schneefink

L. told me she listens to audiobooks even though she prefers reading books because she has more time for listening than reading and I decided to give it a try. So far this year I've read two books and listened to seven, so this seems to work. Mostly this is because I can listen to audiobooks on walks and public transport, while if I actually read something on public transport it's usually fanfic for some reason.
I've listened to two series since February, and I enjoyed the narrator for both of them.

Threads that Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou, consisting of Threads That Bind and Hearts That Cut
YA fantasy series set in a ~post-apocalyptic world in which descendants of deities have their powers, inherited through family lines and strictly assigned to each sibling. Io, the main character, has the power to see and cut fate threads, including life threads.
An insta-kill power is tricky to consider in fights or other confrontations: you have the upper hand as long as your opponent believes that you are able and willing to kill them. If they realize you don't actually want to kill them, well…
I really enjoyed the mystery aspects of this, especially in the first book, and the family problems, and I was not optimistic about the romance since it features a literal soulbond but I was pleasantly surprised. The second book was slightly weaker imo, especially the mystery resolution, but it got bonus points because I really enjoyed

spoiler

Bianca

and Io's relationship with them.

The Scholomance by Naomi Novik, consisting of A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclave
In a world with a secret society of wizards constantly hunted by monsters that try to kill them, they send wizard children to a school without teachers where they are stuck for four years to learn magic while still being attacked by monsters. El, with a talent for dark magic and a prophecy proclaiming her an evil sorceress, aims for survival and later reaches for more.

I read a lot of fantasy, I'm used to books requiring a certain suspension of disbelief. I can't remember the last time I struggled this hard to ignore worldbuilding that didn't make any sense and had to remind myself so often not to think about the details. And I don't even know why, I'm pretty sure objectively the worldbuilding isn't any more flimsy than many other books' that I've read, and additionally probably some things are not as bad as they seem if I thought about them in detail. I suspect it's because I had some strong "yeah no" moments early on that colored the rest, like the amount of children dying and a lot of the set-up of the school. What made it worse is that I got the impression the books really wanted to convince me that it all makes sense, and they tried, but unsuccessfully. It wasn't until the third book that I found the world much easier to accept.

What I did really enjoy were the class struggle aspects of it, and El's anger. Her world sucks and yes she gets to be angry about it. And she struggles to deal with that anger and doesn't always do it well but it also gives her strength to fight the injustice she sees. She does have special protagonist powers, vast amounts even, but she also needs that anger, and even special protagonist powers may not be enough to fight an entire entrenched unjust system. The narrator did a good job with her character voice (I wonder if I'd reacted slightly differently if I'd read the book.)
Also, maw-mouths are fantastic and scary monsters.

( Spoilers )

Exam over, so I finally have time to finish my book review!

I read "She Who Became the Sun" by Shelley Parker-Chan 3.5 years ago and liked it a lot (review), but when the sequel finally came out and was available at the library it landed somewhere in the big pile of "books I want to read but don't have the time for right now and/or it doesn't seem like the right moment mood-wise from what I anticipate the book to be like" – near the top of that list but it's a long list.

Then on my first date with L she mentioned that she liked listening to audiobooks because she also never has enough time to read all the books but she has slightly more time to listen to audiobooks, and that made sense to me so I checked which audiobooks were available at the library, and He Who Drowned the World was, so I decided to try it out. And only then did I find out that it's one of her favorite books, bonus. (She's reading the Steerswoman books now on my recommendation and enjoying them a lot, and I enjoy getting excited live updates.)

It was the first audiobook I'd listened to in ages: usually I listen to podcasts half in the background, and with audiobooks it's more of a bother if I get distracted and miss something. That was still occasionally annoying, it's much easier to go back in a book if I miss something (easiest in a physical book.) But overall I enjoyed it: I thought the narrator, Natalie Naudus, did a good job with the voices, and getting the accurate pronounciation of the names was nice. I also read very quickly, faster than I listen, but this is a book I wouldn't have wanted to speed through anyway.

