15.02.26
Strange and beautiful, the world and characters drawn with care, and the plot, such as it was, gathering speed like a train on the tracks. This leisurely, intelligent story perhaps needed a little more steam power to really get going.
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
The Book of Koli - MR Carey
Carey specialises in post-apocalyptic dystopian survival stories, lovingly worldbuilding often at the expense of the plot. The Girl with All the Gifts worked better than this, which meandered about, much like the rather passive narrator. I wonder whether this was originally the first third of a longer book rather than the first in a trilogy.
Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik
22.02.23
This is the eighth book by Novik I've read, and it's exactly what I've come to expect - a prettily written dark fairytale with strong female characters and not enough editing. It started off well - evocative and engaging - but it just went on and on. All the headhopping soon became tedious. We only needed two, maybe three, viewpoints. And surely <spoiler!> the two brave and independent women wouldn't really choose to stay with their awful husbands at the end?
Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
13.07.21
I can't see the appeal of this much-hyped novel. I think what irritated me most was the fact it was all so unlikely. Unrealistic I can handle - if the world building and characters are strong enough you can happily suspend your disbelief - but this was just silly because it didn't ring true on any level.
And the poetry! Dear God, the awful poetry, which even one of the characters thought was bad. So why include it? This book just didn't know what it was or where it was going.
The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden
64%
A very dark folktale with some lovely descriptions but, as is the case with modern trilogies, more the first third of a longer novel than a self-contained story.
Brazzaville Beach - William Boyd
05.02.20
This confident book was so busy trying to be clever that it became confusing and ever-so-slightly dull. The cold and detached 'heroine' commands three separate narratives that are probably meaningfully linked if I felt engaged enough to analyse them.
Snapper - Brian Kimberling
23.11.18
The most whimsical novel with an undercurrent of violence that I've ever read.
The Tropic of Serpents - Marie Brennan
28.07.17
Much of the same, really. Notable mostly for its detailed, self-contained alternative world.
A Natural History of Dragons - Marie Brennan
29.06.17
The fabulous cover artwork sums up the ethos of this series - a 19th century steampunk world like - but not quite like - our own. A feisty heroine finding her place in a male society, wild dragons determinedly different to those of Naomi Novak's books and derring-do galore. Even if, on reflection, not much actually happens...
The Portable Veblen - Elizabeth McKenzie
04.03.17
This was billed as funny. It wasn't, particularly, unless you're into unrealistically eccentric characters with tedious hangups and dysfunctional families navigating shoehorned social commentary.
Uprooted - Naomi Novik
29.01.17
At last - a shining shaft of sunlight in the recent fog of mediocrity. Novik's Temeraire novels are evocative but, freed from that very male context to write a sometimes dark, always female-centred fairytale, she writes like a, well, dream (as long as we ignore the mushy middle). Who can I lend it to?
A Siege of Bitterns - Steve Burrows
Just admire the striking cover and don't bother opening the book. It's dull and confusing and the characters have no character but what really made me stop reading was the weird determination to capitalise types of bird. Seeing Crow and Bittern clog up the page is simply too distracting. I bet the copy editor and the author had strong words over that particular stylistic decision.
H is for Hawk - Helen Macdonald
I persisted with this book as the author does with her hawk, hoping I'd get on with it if I just tried harder. But there comes a point when you have to admit you're bored and unengaged and you just need to fly free.
A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness
07.05.16
Beautiful and terrible - that's the world of the admirable Patrick Ness and a painful mirror on the real world. This fable is spun from delicate words and difficult circumstances - a tour de force, I suppose, but lacking a core emotional engagement that would really have drawn me in.
The Bees - Laline Paull
18.05.15
Dystopian science fiction? Political fable? Over-researched anthropomorphised animal story? Well, yes, all of those. Which is quite an achievement. Even more of an achievement is that it's also a good story - I had to wrench my library copy off my mum and buy her one for herself. Overall, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this odd novel with its improbably near-immortal multi-skilled bee heroine but I think I enjoyed it.
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