Author: Athena (OneReadingNurse)

Categories
Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction

The Passenger by [Cormac McCarthy has lost his mind] (Book Thoughts)

Well. Well well well.  You guys know I had this box set preordered as soon as it was announced and this was my most anticipated read of 2023.  I’m completely and utterly dumbfounded by this stupid book.

It’s brilliant, it’s complete nonsense, it’s the stark raving mad ranting of an 89 year old that no editor dared to raise a red pen to. It’s a bait and switch. It’s aggravating.  And I can’t stop thinking about it. (See Bookish Quick Facts & Synopsis at the end)

The thing about The Passenger is that it ties together almost everything else McCarthy ever wrote. He calls out a lot of his prior works. He sets up a great and interesting mystery that he never follows through on, simply drops the plot line as soon as it gets good.

Is the government after the missing passenger from the fallen airplane, are they after hidden Oppenheimer papers, do they think his son has something? See, in the book, the main character is Oppenheimer’s son, and that angle didn’t work for me because I can’t take a real man with a real documented history and insert him into a fictional situation.  He didn’t die in Mexico, his kids weren’t schizophrenic as far as I can tell (although he was wrongly diagnosed) and it’s just a very bizarre conflagration of real and unreal, although the themes of generational guilt are real.

The schizophrenic circus, the thalidomide kid (really, really? So many old people are having flashbacks of that disaster right now 🤦‍♀️) it was one way to give us a background of the sisters life and psyche but frankly it was just weird.  I think these characters make more sense if you read The Kekule Problem but I would say to read it between The Passenger and Stella Maris.  This isn’t the first story where McCarthy wrote incestuous siblings and he actually gave Alicia more of a personality than most of his female characters.  That said, I think it was fu€ked up but they weren’t, like, physically involved.

So we start with a mystery and end up travelling a circus of bizarre characters, with some prophetic insights on life and more than a healthy amount of ranting about the Kennedys. Throw your plot out the window, no one will even notice, right?

McCarthy isn’t known for punctuation and normal presentation (he would get along with Davidson, real well), and this book falls into that category too so maybe stay away if that style bugs you.  I would recommend the audiobook, I did listen to parts of it to see if it sat in my mind better but honestly… Idk, I can’t retain any specifics.  The narration was good.

I think if you really want the most from McCarthy, you need to go back and read his prominent works and end with this big old finale.  Personally… Idk I’m pretty sure that McCarthy is an old perv who has gone and lost his darn mind, and he’s laughing at everyone trying to make prophecy out of his convoluted ramblings about life, psychology, physics, grief, family ties, the deep dark depths of the ocean,  etc etc etc.

I’ll write more after a Kekule reread and then getting through Stella Maris. I hate it but I’m too oddly fascinated not to keep going, plus SM  is much shorter so there’s that.

Bookish quick facts:
  • Title: The Passenger
  • Series: The Passenger, #1
  • Author: Cormac McCarthy
  • Publisher & Release: Knopf, 2022
  • Length: 400 pages
  • Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐ for fans.  I don’t know if I think he’ll make new fans with this
Here’s the synopsis from Am*zon

The Passenger is the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God.

1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wet suit and plunges from the Coast Guard tender into darkness. His dive light illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flight bag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger. But how? A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit—by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.

Traversing the American South, from the garrulous barrooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.

Categories
Fantasy Science Fiction

SPSFC Semifinalist Review: Percival Gynt and the Conspiracy of Days by Drew Melbourne

As we read through the semifinalist round of the 2023 SPSFC, here is my second full review. If you haven’t been following along, I’m a member of team At Boundary’s Edge and have been posting my individual reviews and scores. These opinions are mine alone and don’t reflect those of the team nor anyone else in the competition. Anyway, let’s look at the book and then you can see my 2nd review out of six to come before the end of April!

Bookish Quick Facts:
  • Title: Percival Gynt and the Conspiracy of Days
  • Series: N/A
  • Author: Drew Melbourne
  • Publisher & Release: Self, 2018
  • Length: 356 pages
  • Rate & Recommend: 8/10 for fans of  comedy and adventures
Here’s the synopsis from Am*zon:

The year is 20018. The famed magician Illuminari is dead, and his greatest illusion has died with him. Dark forces now seek the Engine of Armageddon, the ancient, sentient doomsday weapon that Illuminari hid amongst the stars.