I enjoyed it a lot. It took me a bit to get into it, and I wonder if it would have been easier if I had read the first book more recently. I was initially somewhat surprised to remember to what extent this is a fairly dark series where all the main characters are terrible people in different ways; but also so fascinating that it is hard to put down.

( Spoilers )

Overall a rather dark book, not a lot of gore but still very brutal in different ways, but it's very good and I thought the endings were satisfying.

The Spear Cuts Through Water, by Simon Jimenez
I enjoyed this a lot, it was fascinating and intense. I loved what it did with the narrative, the different lines and stories, and the voices of the dead adding their comments and snippets of additional perspectives. I also liked the take on myths and godhood, and on mistakes and atonement. And it did horror really well. The

spoiler

confrontation with the second Terror

was one of the tensest scenes I've read in a while (that sounds too tame but I don't have the right words rn), and the fate of

spoiler

the turtle god

was horrific and tragic. There were parts near the end that seemed a bit too, hm, sudden, but it still worked overall.

The Art of Prophecy and The Art of Destiny, War Arts trilogy #1 & #2, by Wesley Chu
I got these two very cheaply at Worldcon. (LB, who hadn't thought to bring reading material, actually read them before me.) I really enjoyed the first one! A ~wuxia fantasy with a Chosen One of a prophecy that is broken and the legendary war artist who accidentally finds herself his mentor, I loved Taishi especially and also her relationship with poor Jian, and it was exciting and fun. I liked the other two PoV characters less but had hopes that they would get more character development in future books.
Unfortunately the sequel was very boring. I was a few hundred pages in when finally something happened and by that point I just wanted the book to be over, and even then the plot was predictable, there was very little character or relationship development, and overall I unfortunately lost all interest in the series.

Crypt Custodian (video game)
You play as the ghost of a cat that is sentenced to clean up the afterlife. I saw this recommended as a cozy metroidvania that's not outstanding but does everything well, and that's pretty much what it was. I enjoyed it a lot.
I switched to playing on easy difficulty pretty early and still had trouble with one boss, but every other one only took me a few tries and several only one and that suited me fine, it fit the atmosphere. Some bosses I stopped at to go elsewhere, only to defeat them on my first or second try the next day. Some of them might be fun to try in harder difficulties if I'm ever in the mood for that, conveniently there's a boss rush mode for that.
In the mid- to late-game I had my favorite metroidvania experience: there's so much to discover and so many places I can go. The map is huge! And fun to explore. The movement upgrades are fun, and combat isn't too varied but it's fine. The story is cute, I just wish I could connect better to Pluto as a character. Idk why their voice just didn't really work for me. Sadly that also means I'm not really interested in fanworks.
I got to the credits at 72% completion in a little under 11 hours over three days. I'm not sure yet if I'll do the postgame and/or come back to it eventually, I might, I'll see.

I read Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh for Hugo voting preparation and enjoyed it a lot. This is one of those books that I have so many messy thoughts about that it was very hard to start writing a review at all. I wrote some notes and stopped, and now a few weeks later when I sit down to finish I have predictably already forgotten some details.

( Incomplete notes )


Starter Villain by John Scalzi was very much the opposite kind of book, as in, it was an enjoyable read and didn't really leave any lasting impression. The talking cats and dolphins were fun, and I always appreciate richer-than-should-be-allowed people getting a comeuppance. It's a good novel for what it is, I definitely don't want to be the kind of snob that says books need to have some kind of deeper meaning or message or interesting idea, buuut I still expected more of a Hugo-nominated novel somehow *facepalm* even though we already know very well that the Hugos are nothing more than a popularity contest. Me being dumb.

