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thepurplebookwyrm's reviews
1070 reviews
Gyo by Junji Ito
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
Gyo was more outright gross-weird and goofy than scary or even properly weird-creepy for me. Though I'll grant Mr Ito came up with one of the most original apocalyptic scenarios I've ever seen, in any medium, in this one... so kudos! I also liked the ambiguity he left in the story with regards to the presence, or absence, of a more supernatural element, thereby injecting a slight note of cosmic horror in what was otherwise more of a straightforward body-horror-fest. It seemed like there was also subtext about jealousy and mistrust in relationships in this one... but it really was on the sidelines more than anything else; I'm not sure how I was supposed to connect it to the rest of the story, so it was kind of 'whatever'.
I still love Junji Ito's art, I still love his crazy imagination, and I will most certainly keep reading his stuff... but this, like Sensor, wasn't anywhere near the level of Uzumaki for me, unfortunately.
PS: my edition also featured the short story The Enigma of Amigara Fault, and that was definitely more my kind of shit!
I still love Junji Ito's art, I still love his crazy imagination, and I will most certainly keep reading his stuff... but this, like Sensor, wasn't anywhere near the level of Uzumaki for me, unfortunately.
PS: my edition also featured the short story The Enigma of Amigara Fault, and that was definitely more my kind of shit!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
The Field Guide to Witches: An artist's grimoire of 20 witches and their worlds by 3dtotal Publishing
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.25
Lovely art book that was just... right up my alley. Though the third section on hags and monsters was by far my least favourite – and that's what brought my final rating down – as it featured more straight-up monsters than actual witches stricto sensu, and I just don't find that as interesting/engaging, personally.
The Mimameid Solution by Katherine Kempf
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
DNFing at 52%, but standing by my partial rating of 2/5 stars. Because the cultural world-building in this was not only garbage, but borderline... offensive actually. 😬 More later.
Full video review: https://youtu.be/UvNiceyaA54.
Synopsis:
Set scene: near-future climate apocalypse + volcanic winter… the Ulster Irish take over the Republic, presumably mass convert the nation to Neo-Druidry (rofl) and conquer the UK – because this is a badly novelised EU IV campaign – then do a ‘reverse-Viking' for shits n’ giggles and go rampaging in Scandinavia for resources (but not, ya know, in the Netherlands? Belgium? Northern France? I mean it’s all right there across the Channel but yaight). Some “Norse” folks in Scandinavia live in a (presumably) Asatru-dedicated techno-bunker and do shit.
Yes, please make sure to read all of the above with a very, and I do mean very heavy tone of sarcasm.
Review:
I always try and remain fair towards books, even when I thoroughly dislike them, so I’ll start by listing the very few positives I have to share about this one:
• The prose was fluid overall. There was good descriptive writing. The text itself read pretty quickly (thank goodness for that, I wouldn’t have made it to 52% otherwise). The dialogues were fine as well, from a structural and… ‘these humans sound human’ point of view at least.
• The ‘post-apocalyptic techno-bunker society’ premise was decently intriguing on its own.
• As was the book's basic "we’re gonna do a 'reverse-Viking' with peeps from the Hiberno-British Islands" idea...
Alas! The execution of said basic idea was an abject, and I mean abject failure because the world-building needed to create solid, believable foundations for it to actually work was entirely missing. Yes, the world-building was hot garbage AND, it not only broke my immersion pretty quickly, it also read as mildly offensive, quite frankly!
The world-building, or why it’s not okay to do this kind of shit with living cultures, including white European ones:
a) A lot of things did not make any sense from a strictly 'post-apocalyptic survival' point of view: access to certain kinds of resources that had previously been established to be rare, scorched-earth raiding tactics employed by people otherwise looking for viable land to settle (?!), cultural and linguistic take-overs that wouldn't make an iota of sense without the presence of a state governments... which had been established, in-text, to have collapsed, etc...
b) This major issue was further compounded by the fact I was basically given the impression the story took place in the near-future. Nothing specific was ever given in terms of dates, or broader timelines, but judging by the general level of tech people claimed they'd only just recently lost access to, I’d say the book's plot can’t have taken place more than one, maybe two generations at the absolute maximum from now. Concerning what the book stated regarding the shifts in religious and linguistic practices, specifically: there is no way in Hell any of that made any kind of goddamn sense within a 50 to even 70 years timeframe, especially once again given the absence of semi-stable, centralised state institutions!
c) And then shit actually got offensive in places, because a lot of the book's 'cultural world-building', centring on its two 'player factions', the "Norse" and the "Celts" (no fucking way am I typing those without air quotes), relied on gross stereotypes and hand-waved away the fact these groupings were extrapolated from REAL, LIVING cultures with REAL, LAYERED histories! This is especially true when it comes to the book's... blegh, "Celts", or rather Irish, really (cuz I mean come on, it all fucking starts in Ireland, give me a break). I'm like: the Irish Troubles aren't exactly old history in the fucking slightest, in fact there are still, ongoing ramifications from this conflict affecting the socio-political situations of Ireland and the UK TODAY ! 🤬
Now onto more specific examples of stuff that made me laugh, then nuked my immersion, then pissed me off:
a) The Finns and Sámi were sometimes included in the grouping of "Norse", which made absolutely no sense. This wasn’t consistent though so… problem with the book’s editing perhaps?
b) A big one that legit made me lose my mind for a hot second: two “Norse” characters laugh at the idea that whiskey translates to ‘Water of Life’ in Irish (yes, it's IRISH, not Gaelic, the language is actually called IRISH in English, by Irish people in Ireland, my fucking god – and it's Gaeilge in the language itself). And I was like: EXCUSE ME HWUT?! ... HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF AKVAVIT??????? It’s a spirit FROM SCANDINAVIA OMFG. And it LITERALLY MEANS WATER OF LIFE, because it comes from the Latin aqua vitae. And guess what? We have it in French too: EAU DE VIE!! It also exists in Slavic languages, LITERALLY TWO SECONDS OF GOOGLING WILL SHOW YOU THIS!!! This shit is borderline pan-European, so riddle me this: why the fuck would Scandinavia people find this weird or funny in the fucking slightest?! Tell me you know nothing about actual European cultures without telling me you know nothing about actual European cultures, or that you don’t know how to do your bloody research, at the very least!
