Wednesday Reading Meme
I've been staying home with a cold the last couple of days. Even had to cancel a trip to the cinema, but considering the fever I had, I don't think anybody would have thanked me for going.
It's been a pretty quiet week, actually. Saturday I went with
lysanatt and
blnchflr to visit an art exhibit (I, uncultured swine that I am, am still not entirely sure what was exhibit and what was just business as usual), tried to watch a couple of different movies and then went to eat at Copenhagen's oldest Japanese restaurant (where we'll probably go again, the food was delicious).
Also, in unrelated news, I've decided to start actually trying to review at least some of the books I read on Goodreads, instead of just using it to keep track of what I've read. If anybody is interested, I'm Oneiriad over there as well.
What I've recently finished reading
Natasha Pulley: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
I quite enjoyed this book. There's something quiet and elegant about it, and at times a little sad. Thaniel is a nice enough fellow and Mori is interesting, and probably not-so-secretly a Moriarty level criminal genius. On the other hand, I - Grace. I started out liking her and felt that I was supposed to like her, and then things happened, and I ended up really, really not liking her. I suspect the turning point came when she had the trees cut down. It was such a petty bit of deliberate cruelty.
Peter Tudvad: Manteuffel
I must admit, I'm a bit torn about this novel. On one hand, it's a quite good, by turns bloody and tragic story about a proper vampire count in the mess that was the Reformation in Germany, and it is very well written. On the other hand, the story tends to wander off into a bit heavier theology than I tend to look for in vampire novels - it reminded me a bit of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose that way - and I am left with the vague suspicion that the author was trying to sneakily teach me things. Oh well...
Sylvain Runberg: Darwin's Diaries: The Eye of the Celts
I like the concept of Charles Darwin also being interested in, well, cryptids and/or werewolves. It just felt too short to really give me enough to decide whether I like this or not.
Kaite Welsh: The Wages of Sin
This is not a nice book. We follow Sarah Gilchrist, who is studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, having barely convinced her family that it was better to have a daughter studying medicine than to have a daughter permanently locked up in some upper class "sanatorium", and then she ends up investigating the death of a prostitute from the slums. The details we are gradually given about Sarah's backstory, the trap of her life even now, as well as her interactions with her fellow students and her visits to the Edinburgh slums are - quite often unpleasant, really. At first I was reminded a bit of Lene Kaaberbøl's novels about Madeleine Karno (woman studying medicine, late 19th century, murder mysteries), but while those have a gothic thing going, this book is a lot unkinder to its main character, even if the murder mystery is fairly run-of-the-mill (I briefly entertained the thought that there might be something Jekyll-and-Hyde going on, which would have been appropriate enough, considering the setting, but nope.) It is a well-written book and a good book - but it is not a nice book.
Robert Kirkman: The Walking Dead: A Certain Doom
Oh look, more zombies. Why am I still reading this again?
Leigh Bardugo: Wonder Woman: Warbringer
Let's start with the things I really enjoyed in this book: the way this book imagines Themyscira and the Amazons, what they are and where they come from, is definitely one of my favourite versions. The idea of Themyscira as a women's Valhalla, just nicer, makes me happy. I like this Diana - young and untried and wanting to prove herself as an Amazon, and her confidence in dealing with the world outside. And I like how Leigh Bardugo decided to make the outside-world person who ends up drawing Diana away from Themyscira is, for once, not Steve Trevor, but instead a girl. Also the plot element of for once not having to kill someone to stop a war, which frankly feels more Wonder Woman than killing the God of War, though that just might be me.
Of things I liked less: well - the entire concept of Warbringers and making Helen of Troy the very first of them irritated me. I mean, yes, it's a YA novel, but that doesn't excuse such an overly simplistic approach. Telling us that you can stop a new world war from happening just by getting a specific curse lifted within a given timeframe? I don't buy it. Of course, half of this might simply be that I am so very sick and tired of each and every story that decides to blame Helen for the Troyan War, either actively or through some sort of power radiation.
I suppose the Warbringer thing is just part of my bigger complaint, which is - well, I had previously read Bardugo's Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom duology and very much enjoyed it, and while I wasn't expecting a fantasy heist novel, I was expecting something with a little more - plot and character development? I mean, there is a plot - mostly a fairly straightforward one with a twist near the end, there's a villain who seems to be insane and not half as clever as he'd like to think, and a likeable and sometimes amusing cast of characters surrounding Diana, but there's not that much time spent devoted to them as such. I don't know. I guess I just had hoped for - more?
What I've recently watched
3. Power Rangers
I must confess, I was underwhelmed by this movie. The whole thing felt like it'd been planned at a board meeting - must have cast of main characters fitting all these diversity point slots (don't get me wrong, diversity is wonderful, this particular movie felt like somebody was filling slots), must have the standard action movie/superhero origin story plotline with specific points, + plotline mixed in that was used in almost every episode of the first Power Rangers tv show from back when I was a tiny kid. And they'd gone with the same sort of CGI look that movies like Transformers has, and it just didn't feel right.
What I'm reading now
Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, since Netflix will be releasing the tv show soon. So far, so good.