Enter Percival Gynt, accountant and part-time hero, whose quest to find the Engine before it falls into the wrong hands may be our universe’s last best hope for survival. It is a quest that will take him from the highest reaches of power to the lowest pits of despair and through every manner of horror and absurdity between.

But beware. This accountant has a secret. A secret that may damn us all.

Percival Gynt and the Conspiracy of Days is a sci-fi/fantasy adventure novel full of swashbuckling, math, dark secrets, space-faeries, obtrusive product placement, Nazis, beating up those Nazis, unlimited baked beans, zombie cyborg assassins, fate with a capital “F,” love, betrayal, wizards, jokes, paradoxes, a sentient doomsday weapon, eleven-dimensional space, clones, monsters, space-nuns, and at least one rat-chef.

(Only one rat-chef.)

My thoughts:

This book reads like a mashup of Austin Powers and Douglas Adams.  AKA it’s hilarious, over the top, entertaining, and sometimes I’m not quite sure what’s going on but it’s still funny. And dark. The book has a few surprisingly dark undertones that contrasted well with the general lighthearted tone.

Percival Gynt was a fast read for me. The pacing is constantly quick, the plot moves forward, and the characters are about as well developed as the average Austin Powers movie (that’s my analogy and I’m sticking to it) but I like them.

Percival is funny and has the best gadgets. Um is a long for the ride but takes a lot of death (poor guy🤣) and stays positive.  Esme cracks me up. Some people aren’t even who you expect them to be 😳  It was a good crew!

Another thing I really liked was the realistic looking “top news articles” at the beginning of each section.  I might have tried to click one 🤣

I did dock one point out of ten for some slightly confusing time jumping within two of the sections.  The other point I docked was for the plot getting a little confusing/convoluted about the time Percival tries to be a hero and the purity thing rejects him?  I don’t think I fully grasped what happened towards the end there but it didn’t change how I felt about the overall reading experience. (Good, I felt good)

Otherwise, I 100% recommend this book for those looking for a fun, funny, witty, snarky, brand infested space adventure of epic proportions.

Thanks for checking out my semifinalist review of Percival Gynt and the Conspiracy of Days by Drew Melbourne! An e-copy was provided for judging purposes although I read it through Kindle Unlimited. As always, all opinions are my own 🚀

Categories
Science Fiction

SPSFC Semifinalist Review: The Peacemaker’s Code by Deepak Malhotra

As we read through the semifinalist round of the 2023 SPSFC, here is my second full review. If you haven’t been following along, I’m a member of team At Boundary’s Edge and have been posting my individual reviews and scores. These opinions are mine alone and don’t reflect those of the team nor anyone else in the competition. Anyway, let’s look at the book and then you can see my 2nd review out of six to come before the end of April!

BOOKISH QUICK FACTS:
  • Title: The Peacemaker’s Code
  • Series: N/A
  • Author: Deepak Malhotra
  • Publisher & Release: Self, 2021
  • Length: 500 pages
  • SPSFC score: 7/10
HERE’S THE SYNOPSIS FROM AM*ZON:

Professor Kilmer, a renowned historian of war and diplomacy, is collected from his home and whisked off to Washington. Thrust into the highest levels of government as an adviser to the President, the young historian must come to terms with the seemingly impossible, figure out how to navigate a world where not everything is as it appears, and use all the skills and knowledge he has acquired in his life to help save humanity from a conflict of truly epic proportions. A genre-breaking novel that re-examines the human condition and masterfully blends some of the most compelling themes in literature: war & peace, strategy & serendipity, love & friendship, courage & fear, the bounds of possibility, and the limits of imagination. Replete with mysteries that will compel you to keep turning the pages, powerful moments that will stop you dead in your tracks, and insights that will change the way you understand and navigate the world. Most of all… a journey you will not forget.

My thoughts:

My goodness this is a tricky batch of books so far. The first book was exciting but horrendously edited and presented, while The Peacemaker’s Code had my brain in a fog but is meticulously edited and well presented.

This is another surprisingly soft sci-fi. First contact will always be considered a dear part of the genre but I don’t think I’ve ever read a first contact book where the aliens remain an on page idea rather than an entity we don’t actually “meet”.

