Late reviews from 2023

[schneefink]

I didn't think I was doing too badly at semi-regularly posting on DW, but looking at my notes document there's so much I wanted to post but didn't; for example I'm so behind on reviews. These are from months ago, so for the books I partially just copied my Goodreads reviews that I always try to write soon after finishing.

Children of Memory – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Children of Time #3): The first of my summer vacation books – it was so great to have plenty of time to read books while relaxing on the beach!
Every new book in this series is looking at a new kind of different intelligence/sentience/sapience and it's fascinating. This one in particular felt like several concepts and ideas about consciousness and personhood from previous books taken to logical conclusions. (At times it was noticeable that the author sadly had to do without the centuries of philosophy that definitely would have been developed in this universe.) The plot twists worked very well for me, signaled enough for me to have an idea but I still got the "oooh" moment at the reveal. The frequent time skips didn't bother me; I struggled a bit following along with the new crew members and their method of narration at first but it was easier by the end. A book I enjoyed more with my head than my gut if that makes sense.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi - Shannon Chakraborty: This was the kind of book that I enjoyed a lot while I was reading it and looked forward to finding out what would happen next, but (until the last 10% or so) when I put it down I felt no immediate need to pick it up again, so it took me a while to finish. I liked the characters, and I enjoyed the plot: I especially liked that it kept surprising me, not with major plot twists but with more frequent developments that I did not expect (I also didn't try to guess but still) and that kept things interesting.

Witch King – Martha Wells: I really loved the beginning of this, I was especially impressed with just how quickly the book drew me in. I really liked the characters and the worldbuilding, and I also enjoyed the main plot. Unfortunately the flashbacks didn't work that well for me, especially because the connection between the past and the current happenings in terms of story was weak. We learn so little about what happened shortly before Kai got abducted that it was hard to get a feeling for that world, and the reveal of the mutual betrayal didn't have nearly the impact it could have, which I found particularly disappointing because normally I eat that kind of thing up with a spoon. Overall I still enjoyed the book a lot though.

A Day of Fallen Night – Samantha Shannon (The Roots of Chaos #0): I enjoyed this, but I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I had read or reread "The Priory of the Orange Tree" more recently. Multiple times things were set up or mentioned that I'm fairly certain got their pay-off in the previous book, but since I didn't remember that very well it just felt like the pay-off was missing, or at least not completely satisfying probably because the author didn't want to retread the same ground. (And I didn't like the book enough to go reread "Priory of the Orange Tree" right after.) I liked the characters and I enjoyed the queer relationships in particular.

Lords of Uncreation – Adrian Tchaikovsky (The Final Architecture #3): I enjoyed the first two books of the trilogy but I loved this one, pretty much the whole way through. From early on there were many interesting turns I was not expecting and yet that made perfect sense, and that also goes for the epic ending. My favorite was the ultimate fate of The Unspeakable, I was so excited when I figured out what was happening.
I really appreciated how the "superpower" of so many characters was basically stubbornness paired with "that's my secret, assholes, I'm always scared."
I enjoyed this book so much I requested it for Yuletide and got a great gift for it.
(That said, as often happens with books I remember loving a lot, a few months later I become suspicious if it was really that good or if I was just in the perfect mood for it. If I reread it at one point if usually turns out to be a mix of both.)

Encanto (2021): I was hesitant to watch this because of the "high expectations" problem. And We Don't Talk About Bruno indeed did not meet these expectations, but I liked the colors and I really liked Surface Pressure (I have listened to that many times by now and really want to try singing it at karaoke even though I think it's really hard to do well but I think it'd be fun) and I enjoyed the story – at least as long as I didn't think about it very much. Because when I start thinking about Bruno, ooh boy. The poor guy got bullied by his family for his gift until he decided to leave and nobody is apparently worried about where he went or what he is doing or why he did not stay in contact! And his niece Dolores knows he is living in the walls the whole time because she can hear him, presumably she hears him talk to the rats all the time, but she doesn't tell anyone!?! Even though when she learns about something Mirabel found she can't keep it secret for even a few hours??! The whole idea of someone having super-hearing and not having very strong morals about privacy etc. is horrifying by itself. I'd like to enjoy the Isabela & Luisa & Mirabel sister dynamics but it's hard knowing the whole story of Bruno in the background.

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime: Flying a space ship and rescuing bunnies! I don't even remember why we started playing this – I think we were doing a board game evening but one person was late and we were at A&D's place who happen to have a large screen and four controllers. I've never played a four player in-person co-op before, it was so much fun. In hindsight this game might be best to play with three players, I heard it's very stressful with two but it was much easier than expected with four of us.
I really want to play co-op like that again, maybe even try out some classics like Mario Party? Maybe!

One Piece (live-action): I had heard good things and saw promising screenshots but I was still not quite sure what to expect. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it! The casting was great. I thought they did a great job with the various condensed story arcs. The only one that didn't really work for me was the Baratie, leaving out Luffy saving the Baratie from Don Krieg changes what Sanji joining the crew looks like. A bit of a shame, especially because Sanji has never been one of my favorite characters, but fingers crossed they will continue to hit the balance of having him be flirty but not a creep.
I really liked Koby's expanded role. Contrasting his desire to do good with Luffy's desire to be free and their different paths and consequences was a good idea. Poor Koby finding out that the Marines are corrupt, only sometimes you get lucky and the person acting above the law is "good." Can you fix a system like that from the inside? Very interested to see how his storyline will go.
Buggy's expanded role, also for plot reasons, also worked well.
I'm already looking forward to season 2 and Alabasta :)

Comments

[vriddy]

I had so much fun with the One Piece Live Action :D They did a surprisingly great job!!

[schneefink]

Yes! The casting was so good, the special effects worked - okay Zorro holding a sword in his mouth did look stupid but I think that was inevitable ^^

[hamsterwoman]

And We Don't Talk About Bruno indeed did not meet these expectations, but I liked the colors and I really liked Surface Pressure

I was really surprised that "We Don't Talk About Bruno" got all the hype and something, I had to look up what ("Dos Oruguitas") got the Oscar nomination, because I thought "Surface Pressure" was the best song in Encanto by a long shot (and my favorite Disney song in over a decade).

I really enjoyed watching Bruno and his rats, because that was hilarious (and the rats were adorable), but, yeah, you kind of have to not think about any of the implications of it.

[genarti]

Agreed on all counts!

[schneefink]

I knew I wanted to watch "Encanto" one day so I avoided reading much about it and I don't know much about how the reception was except that it was positive, but now I'm a little curious.

[hamsterwoman]

:D

(My daughter had to talk me out of getting a Bruno + rats playset for myself. But the rats were SO CUTE! how was I supposed to resist!)

[schneefink]

Great icon!

"We don't talk about Bruno" does have good choreography in the movie, I think that probably plays a part. Though so did "Surface Pressure" imo.

The rats were adorable! I also liked the house as a character, I can't remember how much we saw Bruno interact with the house but I like to imagine he'd at least have become friends with it during his years living in the walls.

[hamsterwoman]

Thank you! :D I really loved both Luisa's character in general and that line/scene in "Surface Pressure" where she takes over for Hercules, so I knew I had to try to make that icon when I unexpectedly kept talking about Encanto in the winter of 2021 :)

"Bruno" does have fun choreography! But I think "Surface Pressure" is at least equally brilliant in that department. The weird unicorn donkeys interlude! Luisa with the Superman pose and the quarterback sprint and the bit in my icon. I guess it's not the same because it's not really a group being choreographed (unless you count the donkeys) but it's so cool and unusual!

I can't remember how much we saw Bruno interact with the house but I like to imagine he'd at least have become friends with it during his years living in the walls.

Aww, I like that headcanon! And I think it makes a lot of sense, because it does look like La Casita knows/does things that the rest of the family is not aware of. (I think we only meet Bruno after the house has lost most if not all of its magic, so we don't get to see that, but it makes a lot of sense that it would've been happening for all those years before things started falling apart.)

[schneefink]

Agreed, the choreography of "Surface Pressure" is also very cool.

