cut in half on the battlefield. One half is evil and the other half is virtuous, and they clash over their joint love of the same woman, while those living on their estate prove unhappy with both of them, as their extreme views don't lend themselves well to effective leadership. It was very grim at the start, but also very cleverly observed - and the female characters were much better than in the first novella.
Warrior: A Short Story Collection, edited by Antonica Eikli:
This has twelve very diverse, very queer speculative short stories, by different authors, which were all good, but some of which I enjoyed more than others. My favourite was Glass Bones, about a young woman trying to find a way to lift the 'curse' of her brother's brittle bone disease. Some were grim, some were depressing, some were uplifting, some were funny, some were sad - all had impact and all presented very different types of characters in interesting ways.
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich:
This is about a near future where it appears that evolution has started going backwards, so pregnant women are rounded up, confined and studied, and their babies taken away from them. Pregnant protagonist Cedar spends the book trying to avoid capture and protect her unborn child. The book is supposed to be a diary written by her and addressed to the child - so it suffers from the usual 'recorded document' problem of the fact that nobody writes direct actions and fully reported conversations in their diary! That aside, it's very well written with a very strong narrative voice. It dragged a bit at times - but that was in keeping with what was happening to Cedar at those points. It also ended very differently to how I expected, but not in an unsatisfying way.
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older:
This is a sapphic murder mystery set on Jupiter, which sees two university lovers reunited to investigate a death. It's a bit overwritten, with very dense prose, a lot of unnecessarily complicated vocabulary and often quite torturously unnatural dialogue. And it focuses more on plot than character, which is not what I prefer. But I still quite enjoyed it because it raised some interesting ethical questions (the motivations of the bad guys were arguably justifiable, if not their methods) and I liked the viewpoint protagonist.
The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino:
The first of these novellas is about a suit of armour animated by some kind of personality, who has to go on a quest to defend his knighthood when it's suggested the maiden he rescued from brigands may not have been a virgin... It's a clever parody of medi-eval knighthood, but the women in the story don't get very good treatment or representation, which I guess is to be expected.
In the second novella, a Viscount is cut in half on the battlefield. One half is evil and the other half is virtuous, and they clash over their joint love of the same woman, while those living on their estate prove unhappy with both of them, as their extreme views don't lend themselves well to effective leadership. It was very grim at the start, but also very cleverly observed - and the female characters were much better than in the first novella.
Warrior: A Short Story Collection, edited by Antonica Eikli:
This has twelve very diverse, very queer speculative short stories, by different authors, which were all good, but some of which I enjoyed more than others. My favourite was Glass Bones, about a young woman trying to find a way to lift the 'curse' of her brother's brittle bone disease. Some were grim, some were depressing, some were uplifting, some were funny, some were sad - all had impact and all presented very different types of characters in interesting ways.
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich:
This is about a near future where it appears that evolution has started going backwards, so pregnant women are rounded up, confined and studied, and their babies taken away from them. Pregnant protagonist Cedar spends the book trying to avoid capture and protect her unborn child. The book is supposed to be a diary written by her and addressed to the child - so it suffers from the usual 'recorded document' problem of the fact that nobody writes direct actions and fully reported conversations in their diary! That aside, it's very well written with a very strong narrative voice. It dragged a bit at times - but that was in keeping with what was happening to Cedar at those points. It also ended very differently to how I expected, but not in an unsatisfying way.
alobearI am currently on the most glorious reading retreat of the 20 (21?) I have been on to date - a whole week with a tiny cottage largely to myself, but with the big house just steps away, containing other lovely readers and my amazing hosts providing all the fantastic food and conversation I could wish for (when not enjoying my hermit era and reading, reading reading...).
In just under 48 hours so far, I have finished the audiobook I was partway through and listened to another one, plus read three whole novels!
Whispering Wood by Sharon Shinn:
I was most of the way through this audiobook when I set off on retreat, but finished it on the first full day in the cottage. It's the fifth and (currently) final book in the Elemental Blessings series, which I've been enjoying revisiting over the last few months. And, based on how this one ended, I expect there is more to come from this author in this world. This one, unfortunately, is probably my least favourite of the five, since I wasn't overly keen on either the protagonist or the love interest (at least at first) and I didn't feel the romance was given enough credible development for me to be invested in it. Still, I love this world and I enjoyed seeing the continuation of the global politics and the inclusion of various of the characters from earlier in the series. And the conclusion of this book suggests and interesting direction for the next instalment to go in, should there be one. Still fun overall - and I did get to like the protagonist by the end!
