Uncommon Indeed

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is another book I would not have picked up on my own. This was a recommendation / selection from the Watch The Skies fan group / book club. I’m quite glad I did get it and read it.

I would place this story in the same category as “The House in the Cerulean Sea” and “Victories Greater Than Death”. The main character is trans, and Asian. Not anything I relate to, but this book is written in such a way that the empathy is there. I was pulling for Katrina. I wanted Satomi to help her.

The characters are interesting. The setting has the feel of a place the author knew well. The story has a lot of hope in it, and that feels like something we could use more of. You should pick this one up.



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Oath

Love the Elmore cover art!

Oath of Swords by David Weber

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I picked this up for two main reasons. First, I was between a couple of science fiction reads and wanted something unlike either. Second, I am an old school lover of sword and sorcery stories. Oath certainly fit the bill for old school sword and sorcery.

I really enjoyed the simple fact that the paladin Bahzell was NOT what one might expect from the modern depictions or presumptions about what it means to be a holy warrior. This holy warrior also happens to be a berserker with an physical presence that can’t be ignored.

The world building here is solid. The magic system plays within the rules that are set out. The travel between places and the hardships involved with that travel all rang quite true. I would quibble with the way the characters spoke, but it was consistent throughout the book. Once you got the hang of how the words were flowing it was easy to read.

IF you’re a fan of old school sword and sorcery novels I’d recommend you pick this one up.



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The City We Became

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I read, finished and enjoyed this one. It was a very real feeling set of characters who moved through and met the very Lovecraftian challenges arising in New York City together. As a reader I clearly got the mental struggle each of them went through as their lives changed when the spirit of the city itself became part of them. It was refreshing to see the wide variation in points of view as well.

I likely would have enjoyed this story a lot more if I were in some way involved or invested in NYC. Honestly, being a Boston person my whole life, it made a lot of the ‘feel’ a little bit off for me. I could easily see a reader diving deep into this story and being in love, but that wasn’t ever going to be me.

If you’re a fan of existential horror, you’ll probably like this book quite a lot.



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The Let Down

I tend to stick to genre related things when I have down time and want some entertainment. My downtime is relatively limited so I want to go with things that look or feel like something I would find enjoyable. Often, I put movies or shows onto a list (watch later, or whatever the particular service calls it). Then, as most people do (I suspect) I go and watch many things that are NOT in fact on my list. Occasionally I’ll go back to one of the lists and pick up something I’ve been meaning to watch. Something that strikes the “I’ve been meaning to watch that…” chord.

Yesterday, I went back and pulled Dragon Blade off one of those lists. A sort of historical looking action/sword fighting movie with Adrian Brody, John Cusak and Jackie Chan. Great line up, right? The movie being something about Romans attempting to lay some kind of claim to the silk road. Cool. Has to be cool… right?

No. Not so much.

I’m not going to review the movie here. It was a mess. There’s a reason you haven’t heard of it. In fact, I’m not going to link to the trailer for this thing either. Do not recommend as the meme goes. What I will say is that it’s such a let down to wait and wait until what feels like just the right time (sword fighty Saturday matinee, amiright?) and then just get let down.

Do you find your level of expectation having an impact on how you feel about a show or film once you’ve finished watching it?

Hypothetically

Hypothetically, our science fiction and fantasy group focuses on reading things within those categories. This was not the case this month

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Side note – I hate that Kindle automatically marks things as “read” on here no matter how many times I change the setting. It’s terrible and stupid to boot.

On to the book itself. I don’t know how a romance novel snuck into the line up for the science fiction book club, but it did. I remain skeptical, but the book does contain scientists and it is fiction… so we’ll go with it?

I found the people in this book to be very real, if not entirely relatable or likable. I know we’re supposed to be cheering for the main character, but she just lies to people all the time. She’s very damaged and unlikable (at least to me).

I have seen others that have been down on this book as a whole, but it was light and quick and gave me everything I was expecting from a romance novel.

If this is the sort of story you enjoy, I would suggest going and reading Bellwether by Connie Willis. It’s a bit older (96) and was nominated for a Nebula award. The story revolves around a scientist studying fads and prediction. IF you enjoy that, then go and read more of Willis’s work – you’ll be glad you did.



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Colonyside

I do like the jungle planet

Colonyside by Michael Mammay

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This one fits the same mold as the previous two in the series.

Carl still doesn’t really grow or learn… we get more and more back story, and that’s good, but he gets played again and again. His blind spots are massive and he ignores them.

This is a good book that fans will enjoy. I’m glad I read it to finish out the series (and this one does end a little better) but I think I’m done.



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Spaceside

Spaceside by Michael Mammay

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m going to be less spoilerific for this review.

Carl is still Carl in this book. The track record of 0 growth continues unbroken. He does have more background given about his life and reason for being in the place where he is, but he doesn’t move forward or learn… again.

There are a couple of returning characters that are enjoyable as much as side characters can be. I didn’t peg the story as quickly this time, but I think some of that was based on the way the whole thing became something of a corporate convoluted mess. I did NOT like the ending where things are resolved… mostly, except a couple of really important things. That sort of ending really irritates me. Give me an epilogue or something – wrap it up. I’ll pick up the next one if the character and/or story interest me. Forcing somebody to get the next one by leaving major things hanging is a jerk move and I resent it.

Once again, this is a very good action thriller that needs the space travel / aliens thing in order to work. Fans of military science fiction will still very much enjoy this story… just know you’re going to need to get the next one for this one to be fully resolved.



