Reading Wednesday
Quick question! Would anyone find it useful if I started using a tag for when I do reviews of things in French? (I'm thinking of "mercredi lecture" or similar.)
What did you finish reading
The program for the Opéra de Paris production of L'Enlèvement au Sérail / Die Entführung aus dem Serail, by various: It was super interesting! But I said most of what I had to say when I reviewed the opera itself. I will note that Selim is apparently a speaking-only part, which. Huh. Weird. I could have sworn he had a duet with Constance at one point.
Part of this is in German, a language I am not fluent in, so I'm going to count it for the Challenge mode of the "book not in English (Challenge mode: book in a language you're not fluent in)" of the Serious card of the reading bingo.
Bran: Une histoire de l'île d'Errance, by Flora Grimaldi (scenario) and Maike Plenzke (art): Okay, so I bought this (today, in fact) both because I love the title (untranslateable though it may be. "Errance" is kind of "aimless wandering" with the subtest of "lost/loss") and because the cover is REALLY FUCKING GORGEOUS, as is the backcover.
(Sorry about the grainy quality of this one, but my phone doesn't have the best camera.
I feel that between the two you get a nice feel of the art in the book: no lines, expressive style, great facial expressions, good use of colour, nice scene-setting, varied body types, etc. Good art, is what I'm getting art.
And the story's just as good! We're first introduced to Bran as him being a douchebag prince, in the great tradition of douchebag princes everywhere. He is then promptly cursed by a dying witch (which he killed, because she's a Creature and thus not fully human or a person, in his eyes). He's cursed to be a talking raven (clue's in the name) who turns back into a human at night.
But there's a catch! As a human, he can't speak, only coak as a raven would.
Bran accidentally teems up with a foxwitch named Macha (that's her on the backcover) under the mistaken belief that she can fix his curse. Macha would like nothing better than to get rid of him, but has bigger fish to fry and so the two eventually strike up a friendship. There are hints that their relationship might turn sexual, but really it's only the part where she kisses human!Bran to shut him up that implies that and she does say early on that she "[doesn't] make love to birds [even turned into humans]", so.
I actually appreciated how frank the treatment of sex was in the book: sex, it's a thing that people do or don't for a variety of reasons and that's okay. Macha's refusal to have sex with birds is used to brush off Aengus, who takes it good-naturedly and the two keep flirting. They read as friends, without benefits.
There's a fair amount of nudity, given that both main characters keep changing between animal and human shapes and their clothes don't change with them, but all of it is treated matter-of-factly: these are people, doing things, who just happen to be naked while doing so. (Things people do while naked or mostly naked in this comic: sad cry in the rain, make fun of Bran, not strangle someone, fight energy vampires, escape lasers, eat soup, fight and save people's lives (twice).)
Actually, if anything, I think Bran might be more sexualised than Macha is. Macha isn't sexualised at all and Bran kind of is. He does spend pretty much the entirety of his time as human either naked or bare-chested. (For plot reasons, as I've covered above.)
The reveal of Macha's backstory was very nicely done, I thought, and I appreciated that it was on her own terms and that it showed us that from woman who has literally gone to the afterlife to get her lover back to woman spurned by that selfsame lover over her inability to have children, she became and immortal witch who dedicates her life to saving people and "curing everything".
Macha is awesome.
Really really enjoyed everything about this from the unlikely friendship blossoming between a grumpy raven and a cunning fox on their roadtrip to save someone's life to the hints of greater wordbuilding. (This is a bit like listing all the tropes I like: unlikely friendship, check! Grumpy character, check! Awesome doctor, check! Roadtrip, check! Wordbuilding, check!)
Would definitely reccomend. All of it is amazing.
I'm counting this as "Book heavily featuring animals" for the Random card.
The Daylight War, by Peter V. Brett: HAHAHAHAHA YES FUCKING FINALLY I'M FREEEEEEEEEEE
I'm not going to rant as much this time, mostly because most of the last 1/4 of the book (what i read this week) was one long battle scene.
Okay, so you know how I said leesha was involved in two love triengles? Make that three: Leesha/Jardir/Inevera, Leesha/Arlen/Renna and Jardir/Leesha/Thamos (also I guess Jardir/Leesha/Arlen a little).
Someone finally uses non-combat wards to fight demons. YES.
