log(book)
Log
·
·
Queue
🔍 Catalogue
·
Stats
Poems
I'm currently
behind on reviews
, so don't be surprised if the recent reviews are a bit sparse.
List: theme:science-fantasy
Cage of Souls
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
· published 2019 · read 2022-10-10
★★★★☆
Post-apocalyptic sci-fi or fantasy? Who knows. There is so much to this book: the jungle prison of terror, the weird weird forest outside, the intrigues everywhere, the broken, broken people, the capital, the city under the city, and the return … that return. The protagonist is an educated idiot, but it's signalled clearly enough to not be too grating. The non-protagonist characters are largely cool or interesting, and I generally enjoyed myself a lot. But … I don't know what to think. On the one hand it felt more ambitious than the usual Tchaikovsky. There is more world-building scope, there are more actual people (rather than just props being moved around). At the same time, it feels all so muddled, looking back: Does it have any direction? Coherence? It's feverish in a way that sometimes nearly reminds me of (blasphemy!) Dhalgren. But it feels so inconsequential at the same time. I've got no idea how to rate this. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.
Elder Race
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
· published 2021 · read 2022-08-17
★★★☆☆
Might be the only Tchaikovsky I've read so far that is not entirely bleak in its conception of the human race, so that's a new one. Other than that … what's there to say? It's a solid little book. It's just … kinda lazy? I feel like Tchaikovsky is better than this; this is him taking a not terribly novel genre, and giving us his not super creative take on it, but because he's just a good author, the result is still nice enough. The part that I liked most was none of the obvious science fantasy shebang; it was how Tchaikovsky describes depression. Because, yes, very much like that. Nearly pushed the whole thing up to four stars, might actually do so once I re-read it for book club soon. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.