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Reading and Reviewing

Last year was a rough year as far as the total number of books I read. This is a very mood based thing for me – but this year seems to be off to a quick start. I’ve managed to polish off 3 books so far – and I’m digging into the 4th already.

Part of this, I’m certain, is the extended time I’ve spent in medical waiting rooms already. I suppose one can put a silver lining in there if you were really working at it.

The first book I finished this year was Planetside… and I just kept forging ahead with the next 2 in the series. Here’s my review of the first one.

Planetside by Michael Mammay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is going to be a spoilerific review ~ fair warning.

I wasn’t certain what I was getting into when I picked this one up. This was a reading group selection for Watch The Skies. It was touted as something military science fiction fans would like. Having powered through this one very quickly, I agree with that.

Around page 45 (ish?) I figured out what happened to the missing Lieutenant. I made a note in the book specifically because I was hoping I was wrong, but I wanted to place that marker in case I wasn’t. I had figured out what happened right then – just not all the specifics of how or why. The guy isn’t among friendlies on the ground and he never gets back into space on the medical ship… that doesn’t leave a lot of choices.

The main character, Carl, has precisely 0 character growth during this story. He does not learn nor does he change at all. His predictability proves to be a significant factor in duping him into making an extremely harsh choice. Firing the missiles/triggering the bombs is definitely a discussion worthy topic.

The secondary characters were well written and believable, but I struggled with the doctor who went from so very strong willed to shooting herself in what felt like an extremely short number of steps. That felt forced and incongruous with her character as written.

Having said all that, I did still enjoy this book. It’s well written and fast paced. It’s a very solid action/thriller style story in space, complete with aliens. I’d love to see this turned into a film.



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SPEAR

Spear by Nicola Griffith

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


First – I hate beyond measure that no matter what I change the settings to on the Kindle it marks these things as read on Goodreads before I get out here to post things. That is a completely different topic, so to the book review.

Giving this book 2 stars doesn’t seem fair, but the “it was ok” that hovers up is the closest thing I could say based on the super limited star system.

The writing, the language, the way this book came together just drew me in. I was enthralled. I love the way this author uses words. I was reading this magical story and loving it.

I was loving it because of my lack of knowledge. I don’t know they myriad forms that the Arthurian legend carries through history. I’m going to say that’s on me. I went into this book cold, no reviews, no understanding of what it was, no blurbs, nothing. I grabbed it from a publisher I know to serve up things I enjoy. This certainly seemed to fit the bill. Then, about 2/3 of the way through the story Christianity was thrown in. That jarred me hard enough to almost stop reading right then and there. THAT is most certainly NOT what I want in my fantasy stories. There’s more to it than that, but we’ll leave it as ‘bad’ in terms of the story.

Then I started to pull all the parts together and understand this as a King Arthur retelling.

IF you want a gender swapped story from the King Arthur story vein, this is an excellent choice. I still believe what I said about the language. It’s wonderfully written. I may go and look at other works by this author… but I will certainly look into what the story is before hand. My feeling toward the story never recovered after that jarring moment – so I don’t know that I could recommend the book.



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BALTICON – The Panels

I posted my schedule back before I headed to the con, so it would seem only fitting to post notes from each of those panels. I often prepare far more than gets used when it comes to panel information. Sometimes this is a question of not having enough time to shove it all in, sometimes it’s a question of sharing panel time and other times the panel just doesn’t go the way I thought it was going to.

I’m going to load these up one at a time so I can give each panel its own space – and even try to tie together with the virtual space!

My first panel of the Balticon weekend was Rating Books in the Algorithm Age and it was in fact my only virtual panel for the weekend.

Here’s the description and what I had prepared as notes~

Rating Books in the Algorithm Age

Do numeric rating systems such as “X out of 10” lead to a loss of nuance? Can the ubiquitous five-star rating system (as used by Amazon and Goodreads) lead to grade inflation? Is a well-written entertaining work deserving of top ratings, or does it also need to be groundbreaking? When a rating is going to be amalgamated without context, what are a reviewer’s ethical responsibilities?

Yes, any scoring system with limits like x out of 10 has a loss of significance. It’s designed and designated specifically to be ‘shorthand’. Can it help? Sure… to a point.

Grade inflation can (and does happen). Of course I’m going to give my book 5 stars. So’s my mom cause I asked her to (no, she won’t read it). It’s unethical to ‘stuff the ballot box’… or is it? Is campaigning for you book and getting your friends to pump it up and get attention?

Well written and entertaining is completely subjective. I have a particular prize winning work that I LOATHE and I know more than one person that thinks it’s amazing. It’s terrible, but the story of how the story got published caught me more than any rating. It was all about how the friends and family of said book got it out there to my attention.

When I do reviews for the things I read, I state up front if I got the work for free (pretty sure there are rules about this, but I genuinely don’t know them). I will say things in the very first line of the review like, “OF course it gets 5 stars… it’s mine after all”.

I have taken a long time to recognize and understand what I like about stories, and have started to apply that knowledge to how I talk about the books I really like. If you like something I like, and that continues to happen, then maybe you can trust my opinion about a book. I have one friend (Molly) who knows that if I love a book, she’ll hate it. Our tastes tend to be diametrically opposed. She knows this and takes all of my reviews with that thought in mind.

How you feel about the author can (should it?) effect how you review a book. I know a number of authors. I recommend the work of my friends.

Will I recommend a book, no matter how good, after I met the guy and he was a total dick to me? NO.

Will I recommend a book, no matter my political feelings about an author, if that guy was SUPER nice to me? That’s way more complicated.

Those were my notes. What do you think?