Very sad that Enkido died. He didn't have any lines (on account of being mute) or much to do, but I did love what little of him we got. Far more interesting than Arlen Boring Bales.
Inevera continues to make strides in both the "fight the fucking night demons" side of things (she made Jardir) and the feminism front, so good on her. Inevera is probably the character whose actions have had the most impact on the plot so far.
There's a bit where the worldbuilding completely falls apart, because one character remarks that an insult is redundant, even though there would be no need for him to point out the redundancy, because it should be obvious to him and everyone around. But I guess that since the redundant insult is half in English, half in Made Up, it doesn't matter that the whole conversation is supposed to be held in Made Up.
Women's feelings are still asked to take second place to those of men in more than one scene. (I did love Abban arranging revenge on his daughter's rapist with her complicity.)
I would have loved to spend less time at New Moon with the Hollow folks and more with the Krasians, but alas it was not to be. The author and I seem to continue to be in complete disagreement over what the interesting stuff in these books are.
About a chapter or two from the end, Arlen decides that him and Jardir should fight and so they do, with very little lead-up. WHY NO LEAD UP (Yes, yes, see above re: complete disagreement over the interesting stuff, but STLL.) Look, we had Jardir thinking this: Oh, my brother, Jardir thought sadly. Truly Everam is testing me, if I must kill you twice.
HOW IS THAT NOT MORE INTERESTING THAT ONE MORE VARIATION OF "ARLEN IS BADASS" OMG It's "I care about you and now we're on opposite sides"! It's, like, my favourite trope. MORE PLEASE FFS >:[
And then, at the very end, I was going to give the author credit for pulling an unexpected trick (ie: Arlen and Jardir both die!), but even though Arlen does throw both of them over the side of a cliff, it's heavily implied that he, at least, survives. FFS. (Yes, I am firmly Team Jardir. Areln is just that boring.)
But I looked up the summary for the next book and apparently both Arlen and Jardir are absent for at least the first part, as is Renna, which means that ARLEN IS GONE and so I will get to enjoy reading about characters I care about and y'all will have to suffer me ranting some more.
(I'M FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.)
I'll be counting this as "book with more than two protagonists" on the Random card.
This makes 0/25 on the Mix'n'Match Card, 6/25 on the Random Card and 2/25 on the Serious Card for hamsterwoman's reading bingo.
What are you reading
Still stalled on The Art of War, Darshan, The Kick-Ass Writer, La véritable histoire de Carthage et de Hannibal, Gustav Adolf Mossa: L'oeuvre symboliste: 1903-1918 and Les Fleurs du Mal.
Métronome, by Lorànt Deutsch: I have also made no progress. I have learned that apparenly me and the author will not agree on politics. I strongly believe in democracy and it sounds like the author might have a severe case of It Was Better Before, so I will from now on proceed with caution.
Qadehar le Sorcier, by Erik L'Homme: Blast from the past! I've recently gotten the ebooks of the entire Le Livre des Etoiles trilogy and so I decided to see if my lack of progress in the French paper books (anything in the list aove that is in French, so 5/6) was because they were French or because they were paper.
Turns out it's because they're paper! There's a relief. I can actually read French, I'm not broken!
So the last time I read Le Livre des Etoiles was way back when I was in the target audience for it, which is about the age the heroes are, so roughly eleven. I remember a fair amount, I think. Ambre is still the bestest, Qadehar is Guillemot's dad (and there's some sort of switcherro with anouther kid involvec, iirc), at one point Coralie goes to great lengths to save her sister Ambre, Valentin dies at the end, I didn't like the epilogue, le Monde Incertain (the Uncertain World) is desert at least in places, the kids end up separated on the other side of the Door.
We'll see how well any of it holds up. The books will be quick reads, I think, they're fairly short and quite engaging.
So far nothing much has happened, but I did think Guillemot gave up a little too easily on his dream of being part of la Confrérie des Chevaliers du Vent (the Brotherhood of the Knights of Wind).
What are you reading next? (aka the to-read list)
Up right after Qadehar le Sorcier are Le Seigneur Sha and le Visage de l'Ombre, the rest of Le Livre des Etoiles.
A to-read list that is properly formatted, so I don't forget about books I wanted to read! Now split into carry-over to-read books and new additions.
