So I definitely got this book from the library because I had just seen "What I am is the Indian who can't die.
I'm the worst dream America ever had."
So I definitely got this book from the library because I had just seen Sinners* and, like everyone else, was obsessed with that five-minute scene we got of the indigenous vampire hunters and needed MORE.
Full disclosure: this book is not that movie. People who read more than I do have definitely put together lists that do feature more of what we were teased in the movie, so you have other options.
This is a book about a Native American vampire in the Old West, so...do I even need to work harder to convince you to read it?
Stephen Graham Jones has proved with previous novels that he excels at creepy, gory set pieces and terrifying imagery, and he's showing off those skills to full effect here. This book is scary, bloody, and also deeply sad. It's a horror story that takes place during the post-Civil War genocide of the Native Americans, and Graham Jones is pulling no punches in the "can you find the wolves in this picture" kind of way that Scorsese did in Killers of the Flower Moon. This is not an easy read, but it's so rewarding.
*hey have you seen Sinners yet GO SEE SINNERS...more
"I didn't answer. Then I said, 'My greatest sin has always been that I have a wonderful time being myself. My guilt is always there; my moral abhorren"I didn't answer. Then I said, 'My greatest sin has always been that I have a wonderful time being myself. My guilt is always there; my moral abhorrence for myself is always there; but I have a good time. I'm strong; I'm a creature of great will and passion. You see, that's the core of the dilemma for me - how can I enjoy being a vampire so much, how can I enjoy it if it's evil? Ah, it's an old story.'"
Having been warned that the quality of the Interview With the Vampire series decreases as the books go on, I went into The Tale of the Body Thief with pretty low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
Other reviewers seem unhappy with how low stakes this story is compared to previous Lestat adventures; I liked that we took a break from exploring huge questions like the origins of vampires, and got to relax with a one-off adventure that's almost heist-like. It's light only in the sense that we're not delving into super heavy topics; rest assured that Lestat still can't catch a break.
Catching up with Lestat after the events of The Queen of the Damned, we find our (my) favorite vampire lying low in Miami when he notices that he's being followed. Eventually, he is approached by Raglan James (as someone who hasn't read this far in the book series but is watching the AMC show, believe me when I say I almost gasped out loud when the book version of James is introduced), who has a proposition. Raglan James has the ability to inhabit other bodies (the body he uses to approach Lestat is, of course, not his original one) and he proposes a trade: he'll get two days in Lestat's body, so he can experience life as an all-powerful vampire, and Lestat will inhabit the body of a human man in his twenties and get to re-experience life as a human.
To be fair to our boy, Lestat takes every precaution he can think of to ensure that the switch is temporary, but of course it's a trick, and the book follows Lestat - in human form! - trying to track down the guy who stole his body and force him to switch back. He's helped by a friend from the Talamasca (and based on their interactions, I really wonder if the TV version of Daniel is going to take on this character's role...) and also dear, sad Louis makes an appearance when Lestat is still considering James' offer. It goes about as well as you could imagine, and I could honestly read about these two disasters arguing and sniping at each other for the rest of time:
"'Louis, this man can give me a human body. Have you listened to anything I've said?' 'Human body! Lestat, you can't become human by simply taking over a human body! You weren't human when you were alive! You were born a monster, and you know it. How the hell can you delude yourself like this.' 'I'm going to weep if you don't stop.' 'Weep. I'd like to see you weep. I've read a great deal about your weeping in the pages of your books but I've never seen you weep with my own eyes.' 'Ah, that makes you out to be a perfect liar,' I said furiously. 'You described my weeping in your miserable memoir in a scene which we both know did not take place!'"
Perfection. The book also brings back Claudia, and I'm glad to see that she's still haunting the narrative (and Lestat). After the events of The Tale of the Body Thief, where Lestat actually - maybe - is forced to do some introspection and learn things about himself, I'm excited to see where he goes next....more
He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way.
And he distrusted the kind"Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues.
He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way.
