Quick Reviews: Breaking the Chains of Gravity, Ancillary Justice, Bryony and Roses (no spoilers)
Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight Before NASA, Amy Shira Teitel
Exactly what it says on the tin, this book follows the paths of various spaceflight pioneers from the 1920’s through WWII and the early 50’s to just prior to the formation of NASA out of the NACA. The concentration of the book is on European scientists and inventors, focusing on Wehner von Braun, who gets a fairly sympathetic portrayal. The author’s narrative pushes the point that the use of slave labor in the construction of the V2 rockets was a decision of Nazi higher ups, not van Braun, who knew that a vehicle that requires such precise machining as a rocket would turn out as badly as it did when built by starving prisoners.
One odd absence is much on Robert Goddard, though his story has been told extensively in other books. We do get a good look at the American rocket plane program in compensation, and a warts and all gaze at the political maneuvering that went around the United States’ first satellite launch.
Recommended if you’re a real rocket enthusiast.
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
The book that caused much hand wringing by critics of the Hugo awards recently. Which once I listened to it rather confused me. Honestly, it’s a bog standard space opera with the remnant of a warship’s AI trying to topple the rotten core of an ancient, belligerent, and increasingly corrupt empire. The only thing really ‘progressive’ about it is the odd gender confusion of the narrator, who describes everyone with female pronouns unless corrected. But on those terms it’s well written and engaging.
Recommended.
Bryony and Roses, “T. Kingfisher”
Bryony is the daughter of an impoverished and recently deceased merchant who finds herself trapped in the enchanted mansion of a cursed, bestial noble when she gets lost in the woods during a snowstorm. Which would sound very familiar, except that her name is Bryony, not Beauty, and the Beast is in desperate need of a gardener first, and True Love second.
A short novel published under Ursula Vernon’s adult publication non-de-plume, this look at the classic fairy tale combines her usual wry humor with a gimlet eye on the usual tropes of fantasy. That said it’s a considerably darker tale than her earlier Nine Goblins, given the truths Bryony finds when she discovers that she’s not the first visitor the Beast has kept.
Recommended, unless you’re really offended by Vernon’s opinion on mint herbs.
Exactly what it says on the tin, this book follows the paths of various spaceflight pioneers from the 1920’s through WWII and the early 50’s to just prior to the formation of NASA out of the NACA. The concentration of the book is on European scientists and inventors, focusing on Wehner von Braun, who gets a fairly sympathetic portrayal. The author’s narrative pushes the point that the use of slave labor in the construction of the V2 rockets was a decision of Nazi higher ups, not van Braun, who knew that a vehicle that requires such precise machining as a rocket would turn out as badly as it did when built by starving prisoners.
One odd absence is much on Robert Goddard, though his story has been told extensively in other books. We do get a good look at the American rocket plane program in compensation, and a warts and all gaze at the political maneuvering that went around the United States’ first satellite launch.
Recommended if you’re a real rocket enthusiast.
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
The book that caused much hand wringing by critics of the Hugo awards recently. Which once I listened to it rather confused me. Honestly, it’s a bog standard space opera with the remnant of a warship’s AI trying to topple the rotten core of an ancient, belligerent, and increasingly corrupt empire. The only thing really ‘progressive’ about it is the odd gender confusion of the narrator, who describes everyone with female pronouns unless corrected. But on those terms it’s well written and engaging.
Recommended.
Bryony and Roses, “T. Kingfisher”
Bryony is the daughter of an impoverished and recently deceased merchant who finds herself trapped in the enchanted mansion of a cursed, bestial noble when she gets lost in the woods during a snowstorm. Which would sound very familiar, except that her name is Bryony, not Beauty, and the Beast is in desperate need of a gardener first, and True Love second.
A short novel published under Ursula Vernon’s adult publication non-de-plume, this look at the classic fairy tale combines her usual wry humor with a gimlet eye on the usual tropes of fantasy. That said it’s a considerably darker tale than her earlier Nine Goblins, given the truths Bryony finds when she discovers that she’s not the first visitor the Beast has kept.
Recommended, unless you’re really offended by Vernon’s opinion on mint herbs.