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Alas, I've read as much in the last two and a half months as I did in just the first three weeks of January. On the other hand, that makes my backlog of reviews easier to tackle. And with that said:
What I Finished Reading This Week
A Marvellous Light – Freya Marske
This was an okay book. By which I mean, I quite liked much of it: Marske’s beautiful descriptive language, the ripping conclusion (which included an absolutely hilarious exchange between two minor characters), and a very well done love scene chief among them. Other elements failed to land. The two protagonists (think “less fleshed-out Damian and Laurent but in an Edwardian setting”) never clicked with me, and what were clearly meant to be two of the novel’s most tense scenes never evoked any sense of danger as I read.
To be clear: this book is not by any means bad; it is roundly well-written and avoids all of the pitfalls that have left me frothing at the mouth when reading many other recently published Internet favorites. A Marvellous Light was enjoyable, just not transporting. While I won’t purchase the sequel, I will probably read it if given the chance.
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels - India Holton
Judging by the LibraryThing reviews, this book has been marketed to the wrong set of readers, which is a shame because it is delightful. It had me cackling—out loud, and repeatedly—within the first few pages. The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels is The Princess Bride for fans of Austen or Bronte. It has that novel’s blend of adventure and romance, and sly, tongue-in-cheek references, in-jokes, and riffs on the genre for true fans. Also, there are pirates. Who are women. Who pilot flying houses instead of ships. And set assassins on each other while demurely sipping their tea and knitting shawls to protect against the ague. I had so much fun with this book, and I will eagerly be reading the sequel.
What I Finished at Some Point in the Past 2.5 Months
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation vol. 1 – Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
I was excited about this official English language release, but the translation, which is slapdash and very poorly edited, is a chore to read. The illustrations are lovely, but they do not justify the price the publisher's charging. I'll be getting the subsequent volumes from the library.
Mencinta Hingga Terluka – Julianto Simanjuntak and Roswitha Ndraha
The first chapters of the book, in which Simanjuntak and Ndraha are giving theoretical advice on compassion and forgiveness, are really well done. The subsequent chapters, in which they explain how they apply these principles in their counseling practice (spoiler alert: It's pretty much always to convince women to return to their unfaithful, violent, and/or drug-addicted husbands) are less so. By the time I reached the chapter in which they counsel a transgender client into "praying the gay away" and devoting his life to making sure others don't repeat his "mistakes", I was done.
The Just City – Jo Walton
The Just City is what A Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet tried but failed to be. Walton uses an ingenious device* to assemble a motley group of characters and have them ponder, argue, negotiate, and otherwise work their way through Big Philosophical Questions: what is free will? What is consent? What is freedom? What does "fairness" mean? "Justice"? How should society function in order to achieve the greatest benefit to all? Is it moral to lie to people if it's for their own good? This is a book that reads like an adventure, even though it's largely composed of people talking to each other in various settings. I loved this, I devoured it in under two days, and I wish I hadn't waited so long to read it.
* Namely, Athena or Apollo will pluck anyone who has genuinely prayed to them throughout the span of human history out of time and transport them to Santorini to see what would happen if they tried to build the ideal human society as laid out in Plato's Republic.
What I Am Currently Reading
Walking the Maze – Loren Cruden
A Little Free Library acquisition. Published in 1998 and very much reads like it, in ways both good and bad.
Seraphina – Rachel Hartman
Returning to this one now that I have the mental bandwidth to enjoy it.
A Rising Man – Abir Mukherjee
I figured I might as well do a start-to-finish read-through now that I'm caught up with the entire series.
Rouge Street – Shuang Xuetao
If only the Mo Xiang Tong Xiu books had been translated with this level of skill.
[ ] – [ ]
For reasons.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I picked up a copy of Book of Night by Holly Black, A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers, Unlocked by John Scalzi, and An Unnatural Life by Erin Wagner, the last three courtesy of Tor.
What I Still Need To Review
Indonesian: A Comprehensive Grammar・ The Shadows of Men ・ This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends
これで以上です。
What I Finished Reading This Week
A Marvellous Light – Freya Marske
This was an okay book. By which I mean, I quite liked much of it: Marske’s beautiful descriptive language, the ripping conclusion (which included an absolutely hilarious exchange between two minor characters), and a very well done love scene chief among them. Other elements failed to land. The two protagonists (think “less fleshed-out Damian and Laurent but in an Edwardian setting”) never clicked with me, and what were clearly meant to be two of the novel’s most tense scenes never evoked any sense of danger as I read.
