Book vacation
Feb. 27th, 2020 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkApart from the skiing, my favorite part of last week's vacation was that I had a lot more time to read books than usual now. I read four and a half books in that week, it's been a while since I've done that and I enjoyed it so much. I had good luck with my choices, too.
The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon
Dragons! I enjoyed this. I would have enjoyed it even more if I'd found it easier to connect with the characters, but I always wanted to know what would happen next, and I especially liked all the culture clashes.
For some reason I struggled to connect with Ead or Sabran, and Niclays was well-written but he's such an ass. (The scene where he crossed the line for me was when he cut the scale off Nayimathun.) I liked Loth, especially when he struggled with having his worldviews overturned, which was most of the time. I would have liked to see more of Tané, especially with other people; I was a bit disappointed that after Tané was chosen by her dragon there was hardly any mention anymore of her struggles with the other dragon riders or her lower class background, and after Nayimathun was captured there was no mention anymore of how her dragon told her that Tané had done the right thing in disregarding the law (do the non-foreign dragons share that opinion? what does that mean about the loyalties of the High Sea Guard?) And Neporo stayed mysterious.
The pacing felt a bit weird near the end;isis wrote that the big plot climax only happened after most of the emotional conflicts were resolved and I agree.
Deeplight - Frances Hardinge
This was great. I found the cover text slightly misleading – I thought the friendship between Hark and Jelt would be a core of the book, and it was but not in the way I thought it would be. I really loved the themes that were developed around growing up and family and what is or isn't justified to do for the greater good. The worldbuilding was also great, with the dead undersea monster gods and remains of magic and the island community with its divers and subculture of deaf "sea-kissed" and just enough hints of intriguing politics.
I was hoping that Jelt would die sooner pretty much from the beginning, but I also liked that despite how obvious Jelt's abuse seems to the reader, and Hark notices it too, it's still so hard for Hark to admit it to himself and especially to stick with the decision to leave. It takes him the entire book, though to be fair there were extenuating circumstances. I was surprised but happy that Hark got Selphin and Rigg to reconcile – they hurt each other a lot too, but as Hark points out, it was out of love and concern, which does not make it okay but does make it possible for them to forgive each other. And, well, they're amobsmuggler family, they don't operate by normal rules anyway.
I really liked Quest and Dr. Vyne. Both very goal-oriented. Quest killed the gods to save people, killing many in the process, and Dr. Vyne's "what do you mean they're going to use my illegal inventions to make weapons, I only wanted to help people" made me facepalm so hard. Hark and Selphin and Quest made a great team.
I also liked Kly, even though we didn't see much of him, but it was nice to get a little bit of an outsider perspective of how weird all these Myriad people are. I also liked the ending a lot and where everyone ended up, it felt fitting. And I liked the lack of romance.
Fleet of Knives - Gareth L. Powell
Sequel to "Embers of War", and it did feel very much like the middle part of a trilogy, but I enjoyed it. It took me a while to start caring about the new characters, but I very much enjoyed seeing the ones I already knew again.
Surprise, the mysterious and extremely powerful alien armada of ships that has very strong ideas about its purpose and was hidden for thousands of years is dangerous and doesn't have human ethics! Nobody could possibly have foreseen this – though to be fair I did not expect the in-canon reveal to happen quite this violently, and I was surprised by the detail of where they got their eyes from, turns out they are even more sinister than I expected.
I was very sad that Alva Clay died – and so soon after Sal asked her if they could be sisters :( Nod consoling Sal afterwards was great though.
I was also very excited to see Adalwolf again and for him to come to Trouble Dog's aid, and I'm very intrigued by Lucy.
King of Scars - Leigh Bardugo
I only read the "Six of Crows" duology, not the original Grisha trilogy, upon which it turns out this first part of a new duology is heavily based, but it wasn't a big problem. I enjoy "the big bad is dead, what now"-reconstruction stories, with worries about politics and resources and money and left-over evil magic and actually trying to tackle the problems you originally wanted to solve. And I liked the characters, Nikolai and Zoya and Nina and also Isaak and Hanne etc.
