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What I Finished Reading This Week
Wings of Fury — Emily L. King
This books had a lot of promise. The premise is great: three human sisters must fight to keep their family united when they draw the attention of Cronos in a mythological Golden Age Greece. King's descriptive language is good: I could picture the settings and they felt like ancient, pastoral Greece. But a third of the way through the quality dropped precipitously. There's an overwrought YA love triangle. Women, who are socially forbidden from even setting foot outside without veiling, can somehow pick up a sword or spear or crossbow and hold their own against trained soldiers. King forgets her setting (people living in tents slam doors behind them when they exit; children go to school in a modern schoolhouse with desks). Human villains subdue a Titan by tying him up with a rope. Human good guys free the Titan by cutting through the rope with a bread knife. Our plucky heroines never seem particularly scared of the Titans, which makes the Titans not particularly scary. And then there's the novel's Dramatic Framing. My mother told me that men would speak about the Golden Age as a time of peace and happiness for all… However, the women of our age would tell a very different story… says the protagonist at the outset, a sentiment she'll reiterate throughout the book. But frequently, when King needs to add a bit of "ancient setting" flavor to a passage, she does it by noting what "the slaves" were doing, or having a protagonist order "the slaves" to bring her this or that. And look, I'm not against depictions of slavery in fiction: done carefully, they viscerally convey its horror the way other methods can't. But that's not what they're doing here. Nor does anyone in the novel make any connection between women's social position and the slaves', and it's clear this isn't so much the protagonists' blind spot as it is King's. TL;DR—despite its promising start, this book stumbled too often, and in too many major ways, for me to recommend it.
Translation State — Ann Leckie
Yes. This was SO GOOD and I've been in a bit of a reading hangover since I finished it. Leckie continues her hall-of-mirrors approach to worldbuilding in Translation State, where things earlier novels led you to believe were established fact are anything but when viewed from a different character's perspective. It was humorous, it was dramatic, it was compassionate, it was frequently mindbending, and it was so well done I didn't even realize ( Read more... ) until well after I'd finished the book.
Thraxas and the Warrior Monks — Martin Scott
The second entry in Scott's series about a washed up two-bit sorcerer turned private investigator in a Discworldesque fantasy city finds the eponymous Thraxas trying to save the apprentice of the city's most famous sculptor for hanging for the sculptor's murder. As this is a genre novel the mystery and its solution rely more on circumstance than I prefer (namely, the protagonist being in the right place at the right time, putting two and two together correctly, and then the authorities believing him when any number of other potential explanations for events exist). But as a genre novel it's well written and contains Scott's trademark cast of quirky characters working at cross purposes to each other to often humorous effect. I enjoyed it, I read it in under a day, and I'll continue on to the next volume in the series.
What I'm Currently Reading
Good Omens — Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
It's been some years since I last read this, and yup. Season 2 has weaseled its way into my brain this much.
The Women Could Fly — Megan Giddings
I'm overdue to read this gift from ma soeur. So far it's well-written with an intriguing premise, but promises to be a bit darker than what I'm in the mood for currently.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches — Sangu Mandanna
I was skeptical of this one, but picked it up due to India Holton's glowing review. I'm pleased to say that it has so far exceeded expectations.
終点unknown 1 — 杉浦志保 (Shuten Unknown vol. 1 — Sugiura Shiho)
It's been several years since I read this one, so I'm well overdue for a reread.
What I'm Reading Next
This week I picked up copies of Amina Akhtar's Almost Surely Dead, Tom Cowan's Fire in the Head, Nadiya Hussain's Time to Eat, Mallory Pearson's We Ate the Dark, and Martin Scott's Thraxas and the Warrior Monks (which I've already finished). I also acquired a copy of a Doreen Virtue and Robert Reeves' Flower Therapy, then learned a little more about Doreen Virtue and yeeted it right back into the Little Free Library from whence it came.
これで以上です。
Wings of Fury — Emily L. King
This books had a lot of promise. The premise is great: three human sisters must fight to keep their family united when they draw the attention of Cronos in a mythological Golden Age Greece. King's descriptive language is good: I could picture the settings and they felt like ancient, pastoral Greece. But a third of the way through the quality dropped precipitously. There's an overwrought YA love triangle. Women, who are socially forbidden from even setting foot outside without veiling, can somehow pick up a sword or spear or crossbow and hold their own against trained soldiers. King forgets her setting (people living in tents slam doors behind them when they exit; children go to school in a modern schoolhouse with desks). Human villains subdue a Titan by tying him up with a rope. Human good guys free the Titan by cutting through the rope with a bread knife. Our plucky heroines never seem particularly scared of the Titans, which makes the Titans not particularly scary. And then there's the novel's Dramatic Framing. My mother told me that men would speak about the Golden Age as a time of peace and happiness for all… However, the women of our age would tell a very different story… says the protagonist at the outset, a sentiment she'll reiterate throughout the book. But frequently, when King needs to add a bit of "ancient setting" flavor to a passage, she does it by noting what "the slaves" were doing, or having a protagonist order "the slaves" to bring her this or that. And look, I'm not against depictions of slavery in fiction: done carefully, they viscerally convey its horror the way other methods can't. But that's not what they're doing here. Nor does anyone in the novel make any connection between women's social position and the slaves', and it's clear this isn't so much the protagonists' blind spot as it is King's. TL;DR—despite its promising start, this book stumbled too often, and in too many major ways, for me to recommend it.
Translation State — Ann Leckie
Yes. This was SO GOOD and I've been in a bit of a reading hangover since I finished it. Leckie continues her hall-of-mirrors approach to worldbuilding in Translation State, where things earlier novels led you to believe were established fact are anything but when viewed from a different character's perspective. It was humorous, it was dramatic, it was compassionate, it was frequently mindbending, and it was so well done I didn't even realize ( Read more... ) until well after I'd finished the book.
Thraxas and the Warrior Monks — Martin Scott
The second entry in Scott's series about a washed up two-bit sorcerer turned private investigator in a Discworldesque fantasy city finds the eponymous Thraxas trying to save the apprentice of the city's most famous sculptor for hanging for the sculptor's murder. As this is a genre novel the mystery and its solution rely more on circumstance than I prefer (namely, the protagonist being in the right place at the right time, putting two and two together correctly, and then the authorities believing him when any number of other potential explanations for events exist). But as a genre novel it's well written and contains Scott's trademark cast of quirky characters working at cross purposes to each other to often humorous effect. I enjoyed it, I read it in under a day, and I'll continue on to the next volume in the series.
What I'm Currently Reading
Good Omens — Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
It's been some years since I last read this, and yup. Season 2 has weaseled its way into my brain this much.
The Women Could Fly — Megan Giddings
I'm overdue to read this gift from ma soeur. So far it's well-written with an intriguing premise, but promises to be a bit darker than what I'm in the mood for currently.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches — Sangu Mandanna
I was skeptical of this one, but picked it up due to India Holton's glowing review. I'm pleased to say that it has so far exceeded expectations.
終点unknown 1 — 杉浦志保 (Shuten Unknown vol. 1 — Sugiura Shiho)
It's been several years since I read this one, so I'm well overdue for a reread.
What I'm Reading Next
This week I picked up copies of Amina Akhtar's Almost Surely Dead, Tom Cowan's Fire in the Head, Nadiya Hussain's Time to Eat, Mallory Pearson's We Ate the Dark, and Martin Scott's Thraxas and the Warrior Monks (which I've already finished). I also acquired a copy of a Doreen Virtue and Robert Reeves' Flower Therapy, then learned a little more about Doreen Virtue and yeeted it right back into the Little Free Library from whence it came.
これで以上です。
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