Hear me out here, spaceships appear and we see the aliens talking, but in 500 pages no character actually meets an alien. they took nearly 200 pages to land on Earth, and there was nothing but debate relating to the aliens leading up to that point.

So the crutch is this: it’s a book about negotiation, superimposed on a first contact setting. I was dying waiting to meet the aliens while the characters just debated and debated various facets that didn’t have any context yet since first contact (other than with radio relays)  hadn’t occured. How much of this can we read before we just meet an alien? Well… 500 pages worth.  Personally I tuned out irrevocably but I’m still giving credit where it’s due, despite that there’s hardly any action. Even when the world is being attacked we get the view from the Situation Room.

That said though, he didn’t set out to write an action thriller so I can’t treat it as something it’s not supposed to be.

So… You gave it a 7? Yes! That all said, I liked Kilmer and Silla and a few of the other characters. I’m not going to fault the author who is a professor at Harvard for writing something his colleagues would love.  There are plenty of interesting ideas buried in the historical comparisons and there’s actually something to say for a book about first contact that keeps the aliens more or less an on page idea only.

What do they want? Why are they here? How do we communicate? Can we save the planet? All the big sci-fi ideas are here somewhere, just not in typical form.

Personally I’m here for more sci-fi, actual aliens, & action, with much less chatter when things are getting heated.  Realistically, I can acknowledge that the MC is a dude I’d love to get a coffee with and let him make me feel like a total idiot while discussing nerdy things.

My favorite idea in the whole book, despite not being a fan of romantic notions in sci-fi, was this feeling of an “us” despite all memories being cleaned out and a situation that repeated itself anyway.

I’m coming in at a 7/10 here, which is about the best score I’ve given in the competition so far. This book is far above average in the self published world but I have to take into consideration that it completely beat my attention span. Sorry professor 😅

Thanks for checking out my semifinalist review of The Peacemaker’s Code by Deepak Malhotra! An e-copy was provided for judging purposes although I read it through Kindle Unlimited. As always, all opinions are my own 🚀

You can find all the competition updates at thespsfc.org 

Categories
Fiction Historical Fiction Romance

Pederasts, POV, Priorities: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Book Thoughts)

Let’s share the bookish quick facts first so you guys can have a refresher, then I’ll dive into my wonderfully trollable thoughts 

Bookish Quick Facts:
  • Title: The Song of Achilles
  • Series; n/a
  • Author: Madeline Miller
  • Publisher & Release: Ecco, 2012
  • Length: 384 pages
  • Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐ I mean I disliked the book and I disliked her premise but she’s a phenomenal writer
Here’s the synopsis from the back cover:

The legend begins…

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. “The best of all the Greeks”—strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess—Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine—much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles’ mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.

When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece, bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice

My thoughts:

Despite The Song of Achilles being wildly popular and appearing everywhere forever since it’s been published, I held off until I was bored and saw someone stating that they learned “a lot about mythology” from the book

I said good lord it can’t possibly be accurate to the legends, because first and foremost in the Illiad, Achilles and Patroclus were only described as close, and later as pederastic at best. Any ”lovers” interpretations came later on with societal change but will never be true to the Illiad. That to me automatically invalidates the entire premise unless you’re seeking to inject “love stories” into places where they didn’t exist, and are reading it for what it is. (I wouldn’t like the book from that angle either).

Friends or Pederasts?

When one man is described as gangly, ugly, gray, a wet blanket, etc, and the other is described as a golden boy, that’s a very typical Greek description of pederasts with the attractive one being the younger man.  In the legends, Patroclus was older, so Miller had to make them roughly the same age to make it would work and seem less like socially acceptable pedophilia. Seeing as that she was loyal to that description, I think she was acknowledging the multiple ways that things could have been, but then apparently decided to make them gay (more in line with later variations).

At the end of the day, this is a “romance” and these are made up characters from a legend, so Miller can do what she wants with the mythology. I just don’t care for this reimagining of the myth.

