tamaranth | Entries tagged with read18

2018/66: Consider Phlebas -- Iain M. Banks

I don't care how self-righteous the Culture feels, or how many people the Idirans kill. [The Idirans are] on the side of life—boring, old-fashioned, biological life; smelly, fallible and short-sighted, God knows, but real life. You're ruled by your machines. You're an evolutionary dead end. [p. 26]

This was likely the first of Banks' SF novels that I read, back in the last millennium, and I don't think I've ever reread it. What did I remember? The finger scene: ugh.
( minor spoilers )

Current Mood: geeky

2018/65: The Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief -- Lisa Tuttle

...something sparked between us. It was not that romantic passion that poets and sentimental novelists consider the only connection worth writing about between a man and a woman. But there was curiosity in that look, on both sides, and a tentative recognition – or at least the hope – that here there might be a congeniality of mind and spirit. [loc. 121]

1893: Miss Lane has been involved with the Society of Psychical Research for years, but flees her latest assignment after discovering that her 'closest companion', friend and employer Gabrielle Fox, has been using the same fraudulent tricks as the false mediums they've investigated.
( discussion of mid-plot )

Current Mood: okay

2018/64: Nine Coaches Waiting -- Mary Stewart

The castle in the air, the Cinderella-dream – nonsense for a night. Banquets abroad by torchlight, music, sports, nine coaches waiting! Not for you, Linda my girl. You get yourself back to Camden Town. [p. 325]

Orphan Linda Martin, aged 23, quits her 'dogsbody' job at a boys' school to travel to France (where she lived as a child) and become governess to Philippe, Comte de Valmy, who is nine years old. The boy's Aunt Héloïse, who meets Linda in Paris and accompanies her to Chateau Valmy in the Savoy region, is keen that the job goes to someone with little or no French: so Linda, of course, lies about her fluency.( no major spoilers )

Current Mood: drained

2018/63: The General Theory of Haunting -- Richard Easter

... once a door is opened, guests may arrive, invited or not. [p. 20]

Six people converge on isolated, little-known Marryman Hall for a New Year's party. Along with the butler, Boulder, they are snowed in. Strange things start to happen as they uncover the history of the Hall, a great white round edifice designed and built by Francis Marryman in the early nineteenth century.( mild spoilers for backstory )

Current Mood: okay

2018/62: The Space Between -- Dete Meserve

With each passing day, I’d become invisible to him. Like the Trojan asteroid, I was dancing in his orbit day after day, but was completely unnoticed by him. [loc. 416]

Astronomer Sarah Mayfield is devoted to her work: she's just given a presentation on the discovery of a Trojan asteroid, 'hiding undetected in Earth's orbit for thousands [sic] of years'. But when she returns to the family home, her husband Ben is missing, there's a Glock in the bedside table, and her account has just been credited with a million dollars. ( mild spoilers for mid-book )

Current Mood: okay

2018/61: Untouchable -- Thalia Hibbert

... self-doubt, pale and pink and private like the inside of a stranger’s mouth. You shouldn’t have said anything. There’s a difference between refusing to feel shame and setting yourself up for a fall. She was used to ignoring self-doubt. It was rather prejudiced, and a bit of a bore. If she held an emotional tea party, self-doubt would eat all the scones and call Hannah fat if she complained. [loc. 674]

( Slightly spoilery )

Current Mood: cheerful

2018/60: A Girl Like Her -- Thalia Hibbert

“Fanfic is good for my heart. Running is a disaster waiting to happen, and you know it.” [loc. 1744]

Everyone in Ravenswood warns new arrival Evan Miller to steer clear of his neighbour Ruth Kabbah -- especially Evan's boss, Daniel Burne. Evan can't work out why Ruth is so unpopular: as far as he can tell, she keeps herself to herself.
( no major spoilers )

Current Mood: cheerful

2018/59: The Chalk Pit -- Elly Griffiths

The homeless are like the remnants of a long-forgotten army, still dressed in their ragged uniforms, reminding their more fortunate neighbours that there is a battlefield out there, a place of violence and fear and dread. [loc. 1067]

Ninth in the Dr Ruth Galloway series, following The Woman in Blue. As before, this is as much an episode in the wider arc about Ruth, Harry Nelson, and their friends and families, as it's a standalone crime novel: I would not recommend anyone to start here.

