Catalogue 📚 log(book)

Interesting at first – not as good as some, but a decent read. Then suddenly offline for publishing reasons, and could absolutely not be bothered to go back or pay for it. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

The Last Watch

by J. S. Dewes · published 2021 · read 2022-10-26

I remember really liking this book … and then remembered nearly nothing of the plot. It's a version of the Watch from Song of Ice and Fire, only at the edge of the universe, with only misfits assigned there and always low on budget. Then Things Happen and People Are Not Just Who They Seem To Be, etc etc. Protagonist is a sparkling aristocrat, exiled for being Too Good etc etc. I'll probably read the next part, and I think it's impressive that it managed to convince me so much on the back of such a generic story, and that it took quite a bit of distance to realise it's maybe not as good as I thought at first! This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

Son of a Liche

by J. Zachary Pike · published 2018 · read 2022-01-15

Second part to the series started in Orconomics, this book toned down its predecessor's drawbacks … but also its features. It has lessed forced humour, but also less actually emotional content. It's told at a slight distance, and turns into a mediocre blob instead of Orconomics and its mix of really good and really meh.

Orconomics

by J. Zachary Pike · published 2014 · read 2021-05-15

Orconomics was hilarious and heartbreaking, and that's coming from somebody who usually doesn't like "humerous" fantasy. Its mix of serious and funny reminds of Discworld – which, of course, can't be a favourable comparison, but it comes surprisingly close. Taking place in a clearly D&D inspired world, with the economic aspect of adventuring hero troops taken seriously. Also, Pike has absolutely had it with Fantasy racism and will punch you in the feelings over it.

The Casual Vacancy

by J.K. Rowling · published 2012 · read 2017-07-02

I cannot call this book enjoyable, because it was horribly depressing, but it was spot on writing that really drew me in. It felt like meeting real life people (and I had the same feeling in the Cormoran books), though that may only be in contrast to Harry Potter.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

by J.K. Rowling · published 2008 · read 2017-05-31

Meh. I expected more (in volume, at least), and the Dumbledore parts reminded me awfully of Kästner in Pünktchen & Anton, where he felt the need to explain lots of stuff, especially the political implications. I think Rowling might have done better to trust her readers to think for themselves.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

by J.K. Rowling · published 1999 · read 2001-09-01

There's nothing left to be said about Harry Potter books. This was the first one that felt like Harry was changing, growing up, getting some agency. The whole book felt like autumn, with the smell of wet leaves clinging to everything. Naturally I liked the whole "finding a new home" arc. And, equally naturally, I felt very seen in the plot arc that introduces time travel for the primary purpose of reading more books and learning more things. This might be my favourite part of the series (either this one or the first).

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

by J.K. Rowling · published 2003 · read 2003-01-01

My low point of the series. I remember getting this book, at a midnight release party, and then reading it within the next day. I wasn't immediately disappointed, but I hated the whole "teenager yells at cloud" thing, and while Umbridge was delightfully evil, I just wasn't on board with the weird plot shape and the growing pains.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

by J.K. Rowling · published 2000 · read 2001-03-01

This was the first Harry Potter book that I read while it was still new. That was a novel experience for me: Most of my books up to that point had been old, or at least definitely not new. Reading an ongoing series was exciting. I don't remember much speculation about what would happen next, except for some recurring "Is Snape good or evil" debate.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

by J.K. Rowling · published 1998 · read 2003-10-01

Felt sense for books is a weird thing. The first book has a felt sense of warmth and wonder, while this one has a felt sense of damp and cold and wet and danger. I enjoyed it less than the first or the third one, but I still tore through it.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

by J.K. Rowling · published 1997 · read 2001-09-01

Harry Potter – look, I can't be objective. I grew up on these books. My friends and I could act out entire scenes by heart. I went through the cycle a generation experienced: Love, obsession, disappointment, detachment (in many cases by growing up, in my case by discovering fanfics).

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

by J.K. Rowling · published 2007 · read 2007-12-01

Here ends the story – and by the time the ending came, I wasn't all that invested in the world anymore. It was interesting, it was dramatic, but it was far from life-changing. Much of it seemed more of an intellectual exercise to me: How will she wrap things up, who is going to live? And after getting answers, I closed that chapter of my reading life. The excitement had been long gone.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

by J.K. Rowling · published 2005 · read 2006-06-01

Imagine being 14 when this book comes out, and being just not quite good enough to read it in English. So you have to wait for painful months while your mother (your own mother, the traitor) reads it in English and can then threaten you with spoilers.