And he distrusted the kind of person who'd take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, 'Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,' and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man's boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he'd been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen and in fact got sea-sick on wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!"...more
By now, I've learned that Terry Pratchett writes an installment of the Witches series when he feels like doing his own spoof of a classic story. Wyrd By now, I've learned that Terry Pratchett writes an installment of the Witches series when he feels like doing his own spoof of a classic story. Wyrd Sisters was Macbeth, Witches Abroad was Cinderella, Lords and Ladies was A Midsummer Night's Dream, and now it's time to hear what Sir Terry thinks of The Phantom of the Opera. He, uh, has notes.
Now that Magrat Garlick is off being a queen (literally, but I guess figuratively as well), Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax find themselves in a coven with only two witches, and anyone can tell you that that's not really a coven at all. But luckily, they have a potential candidate in Agnes Nitt, the local village girl who's shown signs of witch potential. Unluckily, Agnes has moved to the big city of Ankh-Morpork to chase her dream of becoming an opera star. And of course, the opera house has a ghost.
I'll be honest that the only reason this didn't totally blow me away (and why I strongly considered bumping the rating down to three stars) is because it felt like the book was building to something much bigger than what the ending delivered. I wanted more of a bang, but overall this book was so much fun. Terry Pratchett has some opinions about opera as an art form, and you know what you're getting into right at the dedication:
"My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here."
Plus, this is our introduction to Agnes Nitt, and I can't wait for the next book when she's hopefully an official third member of the coven, because you can't not love her:
"She'd woken up one morning with the horrible realization that she'd been saddled with a lovely personality. It was as simple as that. Oh, and very good hair. It wasn't so much the personality, it was the 'but' that people always added when they talked about it. But she's got such a lovely personality, they said. It was the lack of choice that rankled. N one had asked her, before she was born, whether she wanted a lovely personality or whether she'd prefer, say a miserable personality but a body that could take size nine in dresses. Instead, people would take pains to tell her that beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair of kidneys. She could feel a future trying to land on her. She'd caught herself saying 'poot!' and 'dang!' when she wanted to swear, and using pink writing paper. She'd got a reputation for being calm and capable in a crisis. Next thing she knew she'd be making shortbread and apple pies as good as her mother's, and then there'd be no hope for her."...more
I know the Rincewind books aren't every Discworld fan's favorite (he has the unfortunate distinction of carrying the first installment, The Color of MI know the Rincewind books aren't every Discworld fan's favorite (he has the unfortunate distinction of carrying the first installment, The Color of Magic, which every hardcore fan loves to adamantly warn new readers away from), but I love this little guy. As far as the Rincewind adventures go, this is one is super fun and functions almost like a direct sequel to The Light Fantastic, so yes you do have to read that one before you try this.
The story kicks off with Rincewind once again unwilling finding himself in Situations he wants absolutely no part of. In this case, it's the Agatean Empire, and the Situation is a brewing revolution against the emperor.
Fair warning: Pratchett has based his setting on Imperial China (or sometimes Imperial Japan, if he thinks it'll be funnier) and overall it...has not aged well. This is a solid Rincewind adventure, with some great callbacks to the very first Discworld book, and I enjoyed myself the entire time I was reading it, don't get me wrong. But there are definitely some jokes that didn't land, and I was disappointed that Pratchett went that direction because he's usually so good at zigging where other fantasy authors zag, and it was a bummer to see him lean fully into lazy stereotypes and not do anything new with them....more
I read the first book in the Alex Stern series, Ninth House so long ago that I had completely forgotten to be on the lookout for the sequel. So it wasI read the first book in the Alex Stern series, Ninth House so long ago that I had completely forgotten to be on the lookout for the sequel. So it was a delight to see it pop up under New Releases when I was searching for ebooks to rent from the library - I got it and immediately dove in.
I then realized by around the third chapter that I had forgotten a huge chunk of the plot from Ninth House, so the sequel got shelved while I checked out the first book from the library and re-read it. Then it was Take Two.
Overall, this is a really satisfying sequel! I don't feel like it's a spoiler to let people know that yes, we do get a satisfying conclusion to the "Darlington got sucked into hell" plotline from the first book - Bardugo is so relentlessly cruel to her protagonist (in a good way!) that part of me was worried she was going to keep Darlington in a limbo state just to keep torturing Alex. (Seriously, can this girl please have one good day? It got to the point where I was comforted even by the brief scenes where she gets to sit down and actually eat a meal.) This book also has Bardugo expanding on the lore she established in the first book, and moving the scope of the story beyond the Yale campus. And this, unfortunately, is to the story's detriment.
