Books I recently read
Aug. 1st, 2020 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkYesterday I took a vacation day and went to the zoo (the baby elephant and the young prairie dogs were particularly adorable; I did not see the baby polar bear or the baby lynx, clearly I need to go again), and then to the Imperial Carriage Museum with DD and we had ice cream and generally a lovely day. As a bonus, I bought myself a gecko necklace and dragonfly earrings.
Today I have made some progress with studying, which is better than none! I also took Monday and Tuesday off from work so I have enough time, fingers crossed.
While telling myself that I absolutely do not have the time to start reading a new book series before the uni deadline, I remembered that I forgot to post the reviews I already wrote about some books I read in the past few months.
Network Effect by Martha Wells, the Murderbot novel
I enjoyed this a lot. Finally Murderbot is ready for all the beautiful found family feelings! And even, surprisingly, the sweetest romance omg, Murderbot and ART are so great together and I love them a lot. The mutual concern, and trust, and watching shows together - there's even a 'meet the parent' scene, and they have a kid together! Well, kinda not really, but still.
The adventure was fun – a little confusing at times but to be perfectly honest I wasn't here for the mystery – and when Murderbot was having too many emotions about everyone planning their rescue I was right there with it. I was also happy about Murderbot showing another SecUnit how to hack their governor module, and that ART and its crew turned out to be anti-capitalist rebels.
skygiants has a good (spoilery) review of the novel here. Quote: it is very funny that Martha Wells wrote a book about an explicitly asexual aromantic artificial intelligence and still managed to make it OTP babyfic and yes, it is, and also wonderful.
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho
The author described this as, iirc, "found family AU of an imaginary wuxia canon." I'm not sure I'd have called it found family AU, rather canon divergence (I bet in "canon" they met Guet Imm under very different circumstances, possibly even finding out about what a fighter she can be first and only getting to know her afterwards, and maybe only barely.) If this was a fic, you don't need to go into detail about Tet Sang's relationship with Fung Cheung, or the rest of the group, because you already have that background. Here you don't, which is why the "found family" aspect fell a little flat for me, as did most of the characters except for Guet Imm and Tet Sang. I did enjoy these two and their relationship, and I liked the setting a lot, and the plot was fine. The ending felt a bit unresolved, especially Fung Cheung and Tet Sang's relationship, again because of that missing background. It really felt remarkably like reading excellent fic for an unknown canon, with the downside that this canon isn't available.
The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A.Chakraborty
I enjoyed this a lot! It took me a bit to get really into it, and tbh it took a little bit of suspension of disbelief how quickly and deeply Nahri and Dara bonded, and the politics in the first book were occasionally a bit confusing. But I still enjoyed "The City of Brass," and the two sequels were even better. Especially the politics. To be honest I was slightly disappointed by the interruption by the outside army at the end of "Kingdom of Copper," I was really curious how things would have developed otherwise, but my delight that at the end of "Empire of Gold" they abolished the monarchy more than made up for it. I wish more fantasy novels did that.
I liked Nahri and Ali a lot together. My favorite relationship though was Ali and his siblings: they love each other, but politics makes everything very complicated. I liked Jamshid a lot too; I was a bit disappointed that he and his father never had another chance to meet, I would have loved to see that confrontation. I thought his father got off too lightly in general, I wished Dara would have told him that the genocide had been planned.
As for Dara… Difficult to say. At one point in the middle I stopped sympathizing with him, but at the very end I reluctantly resumed, and to my surprise I liked the ending he got. I didn't find it hard to forgive him for the crimes in his past, but agreeing to another genocide – no. But his PoV was so well done it was hard to hate him either.
Today I have made some progress with studying, which is better than none! I also took Monday and Tuesday off from work so I have enough time, fingers crossed.
While telling myself that I absolutely do not have the time to start reading a new book series before the uni deadline, I remembered that I forgot to post the reviews I already wrote about some books I read in the past few months.