To be clear: this book is not by any means bad; it is roundly well-written and avoids all of the pitfalls that have left me frothing at the mouth when reading many other recently published Internet favorites. A Marvellous Light was enjoyable, just not transporting. While I won’t purchase the sequel, I will probably read it if given the chance.
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels - India Holton
Judging by the LibraryThing reviews, this book has been marketed to the wrong set of readers, which is a shame because it is delightful. It had me cackling—out loud, and repeatedly—within the first few pages. The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels is The Princess Bride for fans of Austen or Bronte. It has that novel’s blend of adventure and romance, and sly, tongue-in-cheek references, in-jokes, and riffs on the genre for true fans. Also, there are pirates. Who are women. Who pilot flying houses instead of ships. And set assassins on each other while demurely sipping their tea and knitting shawls to protect against the ague. I had so much fun with this book, and I will eagerly be reading the sequel.
What I Finished at Some Point in the Past 2.5 Months
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation vol. 1 – Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
I was excited about this official English language release, but the translation, which is slapdash and very poorly edited, is a chore to read. The illustrations are lovely, but they do not justify the price the publisher's charging. I'll be getting the subsequent volumes from the library.
Mencinta Hingga Terluka – Julianto Simanjuntak and Roswitha Ndraha
The first chapters of the book, in which Simanjuntak and Ndraha are giving theoretical advice on compassion and forgiveness, are really well done. The subsequent chapters, in which they explain how they apply these principles in their counseling practice (spoiler alert: It's pretty much always to convince women to return to their unfaithful, violent, and/or drug-addicted husbands) are less so. By the time I reached the chapter in which they counsel a transgender client into "praying the gay away" and devoting his life to making sure others don't repeat his "mistakes", I was done.
The Just City – Jo Walton
The Just City is what A Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet tried but failed to be. Walton uses an ingenious device* to assemble a motley group of characters and have them ponder, argue, negotiate, and otherwise work their way through Big Philosophical Questions: what is free will? What is consent? What is freedom? What does "fairness" mean? "Justice"? How should society function in order to achieve the greatest benefit to all? Is it moral to lie to people if it's for their own good? This is a book that reads like an adventure, even though it's largely composed of people talking to each other in various settings. I loved this, I devoured it in under two days, and I wish I hadn't waited so long to read it.
* Namely, Athena or Apollo will pluck anyone who has genuinely prayed to them throughout the span of human history out of time and transport them to Santorini to see what would happen if they tried to build the ideal human society as laid out in Plato's Republic.
What I Am Currently Reading
Walking the Maze – Loren Cruden
A Little Free Library acquisition. Published in 1998 and very much reads like it, in ways both good and bad.
Seraphina – Rachel Hartman
Returning to this one now that I have the mental bandwidth to enjoy it.
A Rising Man – Abir Mukherjee
I figured I might as well do a start-to-finish read-through now that I'm caught up with the entire series.
Rouge Street – Shuang Xuetao
If only the Mo Xiang Tong Xiu books had been translated with this level of skill.
[ ] – [ ]
For reasons.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I picked up a copy of Book of Night by Holly Black, A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers, Unlocked by John Scalzi, and An Unnatural Life by Erin Wagner, the last three courtesy of Tor.
What I Still Need To Review
Indonesian: A Comprehensive Grammar・ The Shadows of Men ・ This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends
これで以上です。
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The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels sounds wonderful! I'm going to see if my library has it.
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That just about covers it. It was fine! I enjoyed it while I was reading it! But it didn't stick with me.
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels is The Princess Bride for fans of Austen or Bronte.
WHAT.
but the translation, which is slapdash and very poorly edited, is a chore to read. The illustrations are lovely, but they do not justify the price the publisher's charging. I'll be getting the subsequent volumes from the library.
Saaaaame. I was so excited when I pre-ordered my copy but the translation is noticeably bad, and according to actual Chinese speakers on Tumblr, even worse than it seemed to me.
I haven't read The Just City yet but I am an admirer of Noted Weirdo Jo Walton, so I'm thrilled to hear that you enjoyed it.
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I had wondered about that--I've read a ton of Chinese fiction in English translation (Jiang Rong, Liu Cixin, Su Tong, Yu Hua, etc.) that read beautifully. So I wasn't sure if my dislike of this translation was because MXTX was a bad author or because her translators were bad at their job...it sounds like the latter, which is actually a good thing because it means there's the slim hope of a better translation somewhere, some day.