c) Excerpt: “She had thought it was so ridiculous at the time that the "Celts" didn’t just adhere to the same passage of time as the rest of the known world.” Omg please KMN: AGAIN, why were these supposedly Scandinavian characters acting like peeps from the (relatively) neighbouring British Islands were fucking aliens?! Even from the asinine (and underbaked as fuck) ‘pseudo-neo-Pagan’ perspective the book chose to slap onto its ridiculous world-building: the Norse and Celtic calendars shouldn't be radically different, because again the vast majority of the cultures in Europe are somewhat related, gaaaah! Heck, even on a broader, global scale, you’ll often find most cultures celebrate important events of the solar and/or agricultural calendar around the same time, because we're all goddamn humans! 🤦♀️
d) This then of course exposes the nonsensical religious world-building: “They didn’t cannibalise people for their bonfire festivals as a ritual to please their gods." So you’re seriously telling me the Irish just all converted back to fucking druidic paganism in the span of, what, a hundred years AT MOST?! CATHOLIC IRELAND, REALLY?! I could’ve bought weird and colourful doomsday cults; I could've bought splinter neo-Druidic factions in conflict with majority Catholic and Protestant groups, but a BLANKET CONVERSION OF THE ISLAND OF IRELAND? THEN OF GREAT BRITAIN?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? And same goes for the "Norse", honestly, cuz like... whatever happened to all the Protestants in Scandinavia?! Come the fuck on!
e) “The Cornish were still English and the English were still "Celts", last she had heard.” This one is so clunky it’s hilarious, actually. Additionally: the way 'linguistic hegemony' was described in the book also didn’t make a lick of sense. Cuz you're telling me all of Ireland just magically ditched English for Irish, then forced it on the UK... really!? ROFL. But then, other Celtic languages, such as Welsh, were also, at times, called ‘Gaelic’, and I was like… hwut!? I'll be nice here and say there must have been an issue with the editing there – I guess.
f) Another biggie: “I understand,” she breathed. And she really did. It had been subtle at first, but she had started to notice the way the English were treated here, as second-class citizens, as traitors to their own people. It reminded her of the way the Sámi, the Finns, and the Danes were sometimes treated in Mimameid."
Hoooo boy. 🤦♀️ At best, the above reads as an edgy Irish-American teen's revenge fantasy played out in EU VI. At worst, unfortunately, and coming from a work of SF literature presumably penned by an adult, this is actually bordering on the offensive, given the way it, just, blatantly hand-waves away REAL history affecting REAL PEOPLE TO THIS DAY. IN WHAT UNIVERSE can you write, with a straight face, a story that equates the ENGLISH to the SÁMI, with THE IRISH as the OPPRESSING BADDIES. Just: what the actual ever loving fuck?!
And all the more so given the book also states the “Celts” were 'particularly good at guerrilla warfare… USING CAR BOMBS'. Fucking. Christ. 🤮
Then there was also a camp of "Celtic" peoples and they were all, or nearly all... you guessed it: REDHEADS! 🤦♀️ AND WEARING COLOURFUL TARTAN - BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Like bestie, do you know the amount of fucking resources you’d need to make brightly coloured tartan, in A POST-APOCALYPTIC SCENARIO? Where were all the fucking sheep and dye plants, then, huh? Cuz the book also made it pretty fucking clear most of the plants had gotten their shit kicked in by an ongoing volcanic winter. YOU CANT HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO WITH THIS STUFF, MY GOD! Coloured clan tartan is also SCOTTISH, not IRISH, as an FYI, for fuck's sake. And sure, Ireland does have the highest incidence (afaik) of gingers, but that incidence only amounts to about 10 percent, not 90 percent! And it's like 6%-8% in the UK... which sure is a lot compared to most other places on Earth, but it's NOT the majority! Like seriously: could one possibly write any more stereotypically????? 🤬🤮
Just: garbage. Ludicrous, and mildly offensive garbage.
Full video review: https://youtu.be/UvNiceyaA54.
Synopsis:
Set scene: near-future climate apocalypse + volcanic winter… the Ulster Irish take over the Republic, presumably mass convert the nation to Neo-Druidry (rofl) and conquer the UK – because this is a badly novelised EU IV campaign – then do a ‘reverse-Viking' for shits n’ giggles and go rampaging in Scandinavia for resources (but not, ya know, in the Netherlands? Belgium? Northern France? I mean it’s all right there across the Channel but yaight). Some “Norse” folks in Scandinavia live in a (presumably) Asatru-dedicated techno-bunker and do shit.
Yes, please make sure to read all of the above with a very, and I do mean very heavy tone of sarcasm.
Review:
I always try and remain fair towards books, even when I thoroughly dislike them, so I’ll start by listing the very few positives I have to share about this one:
• The prose was fluid overall. There was good descriptive writing. The text itself read pretty quickly (thank goodness for that, I wouldn’t have made it to 52% otherwise). The dialogues were fine as well, from a structural and… ‘these humans sound human’ point of view at least.
• The ‘post-apocalyptic techno-bunker society’ premise was decently intriguing on its own.
• As was the book's basic "we’re gonna do a 'reverse-Viking' with peeps from the Hiberno-British Islands" idea...
Alas! The execution of said basic idea was an abject, and I mean abject failure because the world-building needed to create solid, believable foundations for it to actually work was entirely missing. Yes, the world-building was hot garbage AND, it not only broke my immersion pretty quickly, it also read as mildly offensive, quite frankly!
The world-building, or why it’s not okay to do this kind of shit with living cultures, including white European ones:
a) A lot of things did not make any sense from a strictly 'post-apocalyptic survival' point of view: access to certain kinds of resources that had previously been established to be rare, scorched-earth raiding tactics employed by people otherwise looking for viable land to settle (?!), cultural and linguistic take-overs that wouldn't make an iota of sense without the presence of a state governments... which had been established, in-text, to have collapsed, etc...
b) This major issue was further compounded by the fact I was basically given the impression the story took place in the near-future. Nothing specific was ever given in terms of dates, or broader timelines, but judging by the general level of tech people claimed they'd only just recently lost access to, I’d say the book's plot can’t have taken place more than one, maybe two generations at the absolute maximum from now. Concerning what the book stated regarding the shifts in religious and linguistic practices, specifically: there is no way in Hell any of that made any kind of goddamn sense within a 50 to even 70 years timeframe, especially once again given the absence of semi-stable, centralised state institutions!
