still books, though
Mar. 29th, 2023 06:39 pmBah. I am doing better but "better" is not "good." The last couple of weeks have traded vision-stress for workstress. Thankfully that is letting up somewhat. And in a week and a half I go back north to see Erin for a long weekend, which is much needed, and then I go out to Niagara for a few days with Steph followed by the Gathering, which is also much needed.
Meanwhile I am at least still reading.
What are you reading now?
RF Kuang's The Poppy War, book 1 of a trilogy set in !China. I'd intended to not read these until I had all three of them, but since I'm getting the fancy Subterranean editions that won't be until the middle of next year at the earliest.
I'm about two-thirds through and it is really good. The first third or so is a school story: war orphan Rin goes off to the prestigious military academy and has a terrible time. Then there's an invasion by neighbouring !Japan, which is deeply unpleasant and includes numerous massacres, all of which per the author's note are historically attested from Sino-Japanese wars. It looks like the final third is going to involve unleashing the magical equivalent of an H-bomb but I have no idea how it's going to play out, or where the rest of the trilogy will go. Which is kind of neat.
I saw someone describe these as "grimdark," which, maybe? My only other exposure to that subgenre was Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy, which I read once and said "these are quite good and are doing a bunch of really interesting things, and they are also intensely nihilistic and i do not need that in my ambit." Poppy War is grim but feels less fatalistic about it. Maybe it's that Rin is more relatable and less inherently awful than most of Abercrombie's viewpoint characters.
What did you just finish reading?
Silvia Moreno-Garcia's The Return of the Sorceress, a fantasy novella that bears no relation to Clark Ashton Smith's parallel-named story. A young woman comes back to town to maybe defeat her former friend/rival who's now in charge of the local sorcerers, and maybe supplant him and maybe destroy the artifact that gives him his power; she's not terribly clear, even to herself. Good character moments, especially at the end after the big climax. Worth reading, worth keeping.
Before that, Kate Elliott's Servant Mage. The cosmology and the characters both felt a little thin, mostly because there was a great deal of both to cram into the space of a novella. Felt, mm, overly intricate for the story it was telling. But it's a good story, "the enemy of my enemy may be my ally but is not necessarily my friend." Also worth the reading.
What do you think you'll read next?
Might be the third of Tade Thompson's Rosewater trilogy, might be the next Discworld. Or I might break down and read the next two Kuang books in ebook rather than wait for Subterranean.
Meanwhile I am at least still reading.
What are you reading now?
RF Kuang's The Poppy War, book 1 of a trilogy set in !China. I'd intended to not read these until I had all three of them, but since I'm getting the fancy Subterranean editions that won't be until the middle of next year at the earliest.
I'm about two-thirds through and it is really good. The first third or so is a school story: war orphan Rin goes off to the prestigious military academy and has a terrible time. Then there's an invasion by neighbouring !Japan, which is deeply unpleasant and includes numerous massacres, all of which per the author's note are historically attested from Sino-Japanese wars. It looks like the final third is going to involve unleashing the magical equivalent of an H-bomb but I have no idea how it's going to play out, or where the rest of the trilogy will go. Which is kind of neat.
I saw someone describe these as "grimdark," which, maybe? My only other exposure to that subgenre was Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy, which I read once and said "these are quite good and are doing a bunch of really interesting things, and they are also intensely nihilistic and i do not need that in my ambit." Poppy War is grim but feels less fatalistic about it. Maybe it's that Rin is more relatable and less inherently awful than most of Abercrombie's viewpoint characters.
What did you just finish reading?
Silvia Moreno-Garcia's The Return of the Sorceress, a fantasy novella that bears no relation to Clark Ashton Smith's parallel-named story. A young woman comes back to town to maybe defeat her former friend/rival who's now in charge of the local sorcerers, and maybe supplant him and maybe destroy the artifact that gives him his power; she's not terribly clear, even to herself. Good character moments, especially at the end after the big climax. Worth reading, worth keeping.
Before that, Kate Elliott's Servant Mage. The cosmology and the characters both felt a little thin, mostly because there was a great deal of both to cram into the space of a novella. Felt, mm, overly intricate for the story it was telling. But it's a good story, "the enemy of my enemy may be my ally but is not necessarily my friend." Also worth the reading.
What do you think you'll read next?
Might be the third of Tade Thompson's Rosewater trilogy, might be the next Discworld. Or I might break down and read the next two Kuang books in ebook rather than wait for Subterranean.