Kam

My review of The Shadow of the Empire (Judge Dee Investigation #1) by Qiu Xiaolong is now live! Technically sound in that all the plot points work together fine, but lacks any kind of genuine flair that lets it stick in the reader's mind after finishing it. The quoted poetry is great though.

Full review here: https://kamreadsandrecs.tumblr.com/post/767450948900618240/title-the-shadow-of-the-empire-judge-dee

My review of Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, trans. Moshe Gilula is now live! The narrative's a bit confusing at times, but it's otherwise a solid horror novel. Might also be a monsterfucker romance, where the monster is REALLY monstrous but that's just me.

Full review here: https://kamreadsandrecs.tumblr.com/post/766843858120212480/title-echo-author-thomas-olde-heuvelt-trans

Overall, this was a fascinating read, if occasionally confusing when names and timelines get a bit tangled. Despite that though, the story the author lays out shines a little light on the complexities of the antiquities trade, as well as the dangers of engaging in said trade without proper expertise or support. It also tackles the imperialist history of said trade, and how it supported theft on a grand scale of valuable cultural and historical items both in the past and into the present, and likely in the future as well. It also sheds some light on how American evangelical Christians are participating in the antiquities trade in order to shape a historical narrative more aligned with their view of the world - something which needs to be watched very closely and carefully, because if current US politics are anything to go by, these are the last people whom anyone would want shaping the historical narrative on ANYTHING.

Full review here: https://kamreadsandrecs.tumblr.com/post/765845558958194688/title-stolen-fragments-black-markets-bad-faith

A novel where the (admittedly entertaining) mysteries were more scaffolding around which the characters could be built, and upon which to articulate the novel's main theme: how money and privilege let the wealthy get away with (metaphorical and literal) murder.

Full review at blog.

 Just threw in the towel on this. Too pretentious. Also: don???t tell me I have to care about this character, because it???s either I do or I don???t depending on how well they???re written. 

Classic Kingfisher World of the White Rat novel: hilarious, touching, and sure to make you kilig. It's lovely reading how Galen finally manages to heal a bit, especially after what we've seen of him in the first two books. Piper's a sweetheart too, and I find him relatable (though maybe not in a good way haha). AND THAT ENDING!

I'll admit I'm really, REALLY late getting onto this particular boat. This book was originally published in 2010, when Visprint was still going strong, but thankfully Avenida Books has picked up Visprint's banner so it's still in circulation (publishing in the Philippines is ROUGH y'all). I picked this up is because I found out on Twitter that there's going to be a movie adaptation out on Amazon Prime, and I got curious.

Now, full disclosure: as a result of my upbringing, I'm AWFUL at reading Tagalog. I was raised in an English-engaged household and struggled with Tagalog all throughout my years in school, including while at uni (during which I improved the most, but not nearly as much as I'd like). Matter of fact I STILL struggle with it, especially if it's the literary Tagalog most often used by the literary luminaries who write in the language. Fortunately, Ong writes in a more colloquial Tagalog, which is a bit easier for me to grasp - especially now that I'm working and use the language a lot more.

This novel is the diary of a college student named Gilberto “Galo” Manansala, who started writing it as part of his requirements at school, but keeps writing in it as a way to record the events of his life and the way he feels about them. The first half of the book focuses primarily on that, and depicts not just the typical college drama involving teachers, friends, and romantic partners, but also what it means to be someone from the province who's come to Manila for a college education, and is relying on other members of his family to support them. When that support falls through, though, Galo takes certain extreme actions, and winds up having to go back home to the province to avoid the consequences.

The second half of the novel takes place in Galo's home province, where he goes back to see his ailing grandmother and (ostensibly) take care of her. While there, he finds out that something ain't quite right with Grandma, and with the town as a whole. This is where the horror actually comes in, as Galo learns about what his grandmother's been up to, what's happened since he left the town to go to Manila for his education - and what that knowledge does to him by the end.

Now, while the first half of the novel is pretty interesting because of the way it depicts life for the average college student, I did kind of wish it had been shorter? I understand that the author was trying to paint out Galo's life to give the reader a full picture of who he is as a person, and the events depicted and hinted at in the first half do come into play in the second half, but I did move through that first half wondering when the horror would finally come in.

Fortunately, once that second half begins the book really does live up to the horror genre, and it is horror in a specifically Filipino way that ensured I'd read this only in broad daylight. The tropes will be familiar to Filipinos who grew up watching the Shake Rattle ‘n Roll movies, the old Magandang Gabi Bayan Undas specials, and inhaled Psicom's True Philippine Ghost Stories collections: the old provincial mansion, the isolated town, the unique religious practices– All of those things will resonate with a creepy familiarity with Filipino readers. The themes, too, will have a familiar resonance for that same set of readers who engaged with the aforementioned media before; I don't think Ong is treading much new ground in that regard, since the theme of “Your sins come back to haunt you eventually” is a common one. But the execution is pretty enjoyable, and that ending is sure to send a tingle up the reader's spine.

So overall, Ang Mga Kaibigan ni Mama Susan was a pretty fun, fast, and undoubtedly spooky read - but largely in the second half. The first half is a bit of a slog, and I can imagine some readers just skimming their way through it to get to the creepy bits - something which I think they'd be justified in doing, as it does run a bit overlong for my tastes. But what happens in that first half has implications for what happens in the second half, so it helps to pay attention in order to see the full scope of the horror that finally descends on Galo by the end.

But the most important alteration is that almost all the important characters are women. As I mentioned earlier, the one thing I thought lacking in The Grace of Kings was the presence of female characters ??? not that they were absent, because they were there, but that they were not as prominent in the narrative as I wish they were. The same absolutely cannot be said of The Wall of Storms, where the plot is practically dominated by the women, who also (happily) develop amazing character arcs that are interesting and heartbreaking to read about. What I like the most is that none of them is a ???good??? or ???bad??? person; they are all people, with their own motivations and reasons for doing what they do. The reader might not necessarily agree with what a character is doing, but said reader would be hard-pressed to say that the character did not have her reasons for her choices and actions.