c) And then shit actually got offensive in places, because a lot of the book's 'cultural world-building', centring on its two 'player factions', the "Norse" and the "Celts" (no fucking way am I typing those without air quotes), relied on gross stereotypes and hand-waved away the fact these groupings were extrapolated from REAL, LIVING cultures with REAL, LAYERED histories! This is especially true when it comes to the book's... blegh, "Celts", or rather Irish, really (cuz I mean come on, it all fucking starts in Ireland, give me a break). I'm like: the Irish Troubles aren't exactly old history in the fucking slightest, in fact there are still, ongoing ramifications from this conflict affecting the socio-political situations of Ireland and the UK TODAY ! 🤬
Now onto more specific examples of stuff that made me laugh, then nuked my immersion, then pissed me off:
a) The Finns and Sámi were sometimes included in the grouping of "Norse", which made absolutely no sense. This wasn’t consistent though so… problem with the book’s editing perhaps?
b) A big one that legit made me lose my mind for a hot second: two “Norse” characters laugh at the idea that whiskey translates to ‘Water of Life’ in Irish (yes, it's IRISH, not Gaelic, the language is actually called IRISH in English, by Irish people in Ireland, my fucking god – and it's Gaeilge in the language itself). And I was like: EXCUSE ME HWUT?! ... HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF AKVAVIT??????? It’s a spirit FROM SCANDINAVIA OMFG. And it LITERALLY MEANS WATER OF LIFE, because it comes from the Latin aqua vitae. And guess what? We have it in French too: EAU DE VIE!! It also exists in Slavic languages, LITERALLY TWO SECONDS OF GOOGLING WILL SHOW YOU THIS!!! This shit is borderline pan-European, so riddle me this: why the fuck would Scandinavia people find this weird or funny in the fucking slightest?! Tell me you know nothing about actual European cultures without telling me you know nothing about actual European cultures, or that you don’t know how to do your bloody research, at the very least!
c) Excerpt: “She had thought it was so ridiculous at the time that the "Celts" didn’t just adhere to the same passage of time as the rest of the known world.” Omg please KMN: AGAIN, why were these supposedly Scandinavian characters acting like peeps from the (relatively) neighbouring British Islands were fucking aliens?! Even from the asinine (and underbaked as fuck) ‘pseudo-neo-Pagan’ perspective the book chose to slap onto its ridiculous world-building: the Norse and Celtic calendars shouldn't be radically different, because again the vast majority of the cultures in Europe are somewhat related, gaaaah! Heck, even on a broader, global scale, you’ll often find most cultures celebrate important events of the solar and/or agricultural calendar around the same time, because we're all goddamn humans! 🤦♀️
d) This then of course exposes the nonsensical religious world-building: “They didn’t cannibalise people for their bonfire festivals as a ritual to please their gods." So you’re seriously telling me the Irish just all converted back to fucking druidic paganism in the span of, what, a hundred years AT MOST?! CATHOLIC IRELAND, REALLY?! I could’ve bought weird and colourful doomsday cults; I could've bought splinter neo-Druidic factions in conflict with majority Catholic and Protestant groups, but a BLANKET CONVERSION OF THE ISLAND OF IRELAND? THEN OF GREAT BRITAIN?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? And same goes for the "Norse", honestly, cuz like... whatever happened to all the Protestants in Scandinavia?! Come the fuck on!
e) “The Cornish were still English and the English were still "Celts", last she had heard.” This one is so clunky it’s hilarious, actually. Additionally: the way 'linguistic hegemony' was described in the book also didn’t make a lick of sense. Cuz you're telling me all of Ireland just magically ditched English for Irish, then forced it on the UK... really!? ROFL. But then, other Celtic languages, such as Welsh, were also, at times, called ‘Gaelic’, and I was like… hwut!? I'll be nice here and say there must have been an issue with the editing there – I guess.
f) Another biggie: “I understand,” she breathed. And she really did. It had been subtle at first, but she had started to notice the way the English were treated here, as second-class citizens, as traitors to their own people. It reminded her of the way the Sámi, the Finns, and the Danes were sometimes treated in Mimameid."
Hoooo boy. 🤦♀️ At best, the above reads as an edgy Irish-American teen's revenge fantasy played out in EU VI. At worst, unfortunately, and coming from a work of SF literature presumably penned by an adult, this is actually bordering on the offensive, given the way it, just, blatantly hand-waves away REAL history affecting REAL PEOPLE TO THIS DAY. IN WHAT UNIVERSE can you write, with a straight face, a story that equates the ENGLISH to the SÁMI, with THE IRISH as the OPPRESSING BADDIES. Just: what the actual ever loving fuck?!
And all the more so given the book also states the “Celts” were 'particularly good at guerrilla warfare… USING CAR BOMBS'. Fucking. Christ. 🤮
Then there was also a camp of "Celtic" peoples and they were all, or nearly all... you guessed it: REDHEADS! 🤦♀️ AND WEARING COLOURFUL TARTAN - BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Like bestie, do you know the amount of fucking resources you’d need to make brightly coloured tartan, in A POST-APOCALYPTIC SCENARIO? Where were all the fucking sheep and dye plants, then, huh? Cuz the book also made it pretty fucking clear most of the plants had gotten their shit kicked in by an ongoing volcanic winter. YOU CANT HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO WITH THIS STUFF, MY GOD! Coloured clan tartan is also SCOTTISH, not IRISH, as an FYI, for fuck's sake. And sure, Ireland does have the highest incidence (afaik) of gingers, but that incidence only amounts to about 10 percent, not 90 percent! And it's like 6%-8% in the UK... which sure is a lot compared to most other places on Earth, but it's NOT the majority! Like seriously: could one possibly write any more stereotypically????? 🤬🤮
Just: garbage. Ludicrous, and mildly offensive garbage.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia, Cultural appropriation
Gross Hibernophobia and stereotyping of real, living European cultures.
Women as Demons by Tanith Lee
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
A solidly good and enjoyable collection of (actually) feminist to feminist-adjacent, fantasy and science-fiction short stories, with a decent – and decently well executed, or conveyed – emphasis on horror as well. Said elements, and the elegant, evocative quality of the author's prose, even reminded me – somewhat – of Poe's or Lovecraft's fiction at times.
On the whole, Women as Demons featured well realised, or at the very least interesting elements of world-building, or setting. And delivered engaging bits of, once again actually feminist theming on the 'Dark Feminine' – to put it simplistically. All in all, that gets a thumbs up from me! 👍
PS: I also really enjoyed the author's introduction to the collection.