The Lord of the Rings

by J.R.R. Tolkien · published 1955 · read 2001-05-01

What can I say about this book that hasn't been said yet? Maybe this: I read it when I was nine, all in one go. I was visiting my grandparents and my uncle had lent me his books. I fell. I fell for them, I fell into them. They were exactly what I needed. I saw Middle Earth, I travelled with the companions, I pictured them vividly. I imagined myself with them, dreamt up original characters (that was years before I ever heard of fanfics). I rode with the Rohirrim and saw the mighty Minas Tirith. I had read the Hobbit before, and made the connection – this was the first time I had encountered such a loose connection between books, and I was excited that I knew it and recognised it. Everything about these books excited me. The beautiful language (thankfully my uncle had the old translation), the poems and songs, the dry sense of epos lurking in the background. The next year, a different uncle (yes, my family rocks) got me the audio book and a big map, and so I listened to the story I knew already, followed along on the map, and dreamed more dreams of Middle Earth. Another year later, yet another uncle lent me his copies of the Silmarillion and all those Christopher Tolkien books that contain more commentary than actual stories. The whole Middle Earth universe gave me a sense of scale and quality that has served me very well. That said: I usually don't recommend this book to friends. I read it at the right time, in the right frame of mind, and I still love it a lot. But it is often dry and tedious, it is slow and distracted, its characters belong in an epos and, as such, have little nuance and even less character development. You read the book for the scale, the worldbuilding, and you will enjoy the narration only if you'd also enjoy Beowulf or the Nibelung saga. Further reading I wrote up my thoughts on the book review by C.S. Lewis here Waiting for Aragorn

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

by J.R.R. Tolkien · published 1937 · read 2000-07-01

The Hobbit was my first Tolkien. I read it first when I was eight, but I had already listened to the excellent audio book about a million times – I got that for my fifth or sixth birthday. It introduced me to so many concepts.

The Silmarillion

by J.R.R. Tolkien · published 1977 · read 2008-01-01

The big unreadable but brilliant book of Middle Earth. I have a love-hate relationship with that thing, not gonna lie.

The Black Tides of Heaven

by J.Y. Yang · published 2017 · read 2021-06-10

Asian-inspired genderfun fantasy. Didn't compel me at all: the plot wasn't as focused as the short length warranted, and the characters didn't stand out to me at all. The plot was compressed and considering the high odds and tragedy, didn't make me care at all.

The Call of the Wild

by Jack London · published 1903 · last read 2008-09-01

Arctic animal adventures! I loved this book to the point that I can't say if it is any good, or if it was just exactly right for me at the time. London's writing is like there's a trick somewhere that gets me to like it. But it's very reliable and enjoyable, so I'm not complaining.

The Engines of God

by Jack McDevitt · published 1994 · read 2020-06-29

This one is hard for me to rate, because I like scifi very much. And if anything is scifi, this book is! We have aliens, and space ships, and deep space puzzles, daring rescues that require engineering and science knowledge, some actual characters (some even with motivations! … at least a little).

Against the Grain

by James C. Scott · published 2017 · read 2020-10-18

Impressive and intriguing: Against the Grain tells the story of early state-building as a story of agriculture – that's not new. What's new is that James Scott has spent years aggregating the current insights of history and archaeology to paint the same idea from a new angle: What if early states did not naturally arise with the cultivation of grain – what if they required a food staple as grain (divisible, countable, and with a strict yearly cycle) to establish a bureaucracy?

God’s Philosophers

by James Hannam · published 2009 · read 2021-10-14

This book came recommended by Seb Falk in the bibliography of The Light Ages, and it's also on the reading list of /r/askHistorians, which I trust a lot. I found this book harder to like – who writes sentences like “when the barbarian tribes took over or destroyed the Roman infrastructure” in this century? It was long-winded and seemed to alternate between being jovial and trying for jokes, and going for a more professorial style. Not only the style was uneven: I also felt like the assumed prior knowledge fluctuated a lot, and was sometimes left out entirely, and then filled in with excrutiating care at other times.