Old list:
Books that I have already: Prisoner (Echo's Wolf, Book 1) (Werewolf Marines 2) by Lia Silver, Darkness Over Cannae by Jenny Dolfen, Taking Stock by Scott Bartlett (yuleswap book 1), February by Lisa Moore (yuleswap book 2), The Demigod Diaries by Rick Riordan
Books that are out and that I haven't got: Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen, by Garth Nix, Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie, Melting Stones and Battle Magic by Tamora Pierce, The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, The Beginning Place by Ursula Le Guin, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, Hostage by Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown, the last two books of Kate Eliott's Spiritwalker trilogy, The Missing Queen by Samhita Arni (I'm told it's the Ramayana retld as a noir mystery), Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed and whatever's out of the Craft Sequence series.
Books that aren't out yet (and when they're out): The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan (Autumn 2015), The Sleeping Life (Eferum, #2) by Andrea K. Höst (2015), Benjamin January #14 by Barbara Hambly (no idea), Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley (Summer 2015? Still unsure if I'm even going to be reading this one), the Tris book by Tamora Pierce (2015), whatever Jenny Dolfen's next project is (THAT ART!) and probably Robert Jackson Bennett's next book (see below for reason for strike out).
New additions to the list:
Aliette de Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings: I've decided I will be reading this, after all, emogoth 90s-ness and all. Post-Apocalypse Paris, here I come!
The Skull Throne, by Peter V. Brett: Not so FREEEEEEEEEE after all, but hey rage-y can also be good.
Books what I'm not sure if I want to read them:
City of Blades, by Robert Jackson Bennett: This is a sequel to City of Stairs, reprising at least two of the characters, as far as I can tell. I fucking loved City of Stairs an dthat's kind of the problem. In isolation, it was pretty much perfect. Thing is, though, it's not in isolation and tehre being a sequel to it reinforces that. So now I don't know how to feel? I don't know if I want to read this novel or not. I want more of these characters, but I want more of all of them or else I want more of just the two that are apparently in it with no mention of either of the other two main characters of City of Stairs. I don't know if I want to read an imperfect sequel to a pretty-much-perfect book. I don't know if I trust the author to give me a sequel just as good and I don't know if I want to take that risk. I JUST DON'T KNOW.
This entry was originally posted at http://dhampyresa.dreamwidth.org/66535.html and has
comments over there.
What did you finish reading
The program for the Opéra de Paris production of L'Enlèvement au Sérail / Die Entführung aus dem Serail, by various: It was super interesting! But I said most of what I had to say when I reviewed the opera itself. I will note that Selim is apparently a speaking-only part, which. Huh. Weird. I could have sworn he had a duet with Constance at one point.
Part of this is in German, a language I am not fluent in, so I'm going to count it for the Challenge mode of the "book not in English (Challenge mode: book in a language you're not fluent in)" of the Serious card of the reading bingo.
Bran: Une histoire de l'île d'Errance, by Flora Grimaldi (scenario) and Maike Plenzke (art): Okay, so I bought this (today, in fact) both because I love the title (untranslateable though it may be. "Errance" is kind of "aimless wandering" with the subtest of "lost/loss") and because the cover is REALLY FUCKING GORGEOUS, as is the backcover.
(Sorry about the grainy quality of this one, but my phone doesn't have the best camera.
I feel that between the two you get a nice feel of the art in the book: no lines, expressive style, great facial expressions, good use of colour, nice scene-setting, varied body types, etc. Good art, is what I'm getting art.
And the story's just as good! We're first introduced to Bran as him being a douchebag prince, in the great tradition of douchebag princes everywhere. He is then promptly cursed by a dying witch (which he killed, because she's a Creature and thus not fully human or a person, in his eyes). He's cursed to be a talking raven (clue's in the name) who turns back into a human at night.
But there's a catch! As a human, he can't speak, only coak as a raven would.
Bran accidentally teems up with a foxwitch named Macha (that's her on the backcover) under the mistaken belief that she can fix his curse. Macha would like nothing better than to get rid of him, but has bigger fish to fry and so the two eventually strike up a friendship. There are hints that their relationship might turn sexual, but really it's only the part where she kisses human!Bran to shut him up that implies that and she does say early on that she "[doesn't] make love to birds [even turned into humans]", so.
I actually appreciated how frank the treatment of sex was in the book: sex, it's a thing that people do or don't for a variety of reasons and that's okay. Macha's refusal to have sex with birds is used to brush off Aengus, who takes it good-naturedly and the two keep flirting. They read as friends, without benefits.
