Reviews and Comments

I loved this book for several things:

• How real and solid the historical-London setting felt. I'm used to that sort of thing feeling very flimsy, but this is an author who clearly does deep research and lets it suffuse the writing without getting all 'splainy.
• The very palpable tension between the protagonist's precarious position and her need to have some freedom.
• The delightful-if-implausable retconning of Sir Christopher Wren's secret motive for shaping London the way he did.

#SFFBookClub

About halfway through and I have mixed feelings about this book. I find the plot such as there is one quite interesting and a very good vehicle for dissecting/mocking the 2010s-2020s turn to fascism. And I like the writing itself a lot. But Gospodinov seems perpetually unsure whether he's writing a novel or an essay.

The thing that's keeping me going is that he's a good enough writer and observer for it to be an enjoyable essay, but I am increasingly finding myself wanting the essayish digressions to get shorter so the plot can move more.

#SFFBookClub

#SFFBookClub September. 2 chapters in and I am intrigued.

I loved how this picked up from where book 1 left off and immediately ripped any optimism to shreds. It was a gripping read with the painful twist that it keeps me cheering for Laure even when Laure is being terrible. I found the primary antagonist a little flat, though - "the whole Paris Ballet and all its insiders" just made such a good villain in book 1 than I don't think "a bitter individual" can compare.

books.theunseen.city/user/picklish/review/177841 has me thinking this'll be a good comfort read some dark (literally or emotionally) day.

This is one of a few books we've read for #SFFBookClub that consists of a series of ostensibly separate stories which collectively build one world. I loved the quietly unsettling mood of a lot of the stories, and actually enjoyed how much the author keeps the reader guessing until about half way through the book. But the two stories--one about halfway through, one near the end--which do the most explicit explaining ended up doing too much of that for my taste. I think a certain amount of tying things together was needed, but making things too neat was a bit of a loss, and the big picture story doesn't work as well for me as all the facets in the individual chapters.

Interesting selections, beautifully rendered in English, with a lot of helpful contextual material and annotations. Every now and then the annotations get a bit much, but more often they genuinely added to my enjoyment of the poetry.

I had a lot of fun tearing through this book. At first I felt like it was a bit too directly "colonised Philippines but with magic" to be interesting fantasy, but in the end Buba used the magical elements to really bring out the clash of two religions and cultures in a powerful, interesting way.

#SFFBookClub

#SFFBookClub September, which I'll pick up after finishing outside.ofa.dog/book/178751/s/i-am-the-dark-that-answers-when-you-call because it took me longer to get hold of a copy of this one.