lady_ragnell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lady_ragnell) wrote2019-02-01 11:03 am
lady_ragnell) wrote2019-02-01 11:03 am
2019 Books, Post 2 (and also a fest)
Just quickly first, if there are any fairy tale fans out there, the Once Upon a Fic fest is taking nominations for the next two days! I've had a whole lot of fun with it the past two years, so if it's something you're into, definitely check it out. The DW is ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
once_upon_fic and the nominations post is right on top. I'm excited to offer and/or request "Kupti and Imani," I hadn't thought about that tale in years!
And now for books, since I have read another ten! Though a few are technically novellas. I am counting them anyway, though, because they are good ones.
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
A reread, I tend to do this one about every year because I just love it that much! It's a great world (I love the mucker healing songs particularly), and Dashti is such an engaging and lovely heroine. I don't have that much to say about it, I just love it a lot.
Marsbound by Joe Haldeman
It had its moments, but I found the pacing to be a huge mess. If you've got aliens on Mars, you don't wait until halfway through the book to introduce them. I didn't want to spend half a book on all the technical and scientific details of their trip to Mars and only then get to the aliens and suddenly a whole bunch of timeskips. I hear it's a trilogy, and frankly the first book itself could have been a trilogy, if he'd done it right. Also the climax as it happened felt introduced out of nowhere, especially when I knew what it SHOULD have been, ugh. And also, a much smaller quibble, but the romance was just ... nothing to me? But that is often the case with me and books written by dudes.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
I was given the first two novellas in the Murderbot series for Christmas, and this is the first of them, and I LOVED it so much. The characters are so great! Murderbot is so great, as a character and as a narrator! The worldbuilding is so great! I don't have anything eloquent to add here, I just love this and everyone who told me I would love it was right and I sitting there being dubious was wrong. They are great.
A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro
A Sherlock Holmes mystery about their descendants, but the Holmes is a girl, so it's okay, guys, the romance is kosher now since it's not gay. That aside, this book was way darker than I was expecting and really interesting, with a lot about, basically, a failure to escape family history and legacy, and whether you want to. The Watsons Do This. The Holmeses Do This. I found that more interesting than the mystery plot, really.
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Another reread, since Thousand Days put me in the mood for it. I never read the rest of the series, and now I am feeling like I should! Even if they won't be based on fairy tales like this one. Anyway, I just really like Hale and her heroines and her fairy tale retellings. I love the way Ani brokers peace at the end of this one, it's a very badass moment for her and an amazing sign of character growth.
Simply Unforgettable by Mary Balogh
And a reread again! Sometimes in the winter you just need a romance novel. I like this one! The hero is a bit of an asshole, but I mostly forgive him because he's an asshole who is Struggling With Feeling Feelings, which I am weak for. He does do one particularly dickish thing towards the end, but he tries his best to get past it, bless him. Not as good as her Survivors Club books, but still good. Balogh knows how to spin a story.
Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe by Preston Norton
What a lovely book! If you've ever read Zusak's I Am The Messenger, this is what I wanted that book to be. It's a couple of teenagers trying to fix things at their school, making it a mission, and all the repercussions and ripples and them screwing up but figuring it out, and I really loved it. There were a few things with relationships that I might have done differently, but honestly, quibbling, this is just a great book with a great narrative voice and endearing characters. To read if you like Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, the subject matter isn't that similar (these Two Main Dudes do not fall in love), but they both are in the same category in my head. TW for past suicide by the main character's brother, and for domestic violence.
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
The second Murderbot novella! Just as good as the first, I loved the addition of ART and Murderbot's delving into the past and also the plot for this novella. Wells manages to pack so much excellence into such small spaces!
Raising Atlantis by Thomas Greanias
I feel like I don't talk much about my secret love of conspiracy theory videos and the mocking of them. (Until they get racist, which they always fucking do, ugh. I keep hoping there will be some kind of Ancient Cultures Conspiracy Theory that won't get racist, but I feel like it is very very hard to make that happen.) But a friend of mine was getting rid of this book and it seemed like a conspiracy theory in novel form so I thought I would try it, and it, you know ... was that, basically? It was actively terrible and nobody acted like a real person and there was some really sketchy geology and implications about the Washington Monument and also, you know, the whole concept is "Atlantis is under the ice in Antarctica," so we knew it would be a mess from the start. So it was a mess. Lesson learned: I can take terrible conspiracy theories for twenty minutes on YouTube. I cannot take them in three hundred pages of book.
Foreigner by CJ Cherryh
Having gotten The Power of Gold, Marsbound, and Raising Atlantis all from the same friend's book purge, I was really dubious when I picked up the last offering I had from his box. But I'd read and liked some Cherryh before, so I was willing to give it a shot, and thankfully it was really good! Think The Goblin Emperor only everyone is way less nice. It's a lot of politics and a lot of worldbuilding, in other worlds, with an interesting alien culture, so I was definitely there for it. It's the first in a series so long I wince just thinking about it, and I'm not going to rush out and buy eighteen more books, but I might keep trying it, lowish priority.