The Shadow of What Was Lost

by James Islington · published 2014 · read 2022-07-15

Reviewing a book a year after reading it is a great way to see what passes the test of time. This one … didn't. I could not recall having read it off the title or even the blurb, and had to go to the Wikipedia summary to remind me of the plot. And the world. And the people. Maybe this is just me losing interest in High Fantasy – I thought the time travel thing was neat in concept, but nothing in the story made me willing to keep track of it and all the hints of future/past things to connect. Sigh. Also suffering from many seemingly arbitrary limits placed on things and people just to push the plot along. It's a very solid book, but utterly did not excite me. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

Between Copernicus and Galileo

by James M. Lattis · published 1994 · read 2022-01-11

I wanted to learn more about Christoph Clavius, the Jesuit who contributed significantly to the Gregorian calendar reform, which is a standing interest of mine. It turns out that this book intentionally avoids that topic, to talk more about cosmology and how the intellectual state of the art was just before Galileo happened to it.

Leviathan Falls

by James S.A. Corey · published 2021 · read 2022-01-16

This is how The Expanse ends: not with a bang, not with a whisper, but with an appropriately depressing finale. It all wraps around back to the beginning, and it's just as bad as you'd think, and then some. How well this book will work for you depends pretty much on how much this series has hurt you in the previous books (as in: how much you love the characters). It's not the strongest book in the series, but it's a satisfying ending, and I didn't dare to hope for even that.

Cibola Burn

by James S.A. Corey · published 2014 · read 2018-08-01

Excellent scifi. Cibola Burn is the fourth part of The Expanse, and the series just keeps on giving. Every book is exactly what I want to read – difficult situations, new worlds, people who are consistent and neither good nor evil (except for Naomi, of course), but just live their lives. Cibola Burn felt very much like I'd fear the exploration of thousands of suddenly appearing new worlds would go. I think if you think too hard about the technology level displayed in the series, some missing (AI, among other things) tech doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I'm willing to forgive this for the vast, technologically and psycologically sound universe.

Caliban’s War

by James S.A. Corey · published 2012 · read 2017-11-14

by James S.A. Corey · published 2017 · read 2019-02-19

Whee! Good Sci-fi!

Persepolis Rising

In many ways, Persepolis Rising was a gamble. How do we react to our heros having grown older together, all of a sudden? How do we treat non-standard story arcs? How do we react when we don't have a whole lot of movement in this huge space opera 'verse, and the characters we get to see are … very human, and not always appealing?

Nemesis Games

by James S.A. Corey · published 2015 · read 2018-09-12

Wow, Nemesis Games was way better than the previous volume of the Expanse series. I enjoyed it tremendously. As a change of pace, we follow four people on their separate ways (although their stories are connected, of course), and learn more about each of them. Where at first this seems to be a calmer book to allow for more characterisation, things take off towards the middle of the book, and then they just don't stop accelerating. I'm really looking forward to how both the world and the main cast will continue after this.

Babylon’s Ashes

by James S.A. Corey · published 2016 · read 2018-11-04

Babylon's Ashes might have been the part of the Expanse series I've enjoyed most so far. We get to see the fallout of the previous conflicts (as with every book so far), and see how people act under the pressure of humanty's fate hanging in the balance. (I don't want to spoiler anybody, so I'll leave it at that)

Abaddon’s Gate

by James S.A. Corey · published 2013 · read 2018-07-05

Okay, wow, this book had me discussing and screaming at it a lot. People die. People nearly die. Some of those deaths I was not at all okay with.

The Butcher of Anderson Station

by James S.A. Corey · published 2011 · read 2020-06-20

This is a short story in the Expanse universe, with a backstory on Fred Johnson. It's not bad, but I had very high hopes – I loved Fred's character and wanted to see more, look deeper. I didn't feel that the Novella reached the depth I would have liked, even though it was solid throughout, and the interactions had the Expanse-y style of solid reality that I like so much about the series.

Tiamat’s Wrath

by James S.A. Corey · published 2019 · read 2020-02-11

I don't think I could review this book without spoilers, but it wowed me, and angered me, and is generally VERY VERY good.

Leviathan Wakes

by James S.A. Corey · published 2011 · read 2017-07-06

Fantastic space opera, even more fun than the TV series. 4.5 stars for me, but I'm rounding up 'cause I'm feeling generous today and it was just so much immersive fun!

The Girl Who Was Plugged In

by James Tiptree Jr. · published 1973 · read 2021-11-01

James Tiptree Jr., predicting influencers in a world where advertising is forbidden. Interesting worldbuilding, but the story felt repulsive, maybe because it was so intentionally superficial? I don't like superficiality any more just because there's a meta.

The Economy of Cities

by Jane Jacobs · published 1969 · read 2021-07-25

This classic (pub. 1969) on city development was extremely accessible to read, particularly considering the ugh field that surrounds economics for me. Jacobs' main premise is that cities don't arise as a consequence of agricultural settlements – cities are there first, and develop their hinterland to support themselves.

