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*Sigh* It's the first day of the third week of January, and like clockwork I am getting stuck late at work, which extends my commute, which pushes back everything else I had intended to do once I got home (groceries, cooking dinner, cleaning, random adulting, Snowflake, reading, exercise, GYWO, and on and on).
I'll get to all of this in the next few days (nevertheless, she will persist!). Ahead of that, here's what I read over the last week, to whit:
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Naming of the Birds – Pariac O’Donnell
What a fabulous book. O'Donnell has penned an excellent mystery with gripping action and atmospheric scene setting, as well as the return of some much beloved characters. I won't spoil anything else here, but I'm pleased to say that The Naming of the Birds is as good as the preceding volume without merely retreading the preceding volume. This one is a definite recommend.
The Forgotten Kingdom – Signe Pike
Sigh. I wanted to like this so much more than I did. The good: Pike writes beautiful descriptions of place and setting. You can vividly picture the sights and sounds of the locations in this novel, and she’s taken care to get the geography, flora, and fauna correct. I also really like her philosophical approach to writing this series. Her author’s notes are some of my favorite parts of the book.
The bad: Her author’s notes are some of my favorite parts of the book...which is not great when there's 460 pages in the volume that aren't the notes. Pike's characters think and act in decidedly modern ways. We’re talking 21st century attitudes trying and failing to look like they belong in the 6th century, and it just doesn’t work. The characters also repeatedly express chagrin about threats to the survival of the "Old Gods" and the "Old Ways," but who are the "Old Gods" and what are the "Old Ways"? Why do either of them matter? The book never says, so it's hard for me as a reader to care. Characters work for years to become druids, or wise rulers, or Pictish priestesses, but it all happens off stage, so there's no sense of having been with them during their struggles or feeling of triumph when they succeed. There are other oddities and irritations. On page 136, Pike suddenly starts peppering the dialogue with a mishmash of Gaelic and Welsh, not having done so for the preceding 650 pages of the series. She gets some basic historical facts wrong. The editing gets noticeably sloppier in the final 3/5th of the book.
There are part of this series I really like (the attention to place, descriptive scene-setting, and atmosphere; Pike's love of the source material, enthusiasm for the era, and desire to center powerful female characters in the narrative) but the characters' anachronistically modern attitudes don't work for me at all. I don't plan to read the third book.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Hacker and the State – Ben Buchanan
I'm only supposed to be reading a chapter a day from this book, but it's so cleanly and engagingly written I'm reading far more.
Kindling the Celtic Spirit – Mara Freeman
I finished the chapter on January this week.
A Sorceress Comes To Call - T. Kingfisher
So far, I’m really enjoying this book.
The Silver Bough vol. 2 – F. Marian McNeill
I finished this book’s chapter on January this week too.
The Old Guard vol. 2 – Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez, et al.
So far, I’m enjoying this volume as much as its predecessor.
Ansuz – Malene Sølvsten
The rule is that I can read two chapters from this book a day. I want to read so much more than that. It’s good.
I Am Morgan Le Fay – Nancy Springer
I’ll probably have finished this one by next week; so far it’s very good.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I acquired but quickly jettisoned Bill Browder’s Red Notice (having recently finished Red Roulette, I've had enough of male Lords of Capital explaining how even their turds are filled with good intentions while the other guys are all operators in it for the ego, power, and greed.)
I acquired and kept Bruce Dickson’s The Party and the People, Natasha Pulley’s The Mars House, and Lilith Saintcrow’s Coyote Run ("It's a good day to fight fascism," said the mailer it arrived in, "Let's read a book." And yes, this is much more my speed.)
これで以上です。
I'll get to all of this in the next few days (nevertheless, she will persist!). Ahead of that, here's what I read over the last week, to whit:
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Naming of the Birds – Pariac O’Donnell
What a fabulous book. O'Donnell has penned an excellent mystery with gripping action and atmospheric scene setting, as well as the return of some much beloved characters. I won't spoil anything else here, but I'm pleased to say that The Naming of the Birds is as good as the preceding volume without merely retreading the preceding volume. This one is a definite recommend.
The Forgotten Kingdom – Signe Pike
Sigh. I wanted to like this so much more than I did. The good: Pike writes beautiful descriptions of place and setting. You can vividly picture the sights and sounds of the locations in this novel, and she’s taken care to get the geography, flora, and fauna correct. I also really like her philosophical approach to writing this series. Her author’s notes are some of my favorite parts of the book.
The bad: Her author’s notes are some of my favorite parts of the book...which is not great when there's 460 pages in the volume that aren't the notes. Pike's characters think and act in decidedly modern ways. We’re talking 21st century attitudes trying and failing to look like they belong in the 6th century, and it just doesn’t work. The characters also repeatedly express chagrin about threats to the survival of the "Old Gods" and the "Old Ways," but who are the "Old Gods" and what are the "Old Ways"? Why do either of them matter? The book never says, so it's hard for me as a reader to care. Characters work for years to become druids, or wise rulers, or Pictish priestesses, but it all happens off stage, so there's no sense of having been with them during their struggles or feeling of triumph when they succeed. There are other oddities and irritations. On page 136, Pike suddenly starts peppering the dialogue with a mishmash of Gaelic and Welsh, not having done so for the preceding 650 pages of the series. She gets some basic historical facts wrong. The editing gets noticeably sloppier in the final 3/5th of the book.
There are part of this series I really like (the attention to place, descriptive scene-setting, and atmosphere; Pike's love of the source material, enthusiasm for the era, and desire to center powerful female characters in the narrative) but the characters' anachronistically modern attitudes don't work for me at all. I don't plan to read the third book.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Hacker and the State – Ben Buchanan
I'm only supposed to be reading a chapter a day from this book, but it's so cleanly and engagingly written I'm reading far more.
Kindling the Celtic Spirit – Mara Freeman
I finished the chapter on January this week.
A Sorceress Comes To Call - T. Kingfisher
So far, I’m really enjoying this book.
The Silver Bough vol. 2 – F. Marian McNeill
I finished this book’s chapter on January this week too.
The Old Guard vol. 2 – Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez, et al.
So far, I’m enjoying this volume as much as its predecessor.
Ansuz – Malene Sølvsten
The rule is that I can read two chapters from this book a day. I want to read so much more than that. It’s good.
I Am Morgan Le Fay – Nancy Springer
I’ll probably have finished this one by next week; so far it’s very good.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I acquired but quickly jettisoned Bill Browder’s Red Notice (having recently finished Red Roulette, I've had enough of male Lords of Capital explaining how even their turds are filled with good intentions while the other guys are all operators in it for the ego, power, and greed.)
I acquired and kept Bruce Dickson’s The Party and the People, Natasha Pulley’s The Mars House, and Lilith Saintcrow’s Coyote Run ("It's a good day to fight fascism," said the mailer it arrived in, "Let's read a book." And yes, this is much more my speed.)
これで以上です。
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