Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

Starting from 15 Jan for more Coherent Reviews. Till then I'm just going to vomit words at screens and see what sticks.

0%-10% - Failing Reviewer
11%-30% - Bare-Minimum Reviewer
31%-75% - Average Reviewer
76%-89% - Dedicated Reviewer
90%-99% - Overachieving Reviewer
100% - Grand Master Reviewer

To Do List: January 2019

1. Swordheart
Four "almost there but not quite" Stars

"Hardly anybody kills stupid women. The kick us out of the way, they smack us occasionally, but nobody thinks we are a threat."

A middle-aged widow's inherits a fortune. Her relatives promptly try to lock her up and force her to marry one of them so that they can get the money. Dispirited, she tries to kill herself with an antique sword (a scene which is simply beautiful in it's hilarity and has to be read to be believed), only to find that the sword houses... a spirit? Which is now bound to protect her? Okay then. He might as well help her go to priestly authorities so that she can get back her rightful inheritance. Shenanigans ensue.

Set in the same universe as the Clocktaur War duology, this is the first in a trilogy of books about people imprisoned in swords and bound to protect their wielders. It's already a trope I look upon very fondly, but T Kingfisher is the one of those authors whom I just gravitate towards. It's a good combination is what I'm saying.

The incoherent spoilery bits;
- Zale is my absolute favourite and I love them. I will happily take an ENTIRE SERIES about things which happen to law clerks of the White God. I am also desperately waiting for a Father/Mother book from the World of the Five Gods. BUJOLD PLEASE NOTE.
- Halla is also my favourite. Give me a character who weaponizes questions and ignorance and I will give you a character I will ADORE. Just. So much adoration.
- I can have many favourites. It's that kind of book.
- That said, I felt like the climactic conflict was... not all that much to my liking. It's one of those paths a story takes which theoretically makes perfect sense and has all character behaving perfectly understandably but also in actuality makes me head hurt and my teeth gnash with GODDAMMIT A LITTLE MORE PATIENCE WOULD HAVE HELPED.
- I mean don't get me wrong events were perfectly sensible and I myself threw a hissy fit of PATIENCE WHAT PATIENCE irl today but STILL.

2. The Harbors of the Sun
Four "man I love all of this but it maaaaay be dragging on for too long " Stars.

1. On one hand, I will gladly read about the Raksura and I love Martha Wells' writing. On the other hand, everything except Consolation's plotline in this story feels a bit rehashed. So it pains me to say this (PAINS, I SAY) because I still will devour everything about them, but it's time Indigo Cloud faded from the spotlight. You need to end stories before they become stale, even if ending them when you do is painful. //coughspncough

2. I WOULD, however, like an entire series about Consolation and her flight. Possibly two. I cannot stop feeling things for them. Most of it being "PROTECT THE BABIES AT ALL COSTS."

3. Pearl and Malachite becoming grudging friends (on Pearl's part, anyway) with UST gives me more life.

4. ANOTHER thing I would like more of is Raksurans making more contact with groundling/sealing races, preferably with non-Raksuran PoV because boy do I need reactions to Brightly Colored Fell bearing trade agreements.

5. I'm sad this is over, but I can see why this is a good place for it to end. Thanks to Martha Wells for giving me many characters I cared very much about. That's always a delight.

In an Absent Dream
Four "this is not really what I wanted but i liked it anyway" Stars

1. I am a fan of Seanan McGuire's, really- but I have to admit I like the way she uses words in October Day and InCryptid more than the style she adopts for Wayward Children. That said, her prose is more lavender than purple, and it deals mostly with emotions and feelings expressed and felt by individuals. So it doesn't really make me roll my eyes that much. So yay?

2. Lundy is not the character I would have picked if I were given the chance to pick a Wayward Child to get a backstory for. (Christopher. I pick Christopher.) I liked her story better than I expected, but I din't quite like ti as much as Down Among the Sticks and Bones. Too much real world and not enough Goblin Market is my problem, but that was what the story was about so that's what I got.

