2022: the year of reading in the pool (Part One)

[st_aurafina]

Things I'm not including here:
- my endless re-read of the Imperial Radch books (It got to the point where I was reciting them along with the narrator, and so I have given them a spell for a while. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it stopped working as a security read for me.)

- my endless re-read of the Murderbot books (I kind of want Murderbot and Jollybaby to go on a road trip, just a murderbot and its crane friend. Maybe they could go to the upcoming Conclave in the Radch novels?)

- books I started but noped out of in the first chapter. (There were quite a few, especially when I fell into a historical murder mystery well.)

- the number of times I had to go back and reread The Locked Tomb books just to figure out what the actual sweet hell was going on. (This was no chore, mind you.)

These are in chronological order, fwiw.

Stormsong by C.L. Polk, narrated by Moira Quirk
- part two of the "We're Wizards and Extremely Gay" series
- aka The Kingston Cycle but I like my title better because it explains EVERYTHING
- book two is lesbians
- there's a lot of sleigh rides with magic foot heaters and fur wraps and huddling for warmth
- also societal oppression of gay people magic users
- love interest is a flapper-adjacent journalist with grit and her own flat
- the first book was all nobility and riches and elves
- this one gets into the gritty reality of the single working woman
- thumbs up for a more developed world structure with social stratification
- bonus points for an underground immigrant witch society
- Moira Quirk, please come to my house and literally narrate anything because I love your voice

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo, narrated by the author
- I'm normally wary of books narrated by authors? For me, the experience can veer into cringe, I don't know why. Maybe because author =/= professional voice actor?
- Yangsze Choo did great, though, and I am glad I read in audiobook format.
- 1890's Malacca was an amazing setting, and not one I knew much about. Many cultures jammed into a small space, with modernity looming but traditions in every corner. What a great time and place to set a story!
- Li Lan is a teenage girl stuck at home with her father who has let their family's prospects dwindle
- She receives an offer of marriage to the wealthy but dead son of a prominent family
- she doesn't like the dead son much (I agree, he's a big jerk) but it's a chance for her to have a secure future
- so many amazing characters in this. Aunties and cooks and demons and dragons and ghosts and a sweet little spirit horse
- beautiful language, imagery, magic, history
- the underworld! Creepy and systematic, with currency and obligations and oof. It was so good!
- I saw this in a review, and I agree 100%: The overwhelming show-stealer is the setting, the background, the history, the superstition and traditional beliefs of turn-of-the-century Malaya.


Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace, narrated by Abby Craden
- SECRETLY STARRING BUCKY
- okay, not really, but come on, there's a taciturn and traumatised super-soldier, can you blame me?
- the main character is Wasp, and her job as archivist is to catch the ghosts that kind of ooze out of the mountain. In return, she receives tribute from the village that she protects
- the village exists in a crapsack fall-of-civilisation dystopia and it's pretty fucking grim
- I nearly put it down, it was so grim
- Wasp has to fight, Hunger Games style, to retain her position, and it's getting more and more difficult as time and starvation whittle away her strength.
- But she has a plan and it's a smart plan
- She catches the ghost of said supersoldier and bargains with him to figure out why everything went so crapsack
- the front end of this book is really tough, but the back end has so many found family moments and triumphant fist pumping moments that I am glad I persevered
- it's one that I keep checking to see if the sequel is out
- and it is! but not in audiobook, bah.


Hench: A Novel by Natalie Zina Walschots, narrated by Alex McKenna
- massive side-eye for this book
- it's lots of fun
- very clever, knows its tropes
- has everything you'd expect from a Lower Decks-style story about superheroes and their minions
- I especially loved that there was a temp office for henchmen
- but
- it does not stick the landing
- you can't be a villain and the good guy at the same time
- and I understand the ACAB vibe that was going on with the Avengers-esque superheroes, I do
- but you either position your main character as nominally a villain who is more honourable than the superheroes, or an actual villain who does actual evil shit. You can't be both. You have to commit one way or the other.
- this book did not commit and it suffers because of that.
- this makes me sad because the characters were so interesting when they weren't being OMG DARK AND EVIL.
- plus there was a perfectly good femslash ship that never went anywhere and that makes me pouty.
- Warning for some intense (and frankly creative) body horror


Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta, narrated by Catherine Ho and Cindy Kay
- elitist mech pilot school student versus vigilante mech-breaking rebels
- some hefty body modification descriptions that got a bit uncomfortable for me but if you like body horror, it will come across as mild, I think
- super sapphic
- really, so very very very charged
- starts out as enemies to lovers
- excellent world building, faboo supporting characters
- this was a regretful DNF for me
- but don't let it be a dealbreaker for you (A Gearbreaker Dealbreaker! ha!)
- I went through a stage of not dealing with bleak stories
- and this one got too bleak for me
- I think it was heading for a happy place? Maybe?
- but I'm pretty sure that if you like dark stories and struggles and bleakness (lots of people do!) you'll like this one
- it's very competent and engaging!
- I think I've talked myself into putting it back on my TBR to finish off.


Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, narrated by Carolyn McCormick
- Scientific team sent on secret mission to investigate a lush, abandoned weirdness
- big X-Files energy
- delightfully scientific ecosystems
- delightfully elliptic storytelling
- mind-warping on many levels
- quite sad, though? Like low-hanging cloud, there's a life-long sadness to the narrator's voice
- the emotionality is beautifully done, but it was too much for my poor brain, so I'm not planning on picking up the sequels just now
- I read this because I liked the movie well enough but felt that there was more story
- there was so much more story
- I worry about the overall pensiveness of the story dragging me down, so I'm stopping here with the series
- But I can see a time when a certain mood will take me, and it will be good to have that kind of book ready. The sequels aren't going anywhere.


Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal, narrated by Meera Syal
- I didn't know anything about this book but it was certainly eye-catching
- I mean, what a title
- ostensibly it's a murder mystery
- but really it's a collection of microcosms that you are invited into: the world of a London Sikh temple, the world of a second-generation immigrant finding her way between two cultures, all the worlds of the Punjabi widows who tell their stories
- to be brutally honest, the murder mystery isn't anything to write home about
- but that doesn't matter, it's barely the point of the thing. It's just the wrapper that ties all these stories together
- Reading in audio made this a wonderful experience, and Meera Syal does amazing work voicing a huge range of characters, from teenagers to elderly widows
- absolutely overdue for a screen adaptation


The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller and Will Damron
- a world where magic is extremely codified and revered, with supporting industries like costumers and jewellers and so on that also use magic. (I love this kind of thing!)
- which naturally leads to outsiders and less-revered methods of magic, which includes our protag, who is a bone witch, which is a combination necromancer/demon fighter/soul stealer, and generally a Very Scary Person
- the world building is beautiful and rich, painted in broad and fine, and there are many, many details that were original and startling.
- THE MIDDLE IS LONG AND BORING
- I was so sad about this because it's a great world! The characters are fantastic! There's queerness and genderfuckery and dance (magic dance!)
- Because the middle dragged so badly, the one annoying thing about the audiobook version started to grind me down
- it was a thing that I told myself I could ignore, because I was enjoying the storytelling so much
- The main character's family all have noun names, right? Fox and Lily and so on.
- The main character's name is Tea.
- which, according to the stated system, would have to be Tea as in the drink, right?
- Not Tea, as in Tee-ah. Thea? Tia?
- I love Emily Woo Zeller. She reads the Machineries of Empire books, and made me love the characters intensely. But the way this book dragged made me need to take a break from her voice for a while, which is sad.
- DNF
- Might go back? When I'm a little calmer and needing less immediate distraction, perhaps.


The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, narrated by Daniel Henning
- To be honest, I picked this book up because I'd just finished Wheel of Time on TV
- anyway TIL that Daniel Henning is not Daniel Henney
- but he's a good narrator
- headdesk
- The premise seemed a bit twee for my personal tastes - a bit Harry Potter/Lemony Snicket

As I write these reviews, generally I have other review sites open, to check things like date of publishing, whether there are sequels, whether there are vast differences between the audio or paper versions of the books. I don't usually read reviews before I read, apart from lists like "Ten great low-stress reads" or "Books with queer characters".

