![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Finished reading
La Belle Sauvage Huh. Reading this page by page was an utter, wonderful joy. Pullman is a freaking master here of measured, comforting storytelling, and it’s pitch-perfect for the story and the character he’s telling. On that level, I adored it, and I’m so glad I read it. On a narrative level, it sort of wears its prequel mantel a bit too obviously (the narrative and the story just ends hard, leaving our protagonists abruptly in favour of the all-important ‘baby character who’s central to the next books’, without giving the children characters I’d grown to like an actual ending. So from a narrative and writing perspective it was really interesting to observe, and I’m glad I read it. Actually, I’m interested enough based on how good this was, to give the original trilogy another go, and that’s much higher praise than I was expecting to give!
Summer in Orcus by T Kingfisher (pen name of Ursula Vernon) oh god, now that I’ve finished I can say with utter certainty that this is damn near perfect and the denouement damn near actually made me cry. Fuck. Having only read two of the six finalists, mind, I’d been planning on leaning towards Pullman at the top of my ballot just because Vernon’s won several times now, but I just can’t go past this work. *clutches it*
[Amazon excerpt] In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan. Um. Huh. The world building and even the scene setting in this is schlocky. Probably this is intentional! I mean, the dialogue is legit laugh out loud hilarious, for example, but the rest of it – including the pacing – is giving me whiplash in comparison Again, it’s probably intentional! But, welp. I’m super, super here for main character being a bi guy, and I’m really looking forward to what I’m hoping is an OT3 (IN A YA BOOK! Oh my god I am so pleased), and I legit want to read it for that. But based on this excerpt I’m not at all sure what it’s doing in the Hugo finalists.
Currently reading:
Raven Strategem by Yoon Ha Jee. The general of Faction A forcibly and pleasantly takes command of the space warships of Faction B to go fight their common enemy. I think. I got this as an eBook loan (public library system ftw!), although I’m keenly missing the ability to highlight passages for later, which is apparently a Kindle function but not an Overdrive function. I really want the ability to flag “Oh, man that info dump is going to be really useful later”. Format whining aside, I am adoring every word that I understand of this. Which is probably about two-thirds of the book, which is a much higher ratio than the first book. The bits that I understand are sharp, amazingly sharp and tight and often really fucking funny. There are women everywhere, and equally unremarked is at least one gender-neutral person. Are there people out there who have read these books and understood the whole calendrical warfare thing immediately? Is it a maths thing that I’m missing? Regardless, I am loving it, to the point where I’m veerry tempted to buy a Kindle version for the highlighting.
Up next:
I've just about given up on the voters packet coming in reasonable time, and have ordered The collapsing empire by John Scalzi on interlibrary loan. Excite!
La Belle Sauvage Huh. Reading this page by page was an utter, wonderful joy. Pullman is a freaking master here of measured, comforting storytelling, and it’s pitch-perfect for the story and the character he’s telling. On that level, I adored it, and I’m so glad I read it. On a narrative level, it sort of wears its prequel mantel a bit too obviously (the narrative and the story just ends hard, leaving our protagonists abruptly in favour of the all-important ‘baby character who’s central to the next books’, without giving the children characters I’d grown to like an actual ending. So from a narrative and writing perspective it was really interesting to observe, and I’m glad I read it. Actually, I’m interested enough based on how good this was, to give the original trilogy another go, and that’s much higher praise than I was expecting to give!
Summer in Orcus by T Kingfisher (pen name of Ursula Vernon) oh god, now that I’ve finished I can say with utter certainty that this is damn near perfect and the denouement damn near actually made me cry. Fuck. Having only read two of the six finalists, mind, I’d been planning on leaning towards Pullman at the top of my ballot just because Vernon’s won several times now, but I just can’t go past this work. *clutches it*
[Amazon excerpt] In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan. Um. Huh. The world building and even the scene setting in this is schlocky. Probably this is intentional! I mean, the dialogue is legit laugh out loud hilarious, for example, but the rest of it – including the pacing – is giving me whiplash in comparison Again, it’s probably intentional! But, welp. I’m super, super here for main character being a bi guy, and I’m really looking forward to what I’m hoping is an OT3 (IN A YA BOOK! Oh my god I am so pleased), and I legit want to read it for that. But based on this excerpt I’m not at all sure what it’s doing in the Hugo finalists.
Currently reading:
Raven Strategem by Yoon Ha Jee. The general of Faction A forcibly and pleasantly takes command of the space warships of Faction B to go fight their common enemy. I think. I got this as an eBook loan (public library system ftw!), although I’m keenly missing the ability to highlight passages for later, which is apparently a Kindle function but not an Overdrive function. I really want the ability to flag “Oh, man that info dump is going to be really useful later”. Format whining aside, I am adoring every word that I understand of this. Which is probably about two-thirds of the book, which is a much higher ratio than the first book. The bits that I understand are sharp, amazingly sharp and tight and often really fucking funny. There are women everywhere, and equally unremarked is at least one gender-neutral person. Are there people out there who have read these books and understood the whole calendrical warfare thing immediately? Is it a maths thing that I’m missing? Regardless, I am loving it, to the point where I’m veerry tempted to buy a Kindle version for the highlighting.
Up next:
I've just about given up on the voters packet coming in reasonable time, and have ordered The collapsing empire by John Scalzi on interlibrary loan. Excite!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject