Reviews and Comments

I was pleasantly surprised.

My takeaway from Legends & Lattes was that it was a cozy fantasy adaptation of a modern concept àla Pratchett, but I didn't get a particular feeling of depth.

With Bookshops & Bonedust, it's the converse - I felt like it was mainly a story about Viv and her forced journey of self-discovery, while all the rest of it was just set dressing.

The #SFFBookClub January pick is How High We Go In The Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu.  Thank you to all who voted and/or suggested books.

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I enjoyed the setting, and some of the substories were compelling, but as a whole it was too rambling and incohesive for me.

I feel like it would have worked better as a series of stories about different people from the same village or whatever instead of repeatedly being like "despite being in the middle of this incredibly urgent life crisis, the main character decides to spend six months teaching an older woman to fold laundry" or "despite having a very bad outcome two chapters ago, the main character decides to engage in exactly the same dangerous behavior with no additional precautions"

#SFFBookClub

Let's see if I finish this one in time for #SFFBookClub

The #SFFBookClub selection for December 2023

Very much in the same vein as the first one, but it doesn't quite have the same punch now that the setting has already been introduced and explored

I didn't know what to expect from a novella about a convent of space nuns wandering the vacuum inside a gigantic sea slug, and that's what I got

An adequate whodunit set in alternate contemporary Lisbon where a minority of people are gifted with telepathic or telekinetic powers.

There were some oddities - for example, the protagonist talks about the ambient temperature in every scene. I was expecting it to become a plot point, but apparently it's just there. The story revolves around two investigators doing their thing, but they're oddly timid - they're perfectly content with people just refusing to talk to them about the investigation, and they act like getting a warrant for some piece of evidence that all their other evidence points at is an impossible obstacle.

It was enjoyable despite these details, and I'll probably read the subsequent entries eventually.

A great fantasy novel revolving around a civil war in a small country, but focusing mainly on the experiences and interactions of the two main characters. I enjoyed the nuance around the different factions' and characters' motivations, as well as the fact that the protagonists were regular people in particular situations and not Chosen Ones. Apart from being in a different world, the fantasy treatment is very subtle and well-judged. I'm looking forward to finding out what the sequel has in store!

I nibbled my way through this one in tiny chunks, because it's bleak in the same very plausible way that made me walk away from black mirror.

I enjoyed that it focused on a different character than the first installment, which allowed the narrative to come from a different direction and give a new perspective on events. An intriguing (while bleak) look at transhumanism/posthumanism in a setting of unfettered capitalism.

Very novel take on the repercussions of a first contact scenario. It's also a rare instance of a story set in a military environment that doesn't revolve around fighting the war.