Something started bugging me about the whole Darlington plot all the way back in Book One, and the sequel, which establishes that Darlington is not only stuck in hell but is also a demon now, really crystallized what the problem is.
It's so simple and so obvious that I can't believe none of Bardugo's editors pointed this out to her: the characters constantly repeating that Darlington's a demon doesn't land, because we haven't seen any other demons in this story before. As the readers, we have absolutely no frame of reference for what it means to be a demon in Alex Stern's universe, and therefore we have no idea what the stakes of Darlington's current state really are. Having Alex & Co face off against a different demon in the first book would have gone a long way in making readers better understand what was at stake when Darlington got dragged into hell. Forgive me for referencing Supernatural in 2025, but at least that show understood that the viewers need to see demons doing demon stuff for a few episodes before one of the main characters gets turned into one.
Bardugo also introduces some new supernatural creatures, including a vampire. Alex Stern learns that vampires exist in this universe at the same time I as the reader did, and once again, I have no frame of reference for what that means for this story! And, thanks to the vampire being a C-plot in the story while Alex is more occupied with how to get into hell, we have an extremely frustrating sequence of events where Alex meets a vampire and then doesn't tell anyone about it for days. It started to feel like Bardugo was either making stuff up as she went along with no plan, or that she has an expansive cast of supernatural creatures on deck in her brain and no idea how to introduce them organically into the story, and neither of those theories bode well for Book Three.
She also seems to have gotten bored of the secret societies angle, which is weird, because that was kind of the entire selling point of the series? Ninth House had Alex overseeing multiple rituals and interacting with the societies on a regular basis; in Hell Bent, they're a barely-mentioned presence. It seems like the whole "secrete societies at Yale practice occult magic" was actually just the jumping-off point for the story Bardugo actually wanted to write, which seems to be a knockoff of the show Angel? And I'm not knocking Angel, that show was great, but Bardugo, bless her, is no Marti Noxon.
Also the very end of the book (I'm going to try to keep this spoiler-free, I swear) introduces what I can only describe as a wacky sidekick for Alex Stern's growing gang of supernatural investigators, and the whole thing felt so tonally off from the rest of the book that it almost threw me out of the story. The Alex Stern series is many things but funny is absolutely not one of them, so introducing a character who seems intended to function as comic relief was a weird choice, to say the least. I won't even be able to enjoy this character in the sequel, because the whole time I'll be waiting for Bardugo to pull the rug out from under me and reveal that nope, this isn't a fun new friend, this is another reminder from the universe that good things don't happen to Alex Stern!
Overall, a solid sequel that resolves most of the hanging threads left over from the first book while setting up new adventures for the sequel, but Bardugo is starting to lose control of the story and while I'm still going to read Book Three, I don't have a lot of faith in her ability to bring this all together at the end....more
The Queen of the Damned picks up right where The Vampire Lestat left off, with Lestat's concert getting crashed by Akasha, one of the two original vamThe Queen of the Damned picks up right where The Vampire Lestat left off, with Lestat's concert getting crashed by Akasha, one of the two original vampires (and she's not alone). The narrative goes deeper into Akasha's lore, and also introduces us to the Talamasca through one of its members. And best of all, we get the conclusion to the vampire origin story that was started in The Vampire Lestat and go alllllll the way back to the beginning to find out how vampires came into existence. And perhaps best of all, we get to revisit our pal Daniel Molloy from Interview with the Vampire and learn what he's been up to since his "novel" was published. He's, uh...been better.
The book only lost its momentum at the very end, when Akasha reveals her entire Evil Plot, because it's, in a word, stupid. To Anne Rice's credit, other characters point out how laughable bad her ideas are, and I'm pretty sure that the plan is supposed to be bonkers because Akasha has been in an atrophied state for centuries and her brain is toast. But it was still annoying having to read her I'm-going-to-take-over-the-world-and-here's-how monologues. Frankly I think she didn't even have a ton of faith in what she was saying.
