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A review by ebonwilde
Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik
3.0
★★★⅘
i absolutely adore naomi novik's writing. aside from this, i've only ever read the scholomance series from her, but these introductions into the worlds of spinning silver and temeraire have me fascinated. despite being short stories, most of them have brilliant characterization and masterfully woven plotlines.
commonplaces might be my favorite of them all, despite it being one of the quieter tales, because i, too, love irene adler in all her many incarnations, and she stole the show even being surrounded by the crazier and more magical fairy stories that this book holds. anything that gives me irenelock and johnlock within the same five pages is bound to immediately seize my attention. vici was hilarious and if temeraire is anything like it at all, i will positively inhale it. the long way around was equally witty, and somehow every character managed to shine, despite it being around forty pages long at most. i connected to tess, aston, and ferantis in a way that i rarely do with any novella character.
a major theme in many of the stories was a girl in historical times shedding her role of wife in order to be a person first, and of course i loved every instance in which this occured. araminta, especially, was beautifully written. i loved the retelling of sleeping beauty as well, particularly the idea of maleficent being a mentor to aurora.
other stories, i liked less. the return to the scholomance in after hours elicited mixed emotions in me. somewhat like driving by your old house, seeing a different car in the driveway, different curtains in the windows, and realizing someone else lives there now. not completely unpleasant, but i don't really do well with sequels that have different characters, and this has nothing to do with novik's writing. lord dunsany's teapot i read three times, and it still makes no sense to me whatsoever. reading it gives off the aura that something major occured just before the story began, and something will occur after it ended, but in the two second glimpse we get of this world, all we do is watch grass grow.
in short, i loved most of the stories in this—i will always love novik's prose and her worldbuilding. she remains one of the most creative and skilled fantasy authors i've read. thank you to netgally for the advanced copy.
i absolutely adore naomi novik's writing. aside from this, i've only ever read the scholomance series from her, but these introductions into the worlds of spinning silver and temeraire have me fascinated. despite being short stories, most of them have brilliant characterization and masterfully woven plotlines.
commonplaces might be my favorite of them all, despite it being one of the quieter tales, because i, too, love irene adler in all her many incarnations, and she stole the show even being surrounded by the crazier and more magical fairy stories that this book holds. anything that gives me irenelock and johnlock within the same five pages is bound to immediately seize my attention. vici was hilarious and if temeraire is anything like it at all, i will positively inhale it. the long way around was equally witty, and somehow every character managed to shine, despite it being around forty pages long at most. i connected to tess, aston, and ferantis in a way that i rarely do with any novella character.
a major theme in many of the stories was a girl in historical times shedding her role of wife in order to be a person first, and of course i loved every instance in which this occured. araminta, especially, was beautifully written. i loved the retelling of sleeping beauty as well, particularly the idea of maleficent being a mentor to aurora.
other stories, i liked less. the return to the scholomance in after hours elicited mixed emotions in me. somewhat like driving by your old house, seeing a different car in the driveway, different curtains in the windows, and realizing someone else lives there now. not completely unpleasant, but i don't really do well with sequels that have different characters, and this has nothing to do with novik's writing. lord dunsany's teapot i read three times, and it still makes no sense to me whatsoever. reading it gives off the aura that something major occured just before the story began, and something will occur after it ended, but in the two second glimpse we get of this world, all we do is watch grass grow.
in short, i loved most of the stories in this—i will always love novik's prose and her worldbuilding. she remains one of the most creative and skilled fantasy authors i've read. thank you to netgally for the advanced copy.