New year, new books! I'm still using Goodreads, but I'm planning on posting my thoughts here as well for the time being. And I have a large stack of to-be-read books that has built up over time at home that I'm going to try to be working through throughout the next few months, so some of this month's choices will reflect that.
A Darker Shade of Magic - Schwab (2015)
"That was the thing about magic. It was everywhere. In everything. In everyone. And while it coursed like a low and steady pulse, through the air and the earth, it beat louder in the bodies of living things. And if Kell tried - if he reached - he could feel it. It was a sense, not as strong as sight or sound or smell, but there all the same, its presence now drifting toward him from the shadows across the street."
First, the good: At its best, A Darker Shade of Magic is a stripped-down fantasy that warrants comparison to some Neal Gaiman novels (high praise indeed!). It drew me in immediately, and I felt the world-building and explanations made sense without overburdening the reader with lots of explanation and exposition. I loved the concept of the different Londons, the magical items described, and the colorful scenes and characters dotted throughout.
However, I had some issues with the book. There was something of a YA feel to it that kept cropping up in tone and in the way the characters were portrayed (a little too heavy on the descriptors for character appearance, for one). There was a dark feeling to the blood-linked magic in the book, which I didn't necessarily dislike, but I didn't care for the (sometimes seemingly purposeless) cruelty of the various antagonists in the book. And I liked the tie-ins with the real world (the mad King George III, for instance) but felt a little cheated out of reading more of that. In the end, I was left with the feeling of wanting to like this book a little more than I did.
Overall, the book is clever rather than surprising or brilliant, and it's a generally solid pick for those who like darker-toned, realism-tinged fantasy, and I'm planning on reading at least the next book in the trilogy.
Related Reads:
Neverwhere (Gaiman)
A Court of Thorns and Roses (Maas)
Howl's Moving Castle (Jones)
More Soviet Science Fiction - forward by Isaac Asimov (1952)
"But we could put it this way, too: man's conquest of space, his knowledge of the Universe, clashed with the primitive thinking of the individualistic property-owner. The future and the very life of humanity hung in the balance for years before progress triumphed and mankind joined into one family in a classless society. Before that happened people in the capitalistic half of the world refused for a long time to see any new paths into the future and regarded their mode of life as eternal and unchanging, with war and self-destruction as man's inevitable lot."
I picked up this random little book from my late cousin's large SciFi collection over a year ago. There are five rather long short stories included here, as well as an enlightening forward by Isaac Asimov. I found the included stories a little on the dull side generally, but still intriguing as a whole due to the specific Soviet worldview and school of thought displayed throughout.
For me, the thought of what else was going on in the USSR during the time that these stories were written (the Gulag labor camps, for instance) was particularly striking and sobering. Read this to round out your knowledge of both earlier Science Fiction and 20th century Russian history and political thought.
Related Reads:
The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn)
Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance - Ruth Emmie Lang (2017)
"Two weeks later, I wore a coat for the first time that year. Fall had made its presence known in the form of wet, earthy smells and shivering tree limbs shedding leaves in various shades of exotic cat. I walked to school that morning, listening to the crisp sounds that punctuated each one of my footfalls and the honks of geese flying overhead. I found it strange that there could be so much beauty in the death of all these living things. Maybe it was only beautiful because we knew they would be resurrected next spring."
I didn't actually care too much for this book, which was somewhat of a surprise and disappointment to me. I can't say I really disliked it, nor do my lukewarm feelings stem from the format of the different voices throughout the chapters (I actually thought the format was fitting and found that I related especially to one or two of the particular storytellers). I think I just was expecting something a bit different than what the story ended up actually being - maybe I was looking a little too hard for mystery and magic and missing general overall themes (misfits, choices, family, fate). But I wasn't in love with the writing style or tone, either. I'm left with feeling like this is a more average book than I was expecting, but a bit of a loss explaining exactly why. Maybe that's as good of an overview-thought as any.