(God, I cannot WAIT for the AMC show to tackle all the story lines in this book. It's going to get WEIRD and I need them to announce the Akasha casting yesterday)
Based on some other reviews I've read of the Vampire Chronicles series, the quality starts to dip after the third book, but honestly I think I'm going to continue with the series and see how far it takes me because I'm having so much fun....more
This is one of the Discworld installments where you can tell that Sir Terry sat down at his computer and said, "Let's have some fun with it!"
He's gettThis is one of the Discworld installments where you can tell that Sir Terry sat down at his computer and said, "Let's have some fun with it!"
He's getting a little loose with this one, in other words, and having fun with some good old Pratchett-style parody. Considering that this is a Death installment, and so far those have proved to be the Discworld books most likely to wreck me, it's kind of a relief that this one is so light. Plus, this functions as a kind-of sequel to Mort, and we get to meet Death's granddaughter! Her name is Susan.
Plus, all the music industry in-jokes are worth the price of admission alone, even if Pratchett's view on rock music does veer pretty hard into Get Off My Lawn territory. How can you say no to a book that features a band called We're Certainly Dwarfs?
(aka They Might Be Giants. Shut up, Pratchett's a genius.)...more
This is one of those Gamechanger books within the Discworld series, where Terry Pratchett moves the needle a little bit by introducing a new aspect ofThis is one of those Gamechanger books within the Discworld series, where Terry Pratchett moves the needle a little bit by introducing a new aspect of the Disc, or a new piece of lore, or in this case, new technology. One of the joys of reading Discworld in chronological order is seeing how the world of the Disc slowly moves from a classic pseudo-medieval fantasy setting into its own industrial revolution, and Men at Arms is a major one in terms of upping the stakes: in this one, guns are introduced to the Disc.
It's going to be really interesting to see how this new technology affects the rest of the series, and I'm especially excited to finally get to Monstrous Regiment, which was technically the first Discworld book I tried before realizing that I needed to go back and start with Book 1.
Also, the City Watch books are just so much fun. In additional to Corporal Carrot (we love you, Carrot!) and Captain Vimes (who is trying and failing to retire) we get some fun new additions to the watch, who are trying to recruit more men into their ranks. They get new recruits, all right, but none of them are men. Hijinks ensue....more
"Paul consulted his memory of the vision: in it, he'd left here with the names of the traitors, but never seeing how those names were carried. The dwa"Paul consulted his memory of the vision: in it, he'd left here with the names of the traitors, but never seeing how those names were carried. The dwarf obviously moved under the protection of another oracle. It occurred to Paul then that all creatures must carry some kind of destiny stamped out by purpose of varying strengths, by the fixation of training and disposition. From the moment the Jihad had chosen him, he'd felt hemmed in by the forces of a multitude. Their fixed purpose demanded and controlled his course. Any delusions of Free Will he harbored now must be merely the prisoner rattling his cage. His curse lay in the fact that he saw the cage. He saw it!"
Oh yeah. Book 2 of the Dune series and Frank Herbert is starting to get freaky with it. Strap in.
Dune Messiah picks up fifteen years after the end of the previous book. Paul is the all-powerful emperor, with a literal cult following and unchecked power. As an added bonus, his gift of prescience is now so strong that he knows exactly what his future holds, and because he's unable to change it, goes through the motions of his life like an actor following a script.
So the scope of this novel, which covers topics like destiny and fanaticism and the lie of the Messiah myth, is also a very small-scale human drama: the core of this novel, when you really peel back the layers, is about Paul and Chani and Irulian and Alia. This is a family soap that affects the destiny of a galaxy, and the way Herbert balances the small and large scale dramas is incredible to watch.
Also, it cannot be overstated, this book is so goddamn weird. To give any more details would be giving away spoilers, but rest assured that Frank Herbert is operating on a whole other level. I can't wait to see where he takes things next. ...more
"Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experi"Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.
