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Backpacking Through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire
More light fluff from McGuire. This time the focus is on Grandma Alice coming home with husband Thomas and their new daughter Sally. Sally is connected to James who is also now part of the family. It's getting hard to keep the family straight. But McGuire does spend a good majority of each telling how each person is connected to the other people. This book is starting to echo the October Day themes of build your own family. And there are many female characters that have male characters telling them to be careful.
I'm probably done with McGuire for now. The stories never seem to end. They never seem to come to closure or solve anything. They just keep moving from hotspot to hotspot. But then, like McGuire does in most books, she throws in a new Novella at the end about the Aeslin Mice and I want to read more. The Aeslin mice and James story at the end was the best.
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The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Before Connolly wrote his multi-volume Charlie Parker series, he wrote The Book of Lost Things about David who travels from his home outside of London one night into a land full of fairy tales come true. But the Fairy Tales are all subtly different with the characters all having altered motivations. David must journey through this land of peril, fighting all the monster to reach the king who he hopes will send him back to London.
I feel like I've read similar books before and nothing Connolly does makes this one stand above the rest. But it was nice to see Connolly write in a different genre.
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09-24-2023, 06:12 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-24-2023, 06:12 PM by King Bob.)
I thought I had made a thread for that book, but had not. It's the only book of his that I've read, but I enjoyed it. Although I did read one story from his collection (forget the name) and it disturbed me, so I gave up on the book.
the hands that guide me are invisible
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Warriorborn: A Cinder Spires Novella by Jim Butcher
Jim Butcher usually writes the Harry Dresden files series of novels about the Chicago based Wizard, Harry Dresden. I've been reading and enjoying them for years. About a million years ago, he wrote a novel called the Aeronaut's Windlass which was a military fantasy novel of which I can remember nothing except it was enjoyable. I've been waiting for the next adventure in the series and that is due out later this year. To whet everyone's appetite, he released a Novella. I needed a break from my stack of Dublin/Irish History novels so I purchased it.
It was quite the brief adventure, read in a sitting. There is a secret mission to go to a Spire that is not communicating with the main spires. The young lord must take a crew of fellow warrior born with him. Too bad they are all criminals. But, much like in the Dirty Dozen, if they do a good job, they will be pardoned. They find bad things at the spire along with the enemy. Some of the criminals return to their criminal ways. It's all quite quick paced and action packed.
I now have to go back and read the original novel to figure out what I just read.
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Jim Larkin was a big labor organizer back in 1913 in Dublin, so big there is a statue of him on O'Connell Street in Dublin. The statue stands approximately where he gave a speech on one of the Bloody Sunday's. In this case the police did a baton charge through the crowd gathered to listen to Larkin. The police also attacked anyone in the area. One person died. Hundreds went to the hospital. Strumpett City tells the story of that event and many more from various viewpoints from the lowest levels of society to the highest and how they saw those events.
Basically, things are bad before the Lockout, where the employers said no one could work unless they foreswore Larkin's Labor Union and no one would, things are bad during the Lockout and then they get worse. It's not a happy time. People starve. The people in the tenements live terrible lives. The clergy are of no help, either alcoholic from the misery around them or on the side of Employers. The Lockout was a terrible time and Strumpet City depicts it in all its squalor.
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The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea G. Stewart
A very enjoyable asian themed fantasy novel. The book is told from several viewpoints including a smuggler, the emperor's daughter, a soldier and a rebel. The world runs on bone magic that only the Emperor can use. He does that to protect the population from a race of gods that used to run the watery kingdom. But now the Emperor's rule seems to be no better than the Gods Suyakai family replaced.
There are battles and magic and terrible events and it's all quite fun. I thought the book would end on a cliff hanger and it didn't. They wrapped up the story but left room for the other books in the trilogy.
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My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
Jade is a Highschool outcast obsessed with slasher films particularly Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. She so obsessed she is convinced that her town of Proofrock, Idaho is about to experience its own slasher event. From what she has seen in the horror films, all the signs are there and she wants a front row seat. It doesn't hurt that her town has a dark history. It doesn't hurt that there is a new rich enclave going up on what could be an old burial ground. It doesn't hurt that there was a murder a camp near the town. There is a lot of talk about the final girl who will rescue the town and kill the slasher. It is up to Jade to identify this girl and clue her in on what the final girl needs to do.
The book is all very meta. If you haven't seen any slasher films, you won't understand what is going on. It was all a bit too much the constant reference to those films and many others. I got to the point where I couldn't tell if Jade was imaging what was happening or whether it was real. And the real stuff wasn't explained very well so I couldn't tell quite what just happened. Maybe if you adored these films and obsess over them the way Jade does, you'll like this book. I found it to be a bit of a muddle despite all the great reviews it has garnered.
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The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
A view of the Vietnam war from a Viet Cong mole embedded with the Southern Vietnam military command. The novel starts right as the Vietnam war ends as the Southern leadership escapes with our friend the spy and they head to Los Angeles where the Vietnamese refugees plot their return to Vietnam. All the while the spy keeps spying and filing reports home.