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-yS

While The Only Good Indians turns an excellent spotlight on the themes I???ve mentioned, I do find myself wishing that some thought had been given to the theme of feminism in the context of the American Indian experience, both past and present. While the fact that the Final Girl is a daughter of one of the four who participated in the instigating event says some very interesting things about generational guilt and how young women tend to pay the price and bear the consequences of it, I think it would have been nice to get a little more development for the killer - who is, in fact, a woman. The importance of this is difficult to explain in full, given that to do so would require diving into spoilers, but suffice to say that I wish more time had been devoted to really fleshing her out as a character - though I suspect that, given her nature, there is only so much characterisation that can actually be done, and Jones has done what he can without sacrificing the other aspects that make this novel such a good read.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-J9

Definitely a collection that will make you think a little differently about Kyoto - which isn???t all that difficult, since I???ve been to the city and wandered around some of the back streets at night in search of a chocolate shop that sells chocolate-flavored sake and I KNOW just how spooky those backroads can be.

(In case you all think I???m making this up to be in line with the book: the shop exists. It???s called Dari K, and they have a genuinely wonderful mission supporting environmental protection and Indonesian cacao farmers - though I don???t think they???re selling their chocolate-flavored sake anymore, which SUCKS as I had high hopes of getting it if I went back to Japan again. Their site is here: https://www.dari-k.com/)

Anyway: the collection isn???t out-and-out scary, so much as eerie, though there are moments in each individual story where I had to just stop reading and wait for daylight, which means that those moments are ones I find GENUINELY terrifying and therefore I need daylight to mitigate the effect a bit because I am a scaredy-cat. But apart from those individual scenes, what drives the eeriness of the stories in general is how they make the reader question whether or not what they???re reading is true. This is especially true when reading the first story (???Fox Tales???) and the second story (???The Dragon in the Fruit???) one after the other. There???s a bit of Rashomon Effect going on in the interplay between those two, which is a thought I find personally intriguing because of the place Akutagawa Ryunosuke occupies in Japanese literary history, and of course the influence of Kurosawa Akira???s film that gave us the term ???Rashomon Effect??? in the first place. The third and fourth stories aren???t as tightly connected as the first two, but do share the presence of water and the rivers and waterways of Kyoto. The blurb says the stories are tied to a curio shop, and while said curio shop DOES appear across all the stories, it only really plays a major role in the first two stories and then only a relatively minor role in the third and fourth. In terms of grouping, I think the first and second stories are a more or less coherent set, and the third and fourth stories are another more or less coherent set.

Overall, a lovely collection of stories, with just the right notes of eerie and creepy to be enjoyable for someone who???s doesn???t like their horror to be gory and prefers the spookiness to linger instead. I can???t speak to the quality of the translation as I haven???t read the original, but I think Bird has done a pretty good job with it overall, since I didn???t get irritated with the stories at any point. Also: I think these stories would make absolutely scary manga or animated short films, because as I said, some of the scenes are TERRIFYING just reading them from the page, so I can only imagine how much scarier they???d be in the hands of a good mangaka or animation studio. 

This was such a strange nugget of a novel, in the best possible way. I picked it up thinking it was a horror novel, but I don???t quite think it???s that, either. Despite that though, it???s a wonderful read.
The core of this novel is about the two sisters, Sheila and Angie, and how they deal with their lives - lives that, incidentally, are in flux, as Sheila and Angie both grow towards new stages in their lives (Sheila towards adulthood, and Angie towards her teen years). In a way this story is all about navigating those shifts: in themselves, in their relationship with each other, and in the way they navigate the world around them. This alone would make for a potentially interesting coming-of-age story, but there???s the added layer of strangeness that follows the two characters. Sheila, for instance, lives with an invisible noose around her neck she can???t take off. Angie, in the meantime, has these monster cards that she draws herself on index cards, and which seem to have a mind of their own.
But those aren???t the only ???weird??? elements in this story. There???s the rabbits, for instance: both the ones that the sisters??? family keeps for food, and the wild ones that inhabit the mountain on which they live. In this novel they stand for a whole host of things: innocence and vulnerability, of course, but also the quiet menace of the hunted turning on the hunter. There???s also the mountain itself, which is practically a character in its own right that exerts its influence on the sisters and a few other characters throughout the story.
All of these elements are brought together in the author???s writing, which has a tone reminiscent of folktales and fables. Events and images come together in ways that don???t make any kind of logical sense unless one is willing to squint, tilt one???s head, and see everything with fairytale logic. To be clear, that???s not an insult to the writing, because the quality of it is such that it IS possible to view the plot as a kind of folktale and have it all make perfect sense. It kind of reminds me a bit of the podcast Old Gods of Appalachia, and actually tempts me to find the audiobook version of this book just to see if it has a similar feel.
As for the themes, they do kind of fall in line with the usual themes of folktales and fairytales: coming of age, exploration of one???s sexuality, the dangers and wonders of the natural world. But there are other important themes here too, such as the crushing poverty can squeeze a soul down into a shade of itself, and how that poverty can make it difficult to escape one???s circumstances and find a better life. It also tackles the ways humanity alters the natural world for the worse, and how those changes can come right back to haunt us - as has been illustrated recently in the most horrible way by the storm and subsequent floods that ravaged Asheville, North Carolina and neighboring areas.
Overall, this was a lovely and lush little read that is less horror and more Grimm???s fairytale in terms of feel, but the themes are very much real and contemporary. Some readers might not like the tone, or the fact that there are very many questions that are asked and never given answers, but readers who are willing to simply go with the novel???s flow will find themselves charmed. 

This was a lovely, meditative read. I know it's been advertised as horror, and ghosts DO tend to fall into that category, but the ghosts in this novella and in the bonus short stories aren't scary in the least. Instead, in these stories, ghosts are a stand-in for a whole host of other things: memory, obligation, promises made and promises broken - all the things that linger and circle when one considers grief.

The titular novella, in particular, really focuses on how one can define the term “haunted”. People are haunted just as much as houses are, and the effects of that haunting can ruin and break the living - individual, yes, but even those around the person affected can catch the edges of it and be affected as well. And it's possible to be haunted by more than just the death of someone one loves. One can be haunted by abuse, by neglect, by the cruelty of the world in general. In that sense, we are all haunted - just maybe not always by the same things, or for the same reasons.

The bonus short stories Y??ngsh?? and Teeter Totter, focus on similar themes as Linghun, but approach them from different angles. Y??ngsh??, for instance, focuses more on the obligations that the death of a person leaves behind; Teeter Totter is more about the power of memories, and how it's how the life you live while alive is what matters most. 

What stands out the most across all three stories, though, is the quality of the author's writing. There is an elegance in Ai Jiang's writing that packs a lot of power in fewer words; Y??ngsh??, in particular, is spectacular in this regard, in my opinion. It makes me look forward to seeing if there'll be a novel anytime soon, horror or otherwise, because I'd really like to experience this writing again in a longer format.