Song of Sacrifice

by Janell Rhiannon · published 2018 · read 2019-04-16

I'm a Greek mythology geek, and Song of Sacrifice by Janell Rhiannon (as an ARC via NetGalley) should've been right up my alley. Alas, it wasn't – while it showed human perspectives on all the big players in the myths leading up to the Trojan war, the stories were as fragmented as the real myths, even if ordered by history. The novel thing I'd hope to see from a book such as this would be fleshed out characters and story arcs, but sadly, both the characters and the story stayed flat. The final annoyance was that roughly every time any couple had any type of sex, it had to be discussed and described in-depth, and not in great quality, either. While I like the frankness of the Greek myths, these scenes often served no reason. Sadly, I cannot recommend this book.

Hellspark

by Janet Kagan · published 1988 · read 2020-10-07

Hellspark is not without faults, but faults do not remove a five-star rating given out of pure joy. This is what I want my scifi to be like, and the fact that Kagan has not published much (and died in 2008) was rough to discover in a world where it seems like every book has a sequel. Sadz.

King Matt the First

by Janusz Korczak · published 1923 · read 2002-07-01

Maciuś (as he is called in the original and in the German translation) becomes the king at a very young age. Despite his advisors, he enacts a set of bold reforms, trying to improve people's lives. It all goes wrong after a while, because ruling is complex, as it turns out, and also people are not exactly cooperative.

Spaceman of Bohemia

by Jaroslav Kalfar · published 2017 · read 2024-01-16

Props for accurate post-soviet vibes, and special props for a space mission with obnoxious af mission sponsors. But. The protagonist is such a whiny idiot asshole. Jesus Christ in a space tin can. This reminded me of nothing so much as The Magicians, yikes. And yeah, he's a whiny asshole on purpose, but that's not exactly helpful when he's basically Mark Watney-ing the story. (Coupled with the spider alien, I'd say that maybe the author is just an Andy Weir fan, but this book is older than Project Hail Mary). Anyway. Good window dressing, strong vibes, but never answered the question of why I should care about any of it. I guess the absurdity of secret space Russians should answer this question, but instead, I just lost any and all suspension of disbelief when the author looked to just … not understand distances in space or something. Idk. Nah.

Something Rotten

by Jasper Fforde · published 2004 · read 2008-05-01

Shakespearean, this time. Hamlet gets to see the real world, Thursday gets to see Landen again (plus her son). The whole childcare thing was a bit of a drag, and the plot was as usually secondary at best. Less worldbuilding meant less fun.

First Among Sequels

by Jasper Fforde · published 2007 · read 2008-06-01

Book Five: Clones! Undercover operations! Tired plots, but good family drama. I'm not sure what happened, but in this book I prefer the plot and even the characters to the worldbuilding, such as it is.

Lost in a Good Book

by Jasper Fforde · published 2002 · read 2008-10-01

Fast moving sequel – more book travels! I liked the book travels, and I liked it enough to be a bit indifferent towards the plot.

The Last Dragonslayer

by Jasper Fforde · published 2010 · read 2016-06-11

This is very much a book by Jasper Fforde, and if you've read other books by him, you'll recognise his humour, his phrasing, and his worldbuilding. Which is why I liked the book well enough, but not more than that. Magic as a natural (and regulated) thing is hilarious.

The Well of Lost Plots

by Jasper Fforde · published 2003 · read 2008-03-01

More literary gags (jurisfiction meetings waiting for Godot before getting started, you get the drift). There's always more witty worldbuilding, and since that's what I continue to read the series for, I still don't recall much of the plot. Great fun though.

The Eyre Affair

by Jasper Fforde · published 2001 · read 2007-08-01

Embarassing, or at least a sign of aging: This book did not stand up to a re-read for me.

Shades of Grey

by Jasper Fforde · published 2009 · read 2012-04-01

Chromatacia is Brave New World, but on drugs. Everybody can see only one colour, and your colour determines your social class, while your strength of perception determines your position. Half of the book's strength is in its puns: the Colortocracy, the Swatchman (doctor) … It's a classic dystopia with a punny twist. The characters are all plausible but not terribly likeable, but the world building rules, and the plot is compelling. It does end on a bit of a cliffhanger, but there is enough conclusion to the main plot arc that I felt content. Poor Fforde, publishing this book two years ahead of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Clouds Cannot Cover Us

by Jay Hulme · published 2019 · read 2020-01-13

Rilke-style modern poetry, targeted to adolescents and adults. I don't read much poetry, but I am a fan of Rilke, for reference.