Quote:
No one saves their friends by grinding themselves to dust on the altar of compassion.

4. River of Teeth
Four "i would kill for more character interactions but this was still fun" Stars.

1. I came to this because I read a tor.com short story about a combat hippopotamus. Combat hippos arouse my interest, and I hope will arouse the interest of most people because guys. Combat Hippos.

2. Set in an alternate history version of the US where the government followed through with their plans to import hippos as a solution to the ongoing meat crisis, our (first) protagonist is a bounty hunter tasked with ridding a no-man's land swamp of the feral hippos that inhabit it and make it impossible for other people to properly use it. He recruits the grifter, the assassin and the explosions expert and threatens the inside man into coming with him. Together they fight wild hippos, but the bounty hunter also has vengeance on his agenda...

3. River of Teeth is funny and fascinating, and I absolutely and completely adore Archie. That said, I did feel like it could have used a little more character interactions, and more time to build up newly-formed relationships. Not entirely satisfying, but definitely a lot of fun.

5. Justice Calling
Three "i can get behind some of the concepts but there are too many cliches" Stars.

1. Sometimes I swear there is something in the waters of Urban Fantasy that makes everyone in there horny 100% of the time. I appreciate a pretty person as much as anyone, but jade's brain just fritzes every time the tiger guy is around her. Down, girl.

2. The worldbuilding is interesting! (SORCERERS EAT HEARTS!) The antagonists are genuinely creepy! I badly want to know more about Jade and her history and how she plans to deal with everything!

3. On the other hand, I have no interest WHATSOEVER in the romance. Whatsoever. it's pointless, there is no basis for it, and it takes up far too much screentime. I am a sucker for found family tropes, so seeing a potential FF being swept aside for sudden and inexplicable feelings of EXTREME TRUST and OMG I RELY ON YOU SO MUCH was especially disheartening. I don't even remember what the guy's name is, that's how much I don't care about the romance.

4. Romance ruins everything you guys.

8. Crazy For You
Four "the romance is subpar but everything else is highly entertaining" Stars.

1. This is a re-read, because it's one of the Jennifer Crusie books I remember a lot of. I mean, I generally like her books because they are a lot of lgihthearted fun and I love lighthearted fun (with dogs! and people yelling at each other in exasperation in a funny way!) but this is one book where I liked both the writing and the plot.

2. the antagonist is enormously creepy. Insidiously creepy. Made me shiver and go "fuck I can totally imagine this happening" creepy. And I LOVE that. Obsession and control are two things which scare the crap out of me but which a disheartening number of people around me tend to shrug off (at BEST). Seeing it portrayed the way it is in here makes me feel vindicated.

3. As usual, Crusie's book is populated with slightly deranged characters, slapstick violence and warm people who have multiple important relationships in their lives. Like I said, perfect light reading. Made just a touch more interesting with a genuinely concerning antagonist. The romance was probably the weakest bit of the book which made sense because this was really QUINN's story. On the other hand it is supposed to be a romance book so there was just a lot of sex and a lot of BUT I MUST NOT. Which was- not off-putting but also far from ideal

4. I come to romance books for the romance but what I get is the sex. Sigh.

5. Also, I adore Barbara the Bank Slut. She needed more screentime.

Wow! That's a big list!!
Good luck!

T_T even the LIST is incomplete this task is sisyphean T_T

13. Mad about the Duke

The fact that the plot in interesting does not save it from being a rehashed premise by the SAME author. I liked Love Letters From A Duke the first time I read it. And I admit I wasn't unhappy about the same plot being used again, at least at first. But things very easily fell into predictable patterns. Deception, extreme protectiveness, chasing away intended beaus etc. It wasn't really bad, but it also wasn't in any way novel or engrossing, and my TBR list spans the equator so...

DNF @ 26% + skimming the rest. No rating because that would be unfair.

12. The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

1. I sob because this book. This Book. I love it. I love it so much. I was heartbroken when it ended. I immediately put on songs and tried to fit the scenes in the book to music because I missed all the characters already. A week after that I opened the book again and started looking trough all of my highlights and re-read favourite chapters because I STILL missed the characters.