Ultimately it's a sad tale as our spy, who is a half-Vietnamese and half European, struggles to fit but ultimately cannot because of his mixed blood. The situations everyone finds themselves in are all desperate. Eventually, the spy goes back to Vietnam with a group aiming to overthrow the new government. The group is quickly captured and sent to a reeducation camp.
I'm still trying to figure out the point of this story, especially some of the stuff towards the end. It becomes very metaphysical and I couldn't quite parse it. But better minds than did award this book the Pulitzer for fiction back in 2016
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The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea G. Stewart
This book didn't grab me the way the first one did. The world was built and it was cool but this book didn't advance from the foundation laid before it. The story was interesting but it seemed like we just progressed the situations from book 1 without resoling them and didn't bring in any new complications.
And there is the romance at the heart which just got to be annoying. Just when they are about to consummate or move something happens to break them apart yet again.
I'm not sure I will read the final book in the series.
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Starter Villain by John Scalzi
A quick light read that reeks of Scalzi. It's a bit of crime caper. There is a bit of science fiction in there. The plot is wafer thin. All the characters sound the same in the snarky-sarcastic Scalzi way. From the very beginning you can tell where this going to end up.
It was a fine, quick diversion that I read in a couple of hours. Ask me in a month, the plot, I will be hard pressed to tell you.
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In the House of Lightning by Brian McClellan
Brian McClellan builds worlds based on really messed up magic systems. In his Powder Mage series of books, magic is based on gunpowder. In the House of Lightning, magic is based on the use of various forms of glass. Different people can use the glass differently. Once again, the book is set in a sort of nascent industrial society with the vestiges of a feudal society still lingering. Demir is a glassdancer, which means he can manipulate glass of any kind and use it to kill. He is the prince until after a major victory he has a bit of a break down and heads off into the wilderness. He only comes back after the death of his mother and the matriarch of his ruling family. The quest is on to find out who murdered his mother.
There is also another problem, the world is running out of magic glass. When it runs out the economy of society will crumble. So, a method must be found to make new glass. And there is a war going on which Demir must lead against a general who has never lost. All sorts of good things going.
Basically it's military industrial fantasy with a touch of Lovecraft.
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The Land of Lost Things by John Connelly
Connelly returns to the land of Elsewhere to follow Ceres as she has adventures among the fairy tales until it is time to have an actual adventure that wraps up really quickly. Ceres is a single mother tending to her comatose daughter when an errant wish draws the attention of the Crooked Man and off she goes to Elsewhere. She meets plenty of the same characters from The Book of Lost Things but her quest is subtly different. I might even argue that she just seems to be caught up in events without having any real volition.
The book takes a long time to get going as we watch Ceres suffer at the bedside of her daughter. There are some interesting fairy tale vignettes which I think Connelly wrote the book. But we don't even know the heavy in the piece until only about a quarter of the book is left. I guess the plan was just for me to enjoy the interesting easter eggs and not worry about the plot so much.
You could probably just read The Book of Lost Things and be content. That story worked better.
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The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher
In honor of the sequel coming out, I decided to re-read this. And as I did, I realized I remembered absolutely nothing about the story. Granted I read this when it came out in 2017. I vaguely remember not liking it very much because I thought the sentient cats were a bit much.
The re-read was much more enjoyable. At the book's heart it wants to be a Horatio Hornblower story. Butcher makes the ships sail in the air through the use of crystals. People live at the tops of spires and they never venture to the planet where the bad things live. There is a war going on with another Spire. There are a lot of interesting threads going on with cowardly captains fighting and rich brats joining the king's guards and then there are the cats.
It's all fun. It's all the exciting bits with no filler. And there is another due in just a few days. I just hope if Butcher continues, the next one doesn't come out in another seven years. I'm not getting any younger.
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Holly by Stephen King
Holly Gibney was a supporting player in the book Mr. Mercedes and has now come to the point where she carries the book by herself. Holly runs the Finders Keepers detective agency and is tasked to find a missing young woman who the cops thinks might have run away. But right from the get go we know that's not the case, because King tells what happened to her right up front in a parallel story line. The pleasure in the book is reading about Holly and her circle of friends and what they go through in the search. It's not a horror story but the does support the truism the real monsters are the people all around us. In these detective stories, King scratches his Ed McBain itch. He also gets to opine about the world around us. The book is set during the Covid pandemic just about the time people are starting to get vaccinated. Some of the characters are pro-vax and some are anti-vax. He also gets to make references to his other books. I counted three but there might have been more.
I like King's non-horror stories more at this point. There is something about the horror stories that just go off the rails after a while.
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Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
Lehane continues to mine his South Boston roots for novels. This time we go back to 1972 at the time of forced bussing to integrate the schools of Roxbury and Brighton. Against this backdrop, Mary Pat goes looking for her missing daughter Jules. The main theme of the book is racism and how it is handed down from generation to generation and the busing issue is only the latest example, at that time, of how endemic it is. Mary Pat eventually has to go out and harm the people who have harmed her daughter. She also has to confront her own racism as she also deals with the murder of a co-worker's son.
It's always fun for me to read these books that cover Boston history and Boston locations. I know some of the background but not nearly enough. My little town of Burlington was a world away from these racially divided areas. We were already in California when the bussing situation broke out. My parents would talk to their Massachusetts relatives every week. It was not pretty.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
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