Hello, all! I have decided to start aggregating my Goodreads reviews on the blog once a month. I spend a good deal of time writing them, so they might as well get some play! I hope they lend some insight into my reading life and maybe add to your own teetering TBR pile.
Speculative Fiction
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells – Murderbot is back on the case! Listened to this novella while running my first 5K since the pandemic. After being a little disappointed with (what I felt was) Network Effect‘s overly-complicated plot, this book feels back to form for the series. As always, expect lots of sarcasm and anti-social behavior along with a compelling space mystery. Lots of fun to be had here.
The Poppy War by RF Kuang – I can see that this book would be good for a lot of readers, but it wasn’t for me. I enjoyed the first third of the book, which reads a lot like the school sections of The Name of the Wind: under privileged student trying to survive at expensive elite school, getting denied access to material critical to their success, quirky master of an obscure magical artform who spouts mostly nonsense. Really liked that part.
The war part, much less so. I am not typically squeamish, but there was so much grotesque torture in this book that I ended up fast forwarding through most of it. I am super not into books where the enemy is made almost inhumanly cruel and ruthless. Yes, situations like this did and do happen, but generally I think geopolitics is more complex than that. The things the characters did in response to the situation they were given made sense, but I just don’t particularly enjoy that type of story, especially after the fun first third. Will not continue with the series.
The Cunning Man by DJ Butler – Wow, this book was quite a trip. It takes the folk magic practiced by Joseph Smith and turns it into a full blown magic system, set in Utah. It was fascinating to see bits of my own culture twisted into a fantasy setting. This book is fair and accurate about the bits it uses from Mormon lore.
However, I feel the discussions I had read of the book exaggerate the Mormon content. While the main character is sent on his quest by the Presiding Bishopric of the church, they disappear for the rest of the novel and don’t appear again until the epilogue. The remainder of the characters in the book are largely non-Mormon residents of Utah: miners, a union organizer, the protagonist’s adopted Native American son. There is an element of seer stones and familiar spirits, but the rest of the plot felt like a generic fantasy mystery plot, searching for clues, coming across red herrings, reinterpreting other clues, and finally a big twist reveal.
Given the rave reviews about how Mormon this fantasy novel was, I was a bit disappointed. Still, given that a sequel is coming out soon, I’m hopeful that the next plot might be a little more Mormon-feeling to me.
Deep Magic: Spring 2021 issue – Shortly after I finished reading this, the zine announced it was closing. What a loss for the SFF community. Story reviews:
“Geiger’s Escape” by Kajetan Kwiatkowski – Do not read this story if you still want to hate spiders afterward. Haven’t read spiders so thoroughly humanized since Children of Time. I totally felt for Geiger’s frustration. A great scifi story in the vein of The Secret of NIMH.
“Perfectly Painted Lies” by Brittany Rainsdon – A dystopia about creating art and the power art has on the world. I loved the creepy vibes that kept me guessing. I see that the author just won 2nd place in the Writers of the Future contest this quarter! Look forward to seeing more great stuff from her.
“The Best Chocolate Cake Has a Touch of Bitter” by Alice Towey – Obvs don’t read while hungry. Perfectly captures that particular transition from childhood into adulthood when you realize that you can’t just follow your friend’s dreams. You have to make your own.
“Veins of my Sister” by Marie Croke – This one didn’t quite land for me. The complex relationship between sisters and what defines loyalty were spot on, but the ending felt like a bit of a cop-out rather than the confrontation it deserved.
“The Dance of Swords” by JC Kang – A character study with some real tension to it and a very ATLA ending, which was a real relief after reading The Poppy War in the same month.
Excerpt from Dragon’s Reach by JA Andrews – The prologue felt very cinematic but a little generic, but I was more interested by the first chapter. Fantasy thievery is such a great genre.
Other Fiction
Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan – The last of our Brave Writer read-alouds from pandemic homeschooling. This book gave me mixed signals the whole way through. I kept thinking we were going to take a turn into portal fantasy or magical realism, but it ends up playing it straight. I kind of want to write the version where the bridge troll is actually a bridge troll and he really reaches Mañanaland. The bittersweet ending was good here, where the main character got some of the things he wanted but not others. There are some beautiful passages here, but I just didn’t love love it. I am glad that Brave Writer made me stretch in my novel choices for the kids, though.
Nonfiction
Train Smart, Run Forever by Bill Pierce & Scott Murr – I loved their previous book (Run Less, Run Faster) so I was super excited to see that they put out a book about keeping running as you get older. I am not in the target 50+ demographic, but a lot of the advice applied to me as I have gotten out of running shape, gained weight, and struggled with strength and flexibility the past few years. The first 2/3 of the book are the reasoning behind their proposed exercise system and the last 1/3 is the system itself. Lots of good encouraging data about how to continue running for your whole life.
I didn’t like the effort-based pace system (Garmin forever! I’m just a data driven runner), but I think I can combine the 7-hour exercise week from here with their pacing tables from the previous book. I’m already implementing the recommended stretches, and it’s helping with my soreness. Excited to put this into practice.
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story by Hyeonseo Lee – A pick from my Bellevue book club. Surprisingly non-depressing, given the subject matter at hand. The first section of the book, about her life growing up in North Korea, reads like something out of a YA dystopian novel–except that it’s all true. When she finally escapes, it is almost by accident, and she has so many brushes with much worse fates that she is able to escape from by luck and her wits. A very compelling narrative.
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage – What can I say reviewing this book as a Mormon who doesn’t drink five of these drinks, and avoids drinking the sixth? (In fact, the only drink in this book for me was found in the brief epilogue about water.)
I found it fascinating to look at how these drinks correlated to different periods in human existence. The chapters connected a lot of things I already knew to new pegs about our liquid culture. I hadn’t thought to connect Greek symposia to French coffee shops to Coca Cola bottling plants.
As an SFF writer, it also made me think how important it is to consider what the people in your secondary world drink and why. So much of culture changes depending on who drinks what and where. A very interesting cultural study and very readable. I recommend this book to all who want to view history through this unique lens.