So overall, Linghun definitely lives up to the hype I've been seeing about it online. The stories aren't scary in the traditional sense, but they definitely linger in the back of one's mind and in a corner of one's heart, and absolutely worth reading for that reason. 

Gosh but I wish this book had been able to live up to what it was trying to do. I can see it, can almost smell it, tbh, but DAMN does it not follow through. 
Pros: the language is really genuinely lovely. The narrator???s voice isn???t DISTINCT, but it???s quite lovely regardless. The author certainly knows how to paint images, and string them together in a way that makes for lovely reading. I got to hand that to them. 
I???ve also got to hand to them the concept behind this novel. While the idea of communicating with aliens isn???t a new one, I kind of liked the spin presented in this book: pre-radio, using Earth???s surface like a giant signboard to talk to the aliens living on another planet who happen to communicate in a similar way. It actually makes a certain kind of sense, though the environmental damage is staggering (and is briefly touched upon in the novel). 
What I DIDN???T entirely like about this novel was it felt so navel-gazey in an almost self-indulgent way. I liked the attempt to explore the concepts of distance - not just between planets, but between people, and between the self and memory. It also attempts to tackle the concepts of wonder and awe and curiosity, All interesting, of course, but there???s a meandering feel to the plot that feels like the long road trips that are described in the first and latter third: like blank spaces between origin and destination. The plot, such as it is, consists of all these musings and ideas but they aren???t held together by, you know, ACTUAL PLOT. 
Another thing that???s unfortunate about this novel is how the female characters get lost in all that navel-gazing. At a certain point I found myself wishing that this story was being narrated by one of the female characters instead; maybe then there???d be a bit more dimension and depth to this book than the narrator was providing. 
And then there???s the ending. Gosh, but that ending landed about as well as an untrained person trying to imitate Simone Biles and just. Failing utterly. I can see where it???s trying to go, I can see what it???s trying to do given everything that came before it, but it plopped right into the middle of a cliche and I was reading that last line going: ???That???s it? THAT???S IT?!??? Honestly disappointing. 
Overall, this is a novel that has Ambitions, I guess, and tries to get there with truly lovely language that???s quite pleasant to read, but damn does it get lost on the way - and, worse, that ending does NOT stick the landing. YMMV I guess, but I???m largely disappointed by this. 

Oh man, but there is A LOT going on in this novel. Just: A LOT. It???s kind of hard to know where to begin really.

Since I was just coming off my speedrun of Vols. 1-4 of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, I figured my brain would appreciate something a little different, and what could be more different than a straight-up horror novel? I built myself a little list from my (massive) TBR, but since I couldn???t decide which one I wanted to go with, I fed my top five choices into a randomizer, and figured I???d go with whichever came out on top. And since this is the one that turned up at the top, I decided to give it a go.

And it???s turned out to be a pretty great read, though it???s more anger-inducing than scary, truth be told. What grabs me most is the world in crisis (climate, social, all the crises really), and how the rich seem to be doing everything they can to run away from something they caused in the first place. They plan to leave and pretend everything???s okay, partying like nothing???s wrong, while elsewhere people suffer and die because they have no money and no prospects, and the world continues to burn. Selfish people broke the world, and they???re now running away from it, and they???re not above draining every other resource left - including other people - just to secure their own safety in the face of the apocalypse. Basically most every nasty, anger-inducing thing in this novel can all be traced back to selfish greedy people (aka the One Percent) who didn???t give one flying fuck about humanity and the world, and are so short-sighted that they???re willing to destroy everything around them if it will help them gather all the wealth and power they possibly can and hang onto it as hard as possible. This, despite the fact that they could have USED that money and power to make a change for the better, to help as many people as they could, to SAVE THE WORLD. But they don???t care because they???re greedy selfish fucks who only care about themselves. And the sad thing is: THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RUNNING THE WORLD RIGHT NOW. So if you read this novel and think ???man, this world is pretty fucking bleak???, well: that???s where the world we have right now is headed in five, maybe ten years, unless, we, idk, make guillotines more fashionable tout suite. 

 I know this seems like this book is very depressing, and yes, it is, not least because of how close these events are to reality, but I think that???s important. It???s important to see the logical consequences of where our current world situation is going, so we can actually DO something about it before it???s too late. This book doesn???t really put out an overt call to action, but portraying these things, even as part of the novel???s overall worldbuilding, is still pretty powerful. 

Another important thread in this novel is about what it means to live on the fringes of wealth and power, ever-wanting it for yourself, for whatever reason. You may want it to protect those you love, or you may want it to protect yourself, or you may want it just because you want it. But either way, the One Percent don???t care about you; they only think of you as a tool to use for their own games. They only care about themselves - as individuals, not even as a group. And they will do everything to protect themselves, even if it means burning the world around them - and you, along the way. As I said earlier, they???re greedy selfish fucks. They don???t care.

Anyway. Those are the central themes of the novel, the core around which the story is built, and for the most part, the story itself holds up, though there are a couple of rough spots. Take the characters for example: they???re all pretty interesting for the most part, though some are more compelling than others. Nina isn???t half bad as protagonist and narrator: she???s flawed, sure, but she???s flawed in interesting ways that make her a pretty good narrator for everything that happens in the story. The rest of the cast is pretty interesting to read about, though I do wish that some of them had been given a little more screentime, as it were. 

I also had a slight issue with the way the movement between past and present was handled. I understand that there was likely a need to spread out flashbacks to Nina???s past so that they???d be interpolated with the appropriate moments in the present, but there were times when they???d cut into moments when the present was very tense and I was very interested in the action going on during that moment. This became less of an issue as the novel progressed though, so that was only really a problem for the novel???s first fourth. 

As a note, I think this novel occupies a weird space in terms of genre. I picked it up because it was billed as a horror novel, and it KIND OF is, but it doesn???t read like too much of a horror novel to me as much as it does a thriller or a mystery. It does have some creepy moments, though not the kind that would make me want to read it broad daylight. As I said, most of the horror of this novel comes from the fact that it???s about the One Percent and what their greed and selfishness are doing to the world; that???s horror of a kind, made scarier by the fact that it???s real. 

So overall, this is a pretty fun read, if you???re willing to acknowledge the fact that it???s going to make you pretty damn pissed about the state of the world right now. It???ll also make you want to look at your relationship with wealth and power, and the whys and wherefores of wanting them, which can be uncomfortable if you???re the ambitious type and/or are working towards ???bettering your situation in life???, as it were. It???s got a few rough spots, but I think the plot and the central mystery will help in overlooking those spots, not least because they happen early in the novel and do kind of disappear as the book goes on.

