2018 in Books
Jan. 4th, 2019 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenith posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thelittledogFor a whole year of reading, this is going to be a short post.
Fiction-wise, January was a bad month. I borrowed many books from the library, read the first chapter or less, then took them back. I won't name them. They are probably perfectly good books* for someone who wants to read those books, which I obviously didn't.
Book drought. No fun :(
So come February, I did the only thing I could do, went back to reading old favourites. Somewhere back in mists of time, I went looking for books about thieves. For a popular fantasy, there weren't many books about them. Then. There's a few more about now. One of the very few suggestions was a Middle Grade book, The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. It has a young protagonist who is the best at what he does, it's first person it starts with him locked up but he's taken along on a secret project, there is much travelling... it's everything I don't like about fantasy novels all shoved into one little book. But I slogged through it and when I got to the end, I wanted to go back and read it all again. I didn't as it was 2 am and I had things to do when I woke up. Reading it again, and looking for the little clues was interesting.
The next two books (the Queen of Attolia & the King of Attolia) are Young Adult and third person omniscient and they are my favouritest books ever and everyone should read them, if only to study the craft of them. They are definitely books that stand up to rereading. Also, the fifth book was just put out last year and the whole serious was re-released with the best covers. (See image)
Back when I first read them, the Book Fairy sent me book 4, A Conspiracy of Kings, but I couldn't get past the first chapter. This time I just read through it as fast as the previous one. Well, actually I didn't, I was trying to make it last a bit longer but only reading a few chapters each day, so it took me three days to read. Interestingly, the prologue is a bird's eye/camera POV (we see everything but don't get into any character's head) and the rest of the book is a mixture of first person & the usual third omni, but it works.)
Then, as I just said, the fifth book had just been realised. The hardback was available but the paperback wasn't out yet. So I thought hard, no I didn't, I considered it for about three second and bought the hardback. This one focuses on a characters who is a minor character in an earlier book and take places mostly in another country and involves A LOT OF TRAVELLING, the twists were obvious. I'd say it's my least favourite of the series. Still a good book. (Really, I'd read her shopping list, if it had Eugenides in it.)
Also, book six is due out in March :|
Also, of the three books I now have, two have covers in the style above and on in an older style, and two are hardbacks and one is paperback :|
OK having decided I had to go back to reading fantasy novels I tried The City of Brass, by S.A. Chakraborty, which draws on Middle Eastern mythology. It's slow going at first, there's a lot of background and worldbuilding to get through and I was only reading it on the bus, and then after three weeks the library wanted it back. Quite rude.
Over the next few months, for unrelated reasons, I read some of the One Thousand and One Nights. Until I got sick of men falling helplessly in love with women at first site and doing stupid things for them.
Finally in October, I got City of Brass again and I could mostly remember all the background & worldbuilding information. Interesting to get back into it after reading Night too. The book picks up towards the middle. One of the main characters and her companion are travelling (sigh) towards the city and as they approach, there's an increase in tension because all these bad things are going to -- no, wait. They arrive. Nothing much happens. MC settles into her new life for the next few chapters. Then, near the end, all these things suddenly happen. The end.. The result is unsatisfactory. It feels like it wants to be two books. The first with their trip to the city and ending with their arrival and SOMETHING HAPPENING. The second book starts with MC's new life and all the things that happen have more room to happen, they're developed out properly and there is foreshadowing and building up of conflict. And THEN the ending would have worked better. Oh well.
Next was This Savage Song, by Victoria Schwab, which I'd seen about but not bothered to read because I'd been so disappointed by A Conjuring Of Light, and also the back cover blurb was boring. There's an art to writing back cover blurbs to make them sound nothing like the book they're attached to. It's an art that needs to be lost. Soon. Please.
Anyway, I read Song and enjoyed it. The plot doesn't really do anywhere different but it's a good little character story and it's emotionally engaging. This is what I like in a book. So I read the sequel (two book series), Our Dark Duet and... it was disappointing. It lacks the depth of the previous book, the tension, the emotional engagement. Things happens but no one really cares. It's like Ms Schwab writes the story, goes back to flesh it out, reaches the required word count and stops there. Which is just what I felt about reading A Conjuring of Light. :(
Anyway, now I'm reading Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. They're getting the band back together! Except the band is a mercenary band. It's fun book that plays with the idea of mercenary bands being treated like rock bands. I didn't have high hopes for this. I thought they'd be spending most of the book travelling (sigh) through the woods where all the bad and dangerous things live and having lots of fights. But no, the first 300 pages they're moving around between towns doing mercenary bands are rock bands things and it's fun and easy to read. Then they start travelling (sigh) through the woods where all the bad and dangerous things live and having lots of fights, and it is less interesting. I assume at some point they stop doing this, if only because the book doesn't many pages left. Still it's a fun read and I might be disappointed when it ends (because I won't be able to read it any more, not disappointed as above).