If you want to read a more educated article about Achilles (a made up fictional character) and the debate of his sexuality throughout literature, here is a great article on it

Let’s talk about point of view

So more specifically about why I couldn’t get into this book, as soon as I see first person POV, if I can’t relate, I tune out.  I tuned out Patroclus after a few chapters because I’m not a man, I’m not gay, and that’s also about the time I shut the audiobook off and grabbed the text so I could dissociate from his voice a bit. I can’t imagine a woman wanting to write this from first person POV, but to each her own. I do much better with stories in third person than first.

I’ve seen this book recommended for ages as young as 14 and there’s way too much explicit and drawn out sex scenes (m/m, m/f), for that age group.  100% 18+ on this one, which is sad because the rest of the book reads like something to be marketed towards teens, as in, fairly repetitive and basic in structure, plus very character based.  I had to flip at least two pages to clear that first m/m scene. 

That said, the characters are wet blankets

Patroclus has NO personality outside of Achilles, who has NO personality outside of Patroclus and his pride.  I’m not even relating them to their Illiad descriptions. In The Song of Achilles, they have no personality. It’s also fairly clear to me that Thetis helped Patroclus become a hero at the end as not to dishonor Achilles, so I mean yeah he was brave but he just wanted the war to end and Achilles was going to hold everyone there for ever.  I never felt drawn to either character at all except for when Patroclus was interested and practicing medicine.

Oh, there’s another point: Patroclus was obsessed with Achilles and we were told multiple times that he wasn’t interested in women, but he had no problem hauling off without a backwards thought and banging Achilles’ wife. Explain how that fit into Miller’s story or personification of her main character at all? If she had an idea this might eventually be marketed towards teens, I just, don’t get it. Smut sells though so 🤷‍♀️

Ok, let’s say a few positive things

I’m losing my train of thought. I do think Miller had a few good scenes, mostly the brutal ones about human sacrifices. I liked the atmosphere and her descriptions of the local scenery and people, water and waves, weather, food, etc, she has a good overall sense of setting.

I like how we spent some time in the medicine tent and in places other than the battle, but also if you’re going to write a romance, why pick this?  The princes and kings spent an awful lot of time sitting around during the Trojan War (10 years went by awful fast in the book) so it made sense to talk about camp life and such, which is about the only place I was interested in the entire story.  I also liked the old centaur.

To touch quickly on what I said up top about Miller being a phenomenal writer? If this wasn’t in first person POV and was less sexualized, I’d have personally like it a lot more. Miller has a distinctively readable style and handles tricky narrative situations surprisingly well.

I mean I’m somewhat Greek, I love legends and Mythology, but I am just not into Miller’s re-imaginings.  I didn’t *love’ Circe either but I think she was at least more loyal to the myths in that one. If you want action, don’t read a romance, yeah yeah, but I never interpreted the Patroclus and Achilles story (and most don’t) as more than friendship, or based off the descriptions that even Miller was loyal to: pederasts.

Alright come at me, I’m ready to get trolled for this one 🤷‍♀️

Tl/DR: I would not read it again but I’m not going to deny that she’s got tricks

Thanks for checking out my rambling book thoughts on The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I was gifted this book many years ago and finally picked it up. As always, all opinions are my own

Categories
General Posts, Non Reviews

February Wrap Up & March Travel Plans

Favorites, stats, hauls & unhauls, and miscellany. Did I even buy books this month? Let’s get to it!

February felt like a slower reading month and  March is going to be pretty vague TBR wise as I’ll be travelling from the 10th-29th and won’t be reading much.

February reading wrapup:

I finished 9 books. All of these reviews can be found on the blog using the search bar if you’re interested.

I was loyal to my TBR this month.

My favorite read was  The Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie but I feel bad for giving him two months in a row.

My favorite new to me/debut/new discovery author was definitely Kate J Armstrong, with her new book The Nightbirds

I also just absolutely disliked a few of the books I read in February, like The Hermes Protocol. I’m bordering a reading slump but I’ll recover overseas so it’s all good.

The breakdown was 5 fantasy,  2 sci-fi, one thriller, and one… Uh… badly reimagined mythology. I disliked The Song of Achilles too (thoughts coming🤣)

Stats wise:

February fell way short of January here on the blog.  It rebounded towards the end but my traffic sucks compared to everyone else so why do I even bother 🤷‍♀️ the most interesting thing though is most of my views are coming from search engines now so that’s something! Even funnier is that it’s my two main evergreen articles bringing the views in 🤣

Book un/hauls and spending

I’m tracking spending now to show y’all that commercialism isn’t necessary to do this. I did spend 27$ on audiobooks but I got eight through Chirp, on sale for a few dollars each and have no regrets.

