January Reading (and still catching up on 2022)

[st_aurafina]

January Reading
Trying to do this once a month so that I have a stopping place for my 2022 reading reviews. (How is it February? I don't understand time anymore.)


Reading in February
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho, narrated by Catherine Ho
- ohhh!
- you know the feeling when you've read some books that are okay? And then you pick up one that absolutely sings?
- that's the feeling I'm having right now. It's the difference between making time to read, and not wanting to stop reading.
- Queer main character, stuck in the limbo between college and adult life, has to help her parents move home to Malaysia after a big life upset
- Discovers that the voice in her head is not jetlag or stress-related, but her dead grandmother who (a) knows how to google and (b) is in a war with a gangster (c) over a god
- it's everything about being the child of two cultures trying to find your place
- I'm loving it so far


Finished In January
The Witches of New York by Ami McKay, narrated by Laurence Bouvard
- Gilded Age New York, two witches who run a teashop take on an apprentice
- super queer friendly, with lesbian relationships and also queer-leaning friendships
- didn't enjoy as much as I wanted to
- I'm sad about it, because this book has everything I should have loved: feminist historical takes, queerness, a broad cross-section of Gilded Age society in New York, the business and science of spiritualism, Cleopatra's needle, extracts from newspapers and other media
- I did love the storylines for the three main characters, especially Eleanor (lovely queer Eleanor!)
- but there were so many storylines that I kept losing track
- the narrator did great with the main characters' voices, but everyone else came across as kind of cartoonish, especially male characters
- there were some very violent scenes which were not a good match for the whimsical tone of the main storyline
- idk should have worked for me, might have worked better in paper instead of audio

Seven Devils by Laura Lam, L.R. Lam, narrated by Neve McIntosh
- a little bit caper, a little bit evil empire, a whole lotta spaceships
- this is a big bowl of plot noodles
- each noodle is a really good idea or an interesting character
- but there are so fucking many noodles
- and they all mix together in unhelpful, confusing ways
- the sauce on the noodles is 100% queer found family
- which kept me reading when my concentration drifted
- I don't know why the narration was broadly Scottish but it was a fun twist
- there's a sequel but I doubt I'll feel like noodles too soon, you know?

The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones, narrated by Moira Quirk
- picked up because Moira Quirk
- (whisper beautiful words in my ear, Moira)
- turns out to be a Welsh-inspired zombie fantasy
- main character runs her family's grave digging business, and is a mean hand with an axe
- lots of fun, competently written, with lovely tough ladies fighting zombies and getting shit done
- queer friendly though the main pairing is het
- nothing unexpected but entirely enjoyable


2022 Review
The Midnight Bargain by C. Polk, narrated by Moira Quirk
- continuing my love affair with Moira Quirk
- and my growing affection for C Polk
- this is a regency romance type situation, with magic.
- Magic for dudes, I mean
- C Polk says BEHOLD MY METAPHOR FOR OPPRESSION OF WOMEN
- it is a literal collar
- because being pregnant and able to do magic = bad bad super bad
- though no possible solutions to this have ever been researched, beyond suppressing magic powers in women in child-bearing situations.
- the metaphor is heavy and weighs down the storytelling but I mean, so does oppression??? I guess? Does this make the metaphor a metaphor for the metaphor?
- This book didn't land for me
- It was a fun read, and it definitely improved towards the end of the book
- but it relies too hard on Beatrice, the heroine, doing stupid things to advance the plot (or slow it down in some cases, when impediments were required)
- Aside from that, the characters are lovely - clever, original, funny
- Beatrice's sister, who is maybe ten, has studied all the rules of courtship and the ritual thereof, and is constantly hilarious in her frustration at Beatrice's fumbling and occasional defiance of the system.
- Beatrice makes a pact with a magical spirit called Nadi. All Nadi wants to do is eat cake, kiss boys, and walk barefoot on the beach. I am here for her dedication to a good time.
- I am feeling more and more positive about this book as I remember the things I liked so much!
- C Polk does this thing (in this book, and in The Kingston Cycle) where she supports her existing magic system with other less well-explored systems from other cultures
- I really liked this aspect, it keeps an awareness of colonialism in the storytelling
- so if you're looking for 100% frothy Regency romance, this isn't it
- but it is fun, clever and well thought out. With cake.


