I read The Secret Barrister's eponymous first book in 2020, around the time I was in Nottingham for IVFDF. Fake Law is their second book, and is about how (and to some extent why) the law and its operation is systematically misreported (by media and politicians).

Each chapter follows a similar structure, for different areas of law: some headlines ( Read more... )

This is the last of the Hugo novel shortlist.

It's a strange and beautiful book; an enigma. Try and read it without spoilers the first time! The narrator lives in the House, a vast labyrinth of halls filled with statues of things that do not otherwise exist in the House. The upper levels are cloud, and the lower levels filled with water. The only ( Read more... )

This is the 15th October Daye book, and it is basically fanservice. Toby and Tybalt are getting married, at last! If you're invested in these characters and their relationships, you'll enjoy this book (if you've not read any of this series, don't start here!). It was fun to spend time with all these characters again, though the plot felt a bit ( Read more... )

Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse. This is the first of a series (I don't know of how many; a sequel is due out next year); it's a fantasy novel set somewhere that isn't obviously European (if you see what I mean); there is magic, a conflict between old a new gods, four POV characters, and a lot of flashback. I was a bit worried at the start that I'd ( Read more... )

Past form suggests if I wait until I've read all of them, I'll have forgotten what I thought about at least some of the first-read novels from the Hugo shortlist, so, in order of reading:

Network Effect, Martha Wells. Another Murderbot story! I really enjoy Murderbot - a page-turny adventure with a whole load of digs at capitalism and reflection on ( Read more... )

Gideon is an orphan, and indentured to the service of the Ninth House, one of the houses of necromancers who work for the Emperor. She really wants to escape the Ninth's planet and to go and join the Cohort to fight. There are very few other children on the planet; one of them is Harrow the heir to the Ninth House, who Gideon hates with a passion. ( Read more... )

This was half-price in e-form the other week, and
( Read more... )

Another of the Hugo novel nominees this year. This is set on a tidally-locked planet, much of which is freezing cold and dark or blisteringly hot. The city we start in has rigidly imposed circadian patterns - you must be inside by curfew, and it's a crime to sleep when you should be awake; later we visit other places with different ideas of how to ( Read more... )

This is one of the novels off the Hugo Award shortlist this year.

There's a lot going on here - the story is twisty, with alternate realities, a non-linear plot, alchemy, and protagonists who don't know what they're doing. It takes a long time to get going, and a number of the villains are so evil that they're rather 1-dimensional. Some of this is ( Read more... )

Inspired by recommendations on
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