Valerie

After a lot of thought, I think I figured out why I had trouble connecting with this book and with a lot of the epic fantasy I've tried recently, and I think the answer is HBO. I feel like every time I read a newer fantasy, it's structured exactly like a multi-series HBO epic drama, and while that can be fun, and there's certainly a place for it, the story doesn't seem to need the novel. It doesn't want to be a novel at all, and so the actual writing just doesn't quite step up as high as I would like.

It has a lot of great elements: Southeast Asian setting, complicated characters, well-crafted political intrigue. But I kept seeing how I was being set up for the next volume/season two, how the visuals of the rot or the Hirana would work on a screen where the words don't really bring them to life. I don't know. Maybe I'm just a big jaded. I'm still giving it 4 stars as I don't think it's a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, and if you want to read big budget HBO fantasy, this is a perfect fit, but for me, I just never felt super connected to anything and probably won't continue on in the series.

Also, I know every pregnancy and birth experience is different... but like, no. None of that plotline worked for me at all.

I really loved A Memory Called Empire, but one of the bits of it that felt a little forced to me was the Mahit/Three Seagrass romance. I feel like that book was so much about Mahit and Yskander and the murder mystery that the romance just didn't ever feel like it belonged. This book actually changed my opinion completely. This book is totally about the complicated relationship of Mahit and Three Seagrass because it's about the complicated relationship between colonized and colonizer. They are the microcosm for the larger political themes, and the two stories play out in a way that is both realistic, emotional, and fascinating. The political intrigue is ramped up another level, the aliens are great, and Martine's writing remains strong. If you liked or were just ambivalent with the first book, definitely go on to the second. Well-deserved Hugo.

The Hum and the Shiver is one of my favorite books of all time, but the others in the series have had diminishing returns for me. This one, however, was my favorite since that first one. I love reading this series while in Tennessee, as it feels like I walk outside into the Fae woodlands. Also, conceptually this book is Jaws but with with a pig and also Fae, so sort of playing to my wheelhouse. There's a few points I thought were a bit glossed over, but all in all a nice incentive to finish off this series. If you'd given up after Chapel of Ease, I'd say it's worth coming back for this one.

This is one of those very well-written books that was extremely hard for me to get through. I gets compared with Cloud Atlas in the blurb, and that certainly makes sense for the layered structure moving through time (Emily St. John Mandel also comes to mind), but stylistically I think it's a little closer to the short stories of Ted Chiang: deep character development and incredible emotional resonance in 25 pages or less. The through-line of the book is death: how we deal with death while living on a dying planet. A LOT of that death is parents grieving children, which is just not something I'm emotionally up for at this point in my life. It's also a post-COVID plague book (the second or third I've read recently), so those triggers are all there too. Still, I think how affected I felt is a testament to Nagamatsu's writing. It's also nice to have a book that while set all over the world, universe really, often comes back to Japanese characters and settings for a perspective SFF rarely gets.

My only criticism was the last chapter which wrapped things up a little more than I liked in a way that felt a little like we changed subgenres, but this is a minor personal taste thing and I don't think diminishes the work as a whole.

And while it's challenging to read so much about death, I do feel like I came away with a lot to think about. I'd still recommend it if you are okay with the trigger warnings for chronic illness, plague, and child death.

This book really impressed me. I keep using the word “smoky” to describe it. I'm having trouble voicing it in any other way. It's haunting and mysterious, poignant and tragic. While it's set in the 40s, the themes of racism, misogyny, colorism, and classism still ring through to today. The magic system is fascinating, the characters all a fine shade of moral gray, and the plotting tight as a spring. It's no feel-good, for sure, but it's quite a masterpiece.

I grabbed this at a used book sale because I liked The Magicians, but I assumed from the title it would be science fiction. Instead, what I got was the dull meanderings of a sad white guy with awkward pop culture interjections that might work if this were visual but just come off as jarring interjections as opposed to the layers of meaning Grossman seems to want them to be. There's no real plot, no character development outside of Hollis at all, a manic pixie dream girl who makes no sense, and just everything I hate about Quentin Coldwater without any of the growth that made me like him in the end. I wouldn't really bother with this one. This book wasn't for me, and I also don't know who it was for. I know it's a first effort, and I know Grossman gets a lot better (Magicians is one of few trilogies where I like the last book more than the first), but if you're just looking to read an author's complete works, you can probably skip this.

I didn't have huge hopes for this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. The characters are sharp and clever, the plot is twisty without being overcomplicated. It's a cop story that recognizes a lot of the problems with cops. I think I might have enjoyed it more had I had a more knowledge or any experience with London itself, but even as an American who spent 2 hours at Heathrow once, I didn't have trouble following the story. This actually might be my new favorite popcorn series. If you're a fan of things like Dresden Files or Wellington Paranormal, this is a fabulous series.

