I am an enthusiastic member of #SFFBookClub so a lot of what I'm reading is suggestions from there.
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Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.
Following the events …
If they were like other humans, recreational activities = throwing balls or sticks at each other really hard.
— System Collapse by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #7) (Page 143)
Human survival hinges on an bizarre alliance in Semiosis, a character driven science fiction novel …
This fell off the #SFFBookClub poll because it didn't seem to grab other peoples' interest, but I am still intrigued.
This fell off the #SFFBookClub poll because it didn't seem to grab other peoples' interest, but I am still intrigued.
Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza …
There will be blood.
Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain …
Between the cover and the scene descriptions the author had trailed on Mastodon, I was expecting this book to be mostly gore. What I actually found on reading is that it's mostly a story of a very relatable character suffering in the isolation of having to be twice as good and still never fitting in due to everyone else's racism. With some very hard-to-read descriptions of just how brutal the competition of a top ballet school is, and frankly easier-to-read interludes of supernatural gore, all of which serve the human story.
It's also beautifully written, with the protagonist's internal conflict carrying through, and a lot of confusion about other characters' relationships and motives that feels like the confusion I would be experiencing in the protagonist/narrator's shoes rather than any flaw in the telling.
As straight storytelling, the climactic scene is preposterous, but as a continuation of the emotional …
Between the cover and the scene descriptions the author had trailed on Mastodon, I was expecting this book to be mostly gore. What I actually found on reading is that it's mostly a story of a very relatable character suffering in the isolation of having to be twice as good and still never fitting in due to everyone else's racism. With some very hard-to-read descriptions of just how brutal the competition of a top ballet school is, and frankly easier-to-read interludes of supernatural gore, all of which serve the human story.
It's also beautifully written, with the protagonist's internal conflict carrying through, and a lot of confusion about other characters' relationships and motives that feels like the confusion I would be experiencing in the protagonist/narrator's shoes rather than any flaw in the telling.
As straight storytelling, the climactic scene is preposterous, but as a continuation of the emotional rollercoaster up to that point it works perfectly.
I wasn't expecting this book to be my kind of thing, and now I can't wait for Shea's next one.
There will be blood.
Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain …
Paris was beautiful in the ugliest way, and I only dreamed of being loved so unconditionally.
— I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea (I Feed Her To The Beast And The Beast Is Me, #1) (Page 221)
Content warning end of ch4 spoiler
...and then, even though every page of the first 4 chapters has been infused with Laure's unambiguous lived experience of racism, the first time anyone actually says the quiet part out loud and is directly racist to her face still manages to be infuriating, as it should be.
There will be blood.
Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain …
This book is doing a fantastic job of capturing a very relatable tension between the protagonist's genuine, hard-won defiance and a certain amount of lying to herself in trying to deny how much it hurts.
This book is doing a fantastic job of capturing a very relatable tension between the protagonist's genuine, hard-won defiance and a certain amount of lying to herself in trying to deny how much it hurts.
There will be blood.
Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain …
We were desperate to be the girl who dies, always.
— I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea (I Feed Her To The Beast And The Beast Is Me, #1) (Page 3)
The context immediately cuts down the melodrama, but this is an opening line I'm going to remember.
The context immediately cuts down the melodrama, but this is an opening line I'm going to remember.
There will be blood.
Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain origin story.
Laure Mesny …
Award-winning historical fantasy and literary folktale. Winner of the presigious Etisalat award.
In a …
This is a set of stories-within-a-story, which are their best are very entertaining and vivid. But as another #SFFBookClub mentioned, I think it would have worked a lot better as a series of separate stories. In trying to pull it all together as one person's adventures, Nimr ended up making a lot of the dramas resolve too quickly and neatly to maintain interest, and the ending manages to be simultaneously too neat and unresolved.
This is a set of stories-within-a-story, which are their best are very entertaining and vivid. But as another #SFFBookClub mentioned, I think it would have worked a lot better as a series of separate stories. In trying to pull it all together as one person's adventures, Nimr ended up making a lot of the dramas resolve too quickly and neatly to maintain interest, and the ending manages to be simultaneously too neat and unresolved.
Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work …
#SFFBookClub Jan 2024
OK, I spoke too soon. There are some longer arcs later.
OK, I spoke too soon. There are some longer arcs later.
Award-winning historical fantasy and literary folktale. Winner of the presigious Etisalat award.
In a …
this book is a fun read, but I can’t help feeling that every dramatic tension since the narrator left her village has been resolved too quickly.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. …
Incidentally, Standard Ebooks has this: standardebooks.org/ebooks/mary-shelley/frankenstein
I find their editions reliably the nicest ebook version of any public domain work, even compared to ones sold as ebook editions by for-profit publishers.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. …
This one's gonna be a slow read through, reading aloud with a group of friends an hour a week.
This one's gonna be a slow read through, reading aloud with a group of friends an hour a week.
![Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain [Der Zauberberg] INTERNATIONAL COLLECTORS LIBRARY SERIES (1953, International Collectors Library)](https://st2.ap-south-1.linodeobjects.com/images/thumbnails/covers/04565517-80cc-4c4c-a2bb-e3ce61799665/2f5062094e0f302d1c4c606274ad1044.webp)