2. There's so much I love about this book. I love how Genie is utterly and unapologetically violent and everyone accepts that without batting a single eyelash. I love everything and anything that Quentin does. I love Genie's parents, and Quentin's "parents" and the way they treat their children is SO RELATABLE. This is MUCH more familiar than the usual parent-child relationships I see in media, honest. I love how funny this book is and how hilariously offbeat everyone is. I love the little moments of emotions scattered through the humor and the slapstick, all of which were intense enough to break me into little pieces and have me still sniffing while I laughed at the next joke.

3. Paraphrased quotes;
- and one day you vanished. you took all the karma you'd gotten by helping people and put it all into one last effort into being human
- this was our version of fighting. we couldn't get angry at each other so we tore our hearts out and handed them to each other on silver platters
-you know what this is to me? it's a numbers game... the greatest personal achievement a person could get, and i gave it up because at the end of the day one is not a very big number, is it?
-"it was a long labor, and after all of that i was just-" "tired?" "grateful."
- *begin villain monologue* "DON'T YOU EVER TOUCH HER YOU SON OF A BITCH. I WILL KILL YOU I WILL FOLLOW YOU TO HELL AND KILL YOU THERE."

So many moments. Just. ARGH. Mostly from memory guys. Those quotes are imperfect and misquoted because I wrote them out from memory. How's that for impact?

4. What I love- well, one of the things I love about this book is the way it treats Asian culture. Obedience, filial piety- all of those virtues which are enshrined in the culture and literature and mythology. I love that the book gleefully embraces and celebrates the story of the monkey king, and how a lot of the plot revolves around karma and rebirth and doing good. I also love how the main characters are rebels, who rage against the system even as they live in it and are part of what makes it.

It's always a hard line to walk, defending your culture to someone who's not part of it, while at the same time badly wanting to yell at it, scream it it, redefine it to what makes sense to you. I think a large part of how much I loved this book was it walking that line beautifully.

5. In a less meta sense, there is not a single character in this book that I did not love, and some of the scenes were just so fucking badass. I SQUEALED, reader. SQUEALED LIKE A SQUEALING THING when Genie fell to the ground. SQUEALED when Genie did that one volleyball-inspired spike at the end. SQUEALED when the clone battle happened. And then laughed because EVEN THE CLONES WERE PERFECT.

6. Look, I'm not even done excitedly vibrating yet. Just writing this review has me grinning and got a jolt of energy fired directly into my brain. This book. It SPEAKS to me.

****

6. DuckTales #15
7. DuckTales #16
9. Stories of the Raksura, Volume 1: The Falling World & The Tale of Indigo and Cloud
10. Stories of the Raksura, Volume 2: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below
11. Weirdos from Another Planet!

Are these RTCs left to review on your shelves?
All of them?!

Yep. And those are Just post Jan 15th books. :( I've already accepted my fate and modified the title accordingly.

Shit! And I thought I had it bad!
Good luck with getting them all done. :)

I love your little reviews. But you should add the rating also. Just so we know if we should add or avoid. :D

thank you! :D I really liked your reviews so it feels good to hear that.

I will add ratings yes that makes sense it can also be a way for me to practice my summarizing skills...hmm... //plots

Reviews Part III

14. Dragonflight
15. Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow
16. Spinning Silver
17. Fairytales Slashed 4
18. Best Detective Stories of Agatha Christie
19. Murder of Crows
20. The Tub of Happiness
21. Any Old Diamonds
22. The Teraport Wars
23. Under New Management
24. The Blackness Between
25. Insert Groom Here
26. The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance
27. Resident Mad Scientist
28. Emperor Pius Dei
29. The A.B.C. Murders
30. My Sister, the Serial Killer
31. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
32. House of Cads
33. Fairytales Slashed Volume 5
34. King of Scars

Well done Sha! I love the "executive summary" reviews - absolutely spot on and quick to review! Well done!