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson:
This tells the story of Cara, employed by a futuristic corporation to travel to different versions of Earth and collect demographic, financial, and climate data that might inform decisions and policies on Earth Zero. I was expecting a pacy, exciting, multidimensional adventure story - but this book is much more a treatise on social inequality and the exploitation of both people and resources by those with all the money and power. A lot of it was clever and meaningful - but the author kept pointing out *why* each instance was clever and/or impactful and/or meaningful, which rather diminished its impact, since I didn't feel trusted to see these aspects for myself. It was also pretty grim in places - and I'm getting quite tired of strong female protagonists being abused/manipulated/exploited/objectified by terrible men...
Still, it had complex, layered characters, lots of great inter-relationships, a fair few moments that did have a real impact in various ways and an interesting conclusion.
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel:
A giant metal hand is discovered buried in the Earth, leading to a belief that a whole immense robot has been disassembled and hidden across Earth by an ancient civilisation. The book follows the team who are tasked with finding the pieces, putting them together and trying to work out where the robot came from and what purpose it is meant to serve.
The whole book is made up of interview transcripts, journal entries and official reports of various kinds - which isn't my favourite format, since I precludes a real connection with the characters, since we're largely deprived of their inner thoughts.
It's very well put together and the premise is intriguing. I did get to like a few of the characters (particularly the unnamed interviewer) and I enjoyed the story overall, but I don't think it's one that's going to stay with me, and I'm not invested enough to carry on with the series.
The Just City by Jo Walton:
This is about a disparate group of people from all different time periods who, with the help of the goddess Athene, set out to try and create the 'just city' from Plato's Republic, on the island of Atlantis before it sinks.
So, yeah - that's the premise...
And I really don't know how to feel about this book.
The writing is good, I liked a lot of the characters, the extrapolation of how the thought experiment might play out was fascinating, and I was engaged throughout.
There was a lot of summary, a lot of telling, and a lot of philosophical discussion, but all that added to rather than detracting from the narrative.
But everything to do with sex and inter-relationship between the characters was absolutely appalling and sometimes a pretty tough read. All the terrible stuff was eventually called out as being terrible, but not in a wholly satisfying way. And the 'your body is responding so you must want my attentions despite your protestations' was used as justification more than once and never wholly condemned, which I had a real problem with.
The book also ended very abruptly without much of a real conclusion, which was annoying. It is the first in a trilogy (I found out afterwards) but the second book is set decades later, so it's not like to continues straight on from the end of this one.
It raised some fascinating questions and made me think really hard about a lot of things, but I also had a lot of issues with it, so I'm very undecided about it.
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar:
This is a novella about two sisters who vow to stay together forever - but then one of them gets involved with an inhabitant of the faerie realm and events spiral out of her control. The audiobook narrator was excellent and the listening experience was greatly enhanced by the inclusion of music and singing, which were pivotal to the story. It's very atmospheric but also very sad in places. I'm not sure I wholly connected with it in its pretty short run-time, but it's well written and quite emotional at times.
In just under 48 hours so far, I have finished the audiobook I was partway through and listened to another one, plus read three whole novels!
Whispering Wood by Sharon Shinn:
I was most of the way through this audiobook when I set off on retreat, but finished it on the first full day in the cottage. It's the fifth and (currently) final book in the Elemental Blessings series, which I've been enjoying revisiting over the last few months. And, based on how this one ended, I expect there is more to come from this author in this world. This one, unfortunately, is probably my least favourite of the five, since I wasn't overly keen on either the protagonist or the love interest (at least at first) and I didn't feel the romance was given enough credible development for me to be invested in it. Still, I love this world and I enjoyed seeing the continuation of the global politics and the inclusion of various of the characters from earlier in the series. And the conclusion of this book suggests and interesting direction for the next instalment to go in, should there be one. Still fun overall - and I did get to like the protagonist by the end!
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson:
This tells the story of Cara, employed by a futuristic corporation to travel to different versions of Earth and collect demographic, financial, and climate data that might inform decisions and policies on Earth Zero. I was expecting a pacy, exciting, multidimensional adventure story - but this book is much more a treatise on social inequality and the exploitation of both people and resources by those with all the money and power. A lot of it was clever and meaningful - but the author kept pointing out *why* each instance was clever and/or impactful and/or meaningful, which rather diminished its impact, since I didn't feel trusted to see these aspects for myself. It was also pretty grim in places - and I'm getting quite tired of strong female protagonists being abused/manipulated/exploited/objectified by terrible men...
Still, it had complex, layered characters, lots of great inter-relationships, a fair few moments that did have a real impact in various ways and an interesting conclusion.