On the whole, Women as Demons featured well realised, or at the very least interesting elements of world-building, or setting. And delivered engaging bits of, once again actually feminist theming on the 'Dark Feminine' – to put it simplistically. All in all, that gets a thumbs up from me! 👍
PS: I also really enjoyed the author's introduction to the collection.
SÍDH: Stories from the Women in Irish Mythology by Karina Tynan
hopeful
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
2.75
I found this to be a pretty underwhelming, and ultimately disappointing collection of Irish mythology 'retellings'. There was next to no range to the kinds of stories the author chose to reinterpret; the female characters she chose to focus on were also almost all, invariably, passive individuals with little – outside of romance and motherhood – to give them pleasure and motivation in life. I would've liked to hear more about the female druids a couple of the stories mentioned in passing...
Outside of that: I wasn't a fan of the collection's opening stories, which mixed in Biblical shenanigans with the 'pagan' stuff, but kinda liked its closing story about Brigid.
The book's accompanying illustrations were... alright, not really my thing.
So yeah: barely worth reading once, and certainly not worth the price I paid for it. 😅
Outside of that: I wasn't a fan of the collection's opening stories, which mixed in Biblical shenanigans with the 'pagan' stuff, but kinda liked its closing story about Brigid.
The book's accompanying illustrations were... alright, not really my thing.
So yeah: barely worth reading once, and certainly not worth the price I paid for it. 😅
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
Full video review: https://youtu.be/tzef3GzGyq0.
This was a 'nope'!
Bought this during World Con 2024 on a whim, cuz' it was short, and I was like: "eh, fuck it, why not", even though I'm not a romance reader... though to be fair, this isn't a 'romance' per se, but more of a 'love story' (yes, I distinguish between the two). One that brings together two post-human women – whatever the fuck that actually means, because no you'll never actually know – working as agents, or soldiers, what have you, for super far-future, multiverse and timeline-straddling hive-mind entities (I guess??) locked in a 'time war' to own all possible futures... or something along those lines. Oh, yeah, and said agents, Red and Blue, write "letters" to one another using various steganographic (look it up, it'll come in handy) means – so This Is How You Lose the Time War also, partly, counts as an epistolary novel.
Positives (this'll be short):
• The prose was lovely... at times, and the fact I could relate to the excitement (and related yearning) at finally meeting, and connecting with a kindred spirit, over time and space, through the written word (sort of) was pleasant – if very bittersweet, given my personal experience with that kind of thing. That aspect of the love story was decently well executed, and made me feel a smidge of... something, at least.
• The story's concept was interesting...
Negatives, issues, what have you:
• ...but its execution was my oh my severely lacking! And that's my biggest gripe with this book: why in the hell did this need to be science-fiction, at all? Just, why? I ask this because the science-fictional qualities of this story were majorly underdeveloped, and underutilised, not to say wasted, in terms of meaningful world-building, most definitely in terms of theming, and then honestly in terms of broader, imaginative storytelling.
The 'post-human' schtick, which you never really get to properly understand; the far-future factions, which you never really get to properly understand, or explore; the freaking 'time war' itself, which I didn't give a single crap about... it all amounted to little more than fancy set-dressing, mere aesthetics, if you will, and that's one of the biggest 'literary crimes' you can commit in the book of this ideas- and concepts-driven SFF nerd! 😠
It was all about the love story, really, and that literally could have been told and, quite frankly, better fleshed out, in a general fiction setting. Okay, make it historical, I guess, for extra flavour, if you must, but like... why waste the opportunities afforded by speculative genre-writing like this? Speculative world-building, in a story such as this one, should, ideally, enhance its theming on love, yearning, desire, etc..., lead to secondary theming, or at least, I don't know, just... provide something that will firmly engage or, fine, simply entertain, my SFF-loving mind!
• But it gets worse! Had the book simply left it at: "we'll keep the 'SF-ness' at mere aesthetics level, and that's it", I would've considered it mediocre to fine; worth reading once, at least. But then, it decided to pay a little extra mind to the fact it was actually supposed to be a science-fictional love story, set during a time war... and get extra muppetty with a dollop of cheap-as-fuck, convenient-as-fuck, happy-ending-guaranteeing (or near enough to it) 'deus-ex-time-travel'.
Christ do I hate that shit. Stories that are able to pull time travel well are exceedingly rare as far as I'm concerned, and my experience reading this novel only confirms that! What makes me laugh though is that here, time travel was clearly 'meant' to enhance the emotional impact of the story, but I'm like: "no no no bestie, you ain't no Dark – not even close!
• Cuz that's the other thing: the book's time travelling clincher felt so, freaking, cheap! And it cheapened the characters' relationship... not that it was particularly convincing to begin with, mind you. <spoilers>Still, the 'twist' makes it worse, because it kind of makes Red and Blue weirdly... 'biologically' fated to be together?! What with all the DNA mixing, if these bishes even still have DNA as we understand it... which goes back to the fact the world-building in this thing doesn't actually matter, but anyhoo.</spoilers> I just didn't really buy the romance, ultimately. It wasn't instalove, no, thank the gods, and I've most definitely seen worse, but:
a) The book, clearly, doesn't genuinely care about its speculative quality in any meaningful sense, but it still kinda had to fill a certain amount of pages with – often very confusing, I might add – 'SF-coded' cutscenes, as it were, and nods to strands of history Red and Blue were supposedly modifying across the multiverse. This then took time and care away from properly fleshing out their personalities, and interest for one another, beyond a 'we are both super smort outsiders with regards to each of our respective societies/factions' motif – though again, the ending of the book actually cheapens this.
b) There's a problem with the pacing and escalation of the 'love feelz' – and the pacing of the story more generally, to be honest. We essentially go from pleasant, frenemy banter to slightly deeper, honestly interested, curious inquiries to BAM! YOU ARE MY LOVE ACROSS ALL THE STARS AND OCEANS AND MULTIVERSES AND SUPERNOVAS AND CYBORG PEOPLE OF THE AGENCY (my best guess) AND PLANT PEOPLE OF THE GARDEN (my best guess) AND I WILL DIE FOR U AND I NEED TO TOUCH U AND TASTE U AND IT'S SWEET AGONY ERMAGEEEEEERD. Okay, I may have exaggerated just a wee bit there... but also not that much. Either way, I went from feeling like Red and Blue's was a decently pleasant, and mildly relatable developing relationship to thinking: "okay, no, see, this is too much now, you made it over the top, I don't buy this." 😑
• This brings me back around to the prose: I enjoyed it for the most part, yes, but it was, also, a tad over the top at times. I've written love letters as a teenager, and as an adult. I love very fucking intensely, I'm a capital R Romantic at heart... but there's being earnestly, lovingly soulful, and then there's being puppy dog cringe (which, hey, that's fine... when you're a teenager). One's mileage will absolutely, one trillion percent vary here on where the line resides with this exactly, but for me, it was certainly fascinating – not to say whiplashing, ahem – to go through one of Red, or was it Blue's letters, and realise it both contained inspiring, yet believable poetic sentiments of love, and sentences worthy of an enflamed sixteen year-old... and not, you know, super advanced, and enhanced 'post-humans'. Like GTFO with that (as always, in my subjective opinion) nonsense!
