octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

On the bright side, this issue contains the high point of the storytelling so far: Jessica's recollection of growing up while psychic, and the strain it put on her parents - ordinary people who could never have the smallest secret from her. It's the kind of quiet emotional core that's really been missing from the series thus far. On the other hand, it's wasted within the wider story, which promptly falls back into the deeply irritating "here's someone who can explain what's going on but doesn't" trope, which is making this already quite short series feel dragged out and full of waffle. Kill them all at this point, because I've simply stopped caring about this so-called mystery. 

I have to admit that it's taken me some time to get through this. Academic writing combined with a focus on law is not an area that I'm particularly good at speeding through, reading-wise, so lucky for me I was able to renew my library copy until I got done with it! I had to read a lot of paragraphs more than once, is what I'm saying, especially when what I like to think of as government-speak rears its unclear head (what, I ask you, is a "peer-learning cluster" when it's at home? I have only the vaguest of ideas.) A lot of the chapters here, though, did seem to be written with an eye for the general reader, which I was grateful for. The chapter on Rangatahi Courts by Judge Heemi Taumaunu, for example, was a masterclass in lucidity, which was probably why it was my favourite.

Bitching about academic prose aside, though, this was an extremely interesting book, primarily I think because of the broad nature of its approach. Public policy covers a wide range, and there were chapters here on youth justice, maternity services, broadcasting, heritage landscapes, international trade, the electoral system, local government, and more. When you're like me and not a specialist in any of these areas, this very generalist approach to the topic helps to give an overall picture of how the Treaty is used (or not used, or could be used) to improve public policy. I really appreciate that, and the careful curation of topics here has left me feeling a little more educated, at least. 

I love this! 

I have to get my own copy of it, since this one's going back to the library tomorrow. I'd seen it on the shelves there for ages, and I kept thinking "maybe I should give it a go" because it had an appealing cover and title, and I'm so glad that I did. It has a fantastic heroine, and it's clearly inspired by Russian folk tales, of which I know very few (Baba Yaga is about the extent of my knowledge and she didn't turn up here at all, so it was all new to me). I want to read more of them, though, because if they're all like this than they're lovely. Brutal, as some folk tales are, but lovely nonetheless. I guess if you live in such a harsh environment then some of your stories end up reflecting that. 

I understand this is the first in a trilogy - unsurprising, as I get the feeling that some of the minor characters in this book have been positioned to turn up again. I'm excited to read the next one. 

This is an improvement on the last two, in that things are starting to happen at pace. Mostly because the three psychics who <i>aren't</i> the protagonist appear to have come to the conclusion that moping and refusing to get shit done aren't really working for them anymore. The sarcastic disbelief that one of them levels at the person too distracted to escape immediate peril is the most sympathetic any of the characters have been so far!

I have just come across the 45th anniversary edition of this book and I had to buy it. I LOVED this little picture book when I was a kid... the seagulls eating the lunch, and having to fend them off with mustard sandwiches because putting Hamish the cat in the basket to scare them off was utterly hopeless. Poor Hamish... he looks so ashamed of himself!

It's been an absolute delight to reread. I'm so glad I bought it. 

Nearly a third of the edition I read was ads for other comics, so not that impressed, frankly. With such a short space for story, it's not that surprising that not much actually happens. The psychics are still confused, even if they've found someone who might know what's going and why they're all dying, and there's not a lot that irritates me more than dragging out what's going on because people in the know are master prevaricators. If you've got time enough to have a cup of coffee with your uninvited guests, you've got time to say more than "It's too late"... assuming, of course, that you have brains enough to make coffee and talk simultaneously.

This series is only five issues long, as I understand it. It shouldn't be so filled with waffle. 

I got an advance review copy of this, which I'm grateful for. In many ways, this time travel romance reminds me very much of Outlander, except with samurai instead of Scots. Isla gets transported back in time to nineteenth century Japan, during the time of the Satsuma Rebellion, when the samurai fight back against their own politically-imposed redundancy and are subsequently wiped out. Isla, aware of history and in love with the samurai Keiichirō, is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The romance is okay. It's overshadowed somewhat by the battles, which are themselves somewhat overshadowed by the fact that I'm not actually all that sympathetic to the samurai side of things in the first place. I can appreciate the individual characters, who are good and likeable people, but the sheer futility of the loss here makes it hard for me to support the side who thinks that's a good idea. The tragedy of it is both awful and effective, but I never find myself rooting for them, you know? And when Isla gets the chance to go home and doesn't take it, all I can think of is her poor parents, who have lost their child and will never know what happened to her. I'm not sure I could ever do that to my parents... and certainly not for the chance to die horribly in a useless war for a man she knows will be very shortly dead. 

This is a short, hard, punch of a book, dark and dreamy like a nightmare. The protagonist, called Eartheater by those around her, is first a little girl and then a teenager, growing up in a slum in Argentina after the death of her mother. She's not the nicest kid - is mostly concerned as to where the next beer's coming from - but she has one particular talent. She eats dirt, and when she does, she gets visions of missing and murdered people. Mostly these people are women, and their families start to leave bottles full of dirt on Eartheater's doorstep, in the hopes that she'll eat the offerings and help them locate their missing loved one. 

It's honestly pretty grim, but the imagery and the language are outstanding. I don't know that I'd call it a hopeful book, for all that a small handful of families get justice and closure, because it's clear that Eartheater's often reluctant efforts are a drop in the bucket that is violence against women. It's a fascinating story, though, and one constructed in such a compelling way. I have to get my own copy of it once this one goes back to the library! 

Fast-paced and adventurous. It's been a while since I've seen the DS9 episodes that this novelisation is based on, but as I read the book more and more of the scenes came to mind. They really were a great run of episodes... I'm struck, though, as I read, at how abrupt the victory at the end of the story is. I can't quite call it unearned, as all the characters - and the rest of the Federation, as well as the Klingons - are slogging their guts out trying to win the war. Their efforts, however, in practical storytelling terms, are basically there to set up the intervention of the wormhole aliens. It's a very literal deus ex machina, and I'm not sure that I appreciate it. I am sure that I appreciate Sisko's absolute frustration with the wormhole aliens, because their vague meanderings irritate me as well... that kind of portentous dialogue is frequently a very hard sell with me, and the wormhole aliens always get stuck with the worst of it.

I have to say, though, Sisko's a better person than I, in that he can still feel sorry for Dukat at the end. I sure as hell don't. Someone should have quietly shot him in the back of the head when he was weeping over his daughter's body, and good riddance to him. I suppose that behaviour isn't really Star Trek, though, is it. 

It's always a slightly odd experience reading a book after you've seen the film (or in this case the series) that resulted from it. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I prefer the book. In this case, I preferred the series. That doesn't mean I don't think the book's good. It's excellent. It's just different. It's one of those very cerebral pieces of science fiction that is intellectually fascinating, but which - for me, at least - falls down a little on the emotion side. I barely feel anything for these characters; I am, however, fascinated by the idea of a civilisation that has to constantly rebuild itself out of chaos. The one doesn't compensate for the other, though, so in that way it feels a little unbalanced as a story, although on another level that could be my own bias speaking. As a biologist, this story's full of physicists, and that's just not where my science love lies. There also seems a lot of biological issues here that just aren't explored all that well, or at all - how is the Trisolaris microbiome going to deal with a completely alien ecology, for instance?

Maybe that'll come up in the sequels. I'm curious, and I'll definitely be reading them.