I also read Godkiller by Hannah Kaner, who is nominated for the Astounding Award for best new writer. I'd misremembered and thought it was YA, so I was surprised that the main characters were two adults and a child (and a god), but I liked that. I'm always interested in worldbuilding with gods. I would have enjoyed it even more if one of the characters, Elo, hadn't seemed really flat to me for some reason, which made the climax less dramatic. Not a book that really stood out but I enjoyed it enough that I'm interested in where the story is going.

I'm currently reading "The Saint of Bright Doors" and after that I'll read "Translation State" and then I'll have at least read all the books from that one category. I'll see how much time I have after that. Having a hard time focusing on books atm.


I went to see Furiosa in the cinema with a friend last week. I expected a movie with cool action scenes with a plot/setting that is not so stupid that it detracts from that, and that's what I got. Not as big and dramatic as Fury Road, but e.g. the

spoiler

Bullet Farm escape

was cool.

And months ago (I think - time is weird) I went with friends to see The Boy and the Heron, which I also enjoyed a lot. It was gorgeous, I liked the worldbuilding with many fun elements that didn't need to be fully explained, and the atmosphere and story worked well for me.

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. ( barely any spoilers )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. ( other things worked less well for me ) 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 ( maybe a vague spoiler idk ) 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. ( Spoilers are talking about Bruno )

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. ( some spoilers )

When I posted my review of "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" I noticed that I hadn't posted about books at all in 2022. At first I was surprised but on second thought it makes sense: I read very little last year compared to other years, mostly because I've been playing computer games a lot more. And none of the books I did read I especially loved.

There was only one series I had many feelings about: A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons. I read the first three books, and I just found two half-finished posts about the first two in my drafts. I read these books in March and April so I don't remember all the details anymore, but I'll post what I wrote anyway because while I found several things frustrating (some worldbuilding things, some very hypocritical characters, a lot of plot that seemed to hinge on people not fucking talking to each other about their plans) there were a lot of things I did enjoy a lot (other worldbuilding things, cool magic and mythology, some good plot twists, other very interesting characters and relationships, some very nice angst and h/c.) The first book has one of my favorite examples of framing devices I have ever seen; sadly the second one tries something similar and fails badly.
Notes include many spoilers.

( #1 The Ruin of Kings )

( #2 The Name of All Things )

( #3 The Memory of Souls )

I probably would have read the fourth book if DD hadn't told me that she strongly disliked it, similarly to book 2, and that was so discouraging that I stopped. In the meantime book five has come out and seems to have been well received, at least according to Goodreads ratings, so maybe I'll continue and finish the series eventually.

Books I read 2021: 40, exactly my goal. I set a lower goal after I started playing Hades last December and that was a good decision. More than a quarter (13) I read in July, July was a good month for reading (no classes, for once.)
Of course that is published fiction only - I'm pretty sure I read at least ten times as much in fic. Different mental category though.

Stats: 1 non-fiction book, about Josephine Baker. ~26 fantasy (about ~20 of which in other worlds), ~8 SF. 5 in German, which is more than in recent years.
I also used to count how many books were written by men/women/other, but there's quite a few authors where I don't know and I'm too lazy to look it up. A little over half women, I think.

Favorite book: Hm. Maybe "She Who Became the Sun" by Shelley Parker-Chan.
Runner-ups: "Piranesi" by Susanna Clarke, though that might be recency bias.
Other books I enjoyed a lot: "The Doors of Eden" by Adrian Tchaikovsky, "The Bone Maker" by Sarah Beth Durst, "A Master of Djinn" by P. Djèlí Clark, and "Vespertine" by Margaret Rogerson.

Goal for next year: Finally read some books from the, uh, four piles on my floor right now… Ever since the open bookshelf nearby appeared the piles grow even faster ^^

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, MCU: The first MCU movie I watched in a while. It was fun. I especially liked the first two fight scenes (while during the big climactic battle I was too exasperated with what people were not doing to fully enjoy it.) Having recently watched Castlevania I also could not help but compare Xu Wenwu to Dracula.