I forgot my Kindle unlimited was due to start again and I meant to cancel it but ate that charge, and the audible trial. I bought NO physical or EBooks.  So the two subscriptions plus the audiobooks, I’m out like 43$.  KU is done in March, I don’t think it’s worth it.

I only had five books come in, two arcs and three giveaway wins. Thanks all ❤️ so all of that is on my TBR (see below)

I unhauled six books so I’m barely net negative for the month 😅.  The only place I collected more books was free e-copies of indies, with some killer sales this month from Clayton Snyder among others

The last thing I did on here that I liked was a short and sweet article about bookish things making me cranky this month 

How was you guys’ reading in February?
March tbr:

I won’t have much reading time so there are only three books on my TBR. If I blog a lot, it’ll likely be an excessively nerdy travelogue. I wrote one list about books based in London and their related landmarks, so stay tuned for my progress!

Celadon Books was nice enough to hook me up with a late ARC of Alex North’s new book The Angel Maker. I also have an audio code so look for that soon.

Sordaneon is for a blog tour and I’m starting it tonight!

Good Dog, Bad Cop will be a quick read and David Rosenfelt is always reliable for an entertaining mystery. Plus dogs. Thanks to Minotaur Books for that one ❤️

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I also have one brunch interview planned for the 19th with LL Stephens!

Nerdy travels:

I’m heading back to the UK (and already having a bad time with hotels) but I’m psyched to explore literary London, go to a British Sci fi convention, and see my sad nerd SO among other plans.  It’ll be an adventure for sure.

I will be slow here during March but I’ll do my best to update all the cool bookish things as I go!

What’s on you guy’s TBR?

Categories
Fantasy Young Adult

Nightbirds by Kate J. Armstrong

Happy book birthday today to Nightbirds!  I got an early finished copy through Bookish First and enjoyed it more than any YA I’ve read in recent memory. I wish all YA fantasy was like this!

Bookish Quick Facts:
  • Title: Nightbirds
  • Series: Nightbirds #1
  • Author: Kate J Armstrong
  • Publisher & Release: Nancy Paulsen Books,  2/28/23
  • Length: 480 pages
  • Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for fans of YA fantasy and strong women!
Here’s the synopsis from Am*zon:

In a dazzling new fantasy world full of whispered secrets and political intrigue, the magic of women is outlawed but four girls with unusual powers have the chance to change it all.

The Nightbirds are Simta’s best-kept secret: Girls with a unique and powerful magic they can gift with just a kiss. Some would kill to possess them; the church would kill them outright. But protected by the Great Houses, the Nightbirds are well-guarded treasures.

As this Season’s Nightbirds, Matilde, Æsa, and Sayer will spend their nights bestowing their gifts to well-paying clients. Once their season is through, they’re each expected to marry a Great House lord and become mothers to the next generation of Nightbirds before their powers fade away. But as they find themselves at the heart of a political scheme that threatens not only their secrets, but their very lives, their future suddenly becomes uncertain.

When they discover that there are other girls like them and that their magic is far more than they were told, they see the Nightbird system for what it is: a gilded cage. Now they must make a choice—to remain kept birds or take control, remaking the city that dared to clip their wings.

My thoughts:

First off the overall presentation is stunning. We get two lovely detailed maps and some internal artwork, and as an added bonus the font is a bit bigger and we’ll spaced (typical of YA) but my poor eyes loved reading it.

The magic is lush (reminds me of Roshani Chokshi but toned down).  It paints the scene whether it’s small, pretty tricks or earth shaking feats of magic. The characters all have unique abilities based off what element they are attracted to.  Bowing dragons made of fire, plant magic, it’s nothing terribly unique but I liked it.

Plus the writing moves constantly forward. There is none of that repetitive inner monologue crap that YA has gotten so notoriously bad about. It’s just so refreshing to read a book that’s always moving forward. Another thing that I really dislike about YA these days is that ever book tends to feature “romance”, and Nightbirds is blessedly light on any of that content! There are a few crushes and kisses but NO PINING, it’s just, oh, I wish they were all like this.  