Ultimately though, it's the ending that killed it for me. Without it, I would've still found this interesting, uhm, I dunno, 'genre experiment'? Worth reading once. As it stands, however, this was a waste of time – though thankfully a rather short one!
Extra ranty PS: seriously though, that world-building... so was Blue a... plant person?! And Red, some sort of cyborg, unplugged from the Matrix?? And like... honestly, why should I have cared about, or gone 'aw' at these two far-future, hive-mind-derived-but-maybe-not (?!) creatures making googly eyes at one another??
Also, does it even mean anything to call them women? Do 'post-humans' even still reproduce sexually?? <spoilers>I mean fuck, both Red and Blue were said to have been grown in pods, or soil, and Red definitely stated she'd never had a mother... </spoilers> so honestly, the whole 'yay sapphic romance rep!' thing boggles my mind, because holy shit do gay and bi women deserve better than that, like come the fuck on!
And freaking hell, those last couple of chapters just got way too crazy with the abstractions and senseless descriptions: <spoilers>vines binding planets, tree trunks in space, suns with eyes, just... wut?! Was the Garden an actual hive mind, or was it a 'person', a bio-AI, just...?? And what about the Agency?? See what I mean? What was the actual freaking point of including ANY of this stuff, ultimately? Like I'm game to read about space plants, and plant people, </spoilers> but actually DO SOMETHING WITH IT, FOR THE LOVE OF SFF! /rant
PPS: having thought a little more about it... this barely qualifies as a 'love story' in the true sense of the word. It's more of an 'infatuation/falling in love story'. And no, it most certainly does not hold a fucking candle to something like <b>Normal People</b> for me, in terms of actual meaning or impact (though it can have the point on prose I suppose, sure, fine, whatever). Or even something like <b>Middlegame</b>, in terms of impact and relatability... through a <i>platonic</i> love story for its part! So there, two recs, SFF and not, on the house! 😉
This was a 'nope'!
Bought this during World Con 2024 on a whim, cuz' it was short, and I was like: "eh, fuck it, why not", even though I'm not a romance reader... though to be fair, this isn't a 'romance' per se, but more of a 'love story' (yes, I distinguish between the two). One that brings together two post-human women – whatever the fuck that actually means, because no you'll never actually know – working as agents, or soldiers, what have you, for super far-future, multiverse and timeline-straddling hive-mind entities (I guess??) locked in a 'time war' to own all possible futures... or something along those lines. Oh, yeah, and said agents, Red and Blue, write "letters" to one another using various steganographic (look it up, it'll come in handy) means – so This Is How You Lose the Time War also, partly, counts as an epistolary novel.
Positives (this'll be short):
• The prose was lovely... at times, and the fact I could relate to the excitement (and related yearning) at finally meeting, and connecting with a kindred spirit, over time and space, through the written word (sort of) was pleasant – if very bittersweet, given my personal experience with that kind of thing. That aspect of the love story was decently well executed, and made me feel a smidge of... something, at least.
• The story's concept was interesting...
Negatives, issues, what have you:
• ...but its execution was my oh my severely lacking! And that's my biggest gripe with this book: why in the hell did this need to be science-fiction, at all? Just, why? I ask this because the science-fictional qualities of this story were majorly underdeveloped, and underutilised, not to say wasted, in terms of meaningful world-building, most definitely in terms of theming, and then honestly in terms of broader, imaginative storytelling.
The 'post-human' schtick, which you never really get to properly understand; the far-future factions, which you never really get to properly understand, or explore; the freaking 'time war' itself, which I didn't give a single crap about... it all amounted to little more than fancy set-dressing, mere aesthetics, if you will, and that's one of the biggest 'literary crimes' you can commit in the book of this ideas- and concepts-driven SFF nerd! 😠
It was all about the love story, really, and that literally could have been told and, quite frankly, better fleshed out, in a general fiction setting. Okay, make it historical, I guess, for extra flavour, if you must, but like... why waste the opportunities afforded by speculative genre-writing like this? Speculative world-building, in a story such as this one, should, ideally, enhance its theming on love, yearning, desire, etc..., lead to secondary theming, or at least, I don't know, just... provide something that will firmly engage or, fine, simply entertain, my SFF-loving mind!
• But it gets worse! Had the book simply left it at: "we'll keep the 'SF-ness' at mere aesthetics level, and that's it", I would've considered it mediocre to fine; worth reading once, at least. But then, it decided to pay a little extra mind to the fact it was actually supposed to be a science-fictional love story, set during a time war... and get extra muppetty with a dollop of cheap-as-fuck, convenient-as-fuck, happy-ending-guaranteeing (or near enough to it) 'deus-ex-time-travel'.
Christ do I hate that shit. Stories that are able to pull time travel well are exceedingly rare as far as I'm concerned, and my experience reading this novel only confirms that! What makes me laugh though is that here, time travel was clearly 'meant' to enhance the emotional impact of the story, but I'm like: "no no no bestie, you ain't no Dark – not even close!