 

 It???s not often that a book makes me weepy, but this one definitely did. I went into it expecting it to be a horror novel of some kind, or a murder mystery with hints of horror around the edges, but it didn???t turn out to be that at all. Oh, there was a murder for sure, and there were definitely spooky goings-on, but that???s not what this novel???s about. No: it???s a novel about grief, loss, and guilt, and about letting go and moving on - but a very specific kind of moving on. It???s the kind that involves soul-wrenching pain, the kind that makes you want to scream yourself hoarse, because what you???re losing is so intrinsic, so important to you, that you will hang onto whatever of it you can by the skin of your teeth.

But that???s not how the world works. Time moves on. People move on. And it does no one any good to live in the past. Remember it, of course, that???s important, but not holding onto it like it???ll come back if you don???t let go. To hang on is to die - but to let go is to finally live.

One downside: this book is a bit of a slog in the first half. Things only really get rolling around Chapter 15 or thereabouts, but before that it???s can feel like a bit of a drag. Still, if you hang in there, it???ll be worth it. 

A lot of people tend to believe that there is a very large distinction between fantasy and science fiction: fantasy is all about magic and elves and dwarves; science fiction is about space ships and lasers and aliens. Lately, however, this has not held true, with the two genres overlapping in ways that can make some novels difficult to classify neatly into either genre. Some fantasy contains sci-fi elements, while some novels that appear to be sci-fi on the surface read a lot more like fantasy. This falls completely in line with Clarke's (as in Arthur C. Clarke, renowned sci-fi writer) Third Law: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The fine line between magic and technology is something that many contemporary writers of both genres have played with, each in their own way, producing works that do not slot neatly into one genre or the other.

This meeting of genres is, of course, not a problem in the least, since the potential of any story has always fallen, not on the conventions of the genre, but upon the writer doing the writing, and their skill in creating a world and characters and telling a story. And Martha Wells, author of The Cloud Roads, the first book in the Books of the Raksura series, certainly knows what she's doing.

The Cloud Roads, and the rest of the books in the series, tend to be classified as science fiction, but this first novel reads like fantasy, and I suspect that the other books will, too. This is, of course, not a problem, as The Cloud Roads has turned out to be quite an enjoyable read - albeit without the same depth I rather hoped it would have, or the same level of memorability.

The story takes place in a world known as the Three Worlds, inhabited by a diverse set of intelligent races and creatures, but none of which the reader would recognize as human. For instance, the main character, Moon, has scales instead of skin, and the people he's living with, the Cordans, have multicolored scales as well, instead of skin. But Moon is different: he's not quite Cordan, not really, because he can shape-shift into a creature with black scales, a tail, and wings. Unfortunately, this makes him look a lot like another group of creatures called the Fell, which are the enemies of many other races because the Fell prey upon everything else. When he's betrayed by one of the Cordans, he is rescued from certain death by another creature like him, who calls himself Stone. Stone says he is from a race called the Raksura, and that Moon is like him. This sets Moon on a journey of self-discovery - one that involves saving not just himself, but others, as well.

One of the most notable things about this novel is the world-building. Wells does not get into in a very in-depth manner, but allows the reader to learn about the Three Worlds as we see it through Moon's eyes. This is something I can appreciate, as I am one of those readers who enjoys having to work a little to learn about a world, and while learning about the Three Worlds in The Cloud Roads was not as challenging as learning about the world of Umayma in Kameron Hurley's Bel Dame Apocrypha books, I still appreciate the fact that I did have to work a little to comprehend the world.

And it is an intriguing world, indeed: wild and beautiful, with pockets of civilization in the form of tribes and racial groups that move across the Three Worlds in their own way: groundlings (races that can't fly) on foot, and other races that can fly on wings. There are hints of a super-advanced civilization whose existence once spread across the entirety of the Three Worlds, but nothing is left of this civilization other than scattered ruins and the occasional relic. This ancient civilization, however, only lingers in the backdrop, and while it did pique my interest, Wells does not get into it in this novel - something I hope changes in the other two novels that come after this one.

As for Moon, I pretty much liked him almost from the get-go. He's wary of everything, and very careful - a result of a major, traumatizing event in his past that continues to haunt and hound him into the present of the novel. While the circumstances that created his personality are far from pretty, and I certainly would not wish them on anyone, I tend the kind of cautious, wary character that Moon is, since they tend to notice if things are wrong - or over-think things, too, which can be funny and frustrating in the best of ways. Both of these things happen with Moon, which really makes him such a delight to read.

However, the same cannot be quite said about the other characters. I suppose it's because of the sheer volume of them, but while I enjoyed reading about them while I was reading the book, now that I've put it down, I find that I don't quite seem to care about them as much. I came to care about the clutch that Moon rescued at the end of the novel, but beyond them, Stone, Flower, Jade, Chime, Pearl, Niran and Selis, everyone else seemed a little lackluster and faded into the background. I suppose this is because all the other characters are technically minor and meant to be forgotten after a while, but I wonder why it was necessary to name all of them when they were, in the end, meant to fade in the background. I suppose they will make a comeback at another point in the series, but I am not so sure of that.

As for the plot, it was pretty standard fare, and was fun while I was reading it, but on hindsight, feels rather simplistic. There was a sense of true, genuine threat to Moon's life towards the end of the novel, and there was some excitement to be had learning about the truth of the Fell's plans, but apart from that, it was not as exciting or as deep as I hoped it would be, considering all the praise this story has gotten from others. I was hoping for something truly absorbing, something I could turn over in my head a while, but I did not quite get that in this novel.

Overall, The Cloud Roads is a great introduction to the characters and world of the Books of the Raksura - and that might be all it is: an introduction. While the main characters are intriguing enough and memorable enough to stick with the reader, a great many others are forgettable, and as for the plot, it's not quite as deep or as absorbing as I was hoping it would be, which is unfortunate due to the richness of the world Wells has created for her series. I suppose everything will fall into place in the later books, with a deeper, richer, more expansive plot and better character development, but that remains to be seen.

Felt a lot longer than it should have been; there???s a chunk in the middle that I think could have been done away with and the story would???ve still been fun. Much tighter in that sense, too.  If the monsters hadn???t been revealed so early, I think that entire middle part of the plot might have worked, because there???d be that tension of not knowing what the fuck is out there. But maybe that???s personal preference, because I don???t really like knowing what the monster looks like until absolutely necessary. What you see in your head is always scarier than anything can actually be and all that. 