The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers, narrated by Patricia Rodriguez
- the first Becky Chambers I've read
- though it's 4th in the series
- I haven't read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, because lilacsigil read it a while back, and is still raging about something. I don't know what, but what enrages her is likely to enrage me.
- I don't have space in my brain for raging, but this was recommended as a gentle, uplifting kind of hopepunk story that stands alone from the series.
- It certainly is that - no raging here.
- It's set at a planetary truckstop planet, specifically at a small hospitality business run by Ouloo (who seems to be a sloth-pony-marsupial species) and her awkward, always hungry teenager.
- Three guests are trapped there by [CIRCUMSTANCES] and we learn about them, their histories and fears and hopes
- There is [DRAMA] that forces our characters to work together and use their differences for the greater good
- It sounds like I'm being cynical, but I'm not. Sometimes you need a story when the only drama is from some external force, and people can just work together to look after each other
- This is that story
- I assume from reviews that this is typical of Becky Chambers: the aliens are wonderfully, delightfully alien
- What is your culture like if you're extremely short-lived? How do you communicate with other species if you're a cuttlefish? How do you sit on a chair as a quadruped?
- THESE ARE IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS
- I appreciated the running joke about the weirdness of humans
- Coming from a Star Trek background (where aliens are mostly humanoid with different forehead prostheses) I find this very refreshing.
- (I say this most lovingly)
- It was just a really lovely read.


We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix, narrated by Carol Monda
- Kris was the guitarist for a heavy metal band that almost made it in the nineties
- now most of her bandmates are washed up and miserable, working menial jobs
- because their lead singer may have sold their souls for his success
- road trip of justice ensues
- I have developed a love/hate relationship with Grady Hendrix
- He's great with a hook
- Not always so good with the follow-through
- This one starts bleak
- I nearly bailed a couple of times
- (Bear in mind that, at the time, I had the mental resilience of toilet paper.)
- This was really good!
- But occasionally incredibly gruesome
- Imagine heavy metal mythology translated into a road trip then translated back into heavy metal mythology to defeat great evil
- It's gotta start dark, man, or you won't see the fire burning on the mountain
- (One thing I miss in audiobook is the spelling of things. I could hear that her band was called "Dirt Work" but I did not realise it was actually Dürt Würk. Maybe that little absurdism would have mitigated the bleakness at the beginning?)
- There is so much mythology, and cleverness with that mythology, and understanding of the zone you go into when you're creating something big and real
- Also, a epic quest is difficult when all you have is a plastic bag and a pair of flip-flops, and the fact that Grady Hendrix could keep that vibe integrated with the mythological back story of Dürt Würk's album was truly epic in itself
- Carol Monda does stellar narration, husky and angry and fierce
- You know that thing when an author writes about a fictional work and leaves you longing to be able to engage with it? Troglodyte is that album.


The King’s Gambit and The Catiline Conspiracy by John Maddox Roberts, both narrated by John Lee
- So then I fell into murder mysteries set in ancient Rome
- Not just this series, it was a whole thing for a while
- But I started here because Audible gave me the first book for free
- First taste is always for free
- You'd think I know better but I was very vulnerable at the time
- And nothing that happened in Ancient Rome was going to hurt me personally
- So here I huddled
- The SPQR series is competent, and the mysteries are sufficiently mysterious
- Ancient Rome is gross, full of slavery and racism and misogyny but my expectations on that front were low
- The only time it got really bothersome was having a sex scene narrated to me while I was trapped in the pool
- 'Trapped' in this case meant I was too lazy to climb out of the pool to dry off and get my phone to skip the scene (also too lazy to figure out the controls on my splashproof earbuds)
- It was a very weird sex scene with an acrobat, which could have been interesting I guess but was actually kind of cringe
- The sex scenes were pretty poor on the whole
- But otherwise I did genuinely like a lot of the characters in this, and they were both soothing reads when I was feeling very raw


A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, narrated by Em Grosland
- AKA A Novella for the Sad-Brain
- series is called Monk and Robot!
- so gentle and kind
- the hopiest of hope punk
- Set in, I guess, the best description is a post-apocalyptic world if the apocalypse was the kind that made the whole world rethink their life choices and change the status quo to live a better life
- main character is a genderfluid tea monk having a midlife crisis
- also there are robots
- also also part of the apocalypse was the robots saying "Hey, we don't like the way you're treating us, so, basically, byeeeee!"
- so out there is a whole robot culture that has evolved from that emancipated generation (including a most delightful naming convention <3 <3)
- this is full of philosophy and solar panels
- I really enjoyed the gentle unfolding of this story and this world
- 20/10 will read forever


Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot, narrated by Stephanie Cannon
- like, basically lesbian space rebels
- it's a romp
- a big, tropey romp: quippy but defensive main character meets a mysterious and hyper-competent space assassin, with a side order of big scary empires at war
- the reading equivalent of a deeply satisfying fast food meal, like, the kind that arrives with fries that are still hot and crisp
- Author self-describes as a disaster bisexual, and honestly, I am not surprised
- This book is filled with disasters, bisexual or otherwise
- Hefty dose of competence porn with a side of traumatised assassins in love
- knows what it's doing, does it competently and thoroughly
- I enjoyed it, I licked my fingers and I moved on


Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman, narrated by Mark Coles Smith and Tamala Shelton
- Jacky, like many kids of his culture, has been legally removed from his family to be raised in a school that will give him proper and decent values
- and now he's on the run
- the most intense reading experience I had in 2022
- in fact, my stomach flipped just seeing the title
- oooof
- DO NOT GET SPOILED FOR THIS
- I AM SERIOUS
- the impact of the story does not work unless you go in unspoiled
- it was like all the Australian history I learned at high school came back and punched me in the face
- it taught me more about that history than anything else I've ever read in my fifty one years of life
- you won't understand unless you've read it
- you might not understand if you weren't raised with it
- but I am still thinking about it
- I'm not sure if the impact was more impactful because I read in audio, and I'd love to hear if from anyone who has read in text, and whether if it was different for them
- I can see over on GoodReads that the punch doesn't land for everyone
- I wonder if it's because you need to grow up hearing the voice that this story pretends to use?
- I seriously think this should be a text in (Australian) schools
- We need people to be thinking about colonisation this way
- Happy to talk more about it, including spoilers, if anyone is interested
- I realise that this makes me sound like I'm in a cult or something
- and I guess in a way I am?
- the cult of decolonisation


The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis, narrated by Lucy Brown
Enemies at Home by Lindsey Davis, narrated by Lucy Brown
Deadly Election by Lindsey Davis, narrated by Jane Collingwood
- Lady private investigator in ancient Rome discreetly investigates murders and other wrongdoings
- Books 1-3 of the Flavia Albia series
- This series is apparently the sequel to an earlier series, which I have not read and of which I did not feel the absence, though I'm sure it's good
- I had to run away to a comfort zone after Terra Nullius
- These are fun and have lots of facts
- They skip merrily over the most unpalatable aspects of Roman life, and Flavia has some very modern sensibilities, so if that kind of thing annoys, these books are going to make you rage
- there are oodles of them, but I stopped at book three because I didn't like the change of narrator
- not that there was anything wrong with Jane Collingwood's narration, and if she'd been first, I would probably have been just as mad about the switch in Book Three
- You get used to a certain voice, right? Especially in a comfort read


The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller
- you think you're here for a fun montage-style story about a mistreated orphan girl learning about her abilities
- Harry Potter style, with ninjas, right?
- and charismatic teachers, and student rivalries, and gradually gaining confidence in yourself
- WRONG! THIS IS A WAR STORY WITH ATROCITIES
- based on the Nanjing Massacre, with no softening of the narrative
- it's awful, by which I mean it's well written and very intense
- very bad and traumatising things happen and I am but a soft and squishy mollusc
- It says something about the writing that I stoically blorped my mollusc self through to the end of the book
- holy shit does this one burn the world down in the name of vengeance
- and still finish on a massive cliffhanger
- I loved the opening section. Rin, the war orphan, is fantastically driven. Sinegard, the elite military school she claws her way into, is a great setting with great characters
- the bleakness was really very bleak? And while that's an important story to tell, it came as a bit of a surprise when I'd signed up for a ninja military academy story
- I am not sure if I'll follow up with the sequels
- depends on the extent of my mollusc softness
- I'm torn because I liked the magic, and I love love love Rin's mentor
- Glad to be okay with Emily Woo Zeller's voice again though

Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie, narrated by Simon Vance
- Roman murder mystery set in Roman-era Chester, which is fantastically interesting and well-described
- Oh, this is a mixed bag
- and by that I mean a mixed bag that's got some really good stuff but also unfortunately a tiny poop
- thus rendering the whole bag a little distasteful
- I loved being able to look up and read about the actual history of the fort (Deva Victrix) as well as the tribes the Romans were fighting. There was lots of history!
- Ruso is a medic attached to the army, and his day-to-day life was really interesting
- He also accidentally rescued the emperor one time during an earthquake in Antioch and is really embarrassed about it
- interesting Roman-era medicine, things we still use but also mouse droppings
- his constant arguments with the administrator of the fort felt very contemporary
- (all patients should be given affordable healthcare clean pillows)
- the murder mystery was solid! I did not pick the culprit!
- Everything would have been jolly, had he not married his slave instead of selling her to clear his debts
- That's the poop in the bag
- I understand the pact I'm making when I read a historical murder mystery, I do.
- I think what I'm saying is that I am happy to buy into the suspension of disbelief only so far without a little self-reflection from the character. Like, maybe about the slaves he didn't marry?
- I did really like a lot of stuff in this one. Maybe I'd be happier with later books where their relationship is established.