-from 'Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib' by the Princess Irulan"
Part of me wishes I had read this series before seeing the Villeneuve movies, because I think the way they've adapted this story for film is fascinating and so, so well done, and it would have been cool to watch the movies and have a full appreciation of how they changed the story to fit a movie format. (On the other hand - I went into the first Dune movie knowing almost nothing about the books and I never felt lost for a second, which tells you what a good job they did)
But I can also appreciate that I had a kind of primer before starting this. Paul's prophetic visions also bleed into the narrative style of the book, and you can see Herbert frequently hinting at characters or scenes that will become important much father down the line (for example - one of the early excerpts from an in-world novel is from "St. Alia of the Knife", and we don't learn who that is until much later in the book). This is a story that is just slightly unmoored in its own timeline, and having seen the movie helped keep me grounded in the narrative.
But movie adaptation aside, this is just a rock-solid fantasy epic that is also so, so fucking cool. Herbert does atmosphere like nobody's business, and his characters are so well done that I didn't even realize how much of this story is just different peoples' inner thoughts until another reviewer pointed out.
Also, the writing is...incredible? Frank Herbert has a way of turning a phrase that is just incredible to witness, and I just wish I had marked more passages to quote. I did manage to get this one, from the arena scene with Feyd-Rautha:
"'You!' the man moaned. Feyd-Rautha drew back to give death its space. The paralyzing drug in the poison had yet to take full effect, but the man's slowness told of its advance. The slave staggered forward as though drawn by a string - one dragging step at a time. Each step was the only step in his universe. He still clutched his knife, but its point wavered."
Amina al-Sirafi was once one of the most notorious pirates of the 12th century, but is now retired and living in mostly-happy obscurity with her familAmina al-Sirafi was once one of the most notorious pirates of the 12th century, but is now retired and living in mostly-happy obscurity with her family. *movie trailer voice*
Until one day...she's pulled back in for one last job.
This story had such a great setup - badass former pirate has to bring her crew back together for one last job, and goes on an adventure full of sea monsters, magic, backstabbing, and lots of be-gay-do-crimes fun for the whole family.
I loved the pirate angle, I loved the 12th century Middle Eastern setting, I loved the characters (even though Chakraborty does fall a little too frequently into the trap of annoyingly quippy dialogue)...but ultimately, this one never fully got off the ground, and I finished it feeling mostly let down.
The pacing is what really killed this novel for me. The adventure should move smoothly and gradually pick up speed as we get closer to the climax; instead, it lurches unevenly along, often slowing down or jerking to a complete stop just when we want Chakraborty to step on the gas. After the first big villain confrontation, Amina gets separated from her crew (and the plot) and has to spend entire chapters trying to get back to the main story. Without getting too spoiler-y, basically she's trapped on a magic island, and then a character is like, "there's a way you can leave, we just have to talk to the council first!" And all I could think was, no, I don't want to go talk to the council, I want to get back to the story, we are wasting time. It's extra frustrating because the whole Amina-talks-to-the-council nonsense was only so that Chakraborty could clumsily set up the sequels.
It can't be the book it wants to be. The jail break scene isn't clever enough, the battle sequences aren't cool enough, and Amina isn't the badass that Chakraborty tries to make her out to be. Amina is one of the protagonists who is constantly surrounded by characters who keep insisting to the reader that she's such a badass, she's so ruthless, she's so scary...and this absolves the protagonist from actually have to do anything ruthless or scary. There's no way around it: Amina al-Sirafi is nice, despite how hard Chakraborty tries to tell us otherwise, and it takes all the wind out of the book's sails.
This novel could and should have been a standalone, not the first in a sequel. As I said, the justification for next few books in the series is clumsy and is also spelled out so clearly that it made me even less interested in reading them, because Chakraborty basically lays out her plan for the next few books right in front of us, as if that's going to make us care. Also, the title The Last Adventure of Amina al-Sirafi was RIGHT THERE. Come on, Shannon!
Oh, speaking of which...I don't want to get too bogged down in this, but I feel like every review of this book should clarify that "SA Chakraborty" is a white woman. That's the name that Goodreads attaches to this book, but my edition has "Shannon Chakraborty" on the title page, so going by only your initial and your Middle-Eastern married name to sell your novel about a Middle Eastern protagonist is...a choice, that's all I'm going to say.