• Cuz that's the other thing: the book's time travelling clincher felt so, freaking, cheap! And it cheapened the characters' relationship... not that it was particularly convincing to begin with, mind you. <spoilers>Still, the 'twist' makes it worse, because it kind of makes Red and Blue weirdly... 'biologically' fated to be together?! What with all the DNA mixing, if these bishes even still have DNA as we understand it... which goes back to the fact the world-building in this thing doesn't actually matter, but anyhoo.</spoilers> I just didn't really buy the romance, ultimately. It wasn't instalove, no, thank the gods, and I've most definitely seen worse, but:
a) The book, clearly, doesn't genuinely care about its speculative quality in any meaningful sense, but it still kinda had to fill a certain amount of pages with – often very confusing, I might add – 'SF-coded' cutscenes, as it were, and nods to strands of history Red and Blue were supposedly modifying across the multiverse. This then took time and care away from properly fleshing out their personalities, and interest for one another, beyond a 'we are both super smort outsiders with regards to each of our respective societies/factions' motif – though again, the ending of the book actually cheapens this.
b) There's a problem with the pacing and escalation of the 'love feelz' – and the pacing of the story more generally, to be honest. We essentially go from pleasant, frenemy banter to slightly deeper, honestly interested, curious inquiries to BAM! YOU ARE MY LOVE ACROSS ALL THE STARS AND OCEANS AND MULTIVERSES AND SUPERNOVAS AND CYBORG PEOPLE OF THE AGENCY (my best guess) AND PLANT PEOPLE OF THE GARDEN (my best guess) AND I WILL DIE FOR U AND I NEED TO TOUCH U AND TASTE U AND IT'S SWEET AGONY ERMAGEEEEEERD. Okay, I may have exaggerated just a wee bit there... but also not that much. Either way, I went from feeling like Red and Blue's was a decently pleasant, and mildly relatable developing relationship to thinking: "okay, no, see, this is too much now, you made it over the top, I don't buy this." 😑
• This brings me back around to the prose: I enjoyed it for the most part, yes, but it was, also, a tad over the top at times. I've written love letters as a teenager, and as an adult. I love very fucking intensely, I'm a capital R Romantic at heart... but there's being earnestly, lovingly soulful, and then there's being puppy dog cringe (which, hey, that's fine... when you're a teenager). One's mileage will absolutely, one trillion percent vary here on where the line resides with this exactly, but for me, it was certainly fascinating – not to say whiplashing, ahem – to go through one of Red, or was it Blue's letters, and realise it both contained inspiring, yet believable poetic sentiments of love, and sentences worthy of an enflamed sixteen year-old... and not, you know, super advanced, and enhanced 'post-humans'. Like GTFO with that (as always, in my subjective opinion) nonsense!
Ultimately though, it's the ending that killed it for me. Without it, I would've still found this interesting, uhm, I dunno, 'genre experiment'? Worth reading once. As it stands, however, this was a waste of time – though thankfully a rather short one!
Extra ranty PS: seriously though, that world-building... so was Blue a... plant person?! And Red, some sort of cyborg, unplugged from the Matrix?? And like... honestly, why should I have cared about, or gone 'aw' at these two far-future, hive-mind-derived-but-maybe-not (?!) creatures making googly eyes at one another??
Also, does it even mean anything to call them women? Do 'post-humans' even still reproduce sexually?? <spoilers>I mean fuck, both Red and Blue were said to have been grown in pods, or soil, and Red definitely stated she'd never had a mother... </spoilers> so honestly, the whole 'yay sapphic romance rep!' thing boggles my mind, because holy shit do gay and bi women deserve better than that, like come the fuck on!
And freaking hell, those last couple of chapters just got way too crazy with the abstractions and senseless descriptions: <spoilers>vines binding planets, tree trunks in space, suns with eyes, just... wut?! Was the Garden an actual hive mind, or was it a 'person', a bio-AI, just...?? And what about the Agency?? See what I mean? What was the actual freaking point of including ANY of this stuff, ultimately? Like I'm game to read about space plants, and plant people, </spoilers> but actually DO SOMETHING WITH IT, FOR THE LOVE OF SFF! /rant
PPS: having thought a little more about it... this barely qualifies as a 'love story' in the true sense of the word. It's more of an 'infatuation/falling in love story'. And no, it most certainly does not hold a fucking candle to something like <b>Normal People</b> for me, in terms of actual meaning or impact (though it can have the point on prose I suppose, sure, fine, whatever). Or even something like <b>Middlegame</b>, in terms of impact and relatability... through a <i>platonic</i> love story for its part! So there, two recs, SFF and not, on the house! 😉
The Book of Witches by Jonathan Strahan
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.25
Pretty good anthology overall; probably not quite as good as I found The Book of Dragons to be, but still worth checking out if you're into witches in general! 🙂
Individual ratings:
• Seed of power (Linda D. Addison) – 8.5/10
• What I remember of Oresha Moon Dragon Devshrata (P. Djèli Clark) – 6/10
• Catechism for thise who would find witches (Kathleen Jennings) – 7/10
• The luck thief (Tade Thompson) – 6.5/10
• Good spells (Ken Liu) – 2/10 (really hated this one)
• The liar (Darcie Little Badger) – 7/10
• Escape artists (Andrea Hairston) – 8/10
• The witch is not a monster (Alaya Dawn Johnson) – 8/10
• Met swallow (Cassandra Khaw) – 7/10
• The nine jars of Nukulu (Tobi Ogundiran) – 5/10
• In a cabin, in a wood (Kelly Robson) – 7.5/10
• What dreams may come (C. L. Clark) – 4/10
• She who makes the rain (Millie Ho) – 6/10
• As wayward sisters, hand in hand (Indrapramit Das) – 9/10 (the best story, by far, found it quite moving)
• Orphanage of the Last Breath (Saad Z. Hossain) – 7/10
• The unexpected excursion of the murder mystery writing witches (Garth Nix) – 7/10
• So spake the Mirrorwitch (Premee Mohamed) – 6.5/10
• Just a nudge (Maureen McHugh) – 6/10
• Her ravenous waters (Andrea Stewart) – 7.5/10
• Déja Vue (Tochi Onyebuchi) – 5.5/10
• BOTANICA: a song in four movements (Sheree Renée Thomas) – 6.5/10
• Through the woods, due west (Angela Slatter) – 7/10
• Nameless here for evermore (Fonda Lee) – 6.5/10
• Mask of the Nautilus (Sheree Renée Thomas) – 6.5/10
• Night riding (Usman T Malik) – 7/10
• Witchfires (E. Lily Yu) – 5/10
• The Academy of Oracular Magic (Miyuki Jane Pinckard) – 5/10
• The cost of doing business (Emily Y. Teng) – 5.5/10
• John Hollowback and the witch (Amal El-Mohtar) – 7.5/10
Individual ratings:
• Seed of power (Linda D. Addison) – 8.5/10
• What I remember of Oresha Moon Dragon Devshrata (P. Djèli Clark) – 6/10
• Catechism for thise who would find witches (Kathleen Jennings) – 7/10