I learned just now from Goodreads that TJ Klune based this book on the Sixties Scoop. I wouldn't have believed this if I hadn't seen it in the author's own words. Which makes it somehow even worse.

I didn't know about the Sixties Scoop specifically - I'm Australian, and more familiar with my own country's atrocities in the removal of indigenous children from their families.

While I was reading, this book seems like a fun if overly-mannered fairy tale of found family. There's barely any mention of family left behind, and when they are mentioned, their homes are abusive or they are abandoned and unwanted. The only possible conclusion you can draw from this is that TJ Klune thinks the Sixties Scoop was a fine idea. Or that res schools are a good idea? Or something?

What a strange and clunky act of appropriation.

I feel very weird now, let me tell you.



The Library of the Dead by TL Huchu, narrated by Tinashe Warikandwa
- aaaaaah, this was wild and fun!
- near-future Edinburgh, in a kind of post-climate collapse situation, with many refugees living in various camps around the city.
- Ropa is the teenage protag, and she's tough as all get out. She's keeping it together for her family, which consists of her Zimbabwean grandma and her sister. School is an optional extra for her, as she needs to earn a living.
- which she does by carrying messages from the dead to the living
- She is devastatingly ruthless with the dead, and does not give her gift away for free
- She's also fiercely protective of kids younger than her, and demands justice from the bad world that hurts them
- as if this weren't enough
- there is a magical library run by an elitist sect of magicians
- they have nothing but scorn for her hedge wizardry
- it's that fantastic mix of learned magic versus instinctual/cultural/spiritual magic that I loved in Rivers of London
- I would die for Ropa's grandmother, who is a tour de force. And she knits! Knitting magic!
- A truly terrifying monster. I mean. Fucking unexpected and terrifying.
- You can tell from the number of points that this book is utterly jam-packed with plot. Like. Jammed in. So many plot.
- Narration starts a little wobbly, but settles in fast. I couldn't find out if Tinashe Warikandwa is actually Scottish, or just really good at Scottish? Either way, she was very listenable.
- I have the sequel in my TBR.

Comments

[sholio]

you either position your main character as nominally a villain who is more honourable than the superheroes, or an actual villain who does actual evil shit. You can't be both. You have to commit one way or the other.

Yeah, I haven't read this book but the reason why I haven't read it is because I've encountered enough roleswap superhero riffs ("the villains were right, actually!") to have a feeling it was going to do exactly that, and YUP. It's sort of like the "Slytherins/Sith were right and did nothing wrong" contingent in fandom. Are there problems with the way canon sets up the good guys and bad guys, that you could address in fic? Yes, definitely! But that doesn't mean all the murder is actually okay!

I learned just now from Goodreads that TJ Klune based this book on the Sixties Scoop. I wouldn't have believed this if I hadn't seen it in the author's own words. Which makes it somehow even worse.

D:
DDDD:
DDDDDDDDDDDDDD:

Okay, so this book I actually did read, and didn't like it very much. I looked around for whether I actually posted about it and it looks like I didn't - the closest, I guess, is this comment here - but basically I felt like the twee tone and the serious subject matter didn't go together AT ALL, and neither did the protagonist being a basically nice guy who was complicit in an Evil Bureaucracy for his entire career without ever noticing anything was wrong. (It was frustrating for me because I actually *like* "bureaucrat in Ministry of Evil wakes up to the consequences and decides to rebel" type narratives, but it really didn't work for me at all as written - like I said in the comment linked above, I would have liked this general idea done differently, but not like that!)

This makes it 1000x worse. *laughs, sobs* I haven't heard of this exact thing as such, but I don't think you have to in order to know about things like this - there were plenty of them in the US that I do know about - and I'm just staring at the sheer clueless WTFery of everything in that interview compared to what's in the book. I mean, here again, it's sort of like ... I don't think this is a thing that a white author couldn't approach as a topic to write about, necessarily, but NOT LIKE THAT!!

[rachelmanija]

I also read and never got around to reviewing it. I did not know what it was based on, and YIKES.