Look, like I said, I don't want to get bogged down in the ethics of this move, and I also think it's always dangerous territory when someone starts talking about how "so-and-so isn't allowed to write about this topic", but on the other hand, there's something very Yellowface about being a white woman who writes a book set in the Middle East, with a Middle Eastern protagonist and almost exclusively POC characters, and then publishing that book using a name that will lead readers to believe you are also a POC. Like, it's not deliberately lying, but considering that there's been such a huge push in the past few years to support non-Eurocentric fantasy written by POC, and people may have purchased Amina al-Sirafi thinking they were supporting one of these authors...I dunno. It feels gross. ...more
“Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands jo“Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way.” “Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way.”
I honestly can't believe it took me this long to dive into Ursula K. Le Guin. I have one of her essay collections, but that was as much of her work that I'd read before starting The Left Hand of Darkness.
The novel, considered one of the heavy hitters in science fiction, is written as a report recorded by the intergalactic diplomat Genly Ai, who has been sent to the planet Gethen to persuade its government to join the confederation of planets called the Ekumen. Genly is a stranger in a strange land, to borrow another title from a sci-fi classic, and his mission on Gethen mostly relies on him learning the Gethen culture and customs - most notably, that the residents of Gethen are gender/sex fluid, and can change their sex organs as necessary. Genly forms an uneasy alliance with a local politician named Estraven, and Le Guin focuses her story on their relationship, using it to flesh out the world of Gethen.
Even without any real experience with Le Guin's other writing, this was absolutely nothing like I was expecting. This is one of those books where I never, at any point, had any idea where the story was going to go next, and it works phenomenally well. Sure, there are pitfalls to the storytelling - as many other reviewers have pointed out, Le Guin's portrayal of a genderfluid society is very much mired in the 1960's when it was published (the most important trait of the people of Gethen is that they do not have a fixed sex or gender, yet Genly uses he/him pronouns for almost everyone he meets), but it's not really fair to hold the book to today's standards. Sure, certain aspects of the worldbuilding are clumsy, but they ultimately don't distract from the beauty and the devastation of this story.
Le Guin understands that to make your audience understand a huge topic, you have to go small: in the end, this is the story of a relationship between two people thrown together by extraordinary circumstances. ...more
God, I love it when Terry Pratchett does a Shakespeare riff.
He seems to love using the witches specifically to mess around in the bard's sandbox, andGod, I love it when Terry Pratchett does a Shakespeare riff.
He seems to love using the witches specifically to mess around in the bard's sandbox, and I'm very here for it - before, he gave us the Discworld spin on Macbeth in Wyrd Sisters, and here he's taking the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream and running with it as only Sir Terry Pratchett can.
This one is notable because it's the first time the "you can read the books in any order" coda of Discworld fans doesn't work - if you're diving into this one as your first foray into the Witches sub-series, you're going to feel a little bit at sea. Terry Pratchett even breaks down and puts an introduction at the beginning of the book - Lords and Ladies picks up almost immediately after Witches Abroad ended, and Pratchett found it necessary to give new readers a quick rundown of what they missed last time.
Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are fan favorites for a reason, and this book is even more fun than their previous adventure, because like all the best Discworld books, Pratchett allows it to go dark for a little while before finally turning everything around, and you finish it feeling kind of hollowed out and a little sad still, but in the best way.
Plus, I dare you to say no to an excerpt like this, which is basically Prachett's entire storytelling style (draw the reader in with jokes and incredible world-building and then punch them squarely in the gut) distilled down to three paragraphs:
"It wasn't that Ridcully was stupid. Truly stupid wizards have the life expectancy of a glass hammer. He had quite a powerful intellect, but it was powerful like a locomotive, and ran on rails and was therefore almost impossible to steer. There are indeed such things as parallel universes, although parallel is hardly the right word - universes swoop and spiral around one another like some mad weaving machine or a squadron of Yossarians with middle-ear trouble. And they branch. But, and this is important, not all the time. The universe doesn't much care if you tread on a butterfly. There are plenty more butterflies. Gods might note the fall of a sparrow but they don't make any effort to catch them."...more
I have a long-term project to work my way through the entire Discworld series (I'm reading them in strictly chronological order; no, I will not be takI have a long-term project to work my way through the entire Discworld series (I'm reading them in strictly chronological order; no, I will not be taking feedback on this choice), and having hit the double digits at last, it feels like we're definitely past the early books that Pratchett fans always tell you to avoid. (I will, however, always defend The Color of Magic and the need to start your Discworld journey with that one)
Small Gods is definitely one of the heavy hitters of the Discworld canon and it's easy to see why. I was sold on this one as soon as I realized I was going to get to watch Pratchett gently and expertly taking apart organized religion - and, because he's the best, he does so in way that manages to never be condescending or cruel, and is so, so incredibly smart.
