Elizabeth

Highly recommend following [b:The Calculating Stars 33080122 The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1) Mary Robinette Kowal https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1539850192s/33080122.jpg 53735352] with this one, because not only is it a stronger outing, it's also the resolution to a story that ended up being split into two books.

This was not the book I was expected, and I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. Marketed as epic fantasy that perhaps fans of GRR Martin may like, instead I got YA fantasy with an author unafraid to kill his sympathetic characters (that's where the Martin comparison comes in). I'm ok with that.

The YA feel comes from the two teenage brothers doing the classic YA fantasy trope: one goes off in his teens to become as ass-kicking ‘knight' and learns about himself through discipline and killing, and the other is sent off in his teens to become a ‘mage' and learns about himself through discipline and ‘magic', although in this case it's eastern meditation philosophy. A third POV of their sister, the woman doing a man's job in a man's world, sometimes cuts in, but it's mainly about these boys.

The first three quarters of the book follows the standard pattern of the scrapes YA protags get into in their schooling, but then at pretty much 75% the shit hits the fan and doesn't stop until beyond the end - written as a trilogy the story doesn't end on a cliffhanger so much as a ‘the next chapter won't be out until 2015'. I'm looking forward to it.

Well I'm still not sure if I liked this story, but after gadfly-Sokrates comes to play (no spoilers, that's in the blurb) it was delightfully classic Walton (again, with the depictions of childbirth and parenting that broke my heart, although not as badly as [b:My Real Children 18490637 My Real Children Jo Walton https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1380218782s/18490637.jpg 26174356]). I feel like a passing acquaintance with [b:The Republic 30289 The Republic Plato https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386925655s/30289.jpg 1625515] would help here. Having had it come up multiple times in my uni life lately is what inspired me to finally give the series a go, so I can't speak to what the story would look like without knowing the basic premise of Plato's thought experiment. I'll keep going with the series.

Walton calls her series “Still Life with Fascists”, and, yeah.Not a whodunit, as in [b:Farthing 183740 Farthing (Small Change, #1) Jo Walton https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442714837s/183740.jpg 1884104], but a ‘will the British Detective Inspector and his competent-but-no-genius sidekick prevent the murder?'. I prefer the former for my British detectives.And yet, in our current political clime, probably quite triggering (oh ho what a pun, she says of the bomb-plot novel).

Read this for Sword and Laser. I liked Briar, she kicks ass and takes names because she has to, because she's been dealing with shit for a long time.

But steampunk leaves me underwhelmed, and I'm not a fan of zombies. So there's that. The story was good, the characters were excellent, the genre isn't one I'd pick up outside of a book club. But if steampunk and zombies are your thing, you'd probably like this one.

Wow I did not enjoy this, and now that I've logged into Goodreads to review it and can see it won a bajillion awards, I am confused.

It's the writing style that bugs me most of all; it's all clunky. Exposition, character development, worldbuilding, fight scenes, dialogue.

Points for not being a white psuedo-medieval psuedo-Europe setting, which is why I picked up the book in the first place, but I only finished it because I'd paid full price for it.

I was worried about re-reading these books, simply because I love them. I was worried they would not hold up to a more critical re-read as an adult, and because of my disappointment with Pierce's latest book [b:Battle Magic 8306725 Battle Magic (Circle Reforged, #3) Tamora Pierce https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1352504621s/8306725.jpg 13155766]. But, having bought Kindle versions (my dead-tree ones are falling apart), I had to justify the money by at least reading them once.The first of the Alanna quartet is pitched at a younger age than the rest, and it's noticeable, especially in light of the other books later written in this world. But, sins are forgiven because I love it, and it's still a quick read, like a comfy blanket of old friends.

I love the idea of this novel. The execution was patchy in terms of character development and pacing, although shows signs of the typical Sanderson style that clearly has matured throughout his writing career. For a first novel, it's completely acceptable, but I wouldn't recommend you start out here if you want to give Sanderson or the Cosmere universe a go.