Godsgrave

by Jay Kristoff · published 2017 · read 2019-05-26

Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff is the second part of The Nevernight Chronicle, and it felt underwhelming. I'll try to tell you why: In Godsgrave, we continue to follow Mia, who is now a trained assassin and still hell-bent on revenge. To make this generic plot less generic, we get snarky footnotes with background info dumps (hi, Bartimeus), and a same-sex relationship (of course fraught with deceit and passion), where more traditional fantasy would've had a hetero relationship. Aaaand, that's it.

Nevernight

by Jay Kristoff · published 2016 · read 2019-01-06

Nevernight is nice fantasy – setting-wise, it's confusingly similar to Red Sister, all about a young girl assassin going to a slightly religious assassin school, but it's different in style. I think I liked Red Sister more (seeing as it has less Chosen One and more realism), and the witty banter-y narrator of Nevernight was predictable sometimes. But the style was very Bartimaeus-esque, so this should be a book that fits many people's interests and likes.

Annihilation

by Jeff VanderMeer · published 2014 · read 2019-12-17

Horror is not my genre, and this one just didn't have an effect on me? Not a bad book, just book-reader-mismatch, I think. The protagonist had a good distinct voice, and Area X was weird in a good way, but it never clicked for me.

The Ninth Rain

by Jen Williams · published 2017 · read 2022-07-02

Surprisingly vague in my memories – there's extensive plotting and world-building, and I'm usually a sucker for this repeating apocalypse thing (remember Pern?), especially when the last one starts to pass out of memory! But I think the characters just didn't stick with me? The rogue prince running from his failed empire (who had to carry his fantasy race exposition) plus the mercenary/warrior/escapee from the Evil Nuns, plus the world somehow ending, plus the alien grossness … and too many apostrophes, to be quite honest. And no big twist, everything signalled way ahead of time. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

Black Box

by Jennifer Egan · published 2012 · read 2019-09-20

Twitter literature! Black Box by Jennifer Egan is a neat experiment – a story that was tweeted out, back in the old days, when Twitter was still at 140 characters. I found the distinctive style and the rhythm of the tweet boundaries interesting, and the primary storytelling device if not brilliant, then at least refreshing.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

by Jenny Odell · published 2019 · last read 2020-11-09

★☆☆☆☆

DNF: The writing style was grating for me, and the book opened with such strong tech pessimism ("kids these days don't know how to talk to each other", phrased more nicely) that I disengaged very soon. Later she goes on to say that she only objects to commercial social networks, and that she's sure that decentralised communal ones are perfectly nice, but she had already lost me.

The Tyranny of Metrics

by Jerry Z. Muller · published 2017 · read 2020-04-17

Good points, tediously made. Metrics are problematic, both in expected and in surprising ways. Once you target a metric instead of using it, you have lost.

Trials of Morrigan Crow

by Jessica Townsend · published 2017 · read 2022-11-25

Too old to read middle-grade books, I think. But well-written and distinctly Diana Wynne Jones feeling at times. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

Blood Rites

by Jim Butcher · published 2004 · read 2014-01-01

It's impressive for how long Jim Butcher can just do "more of the same, please". Come to think of it, Codex Alera was also a long series of "more of the same", only with a different set of tropes, and arguably more imagination.

Changes

by Jim Butcher · published 2010 · read 2014-04-01

Nothing ever changes in Harry Dresden land. Power levels slowly escalate, everything else stays the same.

Peace Talks

by Jim Butcher · published 2020 · read 2014-05-01

More dresden files. Part 16, man, how did we get here?

Summer Knight

by Jim Butcher · published 2002 · read 2014-05-01

Generick kick-ass, but kick-ass.

Ghost Story

by Jim Butcher · published 2011 · read 2014-12-01

Different angle on the ever-same story (Harry is mostly intangible for this book). We get some sudden – but well-prepared! – development, mostly in Molly. I'm very ambivalent about Molly, which is good. The Harry Dresden books aren't usually ones to foster ambivalence, to say the least.

Small Favor

by Jim Butcher · published 2008 · read 2014-08-01

I can't tell this book apart from the other ones. You gotta give it to Butcher, though: His writing is nothing if not consistent.

Academ’s Fury

by Jim Butcher · published 2005 · read 2018-01-03

Still loving Tavis way in the world – learning, finding friends in the city, loads of character development, and of course he saves the world again.

