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Have finished: (Since the start of January or so)
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy: A young teenager inherits something the secret magical community is willing to kill to get; she gets a skeleton as a body guard/mentor in the process. He’s awesome. An odd mix of really enjoyable, and also terrible action scene writing. Mostly charming, and I’m into basically everything except the action scenes. Female protagonist for the win, and not only that, but it feels like Landy carefully read the feminist handbook on how to write said female characters, and therefore wrote several excellent female characters of varying skillsets and motivations (I adore all of them), and in particular passed the Bechdel test with two of the otherwise-possibly-in-competition-with-each-other instead supporting each other and being respectful and fierce with each other. Tanith Low is so great. It’s the start of a looong series, and I’m not sure I’m up for all of them, but I’m tempted to wiki ahead enough to jump into the Tanith-specific book.
Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend: A charming debut. A Second world diverts into an even more magical Third world. Good solid writing, generally good world building with only one or two glaring missteps. Billed as the new generation’s Harry Potter, and I’d buy that. Interested in reading the next one when it comes out, probably.
South by southeast by Anthony Horowitz: Picked up because of the most glorious play on words in the first few pages. A loving piss-take of the hard-boiled detective novels of yore. Nothing quite matched that level of genius for the rest of the book, but it was a pleasant diversion.
Artemis by Andy Weir: A young woman who grew up on the moon space station gets embroiled in a murder/corruption conspiracy. Seems v well researched, even if most of the technical stuff went over my head. This was an odd read. I could almost hear Weir writing it, which is a point against it, but near the end I realised I wasn’t mulling over how the denouement was going to go down as much as I was really keen to keep staying in that world. I liked the main character, even if she wasn’t totally likable as a person. I’d still read thousands more words of it, even though I didn’t care about the plot.
The switch by Anthony Horowitz: Rich spoiled boy gets body-swapped with a poor circus boy. The fatphobia is intense here. It was otherwise well constructed, but wow, heads up for said fatphobia and also classism. So, you know. Anti-rec.
Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa: This is so fucking great, oh my god. I’m up to volume 17 of 27, and it’s amazing. I’d bypassed it for a long time because I had the idea it was hyperviolent (kinda is, in spots), and military macho. It’s… written by a woman, it turns out (I didn’t know enough about Japanese to pick genders in names, honestly), about two alchemist brothers who are trying to get their full bodies back after a resurrection ritual to return their mother went unsurprisingly hideously wrong. There are SO MANY female characters, and they’re all doing so many different, interesting things, and brothers Ed and Al are full of heart and cranky and I really hope things work out for them all (although I’m sure it’s not *peers through fingers*). Also excellent commentary on war and the military and corruption and on disability and accessibility aids (Ed has an ‘automail’ arm and leg). This summary of themes etc (tumblr link) is a take on it. Highly recommended.
The raven and the reindeer by Ursula Vernon (writing as T. Kingfisher): Gorgeous retelling of The Snow Queen (of which I’ve not read the original). Amazing control of language, and characters who are hilarious and wrenching by turn. Queer love story! Happily ever after queer girl ending! Highly recommended.
Currently reading:
Fullmetal Alchemist volumes 17-20 by Hiromu Arakawa. gaaaaaahhhhh still love it. It’s oddly harder to remember quite what’s happened where and when, probably because of the episodic nature of the magna format, and I’m just less used to reading manga in general. But still fucking loving it.
An accident of stars by Foz Meadows: this is much slower going (an unfair comparison, to a manga). Portal into second world. Queer people and queer girls esp, everywhere. Also poly ftw. At 21% or so, and it’s got good potential.
Up next:
Planning to storm through the rest of Fullmetal Alchemist, at least.