BONUS: we are all cinders from a fire burning long ago by samyazaz
I'm not planning to mention much fanfic on these posts, but this was long and also it's D&D fanfic from a campaign I was in that can be read as an original fantasy romance with vague Snow White bones to it. This story is SO GOOD and the pining is SO ON POINT and if it were in my book list it would come with like fourteen stars.
Who has been reading good things lately?
once_upon_fic and the nominations post is right on top. I'm excited to offer and/or request "Kupti and Imani," I hadn't thought about that tale in years!And now for books, since I have read another ten! Though a few are technically novellas. I am counting them anyway, though, because they are good ones.
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
A reread, I tend to do this one about every year because I just love it that much! It's a great world (I love the mucker healing songs particularly), and Dashti is such an engaging and lovely heroine. I don't have that much to say about it, I just love it a lot.
Marsbound by Joe Haldeman
It had its moments, but I found the pacing to be a huge mess. If you've got aliens on Mars, you don't wait until halfway through the book to introduce them. I didn't want to spend half a book on all the technical and scientific details of their trip to Mars and only then get to the aliens and suddenly a whole bunch of timeskips. I hear it's a trilogy, and frankly the first book itself could have been a trilogy, if he'd done it right. Also the climax as it happened felt introduced out of nowhere, especially when I knew what it SHOULD have been, ugh. And also, a much smaller quibble, but the romance was just ... nothing to me? But that is often the case with me and books written by dudes.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
I was given the first two novellas in the Murderbot series for Christmas, and this is the first of them, and I LOVED it so much. The characters are so great! Murderbot is so great, as a character and as a narrator! The worldbuilding is so great! I don't have anything eloquent to add here, I just love this and everyone who told me I would love it was right and I sitting there being dubious was wrong. They are great.
A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro
A Sherlock Holmes mystery about their descendants, but the Holmes is a girl, so it's okay, guys, the romance is kosher now since it's not gay. That aside, this book was way darker than I was expecting and really interesting, with a lot about, basically, a failure to escape family history and legacy, and whether you want to. The Watsons Do This. The Holmeses Do This. I found that more interesting than the mystery plot, really.
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Another reread, since Thousand Days put me in the mood for it. I never read the rest of the series, and now I am feeling like I should! Even if they won't be based on fairy tales like this one. Anyway, I just really like Hale and her heroines and her fairy tale retellings. I love the way Ani brokers peace at the end of this one, it's a very badass moment for her and an amazing sign of character growth.
Simply Unforgettable by Mary Balogh
And a reread again! Sometimes in the winter you just need a romance novel. I like this one! The hero is a bit of an asshole, but I mostly forgive him because he's an asshole who is Struggling With Feeling Feelings, which I am weak for. He does do one particularly dickish thing towards the end, but he tries his best to get past it, bless him. Not as good as her Survivors Club books, but still good. Balogh knows how to spin a story.
Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe by Preston Norton
What a lovely book! If you've ever read Zusak's I Am The Messenger, this is what I wanted that book to be. It's a couple of teenagers trying to fix things at their school, making it a mission, and all the repercussions and ripples and them screwing up but figuring it out, and I really loved it. There were a few things with relationships that I might have done differently, but honestly, quibbling, this is just a great book with a great narrative voice and endearing characters. To read if you like Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, the subject matter isn't that similar (these Two Main Dudes do not fall in love), but they both are in the same category in my head. TW for past suicide by the main character's brother, and for domestic violence.
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
The second Murderbot novella! Just as good as the first, I loved the addition of ART and Murderbot's delving into the past and also the plot for this novella. Wells manages to pack so much excellence into such small spaces!
Raising Atlantis by Thomas Greanias
I feel like I don't talk much about my secret love of conspiracy theory videos and the mocking of them. (Until they get racist, which they always fucking do, ugh. I keep hoping there will be some kind of Ancient Cultures Conspiracy Theory that won't get racist, but I feel like it is very very hard to make that happen.) But a friend of mine was getting rid of this book and it seemed like a conspiracy theory in novel form so I thought I would try it, and it, you know ... was that, basically? It was actively terrible and nobody acted like a real person and there was some really sketchy geology and implications about the Washington Monument and also, you know, the whole concept is "Atlantis is under the ice in Antarctica," so we knew it would be a mess from the start. So it was a mess. Lesson learned: I can take terrible conspiracy theories for twenty minutes on YouTube. I cannot take them in three hundred pages of book.
Foreigner by CJ Cherryh
Having gotten The Power of Gold, Marsbound, and Raising Atlantis all from the same friend's book purge, I was really dubious when I picked up the last offering I had from his box. But I'd read and liked some Cherryh before, so I was willing to give it a shot, and thankfully it was really good! Think The Goblin Emperor only everyone is way less nice. It's a lot of politics and a lot of worldbuilding, in other worlds, with an interesting alien culture, so I was definitely there for it. It's the first in a series so long I wince just thinking about it, and I'm not going to rush out and buy eighteen more books, but I might keep trying it, lowish priority.
BONUS: we are all cinders from a fire burning long ago by samyazaz
I'm not planning to mention much fanfic on these posts, but this was long and also it's D&D fanfic from a campaign I was in that can be read as an original fantasy romance with vague Snow White bones to it. This story is SO GOOD and the pining is SO ON POINT and if it were in my book list it would come with like fourteen stars.
Who has been reading good things lately?