Plus, it's about the adventures of a monk named Brutha and a tortoise, who is also a god. Tell me that's not going to be a good time. ...more
If you're looking for a sweet, gentle comfort read that will also give you a glimmer of hope for the future (good morning from the hellscape, fellow UIf you're looking for a sweet, gentle comfort read that will also give you a glimmer of hope for the future (good morning from the hellscape, fellow US citizens!), The House in the Cerulean Sea may be just what you're looking for.
The book takes place in a universe where magical creatures live alongside (well, sort of) ordinary humans, and these creatures have been classified and catalogued by the human government. Our protagonist, Linus Baker, is a government worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth - specifically, he is a case worker for orphaned children with magical abilities. The story starts when Linus is given an unusual assignment: he is being sent to an island orphanage run by the mysterious Arthur Parnassus, who oversees the care of six children. Well, kind of - the residents of the orphanage are a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, a creature that nobody has been able to classify yet (he's kind of a green blob-thing), a werewolf that only turns into a Pomeranian, and the AntiChrist (they all call him Lucy).
This is charming and sweet and adorable from beginning to end, and if you're reading the plot description and thinking, "oh, okay, I get it, this is all a metaphor for queer kids", then you're kind of right - much like in X-Men, TJ Kune is using the concept of children with magical abilities to explore the challenges and prejudices faced by real kids who are labeled as “other", for whatever reason. But rest assured that, aside from the magical-abilities-as-metaphor, this book is also gay as hell in all the best ways.
It's simple and cute, and yes, some of the big twists are pretty obvious, but this is also not a story that relies on the audience being shocked by different revelations. This is an exploration of humanity through the lens of magical beings, and if you're in need of some cozy found-family adventures, this is what you've been looking for....more
"People like Nanny Ogg turn up everywhere. It's as if there's some special morphic generator dedicated to the production of old women who like a laugh"People like Nanny Ogg turn up everywhere. It's as if there's some special morphic generator dedicated to the production of old women who like a laugh and aren't averse to the odd pint, especially of some drink normally found in very small glasses. You find them all over the place, often in pairs.* They tend to attract one another. Possibly they broadcast inaudible signals indicating that here is someone who could be persuaded to go 'Ooo' at pictures of other people's grandchildren.
*Always in front of you in any queue, for a start."
It's time for more adventures of Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, and Magrat Garlick - our favorite not-coven of witches who are definitely not friends, thank you very much. At the beginning of the story, Magrat has been given a wand, and a mission, by a dying fairy godmother: she has to travel to the distant kingdom of Genua, find the servant girl Emberella, and ensure that she doesn't go to the ball.
This is equal parts road-trip adventure and good-hearted spoof fairy tale tropes (with a bonus extended Lord of the Rings reference that made me laugh way harder than I expected it to), and much like he did in Moving Pictures, Pratchett is using this book to explore the concept of stories, and how and why they matter so much - although his approach is much kinder here than in Moving Pictures. I read somewhere online that Pratchett was inspired to write this book after visiting Disney World and New Orleans, and you can definitely see those influences all over the story.
It's a delightful, hilarious good time with the Disc's best (?) witches, and as an added bonus, is endlessly quotable and features the adventures of a cat named Greebo:
"Cats are like witches. They don't fight to kill, but to win. There is a difference. There's no point in killing an opponent. That way, they won't know they've lost, and to be a real winner you have to have an opponent who is beaten and knows it. There's no triumph over a corpse, but a beaten opponent, who will remain beaten every day of the remainder of their sad and wretched life, is something to treasure. Cats do not, of course, rationalize this far. They just like to send someone limping off minus a tail and a few square inches of fur. Greebo's technique was unscientific and wouldn't have stood a chance against any decent swordsmanship, but on his side was the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent swordsmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off."...more
Having now read two of the Death subgenre of Discworld, I might have to admit that they're my favorite in the series. I mean, I love the Witches booksHaving now read two of the Death subgenre of Discworld, I might have to admit that they're my favorite in the series. I mean, I love the Witches books. Also Rincewind, my first love, never disappoints.
