groofay

I might leave a more "proper" review after a reread or two, but suffice it to say that I've rarely been so drawn in by a love story as by this novella, nor have I ever read a science fiction story that so adamantly ignores the details of an epoch-spanning time travel war in favor of using it as a vehicle for some of the most swoon-worthy epistolary passages I have ever read in fiction. This is a modern masterpiece.

This is one of the strongest opening volumes of a manga I've read in recent memory. The setting is immersive, the story starts and unfolds organically, each character is memorable and defined with plenty of backstory to explore and room to grow, and the art is jaw-droppingly gorgeous throughout. If this is what I can expect from future volumes, Witch Hat Atelier might be on its way to being one of my favorite manga I've ever read.

This is a slender book of dark and imaginative short fiction, some no more than a snapshot spanning a couple pages, others a bit more fleshed out–but none too much so. There are whispers here and there of some mysterious religious orders (cults? Probably, I dunno), landscapes ravaged by who-knows-what, characters with their own unstated motivations and goals.

The point, seemingly, is that we know there's something behind all of that, not that we know what it is. I feel like many of these glimpses could be spun off into a novel, but I'm content just chewing on the mysteries I've been shown.

In any case, as an introduction to an author, this is tantalizing stuff, and I for one will be waiting to see what he comes up with next.

I was sent an e-ARC for free, and I'm leaving this review voluntarily.

This is a book that builds on its predecessor's already fairly bleak ending to double down, hard, to the extent that I'm honestly rather glad that SETI has not been successful in establishing contact.

As in The Three-Body Problem, Liu uses the classic thought experiment as the template for his fiction: given current scientific understanding, what if? And when needed, the author repeats the question again and again, alongside explanations and demonstrations that are accessible and, as often as not, awe-inspiring.

This series as a whole so far takes the Fermi Paradox as its jumping-off point: Given the vastness of the universe, where is everyone else? The first book gives an elegant solution with an ominous conclusion; this book gives it a turn toward cosmic horror territory, in a way that I won't go into for obvious reasons.

One might quibble about the characters (Luo Ji is definitely a very punchable main character for a solid while), but Liu Cixin's work is never really about the characters, rather about the ideas and circumstances, and how people might react to them realistically. And in that I think he succeeds.

In any case, if you have read and enjoyed The Three-Body Problem, this is a book whose ideas' audacity and presentation blow the earlier book out of the water, while still somehow not diminishing it. This trilogy is really coming out of nowhere to be some of my favorite reading of 2023.

The Blood Stones is a broad and deep epic fantasy, capturing a world that feels lived in and real, populated with characters, cultures, and lifestyles that feel entirely natural within it. The side characters, in particular, often were more relatable to me than the POV characters, which made the world that much more vivid to me.

Themes of identity, loyalty, and family abound in this book, from multiple different angles and toward different ends. However, this is very much a prologue-book, so the only payoff you'll often have is moment-to-moment, seeing the pieces being set in place to be used in future volumes.

But at the end of the day, what we have here is a solid introduction to a world that I for one am looking forward to exploring as the series progresses.

(I was given an e-ARC by the author, but my thoughts are my own, and they are in this review.)

This is my first foray in the Malazan world outside of the Book of the Fallen, and it was an interesting, more localized story, featuring one of the more entertaining character groups introduced in Memories of Ice. Did I get much out of it? No, but it was fun, and that's good enough for me to read the second one when in need of a palate-cleanser from the main series.

I did not expect this book to become one of my favorite reads of the last few months, but here we are. The main and supporting characters feel like real people, which is helped by the story being allowed to occasionally take a back seat and let the characters just exist together; then, when the story comes back, it's with their human-ness fresh on the reader's mind.

Phased uses the werewolf idea as a lens into deeper themes of family, trauma, and the dangers of society “othering” populations on the basis of fear and misunderstanding, and treats those themes with the respect, nuance, and impact they deserve. I am absolutely looking forward to seeing what the author does next.

In the foreword to the 2019 printing of The Colorado Kid, the editor lays the cards on the table as to the intent of this novel, and the Hard Case imprint overall: it's meant to be a throwback to the pulp novels of the early-mid 20th century, where you could pay the price of a movie ticket and knock out the novel in a sitting or two. Nothing revelatory or heavy or life-changing, just a good time. And The Colorado Kid absolutely delivered that for me, with the added bonus of an ending that left me something to think on for a little while after.

Just to get this out of the way: yes, I have read and loved most of SJ's Cute Mutants universe books. You do not have to have done that in order to read this. In some ways it might actually be an interesting entry point into their work. Who knows?

This is one of those books I'll be thinking about for a while. The author has been referring to this novella as “genre-bent” in their social media posts about it, and I think that's perfect; the way they move through various genre conventions, and lovingly poke at them along the way, is an essential part of the plot of the book, and to elaborate further would be to spoil it.

The way SJ writes in second person present tense is also integral to the book. The tense in itself tends to get some flak, but in this book it does serve to bring you into the events at hand, sometimes reaching out of the page to describe something you did recently, or are doing as you read the words. And again, to elaborate further would be to spoil.

One more thing I will say is that, if you read this all the way through, it rewards a second read. The earlier parts do make sense the first time around, but reading it the second time unveils a different layer to all of it. It's a very beautiful read, and it forced me to look at myself in a slightly different way by the time the title delivered its promise. Absolutely highly recommended.