Reading Goodreads reviews in advance I saw that the ending was apparently quite shocking and controversial, so the entire time I kind of expected Zoya and Nikolai to confess their love to each other and Nikolai to then lose his fight against the monster. Fortunately it didn't turn out that way, and I didn't get the full impact of the end because I didn't read the original trilogy but it's still very intriguing.
A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine
I had very high expectations for this book, so it probably wasn't very surprising that the beginning didn't meet them. But it started to grab me around halfway through, and by the end I was very invested in the story and many characters and enjoyed it a lot. Intriguing worldbuilding too, the imago technology in particular, with great potential up- and downsides.
I wanted to like Mahit, so then I was disappointed when very early on not only did she almost immediately revealed the one secret her station told her to keep to outsiders she had little reason to assume were trustworthy, but she also didn't know how Teixcalaanli names were constructed – how was that not one of the first things she learned, especially with how learned and curious she is about Teixcalaanli culture? Especially the latter is really a minor thing, but that's the problem with high expectations. I don't remember when I started liking her a lot – somewhere between almost getting killed a few times and getting illegal back alley neurosurgery – but I did, and same with Three Seagrass, and Twelve Azalea. I was very sad that Twelve Azalea died. Mahit's decision at the end of the book of not staying was surprising but upon further thought, yes, makes sense.
The point where the whole book started to pick up the pace for me was when I found out what the Emperor wanted from Yskandr – of course an emperor wants to be immortal, and yes he thought he had good reasons and was doing it for the greater good of the Empire but the actual plan, to destroy the mind of a child, was still horrifying. The reveal that the Emperor and Yskandr were lovers and Yskandr loved him, and also Yskandr and Nineteen Adze were lovers, and that Nineteen Adze allowed Yskandr to be killed because she didn't want Six Direction to go through with his imago plan and Six Direction knew what she did – mm, delicious. Six Direction sacrificing himself like he did, making Nineteen Adze Emperor (without telling her in advance) and ending the civil war, was great.
The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon
Dragons! I enjoyed this. I would have enjoyed it even more if I'd found it easier to connect with the characters, but I always wanted to know what would happen next, and I especially liked all the culture clashes.
For some reason I struggled to connect with Ead or Sabran, and Niclays was well-written but he's such an ass. (The scene where he crossed the line for me was when he cut the scale off Nayimathun.) I liked Loth, especially when he struggled with having his worldviews overturned, which was most of the time. I would have liked to see more of Tané, especially with other people; I was a bit disappointed that after Tané was chosen by her dragon there was hardly any mention anymore of her struggles with the other dragon riders or her lower class background, and after Nayimathun was captured there was no mention anymore of how her dragon told her that Tané had done the right thing in disregarding the law (do the non-foreign dragons share that opinion? what does that mean about the loyalties of the High Sea Guard?) And Neporo stayed mysterious.
The pacing felt a bit weird near the end;
isis wrote that the big plot climax only happened after most of the emotional conflicts were resolved and I agree.Deeplight - Frances Hardinge
This was great. I found the cover text slightly misleading – I thought the friendship between Hark and Jelt would be a core of the book, and it was but not in the way I thought it would be. I really loved the themes that were developed around growing up and family and what is or isn't justified to do for the greater good. The worldbuilding was also great, with the dead undersea monster gods and remains of magic and the island community with its divers and subculture of deaf "sea-kissed" and just enough hints of intriguing politics.
I was hoping that Jelt would die sooner pretty much from the beginning, but I also liked that despite how obvious Jelt's abuse seems to the reader, and Hark notices it too, it's still so hard for Hark to admit it to himself and especially to stick with the decision to leave. It takes him the entire book, though to be fair there were extenuating circumstances. I was surprised but happy that Hark got Selphin and Rigg to reconcile – they hurt each other a lot too, but as Hark points out, it was out of love and concern, which does not make it okay but does make it possible for them to forgive each other. And, well, they're a
I really liked Quest and Dr. Vyne. Both very goal-oriented. Quest killed the gods to save people, killing many in the process, and Dr. Vyne's "what do you mean they're going to use my illegal inventions to make weapons, I only wanted to help people" made me facepalm so hard. Hark and Selphin and Quest made a great team.
I also liked Kly, even though we didn't see much of him, but it was nice to get a little bit of an outsider perspective of how weird all these Myriad people are. I also liked the ending a lot and where everyone ended up, it felt fitting. And I liked the lack of romance.
