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Read this week: dragons and spirits
Jul. 24th, 2019 04:15 pmI'm in an original fiction phase, which has upsides (more surprises etc.) and downsides (generally scarier etc.) but for right now I'm enjoying it.
In the Vanishers' Palace - Aliette de Bodard
Beauty and the Beast adaption with dragons in a post-apocalyptic fantasy Vietnamese setting. I liked this – not as much as I'd hoped and I'm not entirely sure why, but I did enjoy it. The worldbuilding was interesting but it felt like the plot developed slowly (even though the book is short), while the romance was fast for my taste (though more objectively not too badly so.) My favorite characters were Thông and Liên, Vu Côn's children, and I liked their relationship with their mother.
The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower - Katherine Arden
Book 1 and 2 of the Winternight trilogy, and my library doesn't have the third one yet, boo. I enjoyed these a lot! A fantasy fairy tale story set in medieval Russia. I really liked the characters, especially Vasya and her family, and the plot worked well for me too and was interesting and exciting, with good villains. What I found harder to deal with, because it was so very well shown, was the extremely sexist society. Auuugh. And also Christianity destroying the existing culture.
( Spoilers )
The end of book 2 has some very ominous foreshadowing, I'm really looking forward to book 3 (and already hoping for AUs because those lines practically demanded them.)
In the Vanishers' Palace - Aliette de Bodard
Beauty and the Beast adaption with dragons in a post-apocalyptic fantasy Vietnamese setting. I liked this – not as much as I'd hoped and I'm not entirely sure why, but I did enjoy it. The worldbuilding was interesting but it felt like the plot developed slowly (even though the book is short), while the romance was fast for my taste (though more objectively not too badly so.) My favorite characters were Thông and Liên, Vu Côn's children, and I liked their relationship with their mother.
The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower - Katherine Arden
Book 1 and 2 of the Winternight trilogy, and my library doesn't have the third one yet, boo. I enjoyed these a lot! A fantasy fairy tale story set in medieval Russia. I really liked the characters, especially Vasya and her family, and the plot worked well for me too and was interesting and exciting, with good villains. What I found harder to deal with, because it was so very well shown, was the extremely sexist society. Auuugh. And also Christianity destroying the existing culture.
( Spoilers )
The end of book 2 has some very ominous foreshadowing, I'm really looking forward to book 3 (and already hoping for AUs because those lines practically demanded them.)