Easily one of the most useful books on the Tao that I've ever read, apart from the Tao Te Ching itself–and with this one, you don't have hundreds of different translations to contend with!

I don't know how he did it, but Brandon Sanderson turned the characters he set up in Alloy of Law–easily my least favorite Sanderson book to date–into people I empathize with to the point that the last part of the book emotionally wrecked me, almost out of nowhere.

So screw you, Brandon Sanderson, for making me feel something. But also thank you for making your characters so gloriously, horribly human.

It's been a long time since I've been properly, jaw-dropping horrified by a novel. For all that Stephen King is known for less than stellar endings, this one he knocks out of the damn park; and while I can quibble that he slightly overdoes the full-circle callback stuff in the last third...screw it, this book earned it, with not another weak spot in sight. Emotionally and thematically resonant throughout, this is my favorite King novel by miles.

This is the roughest time I've had with a Sanderson novel so far. After the novelty of the characters, setting, and remixed magic system wore off, I hit a wall about halfway through. Ended up skimming a bunch of the climactic fight, possibly unwisely. But I couldn't bring myself to care. I am going to keep going eventually, because I'm still interested in the characters and setting. I dunno. I'm tired and I know there is better in this series.

I suspect there's something to be said about a book that hasn't lost any of its relevance for over 250 years. It's been probably 15-ish years since I first read Candide, and it's been my yardstick for every satirical novel I've read since. It has a time and a place, but it transcends both somehow, and you don't need to know the history around it to know the ideas it viciously assaults–though knowing the history makes it that much more fun.

I am absolutely reeling from the end of this book. I never thought I would like military fantasy quite so much as I've loved the Poppy War trilogy so far, but as the stakes keep rising for characters I've grown to...not exactly “love” so much as know as if they were real people since book 1, this entry is setting the stage for something equal parts epic and horrible in the conclusion.

That said, shit, I need a breather before continuing. This one was exhausting.

This is my first time actually reading the text, after seeing a stunning filmed version starring David Thewlis and Michael Gambon some years ago. It's as violently claustrophobic and funny as I remember. And I feel comforted by it this time. Endgame doesn't need some grand gesture or epiphany to send to its audience, it's content to just stare into the void and invite us to stare alongside it. Not behind it, though, that'd give it the shivers.

Starting with the good: Jeremy Irons narrates the audiobook.

Now that that's out of the way, The Alchemist seems like just a toxic quasi-parable turned novel. Boy has dream, follows his heart to find his Personal Legend (I got really sick of that phrase); meets a bunch of new age motivational speeches in the desert between being tricked, robbed, and guided through a warzone; and finds the treasure was in the journey itself all along. The universe conspires to help the people who really look for it, you see, and if you die unfulfilled, welp, sounds like a you problem.

I would wonder why there aren't more satires of this book, but I suppose the simple reason is that Voltaire already wrote the perfect one in Candide, over two centuries before The Alchemist was published.

This book is deceptively simple, and every time I read it, a different angle seems to be the “main point;” this time, it was how simplifying language for convenience can lead so easily to reframing, propaganda, and gaslighting. One wonders what Orwell would have made of McCarthyism, let alone what both “sides” of the current US corporate government machine get away with on a constant basis to this day scot-free.

This might be one of my favorite books I've read all year so far. There's a poetry and heart in this novel that is hard to find elsewhere, and it comes from a place of absolute naturalness. It's been over a decade since I read Steinbeck in school, and I think I'll have to read, really read, more of his work soon. This little book got to me.

I can see why people might not dig this one, but I was drawn in. I enjoyed the characters, the banter, the slow burn that congeals into a plot, the mysterious culty-ness. Any “horror” in this book is a vibe, a window dressing for the events actually taking place and how the increasingly unreliable narrator and her friends deal with them, or don't. And I like that stuff.

This is a humbling and chilling book. I don't know how, but Mowat in the course of this slim volume managed to write an incredibly readable book about government incompetence and savagery, biology, and a single expedition that reveals how humanity has made itself alien from the planet we presume to call home. Many of the conclusions made in this book are going to stay with me for a long time.

Everything else aside, I will confirm that this is a book that keeps its promises.

This is just about everything a book about Jeff Goldblum could be: smart, quirky, well-researched but with wild flights of imaginative fancy when the author sees fit to illustrate a point. It's also a study of a celebrity who bafflingly seems to have stayed authentically himself in the public eye for decades, and made a middle-age transition into internet fame look easy. Because he's Jeff Goldblum.

This is a very solid follow-up to The Final Empire, expanding the setting and cast while still feeling lived-in, real, and familiar. I'll be looking forward to Hero of Ages, albeit with some trepidation because Sanderson has made it clear with this entry that nobody and nothing is necessarily safe, and even the things that seem well-established can be unreliable.

A great read, and if I wasn't fully invested in the Cosmere before, I sure am now.

Part 1: Started interesting, then quickly became exhausting and remained that way.

Part 2: Big twist out of nowhere, reminiscent of BBC Sherlock in that no indication is made beforehand in an effort to make the book look clever when it isn't. Shenanigans ensue.

Part 3: I honestly just waited for it to be over. I was listening to the audiobook, so at least the narration by Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne were consistently great.

An auspicious series starter, from an author who knows the world he's building and how to show it without spoon-feeding the readers too much exposition. The magic systems, the characters, the setting, lore, all of it–I want more. And luckily, there is more. So you'll have to excuse me for a bit while I track those down and dig in.