Cursor’s Fury

by Jim Butcher · published 2006 · read 2018-01-05

Tavi's now a real Cursor and finds himself sent to the military, where he continues to save the world.

Death Masks

by Jim Butcher · published 2003 · read 2014-11-01

I continue to go think "predictable, stock, lazy, booooring" and "ohhhh this is fun fun fun": If I was willing to feel guilty about any books, these would be guilty pleasure books.

Fool Moon

by Jim Butcher · published 2001 · read 2014-04-01

More of the first book. Jim Butcher has found a niche, and by god he's going to keep it.

Proven Guilty

by Jim Butcher · published 2006 · read 2014-03-01

This week's stock trope is "past mistakes catch up to our broken-but-sympathetic hero".

White Night

by Jim Butcher · published 2007 · read 2014-08-01

Stakes rise. Supernatural battles continue. The snark is tired.

Turn Coat

by Jim Butcher · published 2009 · read 2014-05-01

Completely predictable, but you don't read these books for the plot. Or the characters. You read them because you are into stock badass-but-broken characters, so you'll like this one just as well. Even if you can only tell it from the others because the title is even more descriptive of the story than on average.

First Lord’s Fury

by Jim Butcher · published 2009 · read 2018-09-19

First Lord's Fury is the last volume in the very very excellent Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher, and it leads the six-book story to a terrifying finale. I enjoyed it a lot - we get a lot of well-thought action, and character development that builds on the established development of the previous books and avoids common tropes. The plot and the ending were both very satisfying to me. I'd have enjoyed having somebody new, like Kitai, as a POV character, for example. I think this is the first time among the six books that I thought the book was weaker than its predecessor, which is a big compliment for the series. After finishing First Lord's Fury I immediately felt the need to re-read the entire series – it's just that good.

Captain’s Fury

by Jim Butcher · published 2007 · read 2018-01-08

Tavi finally finds out who he is (c'mon, we knew all along) and develops his furycrafting. He also saves the realm using his new-won influence, resolving a terrible war peacefully.

Furies of Calderon

by Jim Butcher · published 2004 · read 2018-01-01

Butcher has written a mashup of the Roman Empire and Pokémon, and it works. Hell yeah it works. Much better than his Urban Fantasy, too.

Cold Days

by Jim Butcher · published 2012 · read 2014-02-01

Combines on-the-run stock plot with power escalation stock route and doesn't give the protagonist even the little bit of introspection time he sometimes managed to snag, because blah blah the US is about to blow up, let's defuse Lake Michigan or something.

Dead Beat

by Jim Butcher · published 2005 · read 2014-07-01

We get character development, which may just turn into a thing we get thrown every three books or so, so that we don't feel like we're reading the book equivalent of Fast & Furious VIII.

Princeps’ Fury

by Jim Butcher · published 2008 · read 2018-08-06

Codex Alera continues to be stunning Fantasy – I'm honestly not sure how this Jim Butcher is the same who wrote the Dresden Files. Those are good, but nowhere near Codex Alera. In the second to last volume, we see a great mix of character development, new characters, characters with legitimate but opposing views, and of course brilliant last minute tactics. All characters we care about get a fair bit of development, and since nearly all characters are very very nuanced, including the deeper introduction of non-human cultures, I'm more than willing to accept the one or two plain villains. Seeing an end-of-the-world level struggle on all sides of the three plots (Amara and Bernard, Isana with the frost people, Tavi on an entirely different continent) was a good mix, even though I felt the chapter endings/POV switches were not always executed at good points.

Skin Game

by Jim Butcher · published 2014 · read 2014-09-01

Dresden Files go ever on and on.

Storm Front

by Jim Butcher · published 2000 · read 2014-07-01

It's the height of generic Urban Fantasy, complete with edgy protagonist who can't be allowed to have his shit together (very House, MD style). Stock elements taped together.

Love Hurts

by Jim Butcher · published 2011 · read 2014-02-01

Dresden novellas have become as interchangeable as the books.

Grave Peril

by Jim Butcher · published 2001 · read 2014-12-01

This book was actually better than the first and second ones. It's as if now that he's staked his claim on all the tropes, Jim Butcher is feeling free to explore what to do with magic in this world.