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy: A young teenager inherits something the secret magical community is willing to kill to get; she gets a skeleton as a body guard/mentor in the process. He’s awesome. An odd mix of really enjoyable, and also terrible action scene writing. Mostly charming, and I’m into basically everything except the action scenes. Female protagonist for the win, and not only that, but it feels like Landy carefully read the feminist handbook on how to write said female characters, and therefore wrote several excellent female characters of varying skillsets and motivations (I adore all of them), and in particular passed the Bechdel test with two of the otherwise-possibly-in-competition-with-each-other instead supporting each other and being respectful and fierce with each other. Tanith Low is so great. It’s the start of a looong series, and I’m not sure I’m up for all of them, but I’m tempted to wiki ahead enough to jump into the Tanith-specific book.
Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend: A charming debut. A Second world diverts into an even more magical Third world. Good solid writing, generally good world building with only one or two glaring missteps. Billed as the new generation’s Harry Potter, and I’d buy that. Interested in reading the next one when it comes out, probably.
South by southeast by Anthony Horowitz: Picked up because of the most glorious play on words in the first few pages. A loving piss-take of the hard-boiled detective novels of yore. Nothing quite matched that level of genius for the rest of the book, but it was a pleasant diversion.
Artemis by Andy Weir: A young woman who grew up on the moon space station gets embroiled in a murder/corruption conspiracy. Seems v well researched, even if most of the technical stuff went over my head. This was an odd read. I could almost hear Weir writing it, which is a point against it, but near the end I realised I wasn’t mulling over how the denouement was going to go down as much as I was really keen to keep staying in that world. I liked the main character, even if she wasn’t totally likable as a person. I’d still read thousands more words of it, even though I didn’t care about the plot.
The switch by Anthony Horowitz: Rich spoiled boy gets body-swapped with a poor circus boy. The fatphobia is intense here. It was otherwise well constructed, but wow, heads up for said fatphobia and also classism. So, you know. Anti-rec.
Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa: This is so fucking great, oh my god. I’m up to volume 17 of 27, and it’s amazing. I’d bypassed it for a long time because I had the idea it was hyperviolent (kinda is, in spots), and military macho. It’s… written by a woman, it turns out (I didn’t know enough about Japanese to pick genders in names, honestly), about two alchemist brothers who are trying to get their full bodies back after a resurrection ritual to return their mother went unsurprisingly hideously wrong. There are SO MANY female characters, and they’re all doing so many different, interesting things, and brothers Ed and Al are full of heart and cranky and I really hope things work out for them all (although I’m sure it’s not *peers through fingers*). Also excellent commentary on war and the military and corruption and on disability and accessibility aids (Ed has an ‘automail’ arm and leg). This summary of themes etc (tumblr link) is a take on it. Highly recommended.
The raven and the reindeer by Ursula Vernon (writing as T. Kingfisher): Gorgeous retelling of The Snow Queen (of which I’ve not read the original). Amazing control of language, and characters who are hilarious and wrenching by turn. Queer love story! Happily ever after queer girl ending! Highly recommended.
Currently reading:
Fullmetal Alchemist volumes 17-20 by Hiromu Arakawa. gaaaaaahhhhh still love it. It’s oddly harder to remember quite what’s happened where and when, probably because of the episodic nature of the magna format, and I’m just less used to reading manga in general. But still fucking loving it.
An accident of stars by Foz Meadows: this is much slower going (an unfair comparison, to a manga). Portal into second world. Queer people and queer girls esp, everywhere. Also poly ftw. At 21% or so, and it’s got good potential.
Up next:
Planning to storm through the rest of Fullmetal Alchemist, at least.
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(19/02/2018)
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(I didn’t know enough about Japanese to pick genders in names, honestly)
Don't feel bad about that one. Hiromu is a rather/very unusual name, and despite my decades of anime-nerdom, I wouldn't have been able to pick the gender either.
In fact, I don't recall ever having seen/heard it.
(If you want to watch a warm&fuzzy anime, ask Chaosmanor about the show I pointed them at recently. IMO it's only flaw is that it's only 11 episodes long. SQBR will also squee about it at you I'll wager.)
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I really must get around to reading the manga one day!
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I should do one of these. I will try soon.