octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

Coming back to this series after a while away from it, and this next volume's a fun, fast-paced read. The ending, it must be said, is telegraphed a mile off, and I'm trying to remember that the two idiot teens who walked right into it are, in fact, two idiot teens, and should not be held to the standards of an adult conversant with genre, but it's a struggle. Noor and Jacob are decent and intelligent kids, but honestly. That postcard had It's a trap! written all over it.

I continue to enjoy the use of vintage photographs, which are always a nice surprise to see when I turn the page. I can't help but think that these are somewhat less interesting, overall, than the ones that have gone before them, though. 

The best thing about this series continues to be the young peculiars. I'm entertained a whole lot more by them than by anything else. On that note: poor Fiona - that one moment where she opened her mouth really was shocking. 

This has a rather convoluted plot, but it would still be clear as glass from the point of view of the heroine, Eve, if she weren't so painfully stupid. A graduate student researching the history of witchcraft, she's clearly capable of intelligence but is absolutely bereft of common sense. I'd say her gullibility is down to drugs, but even so! It puts me in mind of horror stories about haunted houses, where the protagonists should clearly get the hell out but instead keep wittering on about problems with the plumbing and so forth.

It also makes me think of mechanisms of knowledge in horror stories: how people decide what and who to believe. In many cases, academia and a sense of rationalism is far less helpful than more lowbrow sorts of knowledge - although there are exceptions, as in Kostova's The Historian, which is so far above this in every respect. There might be a paper in there somewhere... 

There's nothing essentially wrong with this story of a bratty, abandoned AI that's luring in ships like an anglerfish, or the disaffected and isolated officer who bonds with it. Maybe it's that I'm not terribly fond of AI-gone-rogue stories, and the realisation that this is what the story was came a whole lot earlier than the twist reveal. I did like the cookie mechanism of telepathy, but again that was telegraphed well in advance. 

I enjoyed it, but mildly. It was a little dull in places, sorry to say. 

I've read and reviewed the three separate books collected here, so this is basically just for my own records. The first book got five stars from me, and the following two both got four. Rewarding reads, all of them.

Three books in on Angelou's autobiography, and she's only in her twenties! There are more books to come, lucky for me, but she's certainly packed a lot into her life. Not knowing much, if anything, about that life, these books have been an enormous surprise. I had no idea that she was a ballerina in Porgy and Bess, performing at La Scala, no less. I certainly had no idea that she was a sex worker. Nor did I have any notion of her extremely fascinating mother! Oh well, this is why I read the biographies of famous artists, especially when they're as good as Angelou was. I haven't read any of her poetry yet, but her prose is amazing. 

What a fascinating life Angelou has had. This volume of her autobiography is almost a travel book, as it covers the time she spent singing and dancing in a European tour of Porgy and Bess. I'd heard of that musical before, but have never seen or heard it, bar "Summertime"... something to add to the list. There can't have been too many people who have both danced at La Scala and served on presidential committees. 

I've had some artist residencies as a writer, but they tend to be quite isolated opportunities to create - quiet places where you get library access, sometimes, and are left alone to produce something. That's great for a writer, but it's so interesting to see how it works in other artistic disciplines, because it strikes me that a touring musical is like a traveling residency spent almost entirely in company. It's fun to see how it works! 

There's something terribly earnest and good-natured about this book, which is probably why I enjoyed it as much as I did. I like that Star Trek (some recent outings excepted) is so optimistic, and frequently eschews edginess in favour of the determination to imagine some positive future. It's much braver than dystopia.

Here, Janeway and company come across a doomed people - their sun is dying, and they're victims of war - and while I just can't picture the odd mammalian/reptile race that Golden describes, they're so thoroughly decent and interesting that I can't help but like them. I will say that the twist as to the identity of the attacking aliens is not a remote surprise, but the conclusion - that both parties are willing to work together, and to offer atonement and potential forgiveness - is. If only all conflicts had such reasonable leaders.

Tom Paris had a surprisingly good role here too. I can't blame him for being creeped out by his new reptilian friends, because if I ever met aliens, no matter how gentle, who looked like giant rats I'd want to puke at the sight of them, but his efforts to get past that instinctive bias were really what this franchise is all about. 

This is a short collection of five classic fairy tales, given a rather adult treatment. As erotica it doesn't really hit the mark. For example, Bluebeard having sex with his latest wife, ejaculates "warm man-wine" and I'm sorry... it is not sexy.

I will say that the Hansel and Gretel retelling has an especially disturbing ending, after their incestuous affair ends with them both butchered and eaten by the witch. Quite vividly, too. That's really the only point of interest here for me, though. 

Some proof-reading wouldn't go amiss, either.

I read and reviewed each of the five comics collected here separately, so this is really just for my own records. Separately they weren't great, and being taken together doesn't improve them. The story's predictable, there's a desperate need for a copy editor with basic grammar skills, and the art's indifferent. Brass and Catherine are recognisable, but the other characters have only minimal similarity to the actors.

I've been reading some of the tie-in novels of this series recently, alongside my rewatch, and they're miles better than this. 

"The reader will be guessing until the very last twist is revealed."

So says the description, anyway. Unfortunately the ending was telegraphed a mile off. It's a fairly predictable conclusion, I'm afraid. 

I realise that they probably shoe-horned Greg into this story because he was popular and so why not, but the thing is there was actually saliva to analyse, on the chewing gum, so he could have been doing DNA work as he does on the show. But no! Make the DNA guy do soil samples... dirt and genetics have so much in common.