Take a hint publishers, editors, authors: keep the smut in adult books!

There’s enough political plotting to keep it interesting too without boring anyone with deep dive details into any of the government structure. It’s not too hard to figure out who’s in charge and there’s enough betrayal to keep it fresh.

Lastly there are the types of epigraphs that I love reading. Those which add little extras to the culture of the world. Some were tied into the story and some were just there to add flavor but I liked them.

Overall? It’s not perfect but I’ve got no content issues, was never bored, and flew through this book. I can’t wait for the sequel. If all YA was like this I’d read a lot more of it!

Thanks for checking out my book review of Nightbirds by Kate J Armstrong.  I claimed my early finished copy through Bookish First and as always, all opinions are my own ♥️

Categories
General Posts, Non Reviews

15 London Based Books & Their Visitable Landmarks

I’ve been collecting books set in London since it always seemed like a magical travel destination. J love travelling through books.

With my trip coming up so soon in March I felt like making a list of the London Based books I’ve read recently, ones I’ve read before, and a few still on my TBR.  I’ve picked a few sightseeing destinations out of these so I’m definitely excited for next month despite the price gouging)

1. Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco.  I loved this book despite the many eye roll moments, and the series remains strong. Only the first is set in London and afterwards the main characters flew to Romania.

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2. The Left-handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix.  This is set in an alternate London and the author of my favorite YA books can do no wrong

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3. The Shades of Magic series by VE Schwab. We don’t talk about these books. There are multiple alternate Londons and the main characters were just so awfully bad that I DNF’d the second book.  Took some heat for saying the prince should just die but literally whatever it took to stop his whining. I truly detest these books but they are wildly popular

4. The Avram Davidson short story that won an Edgar Award, The Affair at Lahore Cantonment. Apparently Avram spent some time in London and loved it despite the crappy rainy weather.  It mostly takes place in India though

5.  The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare.  Despite wishing she would let these poor characters stay dead and buried instead of rehashing them forever and ever to sell more books, I did enjoy this trilogy.  I am dying to go stand on Blackfriar’s Bridge and check out Hatchard’s Bookshop on Piccadilly. Maybe I check out Bride’s Church too.

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6. Sherlock Holmes! I read that the apartment number originally didn’t exist, although it does and is a museum now.  Might be worth a look-see

7. Another that I read recently, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. So many gloomy victorian London vibes here.

8. A suspense novel that is still a main draw to my blog, Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner.  If this is a place that one can go to walk around, it seems like it is, I’ll see where it’s located because Faulkner made the vibes sound amazing

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9. Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Bleak House… Uh… Ok, pretty much every book I can think of by Charles Dickens. There are at LEAST five, probably more.  I should see if there are any Dickens related landmarks worth seeing.

10 & 11: Another recent read, 1984 by George Orwell!  I had forgotten this one takes place in London so it was a fun surprise.  Not much to say for modern landmarks though.  On the same note, Brave New World by Huxley was set there too (although in another unrecognizable fashion)

12. Also along those lines, technically The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is based in London. I read the new illustrated version as an arc a few years back and appreciated it

13. The London Below series by Neil Gaiman. I actually haven’t read this one or seen the miniseries but I’m interested in both.

14. Obviously parts of Harry Potter and yes I’m going to go to King’s Cross as a priority and find the shopping cart 😂 

15. The last one I can think of that I’ve read is The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.  I highly advocate reading all of his material that one can get their hands on, or at least checking out a few of his talks on YouTube.

There you go! What books have you read that take place in London? What literary (or lesser known) landmarks should I look for??

Categories
General Posts, Non Reviews

Salty Saturday: From Context to AI, Five Bookish Things Bugging Me Recently

It’s Saturday and I’m cold and I can’t get my lifesaving contact into my eye, so I’m cranky.  That said, I’ve been particularly annoyed with (or at least thinking about) a few things this week.

Most of these apply to wider society as well, but frankly outside of work I don’t spend much time interacting with people so I’m going to relate them all to books

Annoying item the 1st: Lack of context

Ok, let’s start with the one everyone is talking about right now: Roald Dahl. I don’t care if the content owners wash the word “fat” out of his books.  People won’t be less offended if we call them “enormous” so if the editors want to waste their time nitpicking, that’s on them. (P.S. if the copyright owner decides to alter a publication, they have the right to do that. We don’t have to agree with it. That said, context is important. I don’t agree with these types of choices but still, they can do whatever they want with their property).

