Comments | hamsterwoman: Reading roundup: Worldcon prep and follow-up edition

hamsterwoman

Reading roundup: Worldcon prep and follow-up edition

Sep 29, 2018 13:49

So I haven't done a proper reading post in almost two months, since before Worldcon, and am finally almost caught up. Unlike how I normally do these, I wrote these up out of order, because I was hurrying through the Hugos, and am posting them a little bit out of order, too -- book #59 was The Will To Battle, which wouldn't fit in this post, so will ( Read more... )

a: ann leckie, a: martha wells, a: brian vaughan, a: frances hardinge, a: lois mcmaster bujold, reading, a: holly black, #1, a: ellen klages, #59

Comments 27

zigadenus September 30 2018, 01:52:32 UTC

I <3 your book reports. I don't chime in here a lot, but I'm making a reading list based on yours :)

hamsterwoman September 30 2018, 04:34:21 UTC

Aww, thank you! I'm glad! :) (And if you do read any of these and want to chat about them, please come back to do so! It's one of the things I love about LJ -- the ability to have conversations on posts like this via zombie comments, even when not reading in sync :)

zigadenus September 30 2018, 04:47:40 UTC

Will do! I'm incredibly far behind on my pleasure reading, but I'm sure I'll down tons of books once this dissertation is done. :)

hamsterwoman September 30 2018, 08:48:28 UTC

I definitely hope you will get a chance to catch up on your pleasure reading soon! (Including Vallista, right? IIRC you're saving that for once you're done, too?)

Thread 5

cyanshadow September 30 2018, 03:51:41 UTC

I do appreciate the explanation, finally, of what the time war is even about, but what it's about is pretty cliche

:'D I never did get around to reading anything after the first volume, and at this point I suspect I probably won't, since I liked but didn't love the first volume, and suspect I'd have similar reactions to the things that have annoyed you. :)

I don't have a lot to say about Ancillary Mercy, alas -- I remember really enjoying it, but it's been several years now, so I barely remember who most of the new-to-Mercy characters even are. XD (Except Sphene. I remember enjoying Sphene. :D And Zeiat, of course.)

Breq responding to a another fleet captain:

That entire quote was gold. <333 ( ... )

hamsterwoman September 30 2018, 05:37:53 UTC

Yeah, I'm... less enthused about Paper Girls after volume 4, although, honestly, 2 and 3 are pretty great and I would say well worth a read. Just, like, feel free to skim the parts with the far-future people -- I haven't found them to be worth the investment in figuring out WTF is going on with them.

That entire quote was gold. <333

It's such an Imperial Radch was of doing passive-aggression (I mean, not even all that passive, but, you know), and she so excells at it!

(And I suspect are more in line with Leckie's preferences as well, given that Provenance is also a more character-drama-focused story too.) Yeah, I think so. Actually, it was neat, reading 'Sword' and 'Mercy' after Provenance, because I could follow the evolution of the things I really liked about Provenance -- the character drama against the complex worldbuilding backdrop, the combination/rapid switch between humour and tragedy -- with Provenance as the sort of endpoint ( ... )

qwentoozla October 2 2018, 08:32:57 UTC

Popping in here to say Blackout and All Clear aren't nearly as heavy as Doomsday Book, although not as lighthearted as To Say Nothing of the Dog. I found them pretty compulsively readable (which is good for such long books) and incredibly well researched--it's kind of like historical fiction as well as science fiction. The only problem I had with it is that I felt like the various POV characters aren't super well differentiated, so I would sometimes get them confused. But I'd definitely say it's worth reading. The first one ends in a cliffhanger and I actually read it before the second came out, so I had to rush out and get it as soon as possible, haha.

hamsterwoman October 4 2018, 05:47:18 UTC

I definitely want to catch up on those books at some point -- and glad to hear they're not nearly as grim.

And, yeah, I think I heard about the cliffhanger, actually, and kind of deprioritized reading the first part, and then just... lost track when the second book came out.

aome September 30 2018, 05:05:48 UTC

Were you able to read W&G #10 or should I re-lend it to you?

hamsterwoman September 30 2018, 08:45:12 UTC

I haven't finished it yet, but I have it squirreled away on a Kindle where I never turn on WiFi, so I've been able to keep reading it though the loan period has expired :) (Thanks again for the loan, and hopefully thoughts soon!)

lyssa027 September 30 2018, 06:33:43 UTC

I understand your thoughts on Cruel Prince. I like the world it took place in, but the book wasn't perfect, I'm excited for the second one though lol

hamsterwoman September 30 2018, 08:46:22 UTC

I did like the world! -- and I've always before enjoyed Holly Black's books set in it. But I was disappointed with what she did with the world in this case. I'm morbidly curious about the sequels, so I'll probably still check them out, albeit with considerably lowered expectations...

I hope you continue to enjoy the series, though!

tinnny September 30 2018, 13:05:55 UTC

I just finished the Radch troilogy this year, too. I admit I like all the characters, and Breq especially. I always like AI characters or generally characters who feel like they don't belong and act less emotional than most people. Breq fits that to a tee.

I somehow "left" everyone in the verse as female except Seivarden, the original Aanander from the first book, and the brother from downwell who was explicitly stated to be male. I gave up trying to gender people after the first book, which was very freeing.

hamsterwoman September 30 2018, 20:50:59 UTC

I don't DISlike Breq or anything -- I just had a harder time connecting to her than a number of the other characters, and even the rest of them I didn't connect to particularly well -- for example, as compared to a character in Leckie's Provenance, which I also read this past year. And it's a bit odd, because I tend to like those AI/emotionally aloof characters, too, normally -- I have a list of favorite robots!

IDK if it's the setting, or if Breq's POV (while fascinating) is too complex for me to really glom onto, or what. But I appreciate her as a POV character very much without loving her.

I gave up trying to gender people after the first book, which was very freeing.The thing for me was, I wasn't trying to gender them! Like, the brother, Uran, he was revealed to be male and from a culture that had a distinction between genders, so he was always male in my head after that, because, well, that's what he would think of himself as. And Seivarden was revealed to be biologically male and also kept ACTING like a dude, so I kept ( ... )