📚 Small reviews

📖 Revenger by Alastair Reynolds

Finished: 31st December 2022

Read in a covid haze, I started out feeling like I didn't have much connection to the book and it was going to be a bit of a generic slog. However the character of Fura, along with the people around her, soon changed and became much more interesting. Some of the central concepts and mysteries, like the bones, baubles, and quoins also left enough questions for me to be keen to read more in the series. In the end I enjoyed it, it was a strong read and I was excited to see how it ended.

📖 All my rage by Sabaa Tahir

Finished: 15th December 2022

I liked this book more and more and more as it went on. By the end, it made me cry, which not much does. This is a wonderful, touching story about the lives of 3 main characters, told through chapters from each's perspective... kind of. You see some of the plot points coming a mile off, but that doesn't take away from letting it all play out. I really enjoyed the characters, the writing, and the use of music to illustrate key moments and themes. And references to Saga and Lying Cat. A really enjoyable book.

📖 Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Finished: 2nd December 2022

An extremely short read, but one that I enjoyed. Binti was a character that I could get behind from the start, and the descriptions of prejudice and difference made me both feel for her, but also helped build the world really quickly. There were a number of new terms and fantastical concepts (a ship that was a giant space prawn!) but unlike the previous book I read, I found it easy to imagine the concepts. I only wish it was a bit longer and extensive, as it felt more like a short story than a novella but I'd definitely be keen to read more.

📖 Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire book 1) by Yoon Ha Lee

Finished: 30th November 2022

This book reminded me of what it feels like to try to read Japanese novels a bit too far above my level: I kind of get the gist of what's going on, but I couldn't answer questions well on details. Even after finishing this book and getting the 'explainer chapters' at the end, there are fundamental bits I simply don't understand. Apparently I'm not alone, with a ton of people on Goodreads experiencing similar. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to use my imagination, and I don't need it spelled out to me exactly what a servitor, formation instinct, or exotic weapons are exactly. But right from the start the sheer level of never explained terms made the world-building feel weak and disconnected for me. Characters with non-memorable names were thrown in and soon disappear, leading to a lot of 'am I meant to know this name?' too. Despite all that, I did like the central concept, and I'm open to reading more in the series as it sounds like they're a bit more accessible...and maybe will help me put some of the pieces together about this book!

📖 The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway

Finished: 8th November 2022

This book has floated around my awareness for ages. I'd seen it on various lists and reviews, and knew the name when it later sat around our house as one of the books my husband bought for a holiday but never read. After all that time, I was disappointed that it was not for me. It starts by describing 'Mrs Flynn the Barman's arse' which got us off on the wrong foot, but I was prepared to put this down to the narration rather than the author. And whilst there's a lot in a similar vein, it wasn't that that did it.

It took me at least 200 long pages of the overall 582 to remotely get into the story (which actually ends up being reasonably interesting as a concept, if a bit chaotic and all over the place in execution). This book suffers hugely from wild ramblings, in both tangents and style of writing. On one page there's a sentence with 193 words, which sadly isn't an exception. If it was a third of the size and written differently I'd have liked it a lot more. A shame!

📖 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Finished: 30th October 2022

I'd seen this rated highly by others, and it didn't disappoint. I'd also seen comparisons with Ready Player One, which is nonsense, and extremely lazy. If anything it reminded me more of Halt and Catch Fire. This is a beautifully written book, which perfectly captures all kinds of very human emotions and situations. The plot itself for me felt secondary to the characters, who had wonderful depth and flaws, and who felt very real after spending more and more time reading. At one point there's a very notable event, and I found myself wanting to cheat and look ahead to see if everything turned out ok or not, because I was that invested. For others the video game heavy content will be too much, but for me it was a big draw. Loved it.

📖 How high we go in the dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Finished: 14th October 2022

I struggled to give this one a rating. It's a very good book; it's a 4 really. On finishing it I wanted to re-read it to see what references and connections I'd missed now the web had all been laid out for me... except I didn't want to. It's probably the timing, of going into another winter in a pandemic that people have all-but given up on, but this book was just a bit too bleak for me right now. Yes, there are also themes of persistence and hope and community, but it won't be those images that stay with me, it'll be the thought of a euthanasia rollercoaster for kids.

📖 The best, most awful job by Katherine May

Finished: 9th October 2022

I was given this by a very kind friend on returning home from hospital with my kid. And to be honest, since then I've been a bit scared to start it. When I looked at the title, the 'most awful' part always jumped out, and I was afraid that it'd affirm fears and limitations and upset. But it was in fact quite the opposite. In this collection of essays around motherhood (in all kinds of forms) I unexpectedly found so much resonated, but it was instead reaffirming and gave voice to many things I'd experienced and felt but maybe hadn't had the words for. I wanted to underline things to come back to, but there'd have been so much. It's a book that I'd give someone else, in the hope that they too may take so much from it.