I also have Tooth and Claw, but put off reading both for a long time because I'd seen so many mixed reactions to Walton. But judging by my reaction to The Just City, I'll probably be in the "like" camp.
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This is exactly how I feel.
Tooth and Claw didn't entirely work for me, but I don't regret reading it or anything, and I'm glad it exists!
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That's a fair assessment/kind of how I felt about it, too, though I think I may have liked it more than you did, on the whole. I did really like the prose, but everything else was just, I dunno, solid. And, having read some of Freya's Captive Prince fic, I did find the Damen-ness and Laurent-ness of the mains occasionally distracting, though I did end up quite liking Robit on his own merits.
The Just City is what A Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet tried but failed to be.
This comparison blew my mind for a bit, because it never would've occurred to me to put those two books next to each other, but I kind of see what you mean -- that focus on exploring society (over plot) via characters who are sort of windows onto the worldbuilding. Hm...
I certainly respected The Just City a lot more than I did 'Small, Angry Planet', but found it less engaging than I'd hoped considering how much I love Jo Walton's essays about books. It actually gave me some doubts about whether I could enjoy Jo Walton's fiction (but fortunately Among Others proved that I could).
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This exactly, and part of my reaction is undoubtedly because my expectations were artificially raised by Internet buzz that led me to expect more than that. And hah! That makes perfect sense that Marske writes Captive Prince fanfic. (And Captive Prince itself is basically Thorki fanfic, so A Marvellous Light is now two steps removed from the source.)
I'd put off reading Walton for years because I've seen such mixed reactions to her on DW, LT, and elsewhere, but I really enjoyed The Just City. Certainly some of that is because as a lapsed Classics major, I was inclined to like the setup (and Walton knows her Classics stuff), but I also felt the societal exploration was done very subtly and deftly, and I particularly liked that much of the character development did not occur with the characters, and means, I would have expected.
I have Tooth and Claw on my TBR pile as well, and I know that one also evokes very different responses in people, so it'll be interesting to see what I think of it.
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Yeah, unfortunately SFF Twitter/Tumblr tends to have that effect... After several books that ended up being massive disappointments for me (not even because they were bad necessarily, but because they did not live up to the hype) I just avoid it now.
(And Captive Prince itself is basically Thorki fanfic, so A Marvellous Light is now two steps removed from the source.)
Hehe, I haven't heard the Thorki hypothesis, though I can see how that would be a similar vibe -- but I've been told that Captive Prince is/reads like a Lymond/Dorothy Dunnett fanfic (with Laurent as the Lymond Expy, and Damen as a dude who shows up in a later book that I didn't get to
because if I'm going to read a book that makes me feel so adrift in a sea of erudite references and so undereducated, I better be getting course credit for it :PI do know Pacat is a Lymond fan (Fahye in the comments is Freya Marske under her fannish identity :) -- she does link the two)Tooth and Claw is the one I've been most intrigued by from Walton, actually, because DRAGONS! :D But also apprehensive of trying it out in case I discover I don't like it. So, anyway, looking forward to your thought if/when you read it.
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I know, and I keep telling myself this is what I'll do next time, but it's so rewarding when something with buzz does land for me and I can take part in the community squee, that I bite more often than not when the book/movie/whatever sounds RTMI.
Hehe, I haven't heard the Thorki hypothesis, though I can see how that would be a similar vibe -- but I've been told that Captive Prince is/reads like a Lymond/Dorothy Dunnett fanfic (with Laurent as the Lymond Expy, and Damen as a dude who shows up in a later book that I didn't get to
Hah! This is wild to me--a big reason I like Captive Prince so much is that it reads like Thorki in a Queen's Thief-esque world, and I just assumed the author was a Thorki fan. To me, Damen-Laurent is absolutely a Thor-Loki dynamic, but with the characters' hair colors reversed. It never occurred to me it might have been inspired by a different canon entirely. (To be clear, non of this is a dig. I really like the novels.)
I actually passed on the complete Lymond Chronicles set in a Little Free Library several years ago and then forgot about it entirely. Now I'm wondering if I should have picked them up, because I really like that character dynamic. OTOH, dunno if I like it enough to read something that has a bunch of make-me-feel-stupid references flying over my head... ;)
In re: Tooth and Claw - I know! But then I don't want its dragons to disappoint after Temeraire, so I've been postponing reading it.