I think my enjoyment of this was hurt a little by just how long it was between volumes. I remember loving the first installment, but I didn't remember very much of what actually happened and probably could have used a reread before jumping in. That said, I think Kevin Hearne has made a really cool world with a really cool magic system, and I liked all the characters except Hanima who feels like a magic pixie dream girl and whose speech is so anachronistic as to break her chapters for me. But I love a bard, I love stories within stories, I love palace intrigue, and it's got all that and then some, so if you're looking for a fun high fantasy, I'd still say give this series a try.

The book club I'm in picked this one, and sort of billed it as a Firefly-esque ragtag crew space opera, which admittedly is something I'm a little tired of already. The way I interpreted was that there was a romance sub-plot. What I got was a straight up romance with an SF background. If that's what you're looking for, you'll enjoy this one. If not, don't bother. The story beyond the romance is weak, the characters are blah, and the writing is pretty juvenile. I don't read a lot of romance, but to me even that felt pretty weak and uncomfortable. It was like reading fanfic for a show I'd never watched. Maybe it's okay if you just want some light space smut, but I'd avoid it if you want an actual space opera.

Well, I grabbed this book hoping for more poppy first contact hijinks, but what I got was a deep dive into depression, trauma, and the descent of the US into fascism. So not exactly like the first book. It's good. Ellis is a good writer, and she builds complex characters with complex relationships. That said, it is a much harder read than I was anticipating, and ended up taking a lot more out of me than I intended to give. If you like aliens and hate fascism, it's still a good read, but if you're processing any lingering traumatic events or want something for the beach, maybe skip it.

Well, if you want to never eat sushi again, this is the book for you. I've long known octopuses are bizarre, incredible, and intelligent creatures, but this book does a fantastic job exploring the writer's journey into learning just how bizarre, incredibly, and intelligent they are. I learned stuff. I cried about dead octopuses. I changed my opinions on aquariums multiple times. It's emotional, thought-provoking, and pretty much guarantees my takoyaki eating days are over.

I think this book landed for me in the cool concept but not enough connection bracket. Divya is obviously a super intelligent person, and she's done a terrifyingly good job of imagining the future of AI, nanotech, tip jars, gigging, and streaming, but I think there's so much time spent on what the world is, I forgot to connect to the characters. Which is a shame because I love a hero mom and a space cult. I liked it overall, but rarely made extra time to read it.

I got this as an ARC ages ago and decided to give it a read in my quest to actually read the books on my shelves. I enjoyed the political intrigue and magic system, but there was something in the writing that just didn't connect with me, and the ending brought it from a book I mostly enjoyed to a book that just annoyed me. First off, if I'm going to invest in over 500 pages of a book, even if it's part of a trilogy, I prefer it to be a complete story in itself which this most definitely is not. It's more of a really lengthy prologue. Secondly, vague it ends with the kind of random character death popularized by GoT that now feels more narratively unfulfilling and stupid than shocking or intriguing.

I was disappointed in this one. I love a fantastical murder mystery, but this one was too light for the mood I was in. It's fine if you're just looking for a glittery steampunk popcorn read, but the story spends too much time on what the world looks like and not really enough on the characters for me to really enjoy it. Also, I guessed the murderer from the minute they were introduced, which always annoys me. I kept hoping I'd be wrong, but it just kept making all these obvious references to who really dunnit that I was frustrated that a character as supposedly adept as Fatma couldn't figure this out.

This is a book that it feels weird I never read before. My husband bought it for me as part of our holiday used book stocking stuffer tradition, and it is exactly the sort of collection I would have been really into during my modernized fairy tale period. I'm less into that sort of thing these days, but the stories hear clearly built the foundation for so many of the works I loved. The depth of Carter's language, the pacing of each story, the visceral punch of the descriptions all make this an incredible collection, highly recommended to anyone who enjoys a good feminist retelling or who used to and somehow missed this one.

What a beautiful novella. Vo creates an entire world in just 87 pages. Elegant, quiet, and yet ringing with stories as yet untold in this universe and with these characters. For a story told primarily in flashbacks with the endings of most of the characters known in the first few pages, it's also surprisingly suspenseful. Thanks for my book club for introducing me to this author.

I started The Expanse not long after the first book came out. I've religiously read each and every sequel almost as soon as they appeared on shelves. I don't think there are many other series I can say that for, especially not ones that go to 9 books. I think it is my favorite long-running series of all time. Every character is interesting and complicated. Every plot point is intriguing and well-researched. I can't fathom spanning this many decades with characters, and would love to sit in on the planning meetings with the authors.