• The luck thief (Tade Thompson) – 6.5/10
• Good spells (Ken Liu) – 2/10 (really hated this one)
• The liar (Darcie Little Badger) – 7/10
• Escape artists (Andrea Hairston) – 8/10
• The witch is not a monster (Alaya Dawn Johnson) – 8/10
• Met swallow (Cassandra Khaw) – 7/10
• The nine jars of Nukulu (Tobi Ogundiran) – 5/10
• In a cabin, in a wood (Kelly Robson) – 7.5/10
• What dreams may come (C. L. Clark) – 4/10
• She who makes the rain (Millie Ho) – 6/10
• As wayward sisters, hand in hand (Indrapramit Das) – 9/10 (the best story, by far, found it quite moving)
• Orphanage of the Last Breath (Saad Z. Hossain) – 7/10
• The unexpected excursion of the murder mystery writing witches (Garth Nix) – 7/10
• So spake the Mirrorwitch (Premee Mohamed) – 6.5/10
• Just a nudge (Maureen McHugh) – 6/10
• Her ravenous waters (Andrea Stewart) – 7.5/10
• Déja Vue (Tochi Onyebuchi) – 5.5/10
• BOTANICA: a song in four movements (Sheree Renée Thomas) – 6.5/10
• Through the woods, due west (Angela Slatter) – 7/10
• Nameless here for evermore (Fonda Lee) – 6.5/10
• Mask of the Nautilus (Sheree Renée Thomas) – 6.5/10
• Night riding (Usman T Malik) – 7/10
• Witchfires (E. Lily Yu) – 5/10
• The Academy of Oracular Magic (Miyuki Jane Pinckard) – 5/10
• The cost of doing business (Emily Y. Teng) – 5.5/10
• John Hollowback and the witch (Amal El-Mohtar) – 7.5/10
Inanna by Emily H. Wilson
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
So this one was ultimately rather disappointing for me, and I maintain finding a properly good mythological retelling is actually pretty difficult!
Writing, structure, etc...:
I enjoyed the prose's relatively formal, 'archaic-emulating' style, and the book's 'narrative distance' at first, but then felt it became too great to effectively convey, well... anything in terms of emotionality, and too great to properly keep me engaged with the unfolding story. By trying to sound both 'relevant' to contemporary readers, and like it was genuinely harking back to the story's inspiring real-world myths, Inanna wound up feeling rather sterile, and more inert than either type of story should ever be. I also think there was ultimately an issue with the very plot structure of this retelling; too much was attempted in this first volume, and major threads of the retelling were thus laid by the wayside – I'll come back to this shortly.
Characters:
I thought the characterisation was decent overall. Each point of view character – so Inanna, Gilgamesh and Ninshubar – felt sufficiently distinct and sketched out... though that was more so true of the latter two characters, since Inanna herself was eventually reduced to a pretty soulless, robotic shell of a character. This went hand in hand with the problem I had with the too-great narrative distance in the book's final section. And actually, at the end of the day... I'm not sure we needed Ninshubar's point of view in book one; the novel would have benefitted, I think, from being a tighter, and more fleshed out, dual point-of-view story.
The mythology, itself, and broader world-building:
1) The book felt satisfyingly immersive, and believable, in terms of historical setting, based on the little I have gleaned, over the years, about Ancient Mesopotamia. So that's cool.
2) But then, we have the meat of my issues with this book, which is that for a 'mythological retelling', Inanna both lacked sufficient amounts of actual mythological fantasy, magic and religion, and pressed a little too hard, for my taste, into the 'retelling' side of things. Indeed, there's nothing for it, I do think the story took too many liberties with the source material it purported to retell. And then outside of that, it just under-delivered on some of its retold elements, because I maintain it tried to do too much at the same time.
I'm a mythology nerd, and so yes I do know a bit about Mesopotamian mythology (in fact, it's one of the mythological canons I'm most interested in), and Inanna also happens to be one of my all-time favourite pagan deities. I have read, and thoroughly enjoyed, one of the books the author recommends at the end of hers: Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Noah Kramer. And sorry not sorry, but this book's version of the "Descent of Inanna to the Underworld" was underwhelming and lacklustre as fuck, and that made me kind of salty, because holy shit how do you fumble that so hard in a novel titled "Inanna"! The Sumerian Underworld itself, and my Queen in Darkness Ereshkigal, were also underbaked as fuck, and like I said the mythological fantasy as a whole was pretty underbaked...
3) Because the story also includes what I'll call 'pseudo-science-fictiony' vibes. I really hoped I was imagining things with that but, as it so happens, the author straight up owned the fact that this is indeed something she chose to do with her retelling. And, look: fair enough. I can respect the fact she genuinely wanted to have unbridled, creative fun with mythological stories she apparently really loves, finds inspiring, etc... but I fucking loathed those pseudo-SF vibes, let me tell you. I just... really hated that shit. I don't want Sumerian gods as beings from outer space, or another dimension, what have you... with magic blood that isn't actually divine magic, but some fancy, unexplained 'technology'. Fuck off with that. I want actual, freaking, mythology; I want actual, freaking gods, and creation magic, and fantastical creatures, and a lively, soulful Underworld, and demons that are more than just decorative, and discussions of faith, religion, etc... not whatever this was: blegh !
Once again: I appreciate the fact the author was transparent with her creative intent, as well as the limitations of her education on the book's subject matter, and the fact she recommended actual sources to delve deeper into the history, and myths she (ultimately rather loosely) took inspiration from. And she was absolutely free to make the creative choices she did. But the simple fact is (the majority) of those choices were not to my taste at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
PS: so, yeah, I'm really disappointed, because this retelling had so much potential, and there aren't that many Sumero-Babylonian mythology retellings, as far as I know.
Writing, structure, etc...:
I enjoyed the prose's relatively formal, 'archaic-emulating' style, and the book's 'narrative distance' at first, but then felt it became too great to effectively convey, well... anything in terms of emotionality, and too great to properly keep me engaged with the unfolding story. By trying to sound both 'relevant' to contemporary readers, and like it was genuinely harking back to the story's inspiring real-world myths, Inanna wound up feeling rather sterile, and more inert than either type of story should ever be. I also think there was ultimately an issue with the very plot structure of this retelling; too much was attempted in this first volume, and major threads of the retelling were thus laid by the wayside – I'll come back to this shortly.
