Tag Archives: Goodreads

Singing

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A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I got this selection picked for my local book group. There was some (gentle) pushback almost immediately. “A book featuring a pandemic? Really?”

I have to say that was the least interesting part of the story. It was a major factor, but the characters were written with such depth and reality it overcame any lingering issues from the actual pandemic (at least for me). There was also a terrorist aspect that gets overlooked because this book was actually written before the pandemic.

I had the opportunity to speak with the author (briefly) at a recent convention. She was great. She pointed out to me the one thing she “missed” in her predictive aspects were masks / facial covers. The rest of things were absolutely worth looking at from a fictional standpoint. I don’t believe “missing” something like that when creating a dystopian future is a bad thing at all. There were all sorts of opportunities to see how the musicians were the engine of this story.

I’m not a musician, nor can I create music in any form really – but this story just spoke to me of the reality of how a creator feels and the need they have to express that creation. I recommend this book – you should go buy one!



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Summer Tree

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The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


There were a number of very interesting parts to the world building here, and a handful of distracting things as well.

Matt the dwarf… was one example of the struggle. There were anachronistic aspects like the naming convention that distracted from just flowing with the story. Given the original copyright for this is from the mid 1980s, there were other things from that time that really showed through in the story. There were at least two instances of very casual misogyny – and possibly more – that stood out when reading this with a modern eye.

Having said those things, this is still of the ‘sword and sorcery’ genre that I loved so much when I was younger. My own sense of nostalgia carried me past a lot of things that might stop other readers.



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Old School Fantasy

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Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was not the first time I’ve read this book. I picked it up and got it via Kindle for this read through for both convenience and saving my old paperback I plucked off the shelf from back before Y2K.

I remember reading it and being very taken with the story. I related to difficult choices and bad results. The fantasy aspects were a bonus – and it was less ‘action’ oriented than some of the other things I’d read.

On this re-reading I found that I could still relate to difficult choices and bad results, but the political aspects of the story were more clear to me. A friend also pointed out that this story was (vaguely) around the same time / trend as when game of thrones came out.

This is still a really good fantasy story with interesting world building. A little slow for my taste – and it wraps up ‘a’ story, but not the whole story. Traditional fantasy trilogy stuff.

Clearly I liked it to a greater degree than many books I’ve read recently. I went out and got the second one!



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Cold Something

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Cold Water by Dave Hutchinson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I picked this book up because it was a book club selection (science fiction). It’s a slog. I read the whole thing… but honestly can’t tell you with certainty why some people are calling it science fiction. Beyond one quasi-science fictionesque bit, this could be a current day spy novel. Sure there are ‘alternate’ world aspects here, but there isn’t enough difference to make me believe any of it. The vast majority of the references and cultural world building stuff could just as easily be today.

Notably I didn’t call it a ‘spy thriller’. I didn’t find it particularly ‘thrilling’ either. I just kept rolling to confirm what I thought about the plot. I was essentially correct, but the ending (that slammed down very quickly) didn’t seem to fit the rest of the book. The reason behind the mystery wasn’t enough to wow me… or impress me at all really.

I couldn’t really tell you the difference between the main character from Texas and the police officer from… Poland? Estonia? Dunno and don’t really care. The young woman hacker that we got almost no information about was just as interesting (cloth computer?) None of them moved me.

I’ve seen that this is being developed as a television series. I can’t imagine that working, but I’ll be interested to see how they handle the visual aspects of the lone ‘science fiction’ piece of it. I don’t suspect it’s a thing I’ll watch more than one episode of.



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Year In Books

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I don’t like the retrospective posts looking back at the whole year behind. I’ve written before about that and I’ve written at length in the past about my resolution to never make another new year’s resolution (still going strong). New year, new you is fine for some, but making a significant change can happen whenever if needs to.

This year I was interested to see how my reading had bounced back. A couple of years back my reading and creativity had dropped off a cliff. I don’t think I broke double digits in terms of books read, and that’s tragic. Goodreads creates an annual summary that includes number of books read. This supposes one has actually entered all the books read, but I generally try to keep up with that.

I decided to take a look at my overall stats for the past decade. It’s actually a very nice feature of the site. I’m a little bit off my pace of last year, but far outpacing that bad year. Then I started going further back. Turns out I’ve been very hot and cold over the past decade. I don’t know if those years connect with specific things in my life or things going on in the world, but it’s an odd wave pattern. Somehow I thought I was further along in the “many books read” department. I am interested in how this will look going forward.

By the numbers:
Year – Books Read – Approximate page count
2024 – 21 – – 6,700
2023 – 23 – – 9,100
2022 – 9 – – 2,500
2021 – 17 – – 5,300
2020 – 39 – – 12,500 (pretty sure this was Covid Year)
2019 -16 – – 4,600
2018 – 9 – – 3,000
2017 – 26 – – 9,700
2016 – 25 – – 8,700
2015 – 16 – – 6,000
2014 – 24 – – 8,300

This year played out like this:

I’m going to take some time and ponder these numbers. Some of them I think I know what was going on. Some of them are a mystery. Hopefully I’ll have a bounty of books to show for the coming year and I can continue to track these stats.