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel:
A giant metal hand is discovered buried in the Earth, leading to a belief that a whole immense robot has been disassembled and hidden across Earth by an ancient civilisation. The book follows the team who are tasked with finding the pieces, putting them together and trying to work out where the robot came from and what purpose it is meant to serve.
The whole book is made up of interview transcripts, journal entries and official reports of various kinds - which isn't my favourite format, since I precludes a real connection with the characters, since we're largely deprived of their inner thoughts.
It's very well put together and the premise is intriguing. I did get to like a few of the characters (particularly the unnamed interviewer) and I enjoyed the story overall, but I don't think it's one that's going to stay with me, and I'm not invested enough to carry on with the series.
The Just City by Jo Walton:
This is about a disparate group of people from all different time periods who, with the help of the goddess Athene, set out to try and create the 'just city' from Plato's Republic, on the island of Atlantis before it sinks.
So, yeah - that's the premise...
And I really don't know how to feel about this book.
The writing is good, I liked a lot of the characters, the extrapolation of how the thought experiment might play out was fascinating, and I was engaged throughout.
There was a lot of summary, a lot of telling, and a lot of philosophical discussion, but all that added to rather than detracting from the narrative.
But everything to do with sex and inter-relationship between the characters was absolutely appalling and sometimes a pretty tough read. All the terrible stuff was eventually called out as being terrible, but not in a wholly satisfying way. And the 'your body is responding so you must want my attentions despite your protestations' was used as justification more than once and never wholly condemned, which I had a real problem with.
The book also ended very abruptly without much of a real conclusion, which was annoying. It is the first in a trilogy (I found out afterwards) but the second book is set decades later, so it's not like to continues straight on from the end of this one.
It raised some fascinating questions and made me think really hard about a lot of things, but I also had a lot of issues with it, so I'm very undecided about it.
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar:
This is a novella about two sisters who vow to stay together forever - but then one of them gets involved with an inhabitant of the faerie realm and events spiral out of her control. The audiobook narrator was excellent and the listening experience was greatly enhanced by the inclusion of music and singing, which were pivotal to the story. It's very atmospheric but also very sad in places. I'm not sure I wholly connected with it in its pretty short run-time, but it's well written and quite emotional at times.
alobearOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey has never been a book I've been drawn to. But a reading challenge threw it in my path - and it turns out, it's amazing!
The writing is exquisite - beautiful, haunting, massively impactful.
The book is also funny, which I wasn't expecting, as well as very sad and powerful, which I was.
The characterisation is masterful, the narrative voice (and the voices of a lot of the characters) is very effective and distinct.
I was completely immersed and especially mesmerised by the last 30 or so pages, which will stay with me a long time.
So glad I read this!
The Pastor's Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim, on the other hand, didn't really grab me at all.
We follow Ingeborg, who escapes her oppressive family and goes on an impromptu trip to Lucerne, and ends up marrying one of her fellow travelers and disappearing off to America.
I found the font very off-putting and the style very old-fashioned. There were lots of exclamation points and unnecessary italics. Ingeborg seemed very childish - and the man she gets involved with kept calling her 'Little One', which made me squirm.
So, I unfortunately gave up around the 50-page mark.
The writing is exquisite - beautiful, haunting, massively impactful.
The book is also funny, which I wasn't expecting, as well as very sad and powerful, which I was.
The characterisation is masterful, the narrative voice (and the voices of a lot of the characters) is very effective and distinct.
I was completely immersed and especially mesmerised by the last 30 or so pages, which will stay with me a long time.
So glad I read this!
The Pastor's Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim, on the other hand, didn't really grab me at all.
We follow Ingeborg, who escapes her oppressive family and goes on an impromptu trip to Lucerne, and ends up marrying one of her fellow travelers and disappearing off to America.
I found the font very off-putting and the style very old-fashioned. There were lots of exclamation points and unnecessary italics. Ingeborg seemed very childish - and the man she gets involved with kept calling her 'Little One', which made me squirm.
So, I unfortunately gave up around the 50-page mark.
alobearDave and I have been playing Heaven's Vault for a few weeks and just finished it.
You play an archaeologist and ancient linguist, travelling rivers between different moons in a wooden airship, with a robot sidekick who is amusingly snarky.
There's a lot of flying around that's a bit tedious, but there's also a lot of interesting exploration and discussion of various things with a range of different characters. The game kept trying to get us to go back to the university planet to report to our academic superior, but we didn't like her so we kept refusing!
Things got pretty complicated with the robot and all the mysteries and we definitely missed a fair amount of stuff we could have found along the way.
But I really enjoyed the translation aspect, wherein we kept finding inscriptions all over the place and had to try and work out what they meant based on our growing knowledge of the ancient language.