Regardless, this was an immensely fun ride! Loved the concept of the Tatterskins and the old gods in the deep; loved the folk horror with the pinch of cosmic horror (or maybe Lovecraftian horror; the nods to Lovecraft were practically everywhere) on top of everything. Also liked the insight into the characters; the multiple POVs could easily go off the rails but the author managed to keep things on the rails for the most part.

This would make a FANTASTIC movie or miniseries though! Put it in the hands of a good director; not sure I can name names for this but it would make a great movie. There???s plenty of scenes that feel cinematic; the way some scenes are written feels that way too. Almost feels like it???s made for adaptation. 

Some people decide what to read next based on a strictly-delineated list of selections that has already been pre-decided. Others stand in front of a bookshelf and randomly pick out something to read. Yet more start a series, and do not give up until they get to the end (or at least as far as the most recent book, if the series is still ongoing). I, for my part, tend to make my choices based on my emotional state after finishing a book. Having just come off a very emotional trip with N.K. Jemisin's The Kingdom of Gods, the last book in her Inheritance Trilogy, I found myself wanting some time to give my heart a chance to heal. I delved into some non-fiction, but could not find it in myself to go back to fantasy, so I decided that it was high time I picked up something in the science fiction vein, but I was then diverted by Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series. Willig's series is lighthearted and fun, so it was no chore to clear through all the books of the series and manage to get caught up with the latest release.

With that done - and with a much lighter heart - I decided I could go back to reading some serious sci-fi, and decided that it was as good a time as any to go back to Iain M. Banks' Culture series - especially since he passed away recently. Since I'd already read Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games, the next book in the series was Use of Weapons, which is often heralded as a fan favorite. And having just finished it, I think I can see why it would be a favorite of Culture readers, especially since I've already read two other Culture books before it.

Use of Weapons is set in Iain M. Banks' sprawling Culture universe - the Culture being a post-scarcity utopian society made up primarily of humans and sentient AIs, along with any other societies that may have chosen to embrace the Culture's ideals and ideas. The most intelligent of the AIs, called Minds, govern the Culture for the most part, and since this is a post-scarcity utopian society, people can have anything they want and do anything they want with very little to no consequences. Crime has been eliminated, and children born under the auspices of the Culture have to be taught what poverty and class are, because there is absolutely no conception of such things whatsoever in the Culture itself.

What makes the Culture interesting, however, is that for all its seemingly utopian existence and ideals, it is an expansionist society, which means that it absorbs other societies into itself - though it would prefer to frame itself as philanthropic, because expansionism has connotations of violence the Culture does not prefer to use when referring to its relations with other civilizations. Given this veil of philanthropy, the Culture makes use of an organization called Contact, whose task is - obviously - to make first contact with other civilizations, and to either shape said civilization according to the Culture's ideals, or to market the Culture's ideals to them so that said civilization will consider joining up. However, when first contact doesn't go as peacefully as it should, or it's not going to Contact's liking, Contact will send in agents from an even smaller and very secretive division within its ranks, called Special Circumstances. SC agents specialize in the things the Culture does not approve of, such as assassination, economic collapse, and war in all its brutal and subtle variations. Many of these agents are from the Culture itself, but oftentimes SC will employ agents not from the Culture's ranks - such as Cheradenine Zakalwe, the main character of the novel.

What makes Use of Weapons different from the previous two novels is its narrative structure. It operates on two story lines: one that details Zakalwe's current mission, and another that consists primarily of flashbacks to previous missions - though specifically to moments when he tries to retrieve memories of a particularly traumatic event that is only revealed at the end of the novel. The chapters alternate with one another: flashbacks are identified by chapter headings using Roman numerals counting backwards from XIII to I, while the ones about the current mission have spelled-out chapter headings from “One” to “Fourteen.” It can be fairly easy to get turned around if one does not pay attention to the chapter headings, but once one gets the hang of them they make for a very interesting effect, as the transition from one to the other is often linked to Zakalwe being asleep, unconscious, or deep in reminiscence - precisely the moments when memory is most prone to ambushing a person.

As for the characters, they are an exceptionally fun bunch to read about, as well. Banks seems to specialize in totally and utterly torturing his protagonists (like Horza in Consider Phlebas and Gurgeh in The Player of Games), and poor Zakalwe is no different. Aside from the physical and mental strain of his job as an agent for SC, his own memories are quite terrible and cause him a great deal of psychological anguish - in particular, the one that lies at the very heart of all his other memories, the one he has studiously avoided up until the point that it is revealed in the novel. His handler, the Culture SC agent Diziet Sma, is interesting as well, primarily because she seems to be entirely aware of what the mission is doing to Zakalwe's psyche, but pushes him into it anyway. This makes her a very interesting illustration of the tension the Culture engenders in those who work for it: they believe they are doing something for the greater good, but the smarter ones like Sma are also aware of what they are doing to the people they throw into the front lines.

And then there is Skaffen-Amtiskaw, Sma's drone partner. Though it doesn't take center-stage, it might be considered the sole source of humor in the entire novel, and is in its own way an illustration of the Culture's lighter - and deadlier - side. Though Skaffen-Amtiskaw might be considered funny due to its sarcastic sense of humor, there's no denying that it's deadly, as well: Skaffen-Amtiskaw is a heavily weaponized drone (as is typical for drones working in SC), and Sma has explicitly ordered Skaffen-Amtiskaw that it cannot use its weapons unless expressly ordered to, due to an incident wherein Skaffen-Amtiskaw rescued Sma, but in such a manner as to leave her traumatized. Though Skaffen-Amtiskaw doesn't understand the logic behind Sma's ordered, it obeys them anyway out of respect and fondness for her - an indication of the level of intelligence AIs have in the Culture universe. Other examples of these hyper-intelligent (and very funny) AIs include the Mind of the ship Xenophobe, as well as the passing mention made of Minds choosing to name the ships they are put in with some very interesting names: for instance, the Xenophobe itself is named in a tongue-in-cheek manner, given that it's a ship meant for diplomatic missions. There's also mention of one ship that's eighty kilometers long, and is named Size Isn't Everything. If humor is an indication of sentience, then the AIs of the Culture universe are very definitely sentient.

As for the plot itself, it felt reminiscent, oddly enough, of Skyfall, the most recent James Bond movie. Zakalwe himself is kind of like James Bond and does what he does (including the disappearing act Bond pulls early in the movie), while Sma and Skaffen are rather like M and Q, providing Zakalwe with the mission details and the tools he needs to get the mission done. Even Zakalwe's traumatic past is similar to Bond's in Skyfall, albeit far, far worse.