A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan, narrated by Kate Reading
- Victorian-era aristocratic tomboy girl-child grows up to throw off the shackles of society's expectations and goes on an expedition with her newly wed husband to study dragons
- an absolute confection!
- Kate Reading has a fantastic memoir voice for a distinguished adventuress
- it helped that I had Lady Sybil Vimes in mind as I read this
- and that I am a sucker for stories about the science of magic
- also about classification of species
- this is more than a little bit silly but it knows what it is and that's fine. And fun.
- will definitely be reading more


A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, narrated by Em Grosland
- Monk and Robot II!
- Monk brings Robot home to meet the fam and it's all good
- Still delightful, still a low-stress read
- the most stressful thing that happens is a crisis of conscience
- it's great to see more of Dex's world
- and learn about robot culture
- (which honestly is a little cannibalistic, but also hopeful)
- I wish to live my life in this world of solar-powered camper-bikes and happy robots


In conclusion, books.

Comments

[snowynight]

Black Water Sister and The Bone Houses both sound great!

[mergatrude]

I have just requested a bunch of these from my library, thank you kindly.

[lightbird]

I loved Black Water Sister. Zen Cho is such a fantastic writer. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

The Bone Houses sounds really interesting. I'll have to add it to my ever-growing to-read list.

[lilysea]

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller

I read all three books, hoping it would somehow claw its way to a happy ending.

The series did not have a happy ending.

[lilysea]

Have you read The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard?

I think you would really like it! ^_^

"When tech scavenger Xích Si is captured and imprisoned by the infamous pirates of the Red Banner, she expects to be tortured or killed. Instead, their leader, Rice Fish, makes Xích Si an utterly incredible proposition: an offer of marriage.

Both have their reasons for this arrangement: Xích Si needs protection; Rice Fish, a sentient spaceship, needs a technical expert to investigate the death of her first wife, the Red Scholar. That’s all there is to it.

But as the interstellar war against piracy rages on and their own investigation reaches a dire conclusion, the two of them discover that their arrangement has evolved into something much less business-focused and more personal...and tender. And maybe the best thing that’s ever happened to either of them—but only if they can find a way to survive together.

A rich space opera and an intensely soft romance, from an exceptional SF author.

Advance Praise for The Red Scholar's Wake:
“So romantic I may simply perish.” —Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne

“LESBIAN SPACE PIRATES. Enough said.” —Katee Robert, NYTbestselling author of Neon Gods

“The Red Scholar’s Wake is a fizzingly inventive space opera, quite unlike anything I’ve encountered before, and told with style, grace, and a big dose of heart. SF is lucky to have Aliette de Bodard.” —Alastair Reynolds, Sunday Times bestselling author

“The Red Scholar’s Wake takes you on an exhilarating dive into space piracy with passion, politics, dazzling settings, and-even better-a profound core of love transcending hopelessness that rings throughout the story.” —Everina Maxwell, author of Winter’s Orbit

[vass]

Seconding Aliette de Bodard's space opera as something I think you'd be into. (I am not sure whether or not you'd like her gothic fallen angels.) *quick journal search* Ah, good, you have read The Tea Master and the Detective. That's the one I've read, and which immediately came to mind as st_aurafina bait.

[singe]

Intriguing!

[vass]

Books! (I am with lilacsigil on Smol Angry Planet.)

Thanks for the Terra Nullius review, you've convinced me to bump it higher up my TBR list and to be careful about avoiding spoilers.

[heresluck]

I have Black Water Sister on my bedside table right now! I'm really excited for this one; I've liked Cho's other work so much, and this one sounds right up my alley.

I loved Polk's Witchmark, and then the rest of the Kingston cycle had seriously diminishing returns for me, so Midnight Bargain made me very happy. (I totally agree that the metaphor has all the subtlety of a brick to the head, but so much of the rest of the book delighted me that I really didn't mind.)

Poppy War, oof -- I found that book simultaneously excellent and unbearable. I didn't continue with the series. But I'm excited about her new book, Babel!

Monk & Robot! ♥

I hadn't heard of Bluebird, but it sounds like an excellent crunchy snack -- it's on my list now. :D

Have you heard of The Forever Sea (Joshua P. Johnson)? You might like it. The sequel, The Endless Song, is coming out this month.