But MAN, the Death books will get you right in the feelings and not apologize for it. Mort was the introduction to Death and how things in his world function; Reaper Man sees Death getting to have a solo adventure that starts when Death's upper management (allow me to explain: read the book) come to him and congratulate him on his retirement. Problem is, Death hadn't actually been planning to retire, and now has to figure out how to...just live in the world? Hilarity ensues, and then some stuff that'll make you put the book down so you can stare at the wall and try to just process your emotions. ...more
The thing that this particular installment of Discworld taught me is that the “parody” novels are probably my least favorite subgenre within the serieThe thing that this particular installment of Discworld taught me is that the “parody” novels are probably my least favorite subgenre within the series (the exception being Wyrd Sisters, but I liked that one because of Granny Weatherwax and not because it was a spoof of Macbeth, so my point stands).
Moving Pictures is doing important work in terms of worldbuilding and advancing the state of technology on the Disc (this one, as the title suggest, introduces the film industry to the Disc, but because it’s Terry Pratchett, the “cameras” are actually boxes containing tiny demons that paint whatever the actors are doing onto film strips); the problem is that more often than not, it seems a little too satisfied with how clever it’s being. The ‘oh ho ho, I’m doing a scathing send-up of Hollywood’ schtick got old very quickly, and Pratchett often veers uncomfortably close to ‘movies are inferior entertainment and the people who enjoy them are too stupid to appreciate real art’ territory, which is both a god-awful take and also a deeply embarrassing look on Terry Pratchett, who has the skill to make readers root for an anthropomorphic steamer trunk. Too often, the book gets overly self-indulgent with its ‘hurr, movies are magic but it’s bad magic’ thesis, and even though Pratchett pulls it together in the end (because he always does), it takes us a little too long to get there....more
First and foremost, I absolutely loved Lies Sleeping. It was a perfect culmination of everything AaronovitcI'm a little torn about this one, I admit.
First and foremost, I absolutely loved Lies Sleeping. It was a perfect culmination of everything Aaronovitch has spent the last six books building to, and by the end of it, I was perfectly satisfied with the conclusion to the Faceless Man saga.
Satisfied enough, in fact, that even though I know Peter Grant's adventures continue past this book, I think I'm finished with the Rivers of London series, and I'll try to explain why.
Like I mentioned in one of my reviews for a previous installment, this series consists not only of the adventures of Peter Grant, London cop and apprentice wizard; but there are entire supplementary series where side characters get their own adventures outside Grant's own story. Having not done any of the additional reading, the problem I started to run into somewhere around Book 5 was that the series was starting to strain under the weight of all these extra side quests and bonus material, and I was starting to feel seriously out of the loop as Aaronovitch's characters would reference conversations or entire adventures that I hadn't been present for. As the extra novels continue to grow outside Peter Grant's sphere, I worry that this will only get worse. (and yes, I am aware that I could just get caught up on the extra books, thank you. But there are so many extra books and I don't feel like doing extra homework just so I can understand the references to side quests that ultimately don't have any bearing on the main plot of the book I'm reading.)
And then there's the fact that immediately after I finished Lies Sleeping, I went out and picked up Book 8 (False Value), and then almost immediately abandoned it. No spoilers, but after the events of Book 7, Book 8 finds Peter Grant in very different circumstances than we've gotten used to seeing him in, and the change was too sudden and felt too wrong for me, and I couldn't adjust.
The Rivers of London is a phenomenal series, and I look forward to eventually doing a re-read of Peter Grant's adventures. But the seventh installment is the perfect stopping point if you're feeling series fatigue, and I think this is where I part ways with Peter Grant & Co. But it's been a pleasure. ...more