However, as with the previous two novels, the plot and the characters are there to support a greater theme - in this case, the idea that interference might not necessarily be the noblest thing, even if it seems that interference is being carried out for the right reasons. This is made explicit in a conversation between Zakalwe and Tsoldrin Beychae, wherein Beychae shows (or reminds, rather) Zakalwe of the duality of the Culture's policy, especially when it comes to Contact and SC. I see this as an extension of the ideas explored in The Player of Games, wherein Gurgeh is used like the cultural equivalent of a tactical nuke, destroying an entire civilization from the inside. The “weapons” in the title of the novel are not just the ships and guns and knife missiles that the Culture uses (while at the same time keeping secret or denying their use), but the way it uses its own ethos to get the results it deems suitable according to its own ideals - even if that means starting wars and ending lives.

Overall, Use of Weapons is another great title in the series, and I can see why it is a fan favorite. Zakalwe is an interesting character with a heartbreaking past (which has a twist which was hinted at but then revealed so beautifully), and Sma and Skaffen-Amtiskaw are excellent foils through which the reader can better grasp the light and the dark sides of the Culture. I am aware that these books are meant to stand alone, but I think reading the first two novels helps in grasping the concepts in this book. It did not make the same impact on me as The Player of Games, but it is an excellent read nevertheless.

Once again Wallace delivers the hilarity and the thrills in this continuation of the Sin du Jour series. Though it's not QUITE as funny as the first three books, there's still plenty of moments that are laugh-out-loud hilarious, and even better, the stakes are MUCH higher in this latest installment than in the others. Really looking forward to the next book in the series.

Hinduism (and other, sister religions like Buddhism and Jainism) has an interesting concept: samsara, which is a term used to describe the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth that the human soul undergoes. One is born, one dies, and then one is reborn again, with the circumstances of one's rebirth being determined by one's karma (the quality of one's actions). This is an oversimplification of the concept, I know, but it's a very good way of describing in broad, general terms what the concept is.

It is also a concept that writers have played with over the years, in various ways and with equally various effects. Some writers use it to explore deeper themes: a good example would be Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, which goes so far as to use a specifically Tibetan Buddhist take on the concept for the purposes of the novel. Other writers do not take as explicit a route as Robinson does, simply borrowing the concept of reincarnation that lies at the heart of samsara for whatever purpose they deem it suitable - I have seen romance novelists use the concept for their own purposes, usually taking the idea of two lovers whose souls are bound together for the rest of eternity, following and finding each other through each and every incarnation. The concept has also found itself drifting into sci-fi from time to time, but it has found a home for itself in fantasy, since the cyclical nature of the concept lends itself very well to many fantasy stories.

Of course, not all writers do a very good job using the concept, but the few that do use it well make it into a powerful vehicle for themes about love, forgiveness, and - most important of all - redemption. That is the case with The Kingdom of Gods, the final book in N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy.

Set a generation or two after the events of The Broken Kingdoms, The Kingdom of Gods is narrated by Sieh, the god of childhood, introduced in the first novel and who makes a brief appearance in the second. In The Kingdom of Gods, he meets a pair of Arameri twins, Shahar and Dekarta, the head of the Arameri family. If the names are familiar, there is good reason: Dekarta was the name of Yeine's grandfather in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, while Shahar was the name of the founder of the Arameri line, a high priestess of Itempas during the Gods' War. He befriends them, somewhat-reluctantly, and in order to solidify that friendship attempts to make a blood pact with them. However, the blood pact goes awry, and when Sieh next wakes up, eight years have already passed since the failed blood pact, and he is slowly becoming mortal. He returns to the city of Sky-in-Shadow in order to reconnect with the Arameri twins to find out what exactly happened, However, when he gets there he finds out that a deeper, more dangerous game is afoot, and that this game is dangerous not just to himself, but to all the gods, even the Three.

One of the first things the reader will note, after the first two novels, is the change of narrator. I really like Sieh as a character, have liked him since The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but I was expecting Jemisin to continue the pattern established by the first two novels and get a female narrator to tell the story (in this case, Shahar, since she is mentioned in the book blurb). Of course, learning Sieh was the narrator did not put me off at all, at least in terms of his narrative voice: he is as excellent a narrator as Yeine and Oree were, which is a good thing because I think that any novel that attempts to use a first-person perspective must have a narrator with an interesting voice. Sieh is certainly that.

There are many similarities in his tone to Oree's voice in The Broken Kingdoms, but I think that's mostly to do with the casual nature of their narration: Oree because she is a commoner, and Sieh because he is a god. The difference comes primarily from the fact that Sieh is far, far more careless about what he says than Oree, which is unsurprising because he is a god and doesn't have to care about anything, least of all mortals. That changes, though, as the novel progresses, especially once Sieh finds himself in the company of Dekarta and Shahar.

And now that I mention the twins, here's where I hit a snag with the novel. While I like the role they play in Sieh's development, I wish there was more of them as people apart from Sieh, gotten more development as characters in their own right. I think it would have been interesting to tell this novel with two first-person narratives: Sieh's and Shahar's, perhaps, or maybe even three, including Dekarta's (though this desire to see Dekarta narrate is mostly due to the fact that I want to learn more about how he constructed the system of magic he creates for himself). It would definitely make the novel longer, but the length would be very much worth the time I'd put into it if one or both of the twins were given a voice. It would also go a long way towards explaining why they are so important to Sieh, why he finds them so attractive, which is crucial to understanding the ending of the novel.

Speaking of the end, I think that Jemisin could not have come up with a better conclusion for her trilogy. I mentioned samsara earlier in this review, and that is pretty much what happens at the end. Debts are paid in full, truths are revealed, and, more importantly, people are forgiven, accepted, and redeemed (not least Ahad, for whom acceptance is a key component of his storyline). And though characters die - Sieh and Dekarta, notably - death is merely another type of transformation: when Shahar finally passes after living a full life, she essentially "midwifes" Sieh (who is no longer Sieh) back into existence, who then takes both Dekarta and Shahar with him to become another Three, in another realm entirely. As for Itempas, he dies, but does so sacrificing himself for humanity, which fulfills the conditions that were laid on him at the end of the first novel, and he returns to his original form - and, in a short story found at the end of the novel, finds his way back to Oree. Very few endings are capable of reducing me to literal tears, but this novel managed to do just that, and so very handily, too.