Poetry

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Birches by Robert Frost

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


While I am not a fan of poetry in general, Robert Frost has always been a poet I have enjoyed reading. Adding illustrations and creating visuals to go along with the words is excellent.

This book was a gift to me this year and I’m quite glad I took a few minutes to read it. It’s a single poem – it’s not long – but it’s nice. I miss living where birch trees grow.



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Inspiration

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I am a very visual person. I LOVE to page through, read and take inspiration from art books. I can’t say that I’m a collector or a connoisseur, but I just have to dig into them. They routinely provide inspiration for me to work on things of various natures. Sometimes they inspire frustration because I’m not as good as a professional, but intellectually I understand – that’s why they’re the pros.

Images like the one pictured here (all credit to John Harris) have seeped into my mind. They’ve snuck into the cracks and crannies and lived there without me realizing it for my whole life. I have a story (unpublished) where I actually have something similar to the image above as part of the story. Totally unconscious choice. The artist’s work exists in the background all the time in my head – I just don’t often see as direct a translation as this.

I have other art books that I will likely go back and dig into now, just to revisit them and see if there are other bits that have snuck into my work. Until I get back to those, here is my review from over on Goodreads.

The Art of John Harris: Beyond the Horizon by John Harris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This rating should really be more like 4.5 stars. Reading a book like this with all the amazing images accompanying the work is a genuine pleasure.

I hadn’t realized how deep these images had settled into my mind until I read this book. The works are definitely “bookstore iconic” as Mr. Scalzi says in his foreward. Seeing the scale and scope of what the artist created and then recognizing any number of these works from books currently residing on my shelf really brought home how good this art is.

Another aspect is the opportunity to read what the artist was thinking while creating these works. His story that went along with various images was great to read.

IF you’re a fan of science fiction art, this is a worth addition to your collection.



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Night Winds

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The first book of Kane.

Night Winds by Karl Edward Wagner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is another foray into old school sword and sorcery for me. I have this paperback series on the shelf. I read them many years ago and I recall that I was super impressed with them back when I read them in the 80s. I was happy to see these books were available in e-reader format since I didn’t want to take the chance that I might damage the old books.

There are two parts to this review. The writing and the covers.

First – while I understand that matching Frazetta’s isn’t going to happen, the gay romance cover art really set me off. That pose, the terrible sword, the wrong color hair… it was genuinely off putting. Romance photo shoot guy is clearly muscular enough, but it’s just all wrong. At least get a darker background? The cover is so far off from the book it became a distraction.

So, the writing. I understand why I liked them when I read them as a youth. A powerful character who was more than just brawn. Planning, maneuvering, striking only when the time was right and then overpowering the enemies – exactly the sort of thing I would be drawn to.

Reading these stories now, as a more mature reader, I see where they fit in their time. Much like the Black Company (finished and reviewed recently) it is an example of the times. Casual misogyny, rape, murder and misdeeds fill the book. There are mutilations, revenge and horrible deaths. Kane, the cursed man traveling through these various stories seems… less invincible than he did when I read him as a youth. It also feels like there should be more of his curse, some evidence of his longevity more than speculation and hints.

I wanted to be more enthusiastic about this series upon rereading it, but it just fell short. Still good. Still an excellent example of old school sword and sorcery, just not as ‘amazing’ as I remembered. Worth reading if you want to dig into that old school stuff.



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Seriously – between the two? I’m taking the one on the left every single time.

Day Zero

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Day Zero by C. Robert Cargill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It almost took me zero days to read this one!

The writing here grabbed me right from the start. This was an engaging, thoughtful story with very believable characters. Things happened in the greater world, but the story stayed tight on Ezra and his Nany-bot. Seeing big events through the small window of people not associated with them was excellent. It gave time for reflection and a lot of philosophical thought.

I did like the action. It was slow and purposeful, at least at first. Toward the end, things felt a little rushed. There were some fantastic images in there and I kind of hope this gets turned into a movie. I’d love to see the teddy bear nany-bot with a minigun on top of a bus.

This is absolutely worth the read AND I’d absolutely recommend reading the dedication and acknowledgements. Well done all around. Go grab this one.



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Wherein there are complaints

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The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Wherein the reader complains about the writing style and stilted phrasing of the story.

I’m grudgingly giving this book three stars, but it was closer to two for me. Perhaps two and a half. The writing style was very difficult to just sit with, the flow wasn’t great. The main character was a challenge to relate to. I will say she was portrayed well for what she was meant to be, but not really something that works well for me.

There was some interesting world building. The mystery was… there, though I think I figured most of it out early on. Then, about 2/3 of the way through the whole thing just kind of bogged down for me.

This style clearly has an audience. I did read it all the way through, so there’s that. I don’t suspect I’ll be going back for more.



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