Characters:
I thought the characterisation was decent overall. Each point of view character – so Inanna, Gilgamesh and Ninshubar – felt sufficiently distinct and sketched out... though that was more so true of the latter two characters, since Inanna herself was eventually reduced to a pretty soulless, robotic shell of a character. This went hand in hand with the problem I had with the too-great narrative distance in the book's final section. And actually, at the end of the day... I'm not sure we needed Ninshubar's point of view in book one; the novel would have benefitted, I think, from being a tighter, and more fleshed out, dual point-of-view story.
The mythology, itself, and broader world-building:
1) The book felt satisfyingly immersive, and believable, in terms of historical setting, based on the little I have gleaned, over the years, about Ancient Mesopotamia. So that's cool.
2) But then, we have the meat of my issues with this book, which is that for a 'mythological retelling', Inanna both lacked sufficient amounts of actual mythological fantasy, magic and religion, and pressed a little too hard, for my taste, into the 'retelling' side of things. Indeed, there's nothing for it, I do think the story took too many liberties with the source material it purported to retell. And then outside of that, it just under-delivered on some of its retold elements, because I maintain it tried to do too much at the same time.
I'm a mythology nerd, and so yes I do know a bit about Mesopotamian mythology (in fact, it's one of the mythological canons I'm most interested in), and Inanna also happens to be one of my all-time favourite pagan deities. I have read, and thoroughly enjoyed, one of the books the author recommends at the end of hers: Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Noah Kramer. And sorry not sorry, but this book's version of the "Descent of Inanna to the Underworld" was underwhelming and lacklustre as fuck, and that made me kind of salty, because holy shit how do you fumble that so hard in a novel titled "Inanna"! The Sumerian Underworld itself, and my Queen in Darkness Ereshkigal, were also underbaked as fuck, and like I said the mythological fantasy as a whole was pretty underbaked...
3) Because the story also includes what I'll call 'pseudo-science-fictiony' vibes. I really hoped I was imagining things with that but, as it so happens, the author straight up owned the fact that this is indeed something she chose to do with her retelling. And, look: fair enough. I can respect the fact she genuinely wanted to have unbridled, creative fun with mythological stories she apparently really loves, finds inspiring, etc... but I fucking loathed those pseudo-SF vibes, let me tell you. I just... really hated that shit. I don't want Sumerian gods as beings from outer space, or another dimension, what have you... with magic blood that isn't actually divine magic, but some fancy, unexplained 'technology'. Fuck off with that. I want actual, freaking, mythology; I want actual, freaking gods, and creation magic, and fantastical creatures, and a lively, soulful Underworld, and demons that are more than just decorative, and discussions of faith, religion, etc... not whatever this was: blegh !
Once again: I appreciate the fact the author was transparent with her creative intent, as well as the limitations of her education on the book's subject matter, and the fact she recommended actual sources to delve deeper into the history, and myths she (ultimately rather loosely) took inspiration from. And she was absolutely free to make the creative choices she did. But the simple fact is (the majority) of those choices were not to my taste at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
PS: so, yeah, I'm really disappointed, because this retelling had so much potential, and there aren't that many Sumero-Babylonian mythology retellings, as far as I know.
The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville
dark
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.75
This was a straight shot of playful and scintillatingly brainy goodness! Never thought I'd get an Art History lesson, on the house, in a piece of fiction like this, but there we have it; I learned a surprising amount about the Surrealist Movement, and some of its most representative works. But more than that: who else but Miéville was going to come up with a story like this, seriously?
(Mostly) Surrealist artworks made manifest fight demons and Nazis in War World II occupied Paris!
Like, come on: that's bonkers on the face of it, but Miéville made this concept brilliantly bonkers in this novella! The cleverness, the imagination, the creativity! Once again, this is exactly the kind of delicious book-food that gets my brain churning, excitedly thinking, playfully tingling, and stimulated with just overall pleasant vibrations – and I don't even care that much for World War II as a historical (or here alt-historical) setting, or Surrealism as a specific artistic movement.
The theming wasn't at its deepest; nor was the world-building, stricto sensu. But there was still quite a lot here – about freedom, 'radical-spiritedness', artistic creativity, and the human subconscious – that was seamlessly woven into the pages of this shorter tale. Which means I now know Miéville can, in fact, skilfully use the novella format as well, and that The Last Days of New Paris now counts as one of the best novellas I have thus far read.
PS: also... he really did his research for this one, gah dayum. Like it was wild to me to see the freaking Chants de Maldoror feature in a piece of Anglo fiction! 😆
(Mostly) Surrealist artworks made manifest fight demons and Nazis in War World II occupied Paris!
Like, come on: that's bonkers on the face of it, but Miéville made this concept brilliantly bonkers in this novella! The cleverness, the imagination, the creativity! Once again, this is exactly the kind of delicious book-food that gets my brain churning, excitedly thinking, playfully tingling, and stimulated with just overall pleasant vibrations – and I don't even care that much for World War II as a historical (or here alt-historical) setting, or Surrealism as a specific artistic movement.
The theming wasn't at its deepest; nor was the world-building, stricto sensu. But there was still quite a lot here – about freedom, 'radical-spiritedness', artistic creativity, and the human subconscious – that was seamlessly woven into the pages of this shorter tale. Which means I now know Miéville can, in fact, skilfully use the novella format as well, and that The Last Days of New Paris now counts as one of the best novellas I have thus far read.
PS: also... he really did his research for this one, gah dayum. Like it was wild to me to see the freaking Chants de Maldoror feature in a piece of Anglo fiction! 😆
Content Warnings
Minor: Body horror
Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti
hopeful
inspiring
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.25
I found this to be an interesting and relatively enjoyable collection of poems. I appreciated its Romanticism – or Pre-Raphaelism, perhaps, if that was even a thing outside of painting? – and the collection's recurring Nature-based imagery, butI didn't actually come across that many poems I truly loved as such.
The section of the book devoted to Christian pieces was, for its part, somewhat interesting from an 'academic' point of view, I suppose, but largely left me cold on a more emotional front. Still, on the whole, I don't regret purchasing this pretty little edition, and will happily keep it in my library.
The section of the book devoted to Christian pieces was, for its part, somewhat interesting from an 'academic' point of view, I suppose, but largely left me cold on a more emotional front. Still, on the whole, I don't regret purchasing this pretty little edition, and will happily keep it in my library.