In theory, this book had all the elements that are right up my alley. There’s speculative fiction/alternative history, there’s steam punk aesthetics, there’s camp! In spite of all of the things it had going for it, it was an uninspired mess. It read more as some weird fan fiction of the Victorian era found in some dark corner of the internet than a book that people were expected to pay money for. (Sadly, I did pay money for this disappointment.) Sir Richard Francis Burton (of […]
Did she say yes to the dress?
This is the first Jo Walton book that I have read and only heard about her through reading Cannonball Read reviews (thanks, guys!). Although this isn’t the Walton title that I was looking for at the library (Among Others), it sounded interesting and landed in my TBR pile. I was truly captivated by the first 2/3. The last 1/3? Not so much. A woman suffering from dementia, and now confined to a nursing home, reflects on her life. Pretty straight forward, BUT, she “remembers” two […]
When Utopia Goes Pear-Shaped
Well, my first review of the year, and I have picked a bit of a doozy! Not only is this book series quite unlike anything else I have read, I’m starting my review with book three of four. (But, this is the first book I’ve finished reading this year, so I went with it.) I’m going to have to try to do my best to tiptoe around the spoilers while still giving some kind of picture as to what this series is about. Let’s see […]
Extraordinary Mathmatics
If you aren’t listening to the Levar Burton Reads podcast, you are denying yourself so much joy and comfort. Following the advice of Keh_squared on Twitter, I listened to episode 5 of Levar Burton Reads. Lavar Burton read Lesley Nneka Arimah’s award winning short story “What It Means When a Man Falls From The Sky.” And then I listened again, and again for a third time. I found a PDF of the short story and read it. It might be one of my favorite books […]