Books 2017
Jan. 2nd, 2018 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkI read quite a few books I enjoyed in 2017. Some that I liked and might even read again one day:
- Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers
- Inda series by Sherwood Smith (1+2, 3+4)
- Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner, Queen's Thief #5
- Bloodrights by N. Lee Wood
- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Books I liked that I forgot to post about:
- The Harbors of the Sun by Martha Wells, Books of the Raksura #5
As in previous Raksura books, the descriptions often just didn't work for me which made some things confusing (describing part of a building as "like a flower" is not very helpful), and the pacing at the end was uneven, but apart from those details I enjoyed it a lot. I love the worldbuilding and the characters and their relationships (and this time I even liked the plot better.) Pearl and Malachite are fantastic together! Moon and Jade and Chime are great, of course, and Stone, and Frost and Bramble, and Consolation is interesting. Btw I really like how casual sex and (poly) relationships are treated.
- Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Especially in the beginning, this book so closely resembles a D&D campaign that at times I got angry at the fictional players for their character choices (mostly Harathes'), which added an interesting extra meta element ^^ The most interesting character by far is Nth/Enth, he kept things interesting until the other characters became more fleshed out than their classes. The final confrontation made me grin at the thought of how many TPKs this DM has most likely already had in this exact campaign. Post-canon has a lot of potential: Enth&Lief&Cyrene is a cool team-up, and Dion will also have a very interesting future, now that it turned out her whole religion is based on a lie.
- The Change series by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Stranger: I liked this a lot! The worldbuilding is great: I love the singing trees in particular, the pit mouth is a cool monster, the post-apocalyptic setting worked for me, and just overall I thought it fit together well. At the very beginning there were imo too many PoV switches, but it surprised me how quickly I began to care about the characters. I liked both the quieter character/town and the action parts.
Hostage: This one had all the good parts of the first book, with characters I already liked and more h/c and additional worldbuilding. The villain became a lot scarier, and at times I was very glad that I knew it didn't have a sad ending. The character development following the climax from the first book worked well, and the themes too.
I was surprised how happy I was Sean showed up. Man, Gold Point is messed up. Poor Luis and Santiago. I was also surprised how happy I was Kerry had at least one good moment with her mother. Great h/c, like Ross asking Luis to kill him.
Rebel: The plot didn't pull me along as much as in the other books, probably also because I wasn't that interested in Felicité and Summer. I loved Becky though, and I liked everyone else like Kerry, hearing about Yuki, Mia/Ross/Jennie etc. There was also more cool worldbuilding. This book seems to prepare several storylines for a future pay-off that I look forward to seeing.
I'm not sure why exactly I wasn't that interested in Felicité and Summer. Felicité: maybe partially because her plotline felt predictable, and I just… I don't really like her. I liked Kerry just fine, idk, there's just something about Felicité. I think I might like her better if she was a bit younger, but at 18 (iirc) I felt like she had enough chances to learn better.
Summer: I found her a bit annoying at first and didn't know what to do with her, but ended up liking her.
The xenophobia in the town is just… weird. And it was kind of a relief that outside of the town it's seen as weird as well. If one third of a population of barely over a thousand are Changed, and there's only one school, you can't live segregated lives. Especially because (almost) anyone can be Changed! The one thing that almost made me think "makes sense" was when Felicité thought about little children praying before bed not to wake up Changed. But I still expected there to be more, idk, outreach. Jennie could probably do better as a teacher in this regard as well, I hope she'll grow into it.
I thought the election storyline would be very interesting, instead it sort of fizzled, that was a shame. I hope there'll be more of that in the next book.
When Voske will come back, Henry (who now knows about the secret tunnel) will probably have gone to him, and there'll probably be another big fight.
- Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers
- Inda series by Sherwood Smith (1+2, 3+4)
- Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner, Queen's Thief #5
- Bloodrights by N. Lee Wood
- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Books I liked that I forgot to post about:
- The Harbors of the Sun by Martha Wells, Books of the Raksura #5
As in previous Raksura books, the descriptions often just didn't work for me which made some things confusing (describing part of a building as "like a flower" is not very helpful), and the pacing at the end was uneven, but apart from those details I enjoyed it a lot. I love the worldbuilding and the characters and their relationships (and this time I even liked the plot better.) Pearl and Malachite are fantastic together! Moon and Jade and Chime are great, of course, and Stone, and Frost and Bramble, and Consolation is interesting. Btw I really like how casual sex and (poly) relationships are treated.
- Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Especially in the beginning, this book so closely resembles a D&D campaign that at times I got angry at the fictional players for their character choices (mostly Harathes'), which added an interesting extra meta element ^^ The most interesting character by far is Nth/Enth, he kept things interesting until the other characters became more fleshed out than their classes. The final confrontation made me grin at the thought of how many TPKs this DM has most likely already had in this exact campaign. Post-canon has a lot of potential: Enth&Lief&Cyrene is a cool team-up, and Dion will also have a very interesting future, now that it turned out her whole religion is based on a lie.
- The Change series by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Stranger: I liked this a lot! The worldbuilding is great: I love the singing trees in particular, the pit mouth is a cool monster, the post-apocalyptic setting worked for me, and just overall I thought it fit together well. At the very beginning there were imo too many PoV switches, but it surprised me how quickly I began to care about the characters. I liked both the quieter character/town and the action parts.
Hostage: This one had all the good parts of the first book, with characters I already liked and more h/c and additional worldbuilding. The villain became a lot scarier, and at times I was very glad that I knew it didn't have a sad ending. The character development following the climax from the first book worked well, and the themes too.
I was surprised how happy I was Sean showed up. Man, Gold Point is messed up. Poor Luis and Santiago. I was also surprised how happy I was Kerry had at least one good moment with her mother. Great h/c, like Ross asking Luis to kill him.
Rebel: The plot didn't pull me along as much as in the other books, probably also because I wasn't that interested in Felicité and Summer. I loved Becky though, and I liked everyone else like Kerry, hearing about Yuki, Mia/Ross/Jennie etc. There was also more cool worldbuilding. This book seems to prepare several storylines for a future pay-off that I look forward to seeing.
I'm not sure why exactly I wasn't that interested in Felicité and Summer. Felicité: maybe partially because her plotline felt predictable, and I just… I don't really like her. I liked Kerry just fine, idk, there's just something about Felicité. I think I might like her better if she was a bit younger, but at 18 (iirc) I felt like she had enough chances to learn better.
Summer: I found her a bit annoying at first and didn't know what to do with her, but ended up liking her.
The xenophobia in the town is just… weird. And it was kind of a relief that outside of the town it's seen as weird as well. If one third of a population of barely over a thousand are Changed, and there's only one school, you can't live segregated lives. Especially because (almost) anyone can be Changed! The one thing that almost made me think "makes sense" was when Felicité thought about little children praying before bed not to wake up Changed. But I still expected there to be more, idk, outreach. Jennie could probably do better as a teacher in this regard as well, I hope she'll grow into it.
I thought the election storyline would be very interesting, instead it sort of fizzled, that was a shame. I hope there'll be more of that in the next book.
When Voske will come back, Henry (who now knows about the secret tunnel) will probably have gone to him, and there'll probably be another big fight.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-03 07:35 pm (UTC)