Overall, The Kingdom of Gods is a fantastic conclusion to a beautiful and heartbreaking trilogy - primarily because it does not focus on the typical things a lot of contemporary fantasy novels focus on. Though there is a lot of political maneuvering, scheming, and mentions and threats of war and bloodshed all over the place, they are not the central focus of the books. Instead, these novels are about characters, and how they relate to one another, whether they be mortals, demons, godlings, or gods. The only failing I can think of in the entire trilogy is one that rests in this book: the lack of development for Shahar and Dekarta, who are important enough to need it, but do not seem to get it (whereas other characters, like Glee and Ahad, get good development, which is odd since they are technically just supporting characters). Despite this one failing, however, the trilogy as a whole is a wonderful read, and definitely more than worth spending one's time - and tears - on.

 As a continuation of the first book, this functions perfectly well. It focuses a lot more on intrigue and developing the established characters, which makes for a somewhat less action-packed read but still entirely fun read, in my opinion. Reading how Gormflaith and F??dla develop was absolutely fun: Gormflaith still has more layers than F??dla, but F??dla experiences some solid character development in this book, which is where much of the fun reading her derives. 
We also get Colmon as a narrator in this one. In the last book he was a somewhat minor character, but this time around he gets narrator status and it looks like he???ll be developed into another protagonist for the third book. I look forward to it, not least because his perspective is so different from F??dla???s and Gormflaith???s.    There was also an interesting dialogue in this book about oppressive systems, and how it can be hard to dismantle such systems when one is benefitting from them. It???s only a moment in the book, but it does address an element of the previous book (and the actual historical milieu in which this series is set) that I think other readers wanted the author to deal with a bit more explicitly. I can???t say for absolute certain if it was handled well, but I will say that it gave me food for thought, especially when thinking about that element in the context of the history of the period, and what certain characters then promised to do about it. 
I think that the main gripe I have about this is that it really feels like a transition book, moving characters so they???re in specific places (literally and metaphorically speaking) as preparation for a big finale or big change of events in the next book. This is just a small complaint though, as I liked the book regardless, but it???s definitely got that vibe. 
Overall, this was a solid continuation of the previous book. Characters grow in their own ways, and the plot continues to be a fun ride. I???m looking forward to seeing how Colmon steps up in the next book in the series (along with another character I won't mention because spoilers). Still, this does feel a lot like a book that???s meant to put particular characters in specific places in preparation for something big going down, so readers looking for something a little more action-packed might not be entirely happy with this one. 

 Oh but this book is a punch in the gut. A GREAT punch in the gut, don???t get me wrong, but still a punch in the gut. Then again, could I have expected anything less, given what had happened in the first two books? 

Initially, this book read a lot more like a fantasy novel than the sci-fi/thriller-adventure feel of the first two books, mostly because of the drastic change in setting. I honestly thought that this was going to be more focused on court intrigue initially - at least, until a certain character shows up, whereupon the plot became more like that of the first two books, but flavored with a different kind of desperation this go-round.  Again, the novel turns on the relationship between Nick and Johnny, as it did in the first two books, though obviously things are much more different in this book than in the first two. Since this novel takes place seven-ish years after the ending of the second, the two protagonists have become very different people compared to who they were in the first two books. Throughout the novel, Nick???s intensely ambivalent feelings about Johnny come to the forefront, and his emotional journey as he grapples with the events of the past two books and the events of this one is both interesting and heartwrenching, especially given Nick???s situation at the start of the novel, and given the context of what happened at the end of the second book.  While Nick???s emotional journey was definitely a highlight of this novel, reading about Johnny was just as interesting, mostly because it elicits some rather complicated feelings about her, which are further complicated by the fact that it???s Nick narrating the story. It???s easy to sympathise with Nick, to outright SIDE with him, because he???s the narrator and the reader only gets his thoughts, his side of the story - but there are moments when the reader might find themself on Johnny???s side.  When that happens, it???s usually when the plot touches on the concepts of revolution and uprising, which form the base upon which the rest of the plot is built. This novel asks a very interesting - and very difficult - question: in the face of an utterly overwhelming force, does it make more sense to capitulate and appease that force in the hopes it doesn???t destroy everything and everyone one cares about, or does one fight back against a future of oppression and occupation? Some people might say that one must always fight back, even at the cost of one???s life; that makes sense on an individual level, as some people might be willing to make that sacrifice, but must one expect an entire country to do the same? The answer is more nuanced than what a lot of SFF novels (and historical novels, for that matter) make it out to be, and I liked how this novel tried to explore that.  Another thing I found interesting about this novel, especially given the two other books before it, is how, when it really came down to it, it was plain old trust that won the day: not magic, not gods, just trusting that another person would make the right choice. While there were a couple instances of literal deus ex machina (if the deus in that situation could indeed be considered such) in the story, they didn???t erase that final, basic fact. Helped it along, maybe, but didn???t erase it.  Overall this was a great way to end the series. Reading about how both Nick and Johnny had changed after the events of the second book, and seeing how those changes played out throughout this novel, was both fascinating and an emotional rollercoaster ride. And while I wasn???t entirely expecting the ending, it made sense in the grand scheme of things, and I appreciated that everything worked out in a good way - though I admit, I was expecting a far more tragic ending.

Places have stories. Any traveler is aware of this idea, and writers are exquisitely aware of it. Many writers are fine hands at making places integral to their stories: landscapes can become epics of geography; lakes and rivers and the ocean itself can sing lyrics as varied and endless as the sounds water can produce. But if one must conceive of a place as a character, then one need not look any farther than a city: that concentration of humanity that seems to imprint its own unique identity upon the spot of earth it springs from. The character of a city is shaped by the humans that inhabit it, just as much as those humans are shaped by it. Currently, a popular trend has been to write about a city and its populace, in all its glory and shame, with an added supernatural element: history and folklore old and new come together to give any city a little something special.

Of course, some cities lend themselves better to such efforts than others. New Orleans, with its ties to voodoo and Cajun culture, is a favorite for American writers. For British writers, though, they need not look much farther than the City: or London, to those of us who don't live there. And it is in London that Ben Aaronovitch sets Rivers of London.

Rivers of London is the first book in a (hopefully lengthy) series of books centered around Peter Grant, the lead character of Rivers of London and of the series itself. Peter Grant is a policeman - a “copper” in the parlance of the book - and he thinks he's headed for a dead-end desk job, but it turns out he's meant for bigger, grander things. It turns out he's meant to be a wizard. And he will have to learn the ropes fast, because there is a lot of work that needs doing: cleaning out vampires, for a start, and negotiating between two opposing deities laying claim to the Thames River and all its tributaries. And then there are those strange murders going on in London, the cause of which needs to be found, and stopped, because if not, London itself will implode.