📖 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Finished: 6th October 2022

Yay, something I enjoyed! I haven't read The Martian in years, but the main character reads (from memory) as very similar. It was a nice easy read with lots of science thought gone into it, which juuust about falls on the side of helpful explanations rather than coming off as just very know it all. I was also actually really enjoying how little of the Everything Constantly Goes Wrong In Space trope it was using... until the book hits a patch of Lots Goes Wrong. Oh well. I enjoyed finding out more through the flashbacks, and generally found it an interesting idea.

📖 The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan

Finished: 30th September 2022

I was lent this by someone who didn't enjoy it, and I took that as a bit of a challenge, thinking it'd suit my tastes better. However this was really not for me either. I didn't get this book at all, which makes me feel like I'm missing something and am stupid, but I found this disjointed, without substance, repetitive, and just bloody confusing. Even after finishing I have absolutely no idea what was going on with the disappearing, which felt utterly out of place in the story about the mother's decline. I read this over a day and a half, during times where I was settling the baby's milk. That's a fast read for me, and it was partly so because I skimmed over so much of the repetitive incoherent babbling sections, and overly elaborate but tedious descriptions. An easily forgettable book.

📖 Jack Four by Neal Asher

Finished: 15th August 2022

This was another Christmas present. It's a standalone book from a universe I haven't read anything else from, but that side was ok apart from the glossary at the start making it feel more daunting than it actually was. I was going to give it 3.5 as the plot was fun and engaging enough, but as I got through the last couple of chapters I decided to downgrade it. For me, there was just too much unnecessary nastiness (mostly gore, but about 4 different explosive shitting scenes), even for an action book. I also wasn't a fan of the entirely unneeded and lazily thrown in rape scene at the start to show a character is A Bad Dude. Plus The Big Reveal at the end was incredibly obvious from much earlier on. And don't get me started on the cliched sex scene. Looking on Goodreads just now the reviews are a series of gushing men, and that's how this book feels – a blokey bloke's read.

📖 Cribsheet by Emily Oster

Finished: 1st August 2022

This was a recommendation, and whilst it was interesting enough it took me ages to get through because I'm just not much of a factual book reader. It contains some content that I found very useful, and which also helped me form up and rationalise some of my thinking and decision making, so in that sense it's been good. But I'll be glad to get back to fiction again!

📖 The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

Finished: 30th April 2022

Having read all of the previous Wayfarers series I'd been waiting a while for this one to come out in paperback, and it didn't disappoint. Very little happens; it's basically a book detailing conversations between the characters. However I've thoroughly enjoyed the detail of the world building in this series, particularly around the cultural aspects of different species, and this book gives lots of that. It was also nice to get to know Pei a bit better after her previous appearances.

📖 Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Finished: 14th April 2022

A nice little read that I chipped away at, usually across short stints in early mornings. I found the slightly mysterious and mostly left to your imagination world-building an interesting setting for the story, and enjoyed both Klara's narration/perspective and the other characters she interacts with.

📖 Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse book 1) by James S. A. Corey

Finished: 26th March 2022

It initially took me a while to get up to speed with reading this, which I eventually worked out was not having the usual page-turner, just-another-chapter aspect of not knowing what happens (as I'd already seen the TV show). However as I went on, I really enjoyed revisiting the characters and story. On finishing it I'm looking forward to working my way through the rest. And it's also worth acknowledging that it's just a bloody good read, with or without the TV show.

📖 The Storyteller by Dave Grohl

Finished: 12th February 2022

Another Christmas present. I don't normally buy too many biographies, but obviously this is Dave! I really enjoyed the writing style, and the way that different stories were woven together. I also learnt some things that I didn't know about before. A really enjoyable, easy read.

📖 The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction by Various

Finished: 1st February 2022

A Christmas present, this collection of short stories varied in how much I enjoyed them, but I didn't absolutely love any. Given the framing I was hoping there'd be more writing about the city itself, but it was actually pretty limited. Jumps from monster story, to semi-explicit sex fantasies, to family dynamics. Lots of it felt obviously translated, and actually left me wishing it had included the Japanese too, so I could read the originals.

📖 Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot diaries 6) by Martha Wells

Finished: 11th January 2022

Finished my Murderbot binge, and I am bereft :(. This one jumps back before Network Effect rather than carrying on, and is basically a detective story with robots. Not quite as great as some of what came before, but still incredibly enjoyable.

📖 Network Effect (Murderbot diaries 5) by Martha Wells

Finished: 3rd January 2022

Ahhh so good! This is a longer read than all of the others, and I'm pleased as I loved it all. The pacing is absolutely bang on, I loved the evolving interactions between SecUnit and the ship, but also the introduction of storytelling from different, er, perspectives (no spoilers) brought an interesting but cohesive different dynamic to the story itself. Action, intrigue, amusing parts, humanity, was nothing I didn't like.