octavia_cade's reviews
2517 reviews

Deryni Checkmate by Katherine Kurtz

adventurous medium-paced

2.0

It's been a long time since I've read a fantasy - even a historical fantasy - so devoid of female characters. There are a couple here, but the attention given to them is so minimal that Kurtz really might not have bothered.

In fairness, this is a vast improvement on the first book in the series, which I thought dreadful in every respect. The dialogue is still clunky in a number of places, but I did like the political emphasis and the focus on the conflict between magic and religion. I read it for the same reason I read the first one... in an ongoing effort to read my way through the shortlist of the Mythopoeic Awards, but it's still not grabbing me I'm afraid. It just seems a very old-fashioned sort of fantasy, and not in a good way. Still, hopefully the last in the trilogy will continue to improve. 

Kiss the Girls by James Patterson

dark tense fast-paced

3.0

This is only the second of the Alex Cross books that I've read, so I'm working from a small sample here, but what I'm liking about the series so far is the main character and the pacing. These are quick, fast-paced books with creepy antagonists and lots of action. I enjoy reading them. That said, I enjoyed this one less than the last. For one, my tolerance for mystery-thrillers that rely on brutal sexual violence and torture of women decreases with every passing year. But while that particular reason can apply to a number of books and authors, the second reason is particular to this book: the series of extremely stupid decisions made by both Cross and the main survivor, Kate. If you've escaped a serial killer and he's on the loose and still hunting, Kate, maybe don't go back to living in the house that he's already taken you from once before, yeah? And as for you, Alex, you may have been brought in as an outsider, but if you could stand to tell people what you're doing and where you're going once in a while, you wouldn't be caught out so fucking often.

I love the pacing of these books, but common sense is not too much to ask. 

Canada Goose at Cattail Lane by Janet Halfmann

informative fast-paced

3.0

I do like geese! They can be a pest here in NZ, but I enjoy their grumpy, scrappy ways and their smooth, pretty feathers. They're one of my favourite birds. This little picture book follows a family of geese as the young hatch and make their way through the first months of life. The illustrations - as always in the Smithsonian Backyard books - are appealing, and one of them (the mother goose turning her eggs) is so detailed that for a moment I thought it was a photograph. 

I would have liked a little more explanation as to why the nest was built atop a muskrat house - is this normal? we don't have them in NZ so I'm not familiar - but maybe this is common knowledge where muskrats are found. Still, it's a cute little book. 

Last Survivors Series #1-3 by Susan Beth Pfeffer

dark emotional sad medium-paced

3.0

I read and reviewed the three books collected here separately, so this is just for my own records. They were all three star reads for me - the characters are largely sympathetic, and I like that they're often prickly and depressed and even sometimes unpleasant, because who wouldn't be in a situation like this. I also think that the pacing's very good; probably the most appealing part of this series, because it's very easy just to keep reading and not get bogged down. Given the subject matter, I think that's an achievement, as wallowing in narrative misery can often slow things down in stories like this. 

Likeable as the books are, though, I do feel they're a bit repetitive. Oh well, only one to go, and I expect I'll enjoy it just as well as the rest. 

This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

emotional sad medium-paced

3.0

I'm zipping through this series at a fast clip right now - it's a very easy read. Not in the subject matter, which is uniformly depressing, but in the language and the pacing. It just slips down very easily... I started reading earlier today and before I knew it half the day was gone.

As much as I'm enjoying reading it, though, there's part of me that's glad there's only one more book. I expect that one to be fairly depressing as well - how many more characters can die tragic deaths? - and there's a limit on how much misery and sadness I want to read right now. I'm unsure if there's a story to be had in this series that isn't misery and sadness, and while that can be cathartic I think I'm about done with that for a while. Once this series is over it's time to read something happier for a bit.

As for this particular volume, I liked it. I do think, though, that Miranda and Alex is one of the most unconvincing romances I've read in ages. Granted, it's probably desperation attracting them to each other but even so, it's the least appealing part of this series for me. 