I thought it was twee and mostly forgettable, but was very annoyed that in a story where the protagonist realizes that he's been working for the bad guys all along, the story isn't about him doing anything to bring down the evil organization or help the kids who HE PERSONALLY HAS BEEN HELPING TO KIDNAP AND IMPRISON FOR HIS ENTIRE CAREER, it's to have an extremely fluffy romance.

Also, that's not how evil but legal organizations work. You don't work for, say, Philip Morris without ever realizing that smoking causes cancer, you rationalize it by believing that people do many things which they enjoy but which may have bad consequences and do cooks who make unhealthy food feel guilty? But in this book, IIRC Linus believed that the children weren't kidnapped and nothing bad ever happened to them. Organizations doing bad things legally don't conceal what they're doing from their own employees.

[sholio]

Also, that's not how evil but legal organizations work. You don't work for, say, Philip Morris without ever realizing that smoking causes cancer, you rationalize it by believing that people do many things which they enjoy but which may have bad consequences and do cooks who make unhealthy food feel guilty? But in this book, IIRC Linus believed that the children weren't kidnapped and nothing bad ever happened to them. Organizations doing bad things legally don't conceal what they're doing from their own employees.

THIS, YES. 10000% this. He acts so naive about it that I genuinely can't believe in him as a character; he just comes across really, really stupid. It would make a lot more sense if he actually understood what was going on and was rationalizing it, or ground down by it to the point where he didn't think he could actually do anything - especially since he seems to be literally the only person there who is TOO FUCKING STUPID to actually realize what's happening!

And then, as you say, he doesn't even try to do anything about it!

It was like the absolute antithesis of everything I want from the trope of "employee of the Ministry of Evil has a moral awakening and turns against the Evil Ministry," which is a trope I normally really like.

And then finding out that the twee, cozy found-family foster home in the book is actually based on a real-life situation that is not only the exact opposite but an incredibly painful, touchy subject that happened within living memory of a bunch of people who are still alive and dealing with the after-effects is a huge slice of nope topping on the nopecake!

[rachelmanija]

NOPE TOPPING ON THE NOPECAKE.

You can write a fluffy romance with psychic kids who the heroes are protecting from persecutors, or you can write a story about persecuted psychic kids that involves romance but also deals fairly seriously with the persecution aspect, or you can write about an evil agency employee who turns coat and fights back. But you cannot write THIS. Or, well, you can, but you shouldn't. It's disrespectful and ugh.

[fred_mouse]

I am with everyone on this thread. Went and looked at my review -- despite a very lukewarm summary, I gave it four stars, and now I'm not sure why. My half-arsed review contains the following line, which I think sums it up:

I don't get quite why people were so obsessed with it. Although the queer romance was good.

[st_aurafina]

HE PERSONALLY HAS BEEN HELPING TO KIDNAP AND IMPRISON FOR HIS ENTIRE CAREER, it's to have an extremely fluffy romance.

Right? It's so consequences-schmonsequences about it all.

[muccamukk]

I think we had this convo on my journal as well. It just... doesn't work.

[sholio]

Oh right! I was pretty sure I had talked about it somewhere with someone, I just couldn't remember who and where.

[out_there]

- But I can see a time when a certain mood will take me, and it will be good to have that kind of book ready. The sequels aren't going anywhere.

I'll be intrigued if you do go back to the annihilation series. That book stayed with me adn I did read book 2 (yes, same... vibe and very much alien-ness and unknown) but I couldn't quite bring myself to read book 3.

[st_aurafina]

That book stayed with me and I did read book 2 (yes, same... vibe and very much alien-ness and unknown) but I couldn't quite bring myself to read book 3>

Yeah, I probably will? But as you say, it does stay with you, and I think that kind of intensity means I need to take a break and read stupid Ancient Rome murders for a bit.

Like, finding out the second or the third book is about the lighthouse captain gave me chills but the kind of chills where you creep closer eventually, you know?

[out_there]

the kind of chills where you creep closer eventually, you know?

Which kind of sums up the whole book, really. It's this creeping closer and closer, but without any real answers. And when I'm in the mood for that again, I think I'll enjoy it but I usually like a more definite story arc.

[smallhobbit]

I read this a couple of years ago and agree it's intriguing. But also agree I wouldn't read more of the series. But, given that I rarely finish sci-fi books, it has an appeal.