Critical Role campaign 3: I do enjoy CR, the new characters are very promising (especially Taliesin's and Marisha's, and Sam's is fun), but 4 hours a week is a lot. I'm glad they'll take one week a month off, I'm already behind (I've watched the first three episodes so far.) I'm not sure yet if I'll continue watching, or if I'll do what I did for the second half of campaign 2, namely read the summaries each week and then decide to watch the episode if something particularly cool or interesting happened.

Taskmaster series 12: DD and I really enjoyed series 1 to 10, and then for reasons we forgot didn't watch series 11. We recently caught up with series 12 and it's so much fun. Victoria might be one of my favorite contestants ever. Only one more episode to go.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao: People in magical giant robots fight monsters! And the heroine wants to burn down the sexist system that leads to female pilots being sacrificed. ( Some imo minor spoilers )

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim: inspired by the fairy tale "The Six Swans" in an Asian fantasy setting. Unfortunately the main character left a bad first impression because coddled youngest child or not, a 16-year-old Imperial princess should know more about responsibilities and consequences than Shiori (and that reflects badly on her family too.) Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for YA? None of the plot twists were surprising, and I could only connect to the characters rarely. Overall, I don't regret reading it and it did have some enjoyable elements, but I'm not going to bother with any sequels.

So I'm a Spider, So What?, anime, up to episode 13: I thought this would be mostly silly fun, but, uh, the recent episodes took a much darker tun than I anticipated. Very cool plot twists, ( spoilers ) Without spoilers, I'd appreciate some vague info about how dark this gets.
The first dozen episodes also had surprisingly catchy songs and I'm disappointed those changed.

I set myself a (low pressure) goal of reading 40 books this year. At first I thought it would be easy, then I started playing more computer games and suddenly had less time for reading books and it looked more challenging, and then I went on semi-vacation and read 13 books in July so now it looks easy again. Most books I haven't really felt like posting about, and/or was too lazy.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan is the latest book I read and I enjoyed it a lot. I borrowed it as soon as the library got it after reading an interview where the author said she wanted to write a story about an evil monk, and that sounded intriguing. It's set in 14th century China, with many historical liberties taken, and has very few but important fantasy elements.

Most notably: the "Mandate of Heaven" China's emperors claimed is here an actual visible sign, i.e. magical fire that some people can summon. So obviously when the Mongol emperor's fire seems to burn less bright, and the Red Turban rebels find a boy with the mandate, this strengthens the conviction of the rebels. And when there are multiple people who appear to have the mandate, this is obviously a problem, since There Can Only Be One…

( Spoilers )

One of my colleagues finally got her Austrian citizenship yesterday, so today I got her an "Austria starter pack" consisting of Mannerschnitten, Mozartkugeln, Almdudler, and a baseball hat saying "No kangaroos in Austria." (And I will invite her for a Wiener schnitzel sometime soon, of course.) She loved it :)

DD and I are currently house-sitting for my parents (they have a garden!) and today I had to remove way too many southern green shield bugs from their tomatoes. Ugh. I had never seen those bugs before and hopefully won't see them again soon.

Sadly, my childhood public library branch is going to close. Well, technically "move," but as I found out today "my" branch had 22,000 books (27,000 a few years ago) and the other one that had to close had 11,000, while the new library will only have 20,000. (Instead more comfortable furniture and more computers… and a "library of things," which I am admittedly curious about.) I mostly use the online library these days and had not been to this branch for several years, but when I coincidentally found out that it closes (in August! I almost missed it!) I had to pay it another visit. I used to go there very often as a kid and teenager, with a shopping cart so I could borrow 20 books at once, and I knew it very well. The librarian who has worked there for 26 years still recognized me, and I was glad to meet her again. (She is very unhappy about the move.) I can also visit the new branch once it opens sometime in fall, of course, but it's further away. (Yes, not too far from an underground station, but still too far for children to walk to, and they closed both branches nearby, so for children in the area it sucks.)