During excavations for an exciting new subterranean restaurant in Norwich, human bones -- bearing possible indications of cannibalism -- have been found in the tunnels below the city.( no spoilers )

Current Mood: okay

2018/58: Bottled Goods -- Sophie van Llewyn

The other teachers slip by her into the break room. They sip their cold coffees in silence, their faces like cassettes with their tape pulled out, unwinding every bit of conversation they had with her in the past few years. [loc. 727]

A short, unnnerving book (novella-length) set in Communist Romania during Ceaușescu's regime.( somewhat spoilery )

Current Mood: calm

2018/57: Weirdo -- Cathi Unsworth

"I was there ... I saw everything ... But unlike everyone else you're chasing after, nobody saw me." [p. 153]

Weirdo switches between 2003, when private detective Sean Ward visits an infamous murderer at a secure facility in East Anglia, and 1984, when the youth of a (fictional) Norfolk seaside town run wild one summer. New forensic evidence indicates that the 'Wicked Witch of the East', the teenaged murderess Corinne, may not have acted alone. Ward would like to clear her name, if he can: but discovering the truth about the events of that distant summer is not an easy task.
( no spoilers )

Current Mood: nostalgic

2018/56: Hagseed -- Margaret Atwood

The island is many things, but among them is something he hasn't mentioned: the island is a theatre. Prospero is a director. He's putting on a play, within which there's another play. If his magic holds and his play is successful, he'll get his heart's desire. [p. 116]

The Hogarth Shakespeare was launched in 2012, its goal to publish 'Shakespeare’s works retold by acclaimed and bestselling novelists of today'. I wasn't that impressed by Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl, a halfhearted reimagining of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew: but a friend recommended Hagseed, Margaret Atwood's take on The Tempest, and it is truly glorious.
( no spoilers )

Current Mood: enthralled

2018/55: The Mystery of Nevermore -- C. S. Poe

there are 101 things in life I simply don't have the patience for, and finding someone else's rotting heart in the floorboards of my shop just about topped the list. [loc. 84]

Sebastian Snow, owner of the Antique Emporium, has plenty on his mind: cashflow issues, his collapsing relationship with closeted NYPD detective Neil Millett, and srock control. Arriving at the shop one morning to find that there's been a break-in, and that there is a rotting heart under the floorboards, does not help his equilibrium.
( some spoilers )

Current Mood: blah

2018/54: The Rules of Magic -- Alice Hoffman

...the rules of magic. Do as you will, but harm no one. What you give will be returned to you threefold. Fall in love whenever you can.
The last rule stopped Franny cold. "How is this possible?" she asked. "We're cursed."
"Anything whole can be broken," Isabelle told her. "And anything broken can be put back together again. That is the meaning of Abracadabra. I create what I speak." [loc. 695]

A prequel to Practical Magic (which I am now keen to reread, not having read it since the last millennium), this novel deals with the aunts -- Franny and Jet -- and their brother Vincent. Growing up in New York and New England in the 1950s and 1960s, the siblings are aware from an early age that they're cursed to ruin anyone who falls in love with them.
( no spoilers )

Current Mood: thoughtful

2018/51: Exit Strategy -- Martha Wells

'Mensah said I could learn to do anything I wanted. I learned to leave.' [p. 64]

The fourth and final Murderbot novella, which pulls together threads from All Systems Red, Articial Condition and -- especially -- Rogue Protocol.
( somewhat spoilery for themes and details )

Current Mood: happy

2018/53: The Magick of Master Lilly -- Toshba Learner

... alas the interpretation he did choose to believe was from a French Catholic Priest (of the Queen’s staff) who did convince him the Angel was in fact a Demon sent by evil Protestant forces to sway him from his true path. And thus the King decided to ignore the warning. [loc. 2462]

A promising premise -- the career of William Lilly, astrologer to King Charles I -- but this novel is badly in need of an editor. I received an advance copy from NetGalley (in exchange for this honest review) and hoped that the issues I noted would be corrected before publication, but a quick check of the sample chapters on Amazon, and the e-text on Google Books, dashed my hopes.
( a bit spoilery )