Each book made me eager to read the next one, and as a finale, I couldn't have asked for better. Justice done to all the characters and to the world, beautiful moments of reflection on past events. I got teary-eyed more than once, which is something I can count happening while reading on one hand. It completes the circle while still being full of surprises. Look, if you're reading this review, you've hopefully read the other eight books, and if you've done that you need to read this one. That's about as simple as I can make it.

I really enjoyed half of this book, but the other half annoyed me to no end. I think that the portrayal of Katrina as a homeless, trans, violin prodigy willing to sell her soul for a scrap of dignity is extremely well done, realistic, and poignant. However, Lan the donut lady/alien refugee mom was so flat and dull that it inhibited the whole story for me. From the non-sensical romantic aspects to her frequent disregard for her children, I just could not get into her storyline at all, especially not mashed together with soul stealing demons. Aoki is great at writing about food for sure, but the overall conceit of the book is just not for me.

My husband and I started a tradition a couple of years ago of used books as stocking stuffers, and this was one of his gifts to me this year. And it was quite a gift. A beautiful and tragic story packed with enough Lord of the Rings references to stump any hardcore nerd. I love the blend of narration, the effortless switch between DR history and the second age of Middle Earth, the magical mongooses (mongeese?). It's called the life of Oscar, but it shows how Oscar's life is also echoing and ricocheting off of his sister, mother, grandmother, great grandfather, and deep down his cultural roots. It does it with gorgeous prose and a depth of emotion. Definitely worth the read even this late to the party.

I wanted to like this book a lot, but something about it just didn't connect with me. I think it had magic realism ambitions in a commercial fantasy, and I wish it would have taken more risks and done less explaining. I enjoyed the actual story a lot (though the final villain reveal didn't necessarily feel earned to me), but I had trouble feeling very deeply for anyone except perhaps young Orchidea. It's not a bad book by any means, but I think the prose fell just shy of being a really great book.

I'd been itching for some political fantasy, and this certainly fit the bill. If you're looking for a solid court intrigue story where everyone is in the morally questionable category, this is a great one. At times, the romantic elements felt a little stilted to me, but the overall story and exploration of Djinn mythology makes up for that. The ending definitely is set up for the sequels though, so don't read this if you just want a stand alone.

I was pretty surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Alastair Reynolds name is one I've heard come up before, but never investigated, so I'm glad my book club keyed me into this one. The story is a sort of noir space opera, and the writing is sharp and even funny at times. It maybe has a few too many super-competent female characters who for one reason or another have serious dependencies on Dreyfus, but they are also characters enough in their own right to not make that tendency too glaring. Also, space pigs. If you like a good mystery and a good space romp, give this one a try.

If you're looking for something like Annihilation or Borne, this isn't quite in the same vein. I'm used to turning to VanderMeer for New Weird, but this only barely touches the edge of science fiction. It's much more of a thriller with a conservationist core. VanderMeer does not pull punches reminding the reader exactly how thoroughly we have ravaged our planet, and uses the arc of the thriller to get readers to ask themselves some tough questions. It's fast-paced, well-constructed, and often surprising with some Roshamon levels of perspective thrown in as well. It's not what I was expecting, but it was definitely worth the read.

When I was in high school, I had a big Stephen King phase (like had my sweet sixteen party at the hotel that inspired the Shining big). I read a huge portion of his catalog and really loved the suspense and scare factor. Sometime in my twenties, I stopped liking that feeling, and mostly cut horror out of my media diet. So when my book club picked this one, I was apprehensive. My only experience with Joe Hill was a short story collection I found when I lived abroad and read because English books were so hard to come by, and that collection was SCARY.

I'm not sure if this book was not that scary or if I'm just no longer as easy to scare as a I once was. Hill refers to it as his senior thesis on horror fiction, and the nods to his father's work are everywhere. It's at many points clever, and the heroes are unconventional and interesting. It also has an extremely well written child protagonist which is a rarity. The pacing and suspense are right up there with King's work too (I do feel bad to keep comparing the two as I'm sure Hill is sick of it, but this book is so clearly a love letter to his father's work).

That said, did I enjoy it? Not really. As a new mom, I'm really not into child endangerment stories, and a lot of the trauma and scary parts were less suspenseful and more uncomfortable for me. Mild bad things happen to kids and dogs in this book, and I am just not here for that I pretty much knew who would live and die because of the tried and true King formulas, and the horrific Christmas imagery was just not something I enjoyed at all. Is it a bad book? Not at all. If you enjoy horror, especially works like IT, I think this is a great piece in that genre, but the time when I could really enjoy it is long past.

The book wasn't quite what I was expecting. Most of the authors are better known for their activism and non-fiction writing, and their stories are just not the same quality as I was really looking for. I think I was hoping much more for works in the worlds Butler created rather than just short snippets of stories with her themes. I thought the nonfiction essays at the end were the strongest and most interesting, but most of the fiction felt a little forced or too much like an excerpt rather than a complete work for me.