“Hi, wow, you’re enormous”

I don’t see the difference but to each their own. More broadly this whole content washing push is about context. American society and book consumers have lost their sense of context while reading.

I see so many reviewers bashing and downgrading old books for their sexism, phobias, misogyny, whatever: it was written 100 years ago. My real concern here is the possibility for this to landslide like everything else wrong with society has done.

Context, people, context

Annoying item the 2nd: perspective and content policing

Tying right into the first is perspective. I know how this one makes me sound, but, readers and community members have lost their wider sense of perspective. Everyone is too worried about offending someone else!

I just keep my language fairly benign and if someone wants to try to cancel me again, fine, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.

I miss the days where people would just keep scrolling without causing a rabble about something they don’t like.  What happened to discussion? No one can just have a discussion any more

Like yes I’m sorry that happened to you (to ‘triggered’ people) but at the same time, I don’t endorse content policing when something bothers one person out of a large group.

If you’d like to read an eye opening book about perspective and context, I really recommend The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Item the 3rd: the blessed decline of cancel culture

I think this one is finally going away, as in, I haven’t seen any wider attacks on any particular author recently. Thank GOODNESS.

This just ties into the first two but for the love of everything sacred, if you don’t like something, keep scrolling. I blame wider society for letting our book community get to that point, we can’t pander to every single person with an issue because it’s impossible to make everyone happy

Item the 4th: the AI debate

Ok, back when AOL instant messenger was a thing, I had a chatbot on my friends list. I loved messing with it. I forgot it’s name because this was like 20 years ago (good LORD I’m old) but these AI tools are to me just an evolving technology being put to ill usage.

I’m getting tired of hearing about AI and the debate just started. Submissions are closing down, everyone is riled up, and disclaimers are going into writing assignments in colleges and author competitions.  I get it, but I’m seeing a lot of bitching and no offered solutions

I feel like there’s probably a good use for this somewhere. Maybe it can be modified to help kids with learning disabilities or that need more help in school, maybe they need things explained differently, and this could be a library at a tutor’s fingertips🤷‍♀️ I’d let a big adaptive technology company buy this AI technology and let them put a moratorium on it’s usage for anything else!

The last: hummm… Let’s say the debate about negative reviews

I’ve been reading these articles with great interest and most of the debate has to do with author’s feelings and damaging publisher relationships.

I’ll say a quick piece and move on: you, the reviewer, agreed upon taking the book for review, to give an honest review, so you need to do that.

It’s not a debate, it’s what you agreed to. I’ve incidentally offended people before but I give every single author and publicist the disclaimer that I’m both unflinchingly honest and sometimes don’t have a filter 🤷‍♀️

If you buy a book with your own money, it doesn’t matter as much what you write. If you have it for review purposes, you need to be honest or possibly you’re in it for the wrong reasons and that’s a whole different issue with the publicity base.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Grateful Sunday, I feel like I need to balance this out with something thankful tomorrow 🤣

Categories
audiobooks Fiction Mysteries Science Fiction

The Avram Davidson Treasury: The Sixties (How I’m Getting the Hang of This)

I’m still reading a story here and a story there, and I’ve now made it through The Sixties! The first thing I’d recommend doing is checking out my intro post that also covered stories from the fifties, as I’m not going to repeat myself about the author and collection in general

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In general

Jumping right in, I think I moderately enjoyed the stories from the Sixties more than the Fifties.  Davidson’s penchant for language and linguistics came out in a more accessible format for someone like me, who’s not a genius and just likes reading good stories.

The Real MVP is Spider Robinson’s intro to Sacheverell, because it’s hilarious and now I want to read everything Spider has written. Anyone recommend where to start?

The magic of a google search

Many more good points were made by the authors introducing the stories, the main one being that most of the time Davidson omits “the point” on purpose, and leaves the reader to connect the dots.  I’m not good at this.  LeGuin pointed out that he throws in a lot of humor and extras, to see if people know what they mean, like the term “freemartin”, and it enhances the stories obviously if you catch his hints. That said, I’m so worried that I’m missing a lot of jokes and insights 🤣

A few of the stories so far have just made no sense to me whatsoever, so I jotted down a few keywords and did a Google search. Walla, boom, like magic, a historical backdrop popped out. (I’m looking at you, The Price of a Charm).