 Obviously you will not be reading Rhythm of War with without having read the preceding three thousand-ish pages in the series.

I feel like Sanderson's writing craft has finally caught up to his giant ideas. With every plot twist there was a feeling of “Oh! Ah”, as you cast your mind back to every hint dropped in your path. The discussion and depiction of mental illness was nuanced (from my POV, I do not claim to represent any brain except my own).

Ultimately, not a disappointing installment in a series I already greatly enjoy, raising as many questions as were answered, and now I'll wait another two (three) years for the next. 

I grabbed this based on many positive reviews from the people that I follow on Goodreads and previous experience of Sanderson's writing with the Stormlight Archive. And I was not disappointed.

Ok, I was, a little. Kelsier feels a little like the first release candidate of Kaladin. There is only really one chick, who admittedly kicks all the arse and takes all the names, but still. The part where I was most disappointed was the lore. Maybe I expect too much, having read the Stormlight Archive books first, but the only real sense I got of the history of the world was with Sazid's religions. Which I loved. It's been mentioned to me that more lore happens in the next two books, so I'm looking forward to that.

Other parts that I liked: the gathering of 'philospoher' nobles were just all talk and not impotently planning a revolution. I kept waiting for Vin's brother to show up and wreck all the plans, and was pleasantly surprised how that turned out. I was pleased it didn't end up being a heist movie plot in the end, because it was looking that way for a good chunk of the book (I didn't actually expect it to continue being a heist movie, I was just curious to see how Sanderson would steer away from it once he'd set it up). The identity of the Lord Ruler. And of course the way in which Kelsier finally gets the skaa rebellion happening.

And, of course, there are more questions raised than answered by the end - the best part of that being that the next two books are already written and I don't have to wait around for years to find out the answers.

Well all of my GR people have enjoyed this book and I can see why, but the part most people seem to love (slippery people successfully being slippery through an ever-worsening series of events) is the part I found tedious. The rest, the standard - if well written - fantasy fare, I liked just fine.

So, I could probably go on to the rest, but not in a hurry.

Thank goodness for this book or I would have given up on A Song of Ice and Fire completely. It felt like more happened in the first 100 pages of this book than the whole of the previous book, and the hits just kept on coming. I ended up finishing the epilogue at 1am with a “What the Actual Fuck, GRRM” moment (in a good way!). A series redeemer, although I have heard that this installment is actually the best of all of them written so far, so I'm hoping it's not all downhill from here.

I absolutely loved this one. It's a reflection on reading practice within the framework of Aristotelian virtue ethics (Young is a philosopher). Taking examples of writers and philosophers on their reading habits, mixed with Young's own reading memoir, this has definitely influenced the way I approach reading, and hopefully will influence my future reading too.

I'm not putting this in a fantasy category because the fantasy is only the trope to get the protagonist to the past where she can have a lot of sex with a young musclebound scotsman. Which is not entirely a bad thing, I suppose, but there's nothing I would call fantasy beyond that.

I am surprised at how much I enjoyed this book, really. It fulfilled the need I had for a long audiobook (33 hours!), and despite the reviews mentioning all of the sex (won't somebody think of the children!) it was really a non-event. My main problem was that I would be pottering around doing the housework, Claire would get into some kind of danger, and her Scotsman would ride in (literally) and save the day. Again. At which point I was reminded I was listening to a romance, not just the story of a lady who got magically transported back in time.

Davina Porter narrates the audio version brilliantly, and I will keep going with the series.

I didn't read the blurb before diving in, and for that I am most grateful; it is a gross misrepresentation of what is an enjoyable Eastern European fairytale stretched out and given life. This novel is what Naomi Novik's Uprooted should have been, what I wanted it to be: a fairy tale made real, one that feels real and nuanced and adult and has layers.

And a good dose of religion, because you all know I love a religion-based fantasy. Highly recommend.