Star Gazers by Duncan Sarkies

reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of this for review. Before anything else, though - isn't that cover amazing? I can't stop staring at it. Love it.

It's a fantastic cover for a fantastic book. I'm sure that most people have been part of a relatively small organisation at some point, whether it's a neighbourhood group or a hobby group or something that like, and I'm equally sure that most of us can recall a time when everything in that group turned to custard because of infighting between the members. Doesn't matter if the issue was large or small of even if it was completely irrelevant, it got people up in arms.

Such is the case with the Alpaca Breeders Organisation of NZ. A rigged election in the ABO sparks off a bitter quarrel of corruption and rebellion and it's shockingly compelling. I wish I could say that I couldn't see parallels and inspiration in real life, but this reads very much like an extended metaphor for what's going on in the world today, and it's simultaneously fascinating and depressing. Just very, very well done. This is the first book from Sarkies that I've read, and I'm going to have to go out and read more of them, because I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

dark sad medium-paced

3.0

This is very much in the same vein as the first book, but I admit to not liking it quite as much. That is entirely down to the protagonist, as Alex is far less sympathetic than Miranda. In fairness, he's a very different kid: from an extremely religious and quite conservative family, and trying to hold his two younger sisters together after both their parents die, so he lacks the support that Miranda does. He can also be, it must be said, a sexist authoritarian little shit, which is why I found it so hard to warm to him. In fairness, he does have many good qualities and he improves over time, and the situation that he's in is of the type to magnify anyone's poorest characteristics as well as their best. 

Despite this, even if I don't appreciate him as much as I did Miranda, I do appreciate that Pfeffer has tried to portray a teen protagonist who is so different from the last. I don't read many apocalyptic narratives that are focused on religious characters where religion is presented as not-evil (as in a dystopian cult, for instance), so that was an interesting change. 

Foul Deeds Will Rise by Greg Cox

adventurous medium-paced

2.0

I tried but I could not really get into this. There were aspects of it that I liked - the disarmament plot with Spock and Scotty especially - but it was saddled with a desperately unconvincing character that dragged down every scene she was in. Lenore Karidian, former insane murderer from the original series episode "The Conscience of the King" is brought back some decades later, having undergone treatment and with restored sanity. Supposedly, anyway, because she is deeply unconvinced of her own rehabilitation - which is quite tedious to read, but worse is the absolute hammering of Shakespeare that occurs whenever she's in a room. And yeah, Karidian is a Shakespearean actress, but does this single characteristic really have to be inserted into every other sentence she spouts?

As characterisation it comes across as very heavy-handed, and I was thoroughly sick of her by the end. I was actually hoping the angry mob would kill her, just to get her off the page, but no such luck. 

Saga #8 by Brian K. Vaughan

adventurous fast-paced

3.0

The seamstress line was the highlight of this for me! The growing relationship between Alana and her father-in-law is really appealing. The giant naked troll (? or whatever he is) and the ongoing bounty-hunter storyline is less compelling, but I appreciate that we have to go back to it periodically to keep the sense of danger going. 

Talking of the troll-thing, I am struggling to think of how the artist could have made him even more repulsive. Great - albeit disgusting - job there by Fiona Staples. I don't even want to know what the lumpy bits encrusting the testicles are, but they are - as they are no doubt meant to be - sincerely off-putting. 

Saga #7 by Brian K. Vaughan

adventurous fast-paced

3.0

I have to admit, I am in general far more interested in stories like this - domestic family relationships - than I am the hunting and chasing and weird characters with the television heads. It's more emotionally resonant, and given the weight of history on both the main pairing, it's no surprise that Marko's parents are deeply sceptical of his relationship with Alana. Not just sceptical, even... actively hostile might be a bit of an overstatement, but not by much. This is where speculative fiction can really do well, using metaphors to illuminate real life; not that anything in this particular issue is groundbreaking in that respect. It's more continuing on a tradition, but the need for the metaphor remains, unfortunately, and so we'll keep getting stories like this until it doesn't.