I did find it a bit baffling that we would be trying to narrow down a new location on the map, and we'd keep finding wrecks and ruins with ancient artifacts in them. Upon these discoveries, our character kept saying, "This must have been made in the place we're trying to find - it will help us figure out where it is." Um, how, exactly?
But there was a lot of intrigue and our discoveries led us to some interesting places and some fascinating theories. The ending felt a bit abrupt and had a very challenging decision to be made, but it was certainly portentous!
Overall, some slow and some frustrating aspects, but a very interesting game that we rather enjoyed.
You play an archaeologist and ancient linguist, travelling rivers between different moons in a wooden airship, with a robot sidekick who is amusingly snarky.
There's a lot of flying around that's a bit tedious, but there's also a lot of interesting exploration and discussion of various things with a range of different characters. The game kept trying to get us to go back to the university planet to report to our academic superior, but we didn't like her so we kept refusing!
Things got pretty complicated with the robot and all the mysteries and we definitely missed a fair amount of stuff we could have found along the way.
But I really enjoyed the translation aspect, wherein we kept finding inscriptions all over the place and had to try and work out what they meant based on our growing knowledge of the ancient language.
I did find it a bit baffling that we would be trying to narrow down a new location on the map, and we'd keep finding wrecks and ruins with ancient artifacts in them. Upon these discoveries, our character kept saying, "This must have been made in the place we're trying to find - it will help us figure out where it is." Um, how, exactly?
But there was a lot of intrigue and our discoveries led us to some interesting places and some fascinating theories. The ending felt a bit abrupt and had a very challenging decision to be made, but it was certainly portentous!
Overall, some slow and some frustrating aspects, but a very interesting game that we rather enjoyed.
alobearA Wedding in December by Anita Shreve tells the story of seven high school friends who reunite in their 40s when two of their number decide to get married.
As I have come to expect from Anita Shreve, it's a very interior story about people reflecting on their lives and having complicated inter-relationships with one another. There's also a story-within-the-story as one of the characters is writing a piece of fiction, which we get long extracts from. I found that story a bit tedious and difficult to connect to (as well as being very grim in aspects), and this also extended to the long letters various of the characters write throughout the book, and the lengthy 'big reveal' monologues towards the end.
I appreciated the acknowledgement that the versions of people we hold in our heads are likely not the same as the real people in a lot of ways. I also liked the whole arc following the two people getting married and was very satisfied with the conclusion of that. A lot of the rest of it was pretty dreary, though, (which was pointed out by the characters themselves!) and I wasn't keen on the apparent theme of setting aside the dreams and expectations of youth to accept the disappointments and practicalities of middle age.
Overall, the writing was good and there was a lot of well-observed detail about all the characters. But it didn't go anywhere particularly interesting and was largely a bit of a downer.
Last night, I went to a Jurassic Park-themed cabaret event at The Clapham Grand, called Life Finds A Slay. I was a bit apprehensive going in, but it ended up being a lot of fun. Some of it was (a lot) better than others, shall we say... Stand-outs were the performer who did a parody song about the experience of the little boy in the first film, and the stunning burlesque performer who did a great act as a velociraptor. The host was really good and I also unexpectedly enjoyed the audience-participation costume competition. Overall, an enjoyable night out and I'm glad I went.
As I have come to expect from Anita Shreve, it's a very interior story about people reflecting on their lives and having complicated inter-relationships with one another. There's also a story-within-the-story as one of the characters is writing a piece of fiction, which we get long extracts from. I found that story a bit tedious and difficult to connect to (as well as being very grim in aspects), and this also extended to the long letters various of the characters write throughout the book, and the lengthy 'big reveal' monologues towards the end.
I appreciated the acknowledgement that the versions of people we hold in our heads are likely not the same as the real people in a lot of ways. I also liked the whole arc following the two people getting married and was very satisfied with the conclusion of that. A lot of the rest of it was pretty dreary, though, (which was pointed out by the characters themselves!) and I wasn't keen on the apparent theme of setting aside the dreams and expectations of youth to accept the disappointments and practicalities of middle age.
Overall, the writing was good and there was a lot of well-observed detail about all the characters. But it didn't go anywhere particularly interesting and was largely a bit of a downer.
Last night, I went to a Jurassic Park-themed cabaret event at The Clapham Grand, called Life Finds A Slay. I was a bit apprehensive going in, but it ended up being a lot of fun. Some of it was (a lot) better than others, shall we say... Stand-outs were the performer who did a parody song about the experience of the little boy in the first film, and the stunning burlesque performer who did a great act as a velociraptor. The host was really good and I also unexpectedly enjoyed the audience-participation costume competition. Overall, an enjoyable night out and I'm glad I went.