[st_aurafina]

It was good science! I love stories about biology and ecosystems especially, and I think that this book nailed that aspect. It was very good science fiction.

[misbegotten]

>>For me, the experience can veer into cringe, I don't know why.<<

I'm generally okay if they are just reading, but I have found when they try to do voices it gets VERY cringe.

[st_aurafina]

Exactly! It's rare that it's done well, but in this case, she did awesome. (Plus I really wanted to read the book!)

[misbegotten]

Oh! And I have always loved Carolyn McCormick's voice! It didn't occur to me that she might perform audiobooks.

[st_aurafina]

Oh, she was great! Her voice is lovely to start with, but she also had that knack of doing character voices without actually *doing* the voices, you know?

[thisbluespirit]

and Meera Syal does amazing work voicing a huge range of characters, from teenagers to elderly widows

I bet! <3 (I am no good with audiobooks as opposed to fullcast adaptations & BF stuff, but some choices of narrators generally or specifically for titles do make me pine a bit and wish I could!)

To be honest, I picked this book up because I'd just finished Wheel of Time on TV
- anyway TIL that Daniel Henning is not Daniel Henney

LOL!

(I haven't read any of these books, so I have nothing more sensible to say. Glad you also have some sterling comfort re-reads, as those are always essential in bad times. And good times!) <3 /may be re-reading the Chalet School books yet again as I go through a brainless patch...

[st_aurafina]

may be re-reading the Chalet School books yet again as I go through a brainless patch...

That sounds so cosy! <3 <3

[ambyr]

I had very similar reactions to Hench, which I keep summing up as “compulsively readable and morally bankrupt.”

[st_aurafina]

Morally bankrupt is a perfect description.

I wanted it to be good. I kept wading into the mire expecting some great payoff, but by the time I was eyeballs-deep, I realised there was no payoff coming. And yet I kept reading, just in case.

[grav_ity]

HOUSE came out at peak Fantasy Must Be Grim and Dark over here, so it was quite a welcome change (and also a white dude instead of all those pesky ladies coming up from YA to absolutely nail the category change), and people were like "this is a little pro-government for a story about relocating children?" and then Klune dropped that interview and all of YA was like "Oh, and he also writes pro-cop books for teens" and it's been confusing and weird ever since.

I deeply liked parts of it, was deeply off-put by others, and am generally lukewarm on the whole thing, even though at the time, I was like "Oh thank GOD this one has hugs in it."

[st_aurafina]

It was just such a weird thing to discover.

[greenwoodside]

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

I've rarely been sold on a book so quickly!

[st_aurafina]

It was lovely! Not the most diverting murder mystery, but such a cast of wonderful characters. I hope you enjoy.

[marinarusalka]

I loved Library of the Dead! The sequel is great too. I hope Huchu writes a ton in this series, because the setting and the characters are just awesome.

[st_aurafina]

So good! Ropa was so gutsy, and the world was so interesting. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

[snickfic]

I am just here to say I feel extremely validated by all this hate for Klune book, which I disliked before I found out about his inspiration for the reasons Sholio and Rachel talk about, and then after I found out I was like how the actual fuck did we get here?????

[st_aurafina]

after I found out I was like how the actual fuck did we get here?????

Right? From the interview, I don't think either person thought there could possibly be a problem with this concept.

Before I knew, I wouldn't have said it was the worst thing I'd read, just kinda flopulous and under-developed.

[singe]

I have to read about the Punjabi Widows and the Ghost Bride, thanks!

[st_aurafina]

They were both great! I hope you enjoy.

[dhampyresa]

TJ Klune based this book on the Sixties Scoop.

That sure was A Choice, huh. Telling people about it is also A Choice.

[st_aurafina]

He was so proud of his choices!

[redfiona99]

One day, we will discover why historical murder mysteries seem to have only two settings, which are excellent or appalling (not including one of my favourite series which swings between the two - I have learnt if a particular character is prominent, I will not enjoy that particular book).

[st_aurafina]

Sometimes I like the character enough to gloss over the bad research, sometimes I like the excellent research enough to gloss over the terrible character, but sometimes there's just... nothing good.