Network Effect by Martha Wells, the Murderbot novel
I enjoyed this a lot. Finally Murderbot is ready for all the beautiful found family feelings! And even, surprisingly, the sweetest romance omg, Murderbot and ART are so great together and I love them a lot. The mutual concern, and trust, and watching shows together - there's even a 'meet the parent' scene, and they have a kid together! Well, kinda not really, but still.
The adventure was fun – a little confusing at times but to be perfectly honest I wasn't here for the mystery – and when Murderbot was having too many emotions about everyone planning their rescue I was right there with it. I was also happy about Murderbot showing another SecUnit how to hack their governor module, and that ART and its crew turned out to be anti-capitalist rebels.
skygiants has a good (spoilery) review of the novel here. Quote: it is very funny that Martha Wells wrote a book about an explicitly asexual aromantic artificial intelligence and still managed to make it OTP babyfic and yes, it is, and also wonderful. The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho
The author described this as, iirc, "found family AU of an imaginary wuxia canon." I'm not sure I'd have called it found family AU, rather canon divergence (I bet in "canon" they met Guet Imm under very different circumstances, possibly even finding out about what a fighter she can be first and only getting to know her afterwards, and maybe only barely.) If this was a fic, you don't need to go into detail about Tet Sang's relationship with Fung Cheung, or the rest of the group, because you already have that background. Here you don't, which is why the "found family" aspect fell a little flat for me, as did most of the characters except for Guet Imm and Tet Sang. I did enjoy these two and their relationship, and I liked the setting a lot, and the plot was fine. The ending felt a bit unresolved, especially Fung Cheung and Tet Sang's relationship, again because of that missing background. It really felt remarkably like reading excellent fic for an unknown canon, with the downside that this canon isn't available.
The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A.Chakraborty
I enjoyed this a lot! It took me a bit to get really into it, and tbh it took a little bit of suspension of disbelief how quickly and deeply Nahri and Dara bonded, and the politics in the first book were occasionally a bit confusing. But I still enjoyed "The City of Brass," and the two sequels were even better. Especially the politics. To be honest I was slightly disappointed by the interruption by the outside army at the end of "Kingdom of Copper," I was really curious how things would have developed otherwise, but my delight that at the end of "Empire of Gold" they abolished the monarchy more than made up for it. I wish more fantasy novels did that.
I liked Nahri and Ali a lot together. My favorite relationship though was Ali and his siblings: they love each other, but politics makes everything very complicated. I liked Jamshid a lot too; I was a bit disappointed that he and his father never had another chance to meet, I would have loved to see that confrontation. I thought his father got off too lightly in general, I wished Dara would have told him that the genocide had been planned.
As for Dara… Difficult to say. At one point in the middle I stopped sympathizing with him, but at the very end I reluctantly resumed, and to my surprise I liked the ending he got. I didn't find it hard to forgive him for the crimes in his past, but agreeing to another genocide – no. But his PoV was so well done it was hard to hate him either.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-01 05:17 pm (UTC)I had the same feeling with Zen Cho. I wanted more depth of relationships we've not given because that's in the show and this is the fic. I kind of assumed that if this were fic Guet Imm would be an OFC, and a delightful one at that.
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Date: 2020-08-01 05:30 pm (UTC)Guet Imm could definitely be an OFC too, but in hindsight I liked that idea that the imaginary people who know the "canon" and then read the fic would know her background from the beginning.
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Date: 2020-08-01 06:23 pm (UTC)Yep.
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Date: 2020-08-01 11:41 pm (UTC)FUCKING SOLD. I was going to check out these books at one point anyway but now I MUST READ.
Also yes. Yes you should go to the zoo again :)
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Date: 2020-08-02 10:08 am (UTC)I hope you'll enjoy the books!
I will :)
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Date: 2020-08-02 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-03 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-02 11:51 pm (UTC)I haven't read book 3 of Daevabad (just 1 and 2 so far) -- but reading your review makes me interested to go back to it and finish the series!
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Date: 2020-08-03 10:27 am (UTC)I think on its own I liked book 2 the best, but ending a series in a satisfying way is probably the hardest part and I think book 3 did a good job and I enjoyed it a lot.