There's a fair amount of nudity, given that both main characters keep changing between animal and human shapes and their clothes don't change with them, but all of it is treated matter-of-factly: these are people, doing things, who just happen to be naked while doing so. (Things people do while naked or mostly naked in this comic: sad cry in the rain, make fun of Bran, not strangle someone, fight energy vampires, escape lasers, eat soup, fight and save people's lives (twice).)
Actually, if anything, I think Bran might be more sexualised than Macha is. Macha isn't sexualised at all and Bran kind of is. He does spend pretty much the entirety of his time as human either naked or bare-chested. (For plot reasons, as I've covered above.)
The reveal of Macha's backstory was very nicely done, I thought, and I appreciated that it was on her own terms and that it showed us that from woman who has literally gone to the afterlife to get her lover back to woman spurned by that selfsame lover over her inability to have children, she became and immortal witch who dedicates her life to saving people and "curing everything".
Macha is awesome.
Really really enjoyed everything about this from the unlikely friendship blossoming between a grumpy raven and a cunning fox on their roadtrip to save someone's life to the hints of greater wordbuilding. (This is a bit like listing all the tropes I like: unlikely friendship, check! Grumpy character, check! Awesome doctor, check! Roadtrip, check! Wordbuilding, check!)
Would definitely reccomend. All of it is amazing.
I'm counting this as "Book heavily featuring animals" for the Random card.
The Daylight War, by Peter V. Brett: HAHAHAHAHA YES FUCKING FINALLY I'M FREEEEEEEEEEE
I'm not going to rant as much this time, mostly because most of the last 1/4 of the book (what i read this week) was one long battle scene.
Okay, so you know how I said leesha was involved in two love triengles? Make that three: Leesha/Jardir/Inevera, Leesha/Arlen/Renna and Jardir/Leesha/Thamos (also I guess Jardir/Leesha/Arlen a little).
Someone finally uses non-combat wards to fight demons. YES.
Very sad that Enkido died. He didn't have any lines (on account of being mute) or much to do, but I did love what little of him we got. Far more interesting than Arlen Boring Bales.
Inevera continues to make strides in both the "fight the fucking night demons" side of things (she made Jardir) and the feminism front, so good on her. Inevera is probably the character whose actions have had the most impact on the plot so far.
There's a bit where the worldbuilding completely falls apart, because one character remarks that an insult is redundant, even though there would be no need for him to point out the redundancy, because it should be obvious to him and everyone around. But I guess that since the redundant insult is half in English, half in Made Up, it doesn't matter that the whole conversation is supposed to be held in Made Up.
Women's feelings are still asked to take second place to those of men in more than one scene. (I did love Abban arranging revenge on his daughter's rapist with her complicity.)
I would have loved to spend less time at New Moon with the Hollow folks and more with the Krasians, but alas it was not to be. The author and I seem to continue to be in complete disagreement over what the interesting stuff in these books are.
About a chapter or two from the end, Arlen decides that him and Jardir should fight and so they do, with very little lead-up. WHY NO LEAD UP (Yes, yes, see above re: complete disagreement over the interesting stuff, but STLL.) Look, we had Jardir thinking this: Oh, my brother, Jardir thought sadly. Truly Everam is testing me, if I must kill you twice.
HOW IS THAT NOT MORE INTERESTING THAT ONE MORE VARIATION OF "ARLEN IS BADASS" OMG It's "I care about you and now we're on opposite sides"! It's, like, my favourite trope. MORE PLEASE FFS >:[
And then, at the very end, I was going to give the author credit for pulling an unexpected trick (ie: Arlen and Jardir both die!), but even though Arlen does throw both of them over the side of a cliff, it's heavily implied that he, at least, survives. FFS. (Yes, I am firmly Team Jardir. Areln is just that boring.)
But I looked up the summary for the next book and apparently both Arlen and Jardir are absent for at least the first part, as is Renna, which means that ARLEN IS GONE and so I will get to enjoy reading about characters I care about and y'all will have to suffer me ranting some more.
(I'M FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.)
I'll be counting this as "book with more than two protagonists" on the Random card.
This makes 0/25 on the Mix'n'Match Card, 6/25 on the Random Card and 2/25 on the Serious Card for hamsterwoman's reading bingo.