Fiction-wise, January was a bad month. I borrowed many books from the library, read the first chapter or less, then took them back. I won't name them. They are probably perfectly good books* for someone who wants to read those books, which I obviously didn't.
Book drought. No fun :(
So come February, I did the only thing I could do, went back to reading old favourites. Somewhere back in mists of time, I went looking for books about thieves. For a popular fantasy, there weren't many books about them. Then. There's a few more about now. One of the very few suggestions was a Middle Grade book, The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. It has a young protagonist who is the best at what he does, it's first person it starts with him locked up but he's taken along on a secret project, there is much travelling... it's everything I don't like about fantasy novels all shoved into one little book. But I slogged through it and when I got to the end, I wanted to go back and read it all again. I didn't as it was 2 am and I had things to do when I woke up. Reading it again, and looking for the little clues was interesting.
The next two books (the Queen of Attolia & the King of Attolia) are Young Adult and third person omniscient and they are my favouritest books ever and everyone should read them, if only to study the craft of them. They are definitely books that stand up to rereading. Also, the fifth book was just put out last year and the whole serious was re-released with the best covers. (See image)
Back when I first read them, the Book Fairy sent me book 4, A Conspiracy of Kings, but I couldn't get past the first chapter. This time I just read through it as fast as the previous one. Well, actually I didn't, I was trying to make it last a bit longer but only reading a few chapters each day, so it took me three days to read. Interestingly, the prologue is a bird's eye/camera POV (we see everything but don't get into any character's head) and the rest of the book is a mixture of first person & the usual third omni, but it works.)
Then, as I just said, the fifth book had just been realised. The hardback was available but the paperback wasn't out yet. So I thought hard, no I didn't, I considered it for about three second and bought the hardback. This one focuses on a characters who is a minor character in an earlier book and take places mostly in another country and involves A LOT OF TRAVELLING, the twists were obvious. I'd say it's my least favourite of the series. Still a good book. (Really, I'd read her shopping list, if it had Eugenides in it.)
Also, book six is due out in March :|
Also, of the three books I now have, two have covers in the style above and on in an older style, and two are hardbacks and one is paperback :|
OK having decided I had to go back to reading fantasy novels I tried The City of Brass, by S.A. Chakraborty, which draws on Middle Eastern mythology. It's slow going at first, there's a lot of background and worldbuilding to get through and I was only reading it on the bus, and then after three weeks the library wanted it back. Quite rude.
Over the next few months, for unrelated reasons, I read some of the One Thousand and One Nights. Until I got sick of men falling helplessly in love with women at first site and doing stupid things for them.
Finally in October, I got City of Brass again and I could mostly remember all the background & worldbuilding information. Interesting to get back into it after reading Night too. The book picks up towards the middle. One of the main characters and her companion are travelling (sigh) towards the city and as they approach, there's an increase in tension because all these bad things are going to -- no, wait. They arrive. Nothing much happens. MC settles into her new life for the next few chapters. Then, near the end, all these things suddenly happen. The end.. The result is unsatisfactory. It feels like it wants to be two books. The first with their trip to the city and ending with their arrival and SOMETHING HAPPENING. The second book starts with MC's new life and all the things that happen have more room to happen, they're developed out properly and there is foreshadowing and building up of conflict. And THEN the ending would have worked better. Oh well.
Next was This Savage Song, by Victoria Schwab, which I'd seen about but not bothered to read because I'd been so disappointed by A Conjuring Of Light, and also the back cover blurb was boring. There's an art to writing back cover blurbs to make them sound nothing like the book they're attached to. It's an art that needs to be lost. Soon. Please.
Anyway, I read Song and enjoyed it. The plot doesn't really do anywhere different but it's a good little character story and it's emotionally engaging. This is what I like in a book. So I read the sequel (two book series), Our Dark Duet and... it was disappointing. It lacks the depth of the previous book, the tension, the emotional engagement. Things happens but no one really cares. It's like Ms Schwab writes the story, goes back to flesh it out, reaches the required word count and stops there. Which is just what I felt about reading A Conjuring of Light. :(
Anyway, now I'm reading Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. They're getting the band back together! Except the band is a mercenary band. It's fun book that plays with the idea of mercenary bands being treated like rock bands. I didn't have high hopes for this. I thought they'd be spending most of the book travelling (sigh) through the woods where all the bad and dangerous things live and having lots of fights. But no, the first 300 pages they're moving around between towns doing mercenary bands are rock bands things and it's fun and easy to read. Then they start travelling (sigh) through the woods where all the bad and dangerous things live and having lots of fights, and it is less interesting. I assume at some point they stop doing this, if only because the book doesn't many pages left. Still it's a fun read and I might be disappointed when it ends (because I won't be able to read it any more, not disappointed as above).