Fleet of Knives - Gareth L. Powell
Sequel to "Embers of War", and it did feel very much like the middle part of a trilogy, but I enjoyed it. It took me a while to start caring about the new characters, but I very much enjoyed seeing the ones I already knew again.
Surprise, the mysterious and extremely powerful alien armada of ships that has very strong ideas about its purpose and was hidden for thousands of years is dangerous and doesn't have human ethics! Nobody could possibly have foreseen this – though to be fair I did not expect the in-canon reveal to happen quite this violently, and I was surprised by the detail of where they got their eyes from, turns out they are even more sinister than I expected.
I was very sad that Alva Clay died – and so soon after Sal asked her if they could be sisters :( Nod consoling Sal afterwards was great though.
I was also very excited to see Adalwolf again and for him to come to Trouble Dog's aid, and I'm very intrigued by Lucy.
King of Scars - Leigh Bardugo
I only read the "Six of Crows" duology, not the original Grisha trilogy, upon which it turns out this first part of a new duology is heavily based, but it wasn't a big problem. I enjoy "the big bad is dead, what now"-reconstruction stories, with worries about politics and resources and money and left-over evil magic and actually trying to tackle the problems you originally wanted to solve. And I liked the characters, Nikolai and Zoya and Nina and also Isaak and Hanne etc.
Reading Goodreads reviews in advance I saw that the ending was apparently quite shocking and controversial, so the entire time I kind of expected Zoya and Nikolai to confess their love to each other and Nikolai to then lose his fight against the monster. Fortunately it didn't turn out that way, and I didn't get the full impact of the end because I didn't read the original trilogy but it's still very intriguing.
A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine
I had very high expectations for this book, so it probably wasn't very surprising that the beginning didn't meet them. But it started to grab me around halfway through, and by the end I was very invested in the story and many characters and enjoyed it a lot. Intriguing worldbuilding too, the imago technology in particular, with great potential up- and downsides.
I wanted to like Mahit, so then I was disappointed when very early on not only did she almost immediately revealed the one secret her station told her to keep to outsiders she had little reason to assume were trustworthy, but she also didn't know how Teixcalaanli names were constructed – how was that not one of the first things she learned, especially with how learned and curious she is about Teixcalaanli culture? Especially the latter is really a minor thing, but that's the problem with high expectations. I don't remember when I started liking her a lot – somewhere between almost getting killed a few times and getting illegal back alley neurosurgery – but I did, and same with Three Seagrass, and Twelve Azalea. I was very sad that Twelve Azalea died. Mahit's decision at the end of the book of not staying was surprising but upon further thought, yes, makes sense.
The point where the whole book started to pick up the pace for me was when I found out what the Emperor wanted from Yskandr – of course an emperor wants to be immortal, and yes he thought he had good reasons and was doing it for the greater good of the Empire but the actual plan, to destroy the mind of a child, was still horrifying. The reveal that the Emperor and Yskandr were lovers and Yskandr loved him, and also Yskandr and Nineteen Adze were lovers, and that Nineteen Adze allowed Yskandr to be killed because she didn't want Six Direction to go through with his imago plan and Six Direction knew what she did – mm, delicious. Six Direction sacrificing himself like he did, making Nineteen Adze Emperor (without telling her in advance) and ending the civil war, was great.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 01:38 am (UTC)I really enjoyed A Memory Called Empire and Priory of the Orange Tree - I too would have liked more of Tané's story.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 04:21 pm (UTC)No Tané fic yet, but we'll see!
no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-29 11:49 pm (UTC)I'm curious who's going to be the next ambassador, and what will happen to Yskandr and Mahit's imago line.
The one thing that wasn't entirely clear to me - admittedly, possibly because I found the interludes less interesting - was the details of the politics on Lsel Station. I wonder who knew what. It seems like the alien threat should have been more discussed, and its obvious connection to what the relationship with Teixcalaan might be like.
The poetry scene made me smile: Mahit and Three Seagrass composing and uploading a poem to send for help was so clever, and then it actually being sung on the streets was right on the edge of feeling like unrealistic wish-fulfillment fantasy but I was still very happy for Mahit.