Related Reads:
Maniac Magee (Spinelli)
(Continued in Part 2)
A Darker Shade of Magic - Schwab (2015)
"That was the thing about magic. It was everywhere. In everything. In everyone. And while it coursed like a low and steady pulse, through the air and the earth, it beat louder in the bodies of living things. And if Kell tried - if he reached - he could feel it. It was a sense, not as strong as sight or sound or smell, but there all the same, its presence now drifting toward him from the shadows across the street."
First, the good: At its best, A Darker Shade of Magic is a stripped-down fantasy that warrants comparison to some Neal Gaiman novels (high praise indeed!). It drew me in immediately, and I felt the world-building and explanations made sense without overburdening the reader with lots of explanation and exposition. I loved the concept of the different Londons, the magical items described, and the colorful scenes and characters dotted throughout.
However, I had some issues with the book. There was something of a YA feel to it that kept cropping up in tone and in the way the characters were portrayed (a little too heavy on the descriptors for character appearance, for one). There was a dark feeling to the blood-linked magic in the book, which I didn't necessarily dislike, but I didn't care for the (sometimes seemingly purposeless) cruelty of the various antagonists in the book. And I liked the tie-ins with the real world (the mad King George III, for instance) but felt a little cheated out of reading more of that. In the end, I was left with the feeling of wanting to like this book a little more than I did.
Overall, the book is clever rather than surprising or brilliant, and it's a generally solid pick for those who like darker-toned, realism-tinged fantasy, and I'm planning on reading at least the next book in the trilogy.
Related Reads:
Neverwhere (Gaiman)
A Court of Thorns and Roses (Maas)
Howl's Moving Castle (Jones)
More Soviet Science Fiction - forward by Isaac Asimov (1952)
"But we could put it this way, too: man's conquest of space, his knowledge of the Universe, clashed with the primitive thinking of the individualistic property-owner. The future and the very life of humanity hung in the balance for years before progress triumphed and mankind joined into one family in a classless society. Before that happened people in the capitalistic half of the world refused for a long time to see any new paths into the future and regarded their mode of life as eternal and unchanging, with war and self-destruction as man's inevitable lot."
I picked up this random little book from my late cousin's large SciFi collection over a year ago. There are five rather long short stories included here, as well as an enlightening forward by Isaac Asimov. I found the included stories a little on the dull side generally, but still intriguing as a whole due to the specific Soviet worldview and school of thought displayed throughout.
For me, the thought of what else was going on in the USSR during the time that these stories were written (the Gulag labor camps, for instance) was particularly striking and sobering. Read this to round out your knowledge of both earlier Science Fiction and 20th century Russian history and political thought.
Related Reads:
The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn)
Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance - Ruth Emmie Lang (2017)
"Two weeks later, I wore a coat for the first time that year. Fall had made its presence known in the form of wet, earthy smells and shivering tree limbs shedding leaves in various shades of exotic cat. I walked to school that morning, listening to the crisp sounds that punctuated each one of my footfalls and the honks of geese flying overhead. I found it strange that there could be so much beauty in the death of all these living things. Maybe it was only beautiful because we knew they would be resurrected next spring."
I didn't actually care too much for this book, which was somewhat of a surprise and disappointment to me. I can't say I really disliked it, nor do my lukewarm feelings stem from the format of the different voices throughout the chapters (I actually thought the format was fitting and found that I related especially to one or two of the particular storytellers). I think I just was expecting something a bit different than what the story ended up actually being - maybe I was looking a little too hard for mystery and magic and missing general overall themes (misfits, choices, family, fate). But I wasn't in love with the writing style or tone, either. I'm left with feeling like this is a more average book than I was expecting, but a bit of a loss explaining exactly why. Maybe that's as good of an overview-thought as any.
Related Reads:
Maniac Magee (Spinelli)
(Continued in Part 2)
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