Reading roundup
Nov. 29th, 2022 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartI would like to get back to writing proper reviews, but for now, here's a catch-up of the last month or so.
The Witness for the Dead - Katherine Addison: set in the same world as The Goblin Emperor, but not a direct sequel; a gentle fantasy murder mystery which I enjoyed a great deal.
The Ministry of Unladylike Activity - Robin Stevens: the first in her new series, following the adventures of May Wong (younger sister of Hazel from the Murder Most Unladylike books) during World War II. Great fun, with likeable characters, even if one of the plot points was easier to guess as an adult who had a Bad Feeling as soon as the characters ended up in Coventry in autumn 1940...
Doctor Who: At Childhood's End - Sophie Aldred: a tie-in novel which reunites Ace (one of my favourite Classic Series companions) with the Thirteenth Doctor.
Infomocracy - Malka Older: from the depths of the e-TBR pile, I really enjoyed this near-future thriller about electoral tampering in a world of divided into "microdemocracies", with each group of 100,000 able to select its own government.
Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble - Alexis Hall: sweet baking-themed m/m romance with a main character with anxiety, which was extremely relatable (possibly too relatable).
Lady Liesl's Seaside Surprise - Tansy Rayner Roberts: fun gaslamp fantasy mystery focusing on one of the side characters from the earlier Teacup Magic books.
The Return of Fitzroy Angursell - Victoria Goddard: the story of what happens when the Emperor from The Hands of the Emperor goes on his quest. An utter joy of a book, full of delightful coincidences. (And I do love a fantasy book where the narrator is extremely concerned about the availability of bathrooms, and makes use of a Bag of Holding to carry large numbers of cushions and other bedding.)
How to be Broken - Emma Kavanagh: a book about post-pandemic burnout which was very good on the causes and symptoms but less good on how to get over it.
Ocean's Echo - Everina Maxwell: m/m space opera romance, utterly lovely.
Undercover - Tamsyn Muir: a novelette(?) with zombies in a vaguely Western setting. Creepy and unsettling but very good.
The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul - Victoria Goddard: the sequel to The Return of Fitzroy Angursell. Features (a) a middle-aged female academic heroine; (b) a band of middle-aged adventurers; (c) a large number of nods to Dorothy L Sayers and is another delightful character-focused fantasy.
The Steerswoman - Rosemary Kirstein: classic fantasy novel from 1989, featuring a female variant of the brains-and-brawn odd-couple-travelling-together trope and some interesting ideas (the steerswomen travel around, making maps and answering people's questions, but the trade-off is that people have to answer their questions in return, and if they don't, they are cut off from that knowledge for ever). The first in a series, and I will be reading the others.
Rivers of London: Deadly Ever After - Ben Aaronovitch: the latest of the Rivers of London graphic novels.
Deep Wheel Orcadia - Harry Josephine Giles: this is a verse novel in Orcadian dialect (with parallel English prose translation) set aboard a remote space station. Hauntingly beautiful with wonderfully resonant language, addressing questions of home and belonging and the tradeoffs needed for a life on the geographical margins.
Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander - Victoria Goddard: a companion novella to The Hands of the Emperor, exploring one of the background characters in more depth and giving a different perspective on one of the scenes. This also brings some welcome explicitly queer content to the series, where the previous books I read had queer background characters but none in the foreground.
A Trifle Dead - Livia Day: Tasmania-set cosy murder mystery with cake (the heroine runs a cafe). Entertaining and not too serious, but really made me crave a flat white.
The Witness for the Dead - Katherine Addison: set in the same world as The Goblin Emperor, but not a direct sequel; a gentle fantasy murder mystery which I enjoyed a great deal.
The Ministry of Unladylike Activity - Robin Stevens: the first in her new series, following the adventures of May Wong (younger sister of Hazel from the Murder Most Unladylike books) during World War II. Great fun, with likeable characters, even if one of the plot points was easier to guess as an adult who had a Bad Feeling as soon as the characters ended up in Coventry in autumn 1940...
Doctor Who: At Childhood's End - Sophie Aldred: a tie-in novel which reunites Ace (one of my favourite Classic Series companions) with the Thirteenth Doctor.
Infomocracy - Malka Older: from the depths of the e-TBR pile, I really enjoyed this near-future thriller about electoral tampering in a world of divided into "microdemocracies", with each group of 100,000 able to select its own government.
Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble - Alexis Hall: sweet baking-themed m/m romance with a main character with anxiety, which was extremely relatable (possibly too relatable).
Lady Liesl's Seaside Surprise - Tansy Rayner Roberts: fun gaslamp fantasy mystery focusing on one of the side characters from the earlier Teacup Magic books.
The Return of Fitzroy Angursell - Victoria Goddard: the story of what happens when the Emperor from The Hands of the Emperor goes on his quest. An utter joy of a book, full of delightful coincidences. (And I do love a fantasy book where the narrator is extremely concerned about the availability of bathrooms, and makes use of a Bag of Holding to carry large numbers of cushions and other bedding.)
How to be Broken - Emma Kavanagh: a book about post-pandemic burnout which was very good on the causes and symptoms but less good on how to get over it.
Ocean's Echo - Everina Maxwell: m/m space opera romance, utterly lovely.
Undercover - Tamsyn Muir: a novelette(?) with zombies in a vaguely Western setting. Creepy and unsettling but very good.
The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul - Victoria Goddard: the sequel to The Return of Fitzroy Angursell. Features (a) a middle-aged female academic heroine; (b) a band of middle-aged adventurers; (c) a large number of nods to Dorothy L Sayers and is another delightful character-focused fantasy.
The Steerswoman - Rosemary Kirstein: classic fantasy novel from 1989, featuring a female variant of the brains-and-brawn odd-couple-travelling-together trope and some interesting ideas (the steerswomen travel around, making maps and answering people's questions, but the trade-off is that people have to answer their questions in return, and if they don't, they are cut off from that knowledge for ever). The first in a series, and I will be reading the others.
Rivers of London: Deadly Ever After - Ben Aaronovitch: the latest of the Rivers of London graphic novels.
Deep Wheel Orcadia - Harry Josephine Giles: this is a verse novel in Orcadian dialect (with parallel English prose translation) set aboard a remote space station. Hauntingly beautiful with wonderfully resonant language, addressing questions of home and belonging and the tradeoffs needed for a life on the geographical margins.
Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander - Victoria Goddard: a companion novella to The Hands of the Emperor, exploring one of the background characters in more depth and giving a different perspective on one of the scenes. This also brings some welcome explicitly queer content to the series, where the previous books I read had queer background characters but none in the foreground.
A Trifle Dead - Livia Day: Tasmania-set cosy murder mystery with cake (the heroine runs a cafe). Entertaining and not too serious, but really made me crave a flat white.
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Date: 2022-11-29 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-29 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-29 10:56 pm (UTC)Oh I thought it was 1 December! I thought I had it on pre order but will check. Thank you!
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Date: 2022-11-29 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-29 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-29 10:26 pm (UTC)