Now, I have read quite a few urban fantasy books that play on something like this. I have read China Mieville's Kraken, which also uses the city of London as a primary staging-ground for all sorts of supernatural activity. Jim Butcher's Dresden series is one of my favorites, a series whose main character is a wizard who solves supernatural crimes. And before sex and romance became the primary preoccupation of the storyline, the Anita Blake books were quite a good read, too. But of these books, it was the Dresden novels I've loved the most, and in many ways, what I love about Jim Butcher's work is also what I love about Rivers of London.

And indeed, there's plenty similar between the two of them. They both feature lead characters who are wizards, and who are both not comfortable with the inevitable comparisons to Harry Potter (though Peter Grant must feel it more keenly than Harry Dresden, since Peter Grant lives in England). They are both involved in solving criminal cases that the police cannot deal with because it's out of their scope of knowledge (though Dresden gets a lot more flak than Grant, mostly because the London police have been working with wizards far longer than the Chicago PD). They both have dark pasts (Grant's not so bad as Dresden's, though to be fair, Dresden has had several books in which to explore his dark past, and Grant has only two so far). And they both have mentors who were (are, in Grant's case) crucial to their development as wizards.

But Aaronovitch's work is no mere copy of Butcher's. True, there are many similarities (some would say too many), but the simple fact that Aaronovitch is a British writer, and Butcher is an American writer, is enough to make Rivers of London quite distinct from any Dresden book. For one, Grant's humor is much drier, more deadpan than Dresden's - typical British humor, I should say. Grant is also somewhat less emotional in his reactions (as he narrates them; since the novel is in first-person it is unknown to the reader how Grant really reacts to anything) than Dresden. Finally, since Grant is with the police, he is able to explain how the police react and work around a wizard, which seems to be somewhere between mild reluctance to outright unwillingness to cooperate; in the Dresden books there is only outright hostility from the police, and even Dresden's usual liaison, Karrin Murphy, doesn't really trust him.

However, whatever else one may say about the similarities (or not) between Grant and Dresden, it must be said that Rivers of London is a great read. The title of the book is based on the fact that, long ago, London had more than one river running through it. The reader is naturally familiar with the Thames, but there are several other, smaller streams and brooks that used to thread through London. The reason why they are no longer seen in the twenty-first century city is that they were built over sometime in the nineteenth-century, to become part of London's sewage system. And then there are, of course, the other tributaries in the countryside north of London, like the Isis (actually part of the Thames itself). In the novel, however, these rivers are embodied by spirits: genii locorum, as they are called. The trouble is that though the Thames used to be ruled in its entirety by Father Thames, he abandoned the lower half of the river during the Great Stink of 1858. As a result, that part of the river was without a spirit - until a young Nigerian woman heard the call of the river and became its spirit, with her daughters becoming the spirits of the tributaries around it. Father Thames, of course, still exists, but mostly to the north, with his sons and their wives acting as the genii locorum of the waterways there. These spirits form some of the most fascinating and important characters in the book, and not just because they are the rivers of London - one of their number, Beverley Brooks (obviously the spirit of the Beverley Brook in London), a daughter of Mother Thames, plays a crucial role in the progression of the storyline.

However, while the rivers themselves are quite important, the storyline involving them is a subplot compared to the other, larger one: the one connected to Punch and Judy. How Aaronovitch gets from a puppet show to a serial killer might be rather confusing, but it is all very deeply rooted in the old mythologies and folklore attached to the concept of Punch and Judy - and a tribute to Aaronovitch's ability to seamlessly weave these together without getting in the way of the story. Recognizing Punch's roots in the Trickster and Lord of Misrule archetypes, Aaronovitch describes Mr. Punch as the spirit of riot and rebellion particular to London: that sensation of "laughter and violence," as Grant describes it, fueling riots and demonstrations in the city. It must be assumed that all cities have just such a spirit embodying those qualities, but in London, it's Mr. Punch - and unfortunately, Mr. Punch has found a willing, ghostly partner with whom to make more mischief and mayhem than usual.

But this story, is, at heart, a mystery, despite all the interesting trappings, and on that level, Rivers of London functions very well. Aaronovitch manages to work a good balance between being informative and leaving things out for later, and never once does the reader feel like he or she is being led around by the nose - or at least not being led around by the nose in a bad way. I suppose the first-person narration helps there, since the reader is learning a lot of facts right alongside Grant, but even when Grant formulates his own theories and reaches his own conclusions, it doesn't feel like he is making very great leaps in connecting one thing to another, or in coming up in with his ideas. This sort of thing is very satisfying on the part of the reader, because never once is he or she made to feel stupid.

Rivers of London is, in many ways, a solid tale. The best books, in my opinion, are the ones that teach us something along the way without making it a chore, and I have learned quite a few things from Aaronovitch's novel. Peter Grant is a solid, reliable (from the reader's perspective) character, and while the novel reaches a satisfying conclusion, there are enough questions still left unanswered to leave the reader hankering for more. Hopefully Aaronovitch continues this wonderful series, because it would be a pity if he does not.

I wasn't all that sure what I was getting into when I picked up this book, but despite that it's proven to be a rather interesting read, even if I'm very sure that geopolitics is not the end-all and be-all of understanding the world's current political climate. It's out-of-date by now, of course, since it was published in 2015 and the world has changed significantly between then and the Orange Oompa Loompa being elected President of the United States, but there's still quite a few interesting chunks of information scattered throughout that still hold true today. Most important, I think, is how arbitrary lines drawn on maps by white people in the 19th century have created the chaotic warzones of the 21st. A good thing to remember that, especially when looking at the political situation in the Middle East and Africa.

Perhaps in the long run an oppressive system must be burnt down and a new, better system built on top of its ashes, but in the meantime, those who work within the system must do what they can to ensure that the system does not become even more destructive, even more oppressive than it already is. Standing up and doing something to change the system is a good thing, of course, but not everyone is in a position to do so openly, or freely. For those people, perhaps the best they can do is to ???serve honorably,??? and in doing so, become a light of hope for others who might have no hope at all. Not everyone can be a revolutionary, but then again, not all revolutionaries fight at the barricades; sometimes they operate from within the system itself, fighting the good fight in their own small, but no less important, way.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-Gv