Frankly I’d just love to read these stories with someone who’s a better literary critic, because most of my insights are coming from the author intros and I’d miss the cool things if not for them, but I’m getting the hang of this!

Let’s talk about a few specific stories for kicks:
  • I read The Sources of the Nile twice, a few days apart, and I made more connections the second time around. Davidson had a lot of angst about what publishers & the public are looking for, I think, and he probably got a kick out of  writing this one
  • The Affair at Lahore Cantonment won an Edgar Award for best short story, and was on my reading list anyway for “reading that takes place in, or has meaning in London“. Personally I’m most enjoying the stories influenced by Davidson’s travels.  On the other hand, this is one of the stories that makes me feel like I don’t appreciate good literature enough.
  • I’m probably dumb. I thought Revolver had some good use of irony but I couldn’t see the humor 🤣
  • The Tail-Tied Kings … This was just weird and mildly disturbing, I don’t want to think about it any more LOL
  • The Price of a Charm I already mentioned above: this is the story that could have been read for what it was, until the end, where something happened and cast the rest into a light that made no sense. Well, insert Sarajevo into a search engine and BAM (no pun intended), a little background carries some of these stories a long way!
  • Sacheverell I also mentioned above, frankly I just took the story for it’s surface value (some guy kidnapped a talking monkey) but it’s a layered story. I just listened to a podcast about it prior to writing this. Anyway, the real MVP was Spider Robinson’s intro to the story
  • The House the Blakeney’s Built I also mentioned above, especially about LeGuin’s intro too.  This is a great story about what Davidson thought a colony would look like about 500 years after a family’s ship crashed.  Hint: it’s not Star Trek where everyone is still a genius.  I loved this one and how the language had devolved. Real or fake, he can write language!
  • The Goobers was straightforward and fun, loved the ending
  • The Power of Every Root … I feel like I should have guessed the ending based off the title but I had gotten too lost in Davidson’s depictions of everything.  As I said, the stories influenced by his travels are my favorites and I’m pretty sure he loved Mexico

Give me a couple more weeks and I’ll read the Seventies! I am reading this collection through a hardcover that I bought years ago, and partially through Audible as the book is currently free with membership. That small print gets me after a while! As always, all opinions are my own

Categories
General Posts, Non Reviews

WWW…W…? Wednesday!

It seems like Wednesdays are for this WWW meme, although to me if you’re following someone’s blog already, you probably know their rough TBR and recently finished books anyway, right?

Ehhh anyways this one is quick and fun …

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at, or just leave a comment!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

what are you Current reads:

My currently reading list is pretty tame right now.  I’m into the Seventies in the Avram Davidson Treasury, so a little over halfway through. I’ll be talking about the sixties on here tomorrow

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I’m almost done with Nightbirds by Kate J. Armstrong and omg it’s by far one of the best YA fantasies I’ve read in a long time.  Very into the secrets and atmosphere despite the rehashing of many similar tropes, the writing is lovely

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I’m also working through The Peacemaker’s Code by Deepak Malhotrafor the SPSFC semifinal round.  It’s not bad but I’d like to see less analysis and more aliens.  That said, the author is an ivy league professor of something and writes a lot of books on negotiation, so he just wrote his happy little self into a book as a world saving hero 😅 it’s very well edited though so that goes a long way, and has many interesting points

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What did you recently finish readiNg?

Here are my posts for White Trash Warlock by David R Slayton and Heritage by S.M. Warlow. A few days ago I also finished Hex You by P.C. & Kristin Cast, and P.C. got after me on twitter 🤣

What do you think you’ll read next?

Ok, this is pretty clear cut right now. I have to read Good Dog, Bad Cop for Minotaur Books, so that’ll be my next e book. My next physical book is Sordaneon because I won it in a giveaway and am also jumping into a blog tour coming up in March! Besides finishing the Avram Treasury .. my next audiobook will probably be…. A tough choice, I grabbed one about British herbology related folk tales that I might check out next!

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