Current Mood: annoyed

2018/52: Now We Shall Be Entirely Free -- Andrew Miller

the thought that had touched him several times since coming back from Spain, that we are not private beings and cannot hide things inside ourselves. Everything is present, everything in view for those who know how to look. [loc 3776]

1809: a soldier, near death, is brought to a house in Somerset by a postilion, and nursed slowly back to health by the housekeeper. The soldier's name is John Lacroix, and he has survived the retreat to Corunna.( somewhat spoilery )

Current Mood: thoughtful

2018/50: False Lights -- K. J. Whittaker

She realised with detached horror that she was in London – London – and soldiers were firing at will into a crowd of unarmed citizens. This wasn’t just an occupation. It was a tyranny. [loc. 3078]

An alternate history that opens in the Scilly Isles, eighteen months after a Napoleonic victory at Waterloo.( non-spoilery )

Current Mood: cheerful

2018/49: Ghost Wall -- Sarah Moss

... a ghost wall, said the Prof, sitting back on his haunches. I was just telling your dad, it’s what one of the local tribes tried as a last-ditch defence against the Romans, they made a palisade and brought out their ancestral skulls and arrayed them along the top, dead faces gazing down, it was their strongest magic. [loc. 946]

( non-spoilery )

Current Mood: uncomfortable

2018/48: Rogue Protocol -- Martha Wells

Being a SecUnit sucked. I couldn’t wait to get back to my wild rogue rampage of hitching rides on bot-piloted transports and watching my serials. [loc. 1042]

GrayCris, the Big Bad of the first Murderbot novella, is being investigated for illegal activity pertaining to alien remains, and Dr Mensah has become involved. Murderbot, being better-placed to acquire evidence of GrayCris' wrongdoing (and not wanting anyone to pester Mensah about that missing SecUnit), heads to an abandoned terraforming facility at Milu to investigate.
( non-spoilery )

Current Mood: good

2018/47: Lord of Light -- Roger Zelazny

Time like an ocean, space like its water, Sam in the middle, standing, decided. [loc 4237]

From the blurb of the 1973 UK paperback: "A Brilliant Novel of Men Like Gods Long After the Death of Earth". (Why, yes, there are women too. Please file under 'period-typical sexism', of which more below.)
( mild spoilers: super-long review )
Three final points:
- there is no legitimate English-language ebook edition. If your French is up to it, you can purchase Seigneur de Lumière.
- there was going to be a film; Jack Kirby was involved; and this was used as a cover to rescue US officials from Iran: see How Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light transformed into the CIA's Argo covert op and The book that Argo forgot: SF Classic Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light. (The latter also gives a good overview of the novel.)
- no review of this novel would be complete with a nod to one of the most egregious puns in SF, painstakingly built up when Sam is considering reincarnation and sends the Shan of Irabek to test the waters.

I still think it's one of Zelazny's best: and having reread it, I found myself rereading it again, for sheer enjoyment.

Current Mood: cheerful

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Entries tagged with read18

2018/66: Consider Phlebas -- Iain M. Banks

2018/65: The Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief -- Lisa Tuttle

2018/64: Nine Coaches Waiting -- Mary Stewart

2018/63: The General Theory of Haunting -- Richard Easter

2018/62: The Space Between -- Dete Meserve

2018/61: Untouchable -- Thalia Hibbert

2018/60: A Girl Like Her -- Thalia Hibbert

2018/59: The Chalk Pit -- Elly Griffiths

2018/58: Bottled Goods -- Sophie van Llewyn

2018/57: Weirdo -- Cathi Unsworth

2018/56: Hagseed -- Margaret Atwood

2018/55: The Mystery of Nevermore -- C. S. Poe

2018/54: The Rules of Magic -- Alice Hoffman

2018/51: Exit Strategy -- Martha Wells

2018/53: The Magick of Master Lilly -- Toshba Learner

2018/52: Now We Shall Be Entirely Free -- Andrew Miller

2018/50: False Lights -- K. J. Whittaker

2018/49: Ghost Wall -- Sarah Moss

2018/48: Rogue Protocol -- Martha Wells

2018/47: Lord of Light -- Roger Zelazny

April 2025

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