[rachelmanija]

Which is that and who is the character?

[redfiona99]

The Elizabeth Peters Peabody books.

It's Nefret. It may well be a me problem, but she does really, really stupid things, brings out the worst in Ramses and then we're supposed to sympathise with her and I don't.

[silverflight8]

Hench bothered me too. The protagonist is so angry about the damage that superheros do, but no problem working for a supervillain doing literally the same thing. She's so upset about henchmen getting hurt...and then literally creates plans that get henchmen injured in her service. Everyone lives with cognitive dissonance, I don't think it's possible to survive without it, but this was just too much.

[st_aurafina]

The cognitive dissonance was too much for me!

[genarti]

but you either position your main character as nominally a villain who is more honourable than the superheroes, or an actual villain who does actual evil shit. You can't be both. You have to commit one way or the other.

Ugh, I was afraid of this; it's half of why I've been holding off on reading Hench. (The other half is that the whole "but ha-ha! the superheroes are actually the callous assholes!!" trope inversion tends to feel very smug and gotcha-ish to me -- less ACAB than snarky teenager, you know? Sometimes it works for me, but I'm very picky about it.) Anyway, I agree, as soon as you confirm that your honourable villain is in fact doing evil mayhem and murder and torture and all, you absolutely lose me on the honourable moral high ground part of it. Hench sounds very funny and also sounds as if I won't be able to appreciate the humour at all because I'll be too busy wanting to throw the book across the room, sigh.

I know many many people (many of whom I'm fond of and consider to have generally good taste!) who loved The House on the Cerulean Sea, but I bounced hard off it, and then I learned about the Sixties Scoop inspiration thing and quietly vowed not to give any more TJ Klune books a try. I was already kind of twitchy about the whole handling of the foster care system in the books, but I wasn't expecting THAT. Certainly not proudly announced like that, as if it's a fun interesting uncomplicated bit of history to play with in your fluffy fantasy!

The Library of the Dead sounds AMAZING. Adding it to the list!

[muccamukk]

Hench was also reinventing all the conversations the superhero genre has been having with itself since the 1980s (at the latest!) and pretending no one had every thought of them before! Which I actually found more irritating than the whole "Mass murderers have the moral high ground" nonsense.

[st_aurafina]

quietly vowed not to give any more TJ Klune books a try.

Oh, same. I can see how people might really like the tone - a manufactured kind of tweeness - but no, even if that was my cup of tea, I couldn't get past that.

The Library of the Dead is great, and Ropa especially is my fave little mercenary psychic.

[slashmarks]

I also picked up Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows on the strength of the title a few years back! I remember feeling like the bait and switch with the mystery was somewhat annoying but I also really enjoyed the cast, and the hapless narrator trying and failing to get her elderly creative writing students to stop writing porn and eventually giving in was hilarious.

[st_aurafina]

I remember feeling like the bait and switch with the mystery was somewhat annoying

Yes, it was a bit that way - I wanted to skip past the murder bits and back to the classes, which were brilliant. (And honestly, I think more poignant than the murder in some ways, or at least, written with more dimension.)

[muccamukk]

Basically agreed on the three of these I read: Stormsong, Hench and the Klune one.

There was quite a bit of conversation in my DW about Klune. I'd thought he was English just based on the book being set in Fake England (I GUESS!), and was assuming that he just doesn't understand about Indigenous issues here. But he's from Oregon, so, like, WTF!? I'd picked up that it was about the '60s Scoop when I was reading it, and just could not with it. I wish the cute romance was in a completely different book, as I really liked that part, but WTF!?

Interested in how you'll like the final All the Witches Are Gay book.

[st_aurafina]

It was such a weird and clumsy choice, I can't wrap my head around the cluelessness of it all.

Interested in how you'll like the final All the Witches Are Gay book.

I've started it! I am liking it so far, though I'm not very far in. (But the extreme cold is a pleasing thing to read about while I'm sweltering, that's for sure.)

[muccamukk]

Yeah, I'm almost... stunned? that someone from our generation, especially someone from Oregon which had A LOT of '60s scoop shit going on, could decide that was okay! Like WTF!?

Robin Miles is legit one of my fave narrators.