Libriomancer

by Jim C. Hines · published 2012 · read 2022-11-24

I tend to really dislike books that try to appeal to book nerds, and Libriomancer is only the latest in that trend. Alcatraz fell utterly flat for me, and also that book that was about librarians running their supernatural library between heaven and hell, and also even that aspect of Inkheart, and the Jo Walton book that was basically just "yup, I was a SFF nerd". Maybe because it all feels kinda Ready Player One-ish. (Not as bad, sure, but …) Also, it's very male nerd power fantasy. I read it immediately after the Chrestomanci books, and they snook up on me and raised my standards, and then this power fantasy posturing made me want to raise my eyebrows and send the author to his rooms, no matter how much they pretend to be critically reflecting their power fantasy. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

My Real Children

by Jo Walton · published 2014 · last read 2023-04-05

This review is biased. Of course, all my reviews are biased, what else are they there for? But this one is more biased than most. My Real Children by Jo Walton came recommended by a friend who said “if you ever feel the need to bawl your eyes out”, when I mentioned that I had planned to read something by Jo Walton. Turns out, being forewarned is absolutely not being forearmed. My Real Children tells the story of Patricia. Or rather, the stories of Patricia. Patricia, aged 89, is old, and confused, and in a nursing home. She's confused about the usual things – where she put her glasses, the current date –, but also about more … unusual things, such as the names of her children. She remembers two lifetimes, separated by one simple choice she made when she was just over 20. Telling two entire lifetimes in a bit over 300 pages is a challenge. You don't come to this book for its poetic or flowery language – everything is told very matter-of-fact, sometimes as dry as you'd expect from a report. But this dry style works, combined with the skillfullness Jo Walton uses to zoom in and out, to decide when to skip a bunch of years in a sentence, or to give us line-by-line dialogue. I think in the whole book there were only two or three places where her decision regarding the zoom level pulled me out of the flow. Even characters mentioned only a couple of time would be recognisable and memorable instantly – and I often struggle to remember a larger cast in books. And on the side, as if by accident, we also get to see alternate history is done right: With actual, logical deviations that have far-reaching consequences. Plus discussion of emancipation and queer rights issues (the protagonist was born in 1926, after all) in a very tactful and accurate manner. When I was half way through the book, I liked it a lot, and I felt engaged – but I didn't love it, and I couldn't see myself be brought to tears over it. The book (again, driven by a very dry style) then proceeded to escalate emotionally to a degree where I had some serious discussions with it about which ways forward would be acceptable. (I didn't win all of them, and yes, tears may have been shed.) It's not an easy book to read, and it will take something out of you emotionally, probably, but if you're in a place to tolerate this, I'd absolutely recommend it.

The Just City

by Jo Walton · published 2015 · read 2020-03-10

A very cerebral, nearly clinical book, and I wanted to like it more than I actually liked it. I'm very here for the character of Socrates, and … not much else, to be quite honest. It's a fun concept, but I felt that even where it tried to go past the clinical, detached nature, it remained off. High quality, but not for me.

Among Others

by Jo Walton · published 2011 · read 2020-05-10

Among Others worked super well for me, especially considering that there is little-to-no plot and the whole book is a well-dressed bibliography. But the protagonist's (diary author) voice is super strong and realistic, and … okay, let's be honest here: I felt very pandered to in the best way. This book is in some way a modern equivalent to Gaudy Night, intellectual+atmospheric pandering to an in-group, and I'm in the in-group, and that's all there is to it.

The Little Dirty Girl

by Joanna Russ · published 1981 · read 2024-09-12

Okay, so I put "genre: horror" because that's just the closest thing – there is a ghostly entity, kinda, somewhat, if you know what I mean. I thought this story was very nicely written, very tidy, with some nice turns, but at the same time very unexcited and calm – appropriately. The characters (barely plural, but there we go) feel real, and honestly more touching than some authors can manage with ten times the pages.

A Symphony of Echoes

by Jodi Taylor · published 2013 · read 2022-01-26

Sadly disappointing: Only the second book in a series that is currently up to eleven books and countless novellas, and it already feels like the series is out of ideas and just mushing things together. There are regular excursions (Jack the Ripper as weird monster hybrid in need of getting shot repeatedly), there are the enemies-in-time, there is the protagonist being temporarily Director of the institute in the future for a bit (!!), there is YET ANOTHER giant huge misunderstanding with her partner due to them not talking about things properly, going to absolutely ridiculous and uncalled-for lengths, then a Dodo hunt, and a bunch more side plots in case you were not feeling sufficiently entertained.

Just One Damned Thing After Another

by Jodi Taylor · published 2013 · read 2021-07-02

Time travel comfort food! This book starts out as adult time travel Hogwarts: masking as an institute, St Mary dabbles in non-invasive time travel. Sorry, investigates major historical events in contemporary time. Our protagonist, a woman of distinctly urban fantasy heroine characteristics, is a historian and has to go through some harsh training (yay for training sequences) to join the small team retrieving information from the past.