What are you reading
Still stalled on The Art of War, Darshan, The Kick-Ass Writer, La véritable histoire de Carthage et de Hannibal, Gustav Adolf Mossa: L'oeuvre symboliste: 1903-1918 and Les Fleurs du Mal.
Métronome, by Lorànt Deutsch: I have also made no progress. I have learned that apparenly me and the author will not agree on politics. I strongly believe in democracy and it sounds like the author might have a severe case of It Was Better Before, so I will from now on proceed with caution.
Qadehar le Sorcier, by Erik L'Homme: Blast from the past! I've recently gotten the ebooks of the entire Le Livre des Etoiles trilogy and so I decided to see if my lack of progress in the French paper books (anything in the list aove that is in French, so 5/6) was because they were French or because they were paper.
Turns out it's because they're paper! There's a relief. I can actually read French, I'm not broken!
So the last time I read Le Livre des Etoiles was way back when I was in the target audience for it, which is about the age the heroes are, so roughly eleven. I remember a fair amount, I think. Ambre is still the bestest, Qadehar is Guillemot's dad (and there's some sort of switcherro with anouther kid involvec, iirc), at one point Coralie goes to great lengths to save her sister Ambre, Valentin dies at the end, I didn't like the epilogue, le Monde Incertain (the Uncertain World) is desert at least in places, the kids end up separated on the other side of the Door.
We'll see how well any of it holds up. The books will be quick reads, I think, they're fairly short and quite engaging.
So far nothing much has happened, but I did think Guillemot gave up a little too easily on his dream of being part of la Confrérie des Chevaliers du Vent (the Brotherhood of the Knights of Wind).
What are you reading next? (aka the to-read list)
Up right after Qadehar le Sorcier are Le Seigneur Sha and le Visage de l'Ombre, the rest of Le Livre des Etoiles.
A to-read list that is properly formatted, so I don't forget about books I wanted to read! Now split into carry-over to-read books and new additions.
Old list:
Books that I have already: Prisoner (Echo's Wolf, Book 1) (Werewolf Marines 2) by Lia Silver, Darkness Over Cannae by Jenny Dolfen, Taking Stock by Scott Bartlett (yuleswap book 1), February by Lisa Moore (yuleswap book 2), The Demigod Diaries by Rick Riordan
Books that are out and that I haven't got: Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen, by Garth Nix, Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie, Melting Stones and Battle Magic by Tamora Pierce, The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, The Beginning Place by Ursula Le Guin, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, Hostage by Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown, the last two books of Kate Eliott's Spiritwalker trilogy, The Missing Queen by Samhita Arni (I'm told it's the Ramayana retld as a noir mystery), Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed and whatever's out of the Craft Sequence series.
Books that aren't out yet (and when they're out): The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan (Autumn 2015), The Sleeping Life (Eferum, #2) by Andrea K. Höst (2015), Benjamin January #14 by Barbara Hambly (no idea), Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley (Summer 2015? Still unsure if I'm even going to be reading this one), the Tris book by Tamora Pierce (2015), whatever Jenny Dolfen's next project is (THAT ART!) and probably Robert Jackson Bennett's next book (see below for reason for strike out).
New additions to the list:
Aliette de Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings: I've decided I will be reading this, after all, emogoth 90s-ness and all. Post-Apocalypse Paris, here I come!
The Skull Throne, by Peter V. Brett: Not so FREEEEEEEEEE after all, but hey rage-y can also be good.
Books what I'm not sure if I want to read them:
City of Blades, by Robert Jackson Bennett: This is a sequel to City of Stairs, reprising at least two of the characters, as far as I can tell. I fucking loved City of Stairs an dthat's kind of the problem. In isolation, it was pretty much perfect. Thing is, though, it's not in isolation and tehre being a sequel to it reinforces that. So now I don't know how to feel? I don't know if I want to read this novel or not. I want more of these characters, but I want more of all of them or else I want more of just the two that are apparently in it with no mention of either of the other two main characters of City of Stairs. I don't know if I want to read an imperfect sequel to a pretty-much-perfect book. I don't know if I trust the author to give me a sequel just as good and I don't know if I want to take that risk. I JUST DON'T KNOW.
This entry was originally posted at http://dhampyresa.dreamwidth.org/66535.html and has
comments over there.