14 Mar 2016

Review: The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home

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The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home (Fairyland, #5)The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Endings are tricky things. They don’t really exist, as the narrator helpfully reminds us, and yet, at the same time, the point where you do stop talking does create a rift between before and after, said and unsaid, known and imagined. September and her friends will have many adventures after this book is closed, but a cycle has been ended, a … (Read more)

10 Mar 2016

Review: Forest of Memory

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Forest of MemoryForest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The story plays with the themes of memory, recollection, and authenticity. Did something really happen if no one was there to record it? Is an account true if filtered by our fallible memories? If someone tells a story, can we ever be sure they’re not lying?

Some people found an anti-technology message in this story. I really don’t. It just asks some important questions about a technological … (Read more)

25 Feb 2016

Review: Word Puppets

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Word PuppetsWord Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A good collection, with many strong (and some less, but still enjoyable) pieces that showcase Kowal’s evolution as a short fiction writer. Most of these I had read before, either on the author’s website or on different magazines, but they didn’t lose anything on a second read.

The last three stories of the volume, including Rockets Red, original to this book, share the same universe as the extremely … (Read more)

14 Feb 2016

Review: Speak Easy

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Speak EasySpeak Easy by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have mixed feelings about this on a first read. While Cat Valente’s writing style is always luscious and overflowing like a fountain, perfectly capturing the slang, essence, and style of the 1920s, I don’t think it helped favourably the pacing and narrative of the story. Barely over 140 pages, it felt enormously longer to read. What seemed to be the story of Zelda turned out to be … (Read more)

28 Sep 2015

Review: The Shepherd’s Crown

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The Shepherd's CrownThe Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a good book. This is a more than decent final book to Discworld. This is a book as written by a man who has been fighting for years with an illness that threatened his own mind. And it’s actually an excellent draft for a finished novel.
It is not, sadly, a very good Terry Pratchett book.

It is a done story. As the afterword says, it … (Read more)

5 Aug 2015

Review: The Rebirths of Tao

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The Rebirths of Tao
The Rebirths of Tao by Wesley Chu
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

3.5 stars, rounded up because I ultimately liked it.

Is it weird to judge a series of which you haven’t read the first installment? Well, I started reading with The Deaths of Tao, which I got as part of this year’s Hugo package and, while I do intend to read The Lives of Tao at some point, I do not feel the urge to do it right … (Read more)

17 May 2015

Review: Castle Hangnail, by Ursula Vernon

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Castle HangnailCastle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Haunted castles! Stitched-up minions! Walking suits of armour! Bats! donkeys! Several kinds of not-quite-dragons! And a 12-year old Wicked Witch who isn’t exactly who she says she is. These are the ingredients of Ursula Vernon’s latest novel and all I can say is I need a sequel now.

If you read my other reviews you already know what I love about Ursula’s books: the humour, the clever resolutions, … (Read more)

24 Apr 2015

Review: Ready Player One

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Player one Player one by Ernest Cline

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars, really.
Before elaborating, I’m going to quote from two other reviews here on Goodreads because I think they summarize my opinion quite well.
Flannery: “This book is nostalgia porn.”
William Cline: “Ready Player One doesn’t draw from 1980s popular culture; it just name-drops it all over the place.”

First things first: I liked Ready Player One, it’s a solid first book, and I’m curious of what else … (Read more)

18 Apr 2015

The road to

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The following post stems from matters of feminism / gender studies, but doesn’t really offer much insight into either of those apart from the personal ramblings of a white cis dude. So, feel free to skip it, unless you want a brief insight into how my mind works.

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When you’re walking with a discrete amount of people for a certain time, eventually you’ll see them split up into three main groups: some rushing up ahead, others lagging towards the … (Read more)

27 Mar 2015

Review: The Boy Who Lost Fairyland

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The Boy Who Lost FairylandThe Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m kinda conflicted about this one, and it makes me sad, since I wanted to love it so much.

It’s not the change in characters so late in the series (only one more book to go): Hawthorn and Tamburlaine are lovely, especially the little troll’s struggle to understand human society and all its little quirks and unspoken rules that make absolutely no sense.

It’s not … (Read more)