Depending on how sentient one imagines La Casita to be there is a lot of potential for fluff, horror, and/or angst :)

[dirty_diana]

I thought much the same about Witch King. The setup was the best part. I enjoyed it overall but wound up feeling like I didn't quite get it at the end.

[genarti]

Yeah, it really felt like 2/3 of a book to me. I enjoyed both thirds! But I hit the end going "wait, where's the rest that connects these?" So the ending reveal fell flat for me too, unfortunately.

[schneefink]

Exactly! If there had e.g. been a third storyline taking place in-between it would have connected both the existing parts and made them and especially the ending more impactful.

[schneefink]

Yeah it didn't quite stick the landing which was admittedly a high bar but still a disappointment.

[merit]

Agree about the Witch King. The stakes seemed so... minimal, that the betrayals didn't have as much impact as they should have.

[schneefink]

Keeping in mind that it's been a few months since I read the book, but from what I remember it was less that the stakes seemed small for the world and more that Kai didn't seem to have any personal connection to the stakes and consequently neither did I, and so the fact that he cared enough for a betrayal was a surprise to me.

[scintilla10]

Surface Pressure was my favourite song in Encanto, too! I was also surprised how underwhelmed I was by We Don't Talk About Bruno when I finally saw the movie. And agree that it was better not to think about the Bruno storyline too hard. XD

[schneefink]

When watching We Don't Talk About Bruno again now I like the music part of the song slightly better than when I first saw it, but I like the lyrics a lot less. Fortunately Surface Pressure is great in both regards :)

[misura]

Surface Pressure is a great song! I hadn't quite thought about the Bruno thing to quite that depth, but uh, yeah. Those are some very good points.

About Witch King: the reveal of the mutual betrayal didn't have nearly the impact it could have

Myeah. If it had been Bashasa instead of Bashat, I think the betrayals would have had a lot more impact - although that would have made for a very tricky time line. (And also drastically changed Bashasa's character, I guess.) But never meeting Bashat in either timeline kind of left him as a big blank.

[schneefink]

Yeah. And at times it was quite frankly weird how little Kai was thinking about what happened during that time in between - yes he was avoiding it for various reasons, including that he suspected something and didn't want to face it etc., but it was conspicuous and then at the end we're still left wondering how things got to that point.

[nonesensed]

The Children of Time books are such fun thought experiments, I adore them! I get what you mean when you say they're "head not a gut" books, because I definitely enjoyed them more for the worldbuilding and "but what if X"-scenarios than for the characters and their personal troubles (though I didn't dislike those). It made the timejumps really work for me, because I wanted to see how these societies would evolve in the future.

Encanto for me is one of those movies that falls apart the second I try to think of it too much 😅 I like several of the characters and songs, but there is soooo many things in it that are Beyond Dark if you think about them too much that it clashes with the relatively light and child-friendly presentation of it all. Surface Pressure is such a good song though 💖

I've seen a lot of people be semi-disappointed with Witch King. I haven't read it yet, so I'm curious to see if I'll feel the same, with this pre-knowledge, hmmm 🤔

[schneefink]

Yeah, the characters in "Children of Time" are not so bad that they distract from the rest, and some of them are even good, and that's enough for this series. Several of the characters I also appreciate more than I like them.

I think the trio of Isabella, Luisa, and Mirabel has so much potential for sibling conflict: two of them feeling a very strong pressure to be perfect but in completely different ways, and Mirabel the "normal" and obviously "imperfect" one. I kind of want Isabella & Luisa fic, even. I'd just like to ignore most of the rest of the family.

A lot of the disappointment with "Witch King" comes from the fact that it has an absolutely fantastic beginning and sadly doesn't stick the landing on that same high bar. It might be slightly misleading because I think more people will express disappointment with a book like that than one that starts off weak and finishes strong.

[nonesensed]

Same! I especially loved that female+male early astronaut pair of spiders - their fates broke my heart in the best of ways.

Yeah, their sibling dynamics sure is an interesting one! Well worthy of fic.

Will keep that in mind while reading! A book in need of fanfic it sounds like XD