The Blade Itself

by Joe Abercrombie · published 2006 · read 2023-02-18

Like the last time, I just can't get into this book. I can appreciate the characters and the writing and the depth. I do think that the "Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say …" is funny. I can see how the grit and darkness can be enjoyed. But man, I just don't like it. It's not even the brutality, I think it's mostly the pacing and the sense of impending doom without any sort of hope for help. I absolutely believe Abercrombie will let all of this civilisation fall and make us watch, and like, I get enough of that IRL. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

The Forever War

by Joe Haldeman · published 1974 · read 2016-11-09

Very Scalzi-ish (although, of course, the other way around). Took some getting used to the terse style, after that very well thought through and enjoyable. Especially all the implication of time dilation by long distance space jumps.

D’Shai

by Joel Rosenberg · published 1991 · read 2021-10-04

Hidden gem among early 90s Fantasy: In an Asian-inspired world, everybody has a kazuh: a talent, one of 52, that they discover and then hone to the point of genius, by entering a deep flow state. The protagonist, Kami, belongs to a family of acrobats, but clearly acrobatics are not his kazuh. This doesn't make him crippled or outcast or anything, he's just less good at some things than his father and his siblings.

Faust. Der Tragödie erster und zweiter Teil

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · published 1832 · read 2010-09-01

Single biggest source of (faux-)intellectual quotes in the German language. As most people, I enjoyed part one and was baffled by part two. As most people, I expect this will change over the years.

The Sorrows of Young Werther

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · published 1774 · read 2010-05-01

Prototypical moping guy kills himself. Very tragic.

Iphigenie auf Tauris

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · published 1786 · read 2007-09-01

Read because the title sounded so intriguing. The plot requires you to understand some of the most convoluted absurd Greek family soap drama first. Iphigenie starts out as bored and frustrated, which felt very relatable. The rest is more of "people talk about people and hilariously don't know who they are", ad infinitum. Plus a lot of hamletian waffling between duty and inclination – ugh, really.

Schloss Wildenstein

by Johanna Spyri · published 1892 · last read 2022-10-24

Book of my childhood. Love it to pieces. Kitsch, of course, it's Spyri after all, and you also need a tolerance for the religious version of Kitsch, but I still like it. Maybe each character only gets 1-2 adjectives, but she really truly believes them and writes good interactions between the five younger siblings, Leonore, and the older generation. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

Einer vom Hause Lesa

by Johanna Spyri · published 1890 · read 2022-10-25

Look, Spyri's Kitsch just works for me. I can see how it's Kitsch, I can see the super simple story lines and characters, and the repetitive aspects (see my plot summary), and still I'll love it. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

Bring Me the Rhinoceros

by John Tarrant · published 2004 · read 2020-06-21

I read this book after seeing it recommended on Twitter, and I'm glad I did. It's an introduction to Buddhist/Zen koans, with context and interpretative options supplied for each of the koans presented. It felt like a gentle and good way to approach this general area of interest.

Into the Labyrinth

by John Bierce · published 2018 · read 2020-10-20

Magic school fantasy, including a sentient library, actual magic with actual learning, and a misfit band of three friends, standing up to the bullies. It's post-Harry-Potter and it shows, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The Lost City of Ithos

by John Bierce · published 2020 · read 2021-01-26

Currently the last part of the Mage Errant series, I was not all that much in love with this book. It's the set-up to drag the whole series out, in that Fantasy spiral of upping the stakes forever. Characters were still okay (though mostly carried by the work of the previous parts), but the plot turned very generic..

A Traitor in Skyhold

by John Bierce · published 2019 · read 2020-10-23

Isn't it weird how fanfics often are obsessed with presents that characters give one another? It's as if the author yells "birthday o'clock motherfuckers" and has to follow up with a list of presents, and then, of course, also fit all of the presents into the future storyline. I call it Pavlov-Chekhov's Present. It's obnoxious and one of the things that makes the Mage Errant books read like fanfic, and great passages to illustrate how the writing could be so much more.

Jewel of the Endless Erg

by John Bierce · published 2019 · read 2020-10-22

More Mage Errant: Learning magic and running into catastrophes. Our plucky heroes predictably save the day at scale, and also experience personal growth and friendship and blah blah. The story isn't bad, as YA goes, and the worldbuilding is in many ways cool, but the writing is shoddy.

The Last Starship from Earth

by John Boyd · published 1967 · read 2020-06-01