What I'm reading next
We'll see.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 12
This entry was originally posted at https://oneiriad.dreamwidth.org/483650.html, where it currently has
comments.
It's been a pretty quiet week, actually. Saturday I went with
lysanatt and
blnchflr to visit an art exhibit (I, uncultured swine that I am, am still not entirely sure what was exhibit and what was just business as usual), tried to watch a couple of different movies and then went to eat at Copenhagen's oldest Japanese restaurant (where we'll probably go again, the food was delicious).
Also, in unrelated news, I've decided to start actually trying to review at least some of the books I read on Goodreads, instead of just using it to keep track of what I've read. If anybody is interested, I'm Oneiriad over there as well.
What I've recently finished reading
Natasha Pulley: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
I quite enjoyed this book. There's something quiet and elegant about it, and at times a little sad. Thaniel is a nice enough fellow and Mori is interesting, and probably not-so-secretly a Moriarty level criminal genius. On the other hand, I - Grace. I started out liking her and felt that I was supposed to like her, and then things happened, and I ended up really, really not liking her. I suspect the turning point came when she had the trees cut down. It was such a petty bit of deliberate cruelty.
Peter Tudvad: Manteuffel
I must admit, I'm a bit torn about this novel. On one hand, it's a quite good, by turns bloody and tragic story about a proper vampire count in the mess that was the Reformation in Germany, and it is very well written. On the other hand, the story tends to wander off into a bit heavier theology than I tend to look for in vampire novels - it reminded me a bit of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose that way - and I am left with the vague suspicion that the author was trying to sneakily teach me things. Oh well...
Sylvain Runberg: Darwin's Diaries: The Eye of the Celts
I like the concept of Charles Darwin also being interested in, well, cryptids and/or werewolves. It just felt too short to really give me enough to decide whether I like this or not.
Kaite Welsh: The Wages of Sin
This is not a nice book. We follow Sarah Gilchrist, who is studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, having barely convinced her family that it was better to have a daughter studying medicine than to have a daughter permanently locked up in some upper class "sanatorium", and then she ends up investigating the death of a prostitute from the slums. The details we are gradually given about Sarah's backstory, the trap of her life even now, as well as her interactions with her fellow students and her visits to the Edinburgh slums are - quite often unpleasant, really. At first I was reminded a bit of Lene Kaaberbøl's novels about Madeleine Karno (woman studying medicine, late 19th century, murder mysteries), but while those have a gothic thing going, this book is a lot unkinder to its main character, even if the murder mystery is fairly run-of-the-mill (I briefly entertained the thought that there might be something Jekyll-and-Hyde going on, which would have been appropriate enough, considering the setting, but nope.) It is a well-written book and a good book - but it is not a nice book.
Robert Kirkman: The Walking Dead: A Certain Doom
Oh look, more zombies. Why am I still reading this again?
Leigh Bardugo: Wonder Woman: Warbringer
Let's start with the things I really enjoyed in this book: the way this book imagines Themyscira and the Amazons, what they are and where they come from, is definitely one of my favourite versions. The idea of Themyscira as a women's Valhalla, just nicer, makes me happy. I like this Diana - young and untried and wanting to prove herself as an Amazon, and her confidence in dealing with the world outside. And I like how Leigh Bardugo decided to make the outside-world person who ends up drawing Diana away from Themyscira is, for once, not Steve Trevor, but instead a girl. Also the plot element of for once not having to kill someone to stop a war, which frankly feels more Wonder Woman than killing the God of War, though that just might be me.
Of things I liked less: well - the entire concept of Warbringers and making Helen of Troy the very first of them irritated me. I mean, yes, it's a YA novel, but that doesn't excuse such an overly simplistic approach. Telling us that you can stop a new world war from happening just by getting a specific curse lifted within a given timeframe? I don't buy it. Of course, half of this might simply be that I am so very sick and tired of each and every story that decides to blame Helen for the Troyan War, either actively or through some sort of power radiation.
I suppose the Warbringer thing is just part of my bigger complaint, which is - well, I had previously read Bardugo's Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom duology and very much enjoyed it, and while I wasn't expecting a fantasy heist novel, I was expecting something with a little more - plot and character development? I mean, there is a plot - mostly a fairly straightforward one with a twist near the end, there's a villain who seems to be insane and not half as clever as he'd like to think, and a likeable and sometimes amusing cast of characters surrounding Diana, but there's not that much time spent devoted to them as such. I don't know. I guess I just had hoped for - more?
What I've recently watched
3. Power Rangers
I must confess, I was underwhelmed by this movie. The whole thing felt like it'd been planned at a board meeting - must have cast of main characters fitting all these diversity point slots (don't get me wrong, diversity is wonderful, this particular movie felt like somebody was filling slots), must have the standard action movie/superhero origin story plotline with specific points, + plotline mixed in that was used in almost every episode of the first Power Rangers tv show from back when I was a tiny kid. And they'd gone with the same sort of CGI look that movies like Transformers has, and it just didn't feel right.
What I'm reading now
Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, since Netflix will be releasing the tv show soon. So far, so good.
What I'm reading next
We'll see.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 12
This entry was originally posted at https://oneiriad.dreamwidth.org/483650.html, where it currently has
comments.