octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

A giant doorstopper of a book, and for once I didn't mind. Possibly because nearly every one of those pages was obsessed with character instead of endless world-building. And let's face it, Scarlett is one of the great fictional characters. Frequently unlikeable, she's still complex and fascinating and utterly, utterly convincing. As is Melanie. The story-telling here is just superb, and the only thing it loses points for is the rosy depiction of slavery. Hard to believe someone who is so clear-eyed about character is so blind to historical accuracy and social evil - I doubt Frederick Douglass, for instance, would recognise Mitchell's version of slavery.

Painfully observed novella on the permeation of guilt after betrayal. The main character sells the letters of a dead woman who loved him, in order to get the money to marry the woman that he himself loves. The exposure of the letter-writer, though, the opening up of her to public scrutiny and sympathy, is a betrayal that he can't forgive himself for making. The effects of it on his life and marriage are profound. It's not a very happy read but it is an absorbing one, and the emotional resonance of it is extremely finely judged. Really excellently written, I was transfixed.

I read and reviewed these two volumes separately, so this is really only for my own records. Rating is an average, rounded up: The Shadow of the Torturer got two stars, but I lost all patience - and every tiny bit of remaining interest - with The Claw of the Conciliator, which only earned one. Look, I've given this series a good solid try. I understand lots of people like it and good for them, I'm happy they've found something they enjoy, but here is where I stop. I've just got no desire to read any further.

I read and reviewed each of the three novellas in here separately, so this is really just for my own records. The 3 star rating is an average of the individual ratings: both "The End of the Tether" (which has excellent characterisation and is the pick of the bunch) and "Youth" (unintentionally funny but still entertaining) got 3 stars each. "Heart of Darkness", on the other hand, only got 2. I'm aware that it's supposed to be the pick of Conrad's work, and it was well-written - if less so than "Tether" - but everyone in it's so nasty and monotonously grim that I was glad to see the back of it.

This is mildly entertaining in parts, but it is still a disaster. It reads very much like a hurried first draft that's been forcibly kept away from editors.

The biggest problem is that it's essentially two different adventure stories stuck together. The first is the tale of a mutiny and shipwreck, presented somewhat realistically. When the two survivors are picked up by an Antarctic-bound explorer ship, however... there's a boring few chapters that cover existing islands and histories of (again, realistically), and then the ship gets to the Antarctic and, well. There are polar bears and pelicans and woods and a whole society wandering around naked and sans frostbite, and I can live with how wrong it all is because Poe wrote this in the days before real Antarctic exploration and so he was making it all up from a blank slate, essentially, and doing the best he could even if his science was shite. That's not what makes me think of a bad first draft.

It's those two different voices and styles jammed together, and the hand-waving explanation for this at the beginning of the book that is deeply unconvincing. It's the ending that looks like he's sick of the story and given up in the middle of it. It's the fact that the dog just disappears randomly and is never mentioned again. It's that the shipwreck survivors resort to cannibalism before one of them remembers the axe with which they can break down the door behind which are actual provisions. It's the fact that one of said survivors dies from an infected arm and when they go to drop him over board his leg disintegrates.

It is just not well-written. Sorry, Mr. Poe, you are an excellent short story writer. Your novel, however, is a piece of wreckage that belongs at the bottom of the sea.

I read and reviewed the two volumes in this separately, so this is really just for my own records. The 4 star rating is an average, rounded up: the original Winnie the Pooh is hilarious and I gave it 4 stars, while The House at Pooh Corner is less impressive. Don't get me wrong, it's still enjoyable, but it's not as funny and it trips a little closer to the cutesy line than its predecessor. I gave it 3 stars, so 3.5 to the both of them together.

This book collects Matheson's vampire novella I Am Legend with 10 of his short stories (also horror of various types, though vampires don't make an appearance in them). I read I Am Legend by itself earlier this year, and gave it 4 stars. The shorts don't quite stack up to that, I'm afraid. With the exception of one of them, "Mad House" (which was creepy and excellent if a wee bit dodgy in its science) they were fairly unremarkable - and some were downright obvious. On their own, I'd probably have given them 2 stars, so averaging it out the collection earns a 3.

Honestly, you're probably better off just reading the novella.

Enormous Arthurian fantasy told from the perspective of the women - particularly the women associated with Avalon, who are (or will be) the Lady of the Lake. While I really do enjoy the feminine perspective, enough to find this a basically likeable read, it's safe to say I'm put off by the sheer size of the thing. Near 900 pages, it's hard for me not to think of this book without the word "flabby" coming to mind. It goes on and on and on, an endless litany of disaster (does anyone in this bloody story have a plan that actually works out? You'd think they'd learn early on that everything they touch turns to shit) and lots of it just feels repetitive.

I read this because I'm working my way through the Mythopoeic fantasy awards, but honestly, once is enough. I'm not sure I can wade my way through all this again.

Entertaining and original novel, in which a secret society of X-Men types is undermined when the protagonist loses her memory and has to find out which of her colleagues turned traitor and did it. I wouldn't call it urban fantasy, though it does have a lot of similarities, because although set in London the city isn't really a character - it's not mentioned much at all, really. But the characters are interesting, the plot is fascinating, and best of all is the tone. There's a good-natured humour running all through this book, as though it's well aware of its own ridiculousness (the oracular duck!) and is still enjoying itself tremendously.

In all fairness, the end does let it down a little. There's a lot of villains-explaining-things like they're out of a Scooby Doo episode, and this is particularly egregious in the case of the traitor, who feels the need to talk talk talk instead of just getting rid of the protagonist like they should have done to begin with.

"The Raven" is histrionic, over-emotional, over-written, it is purple prose to the very heart of its little drama queen core, and I adore every single word of it. It's just so rhythmic, with a tripping and ever-increasing almost musical pace to it that grabs hold of you and draws you in. I've read it countless times and each time I enjoy it as much as I did the first. Glorious and terrible.