octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

Look, it wasn't terrible. There was the odd joke that was quite funny, and the author's knowledge (and love) of Star Trek comes through loud and clear. As a Trek fan myself, I can appreciate that.

That said, it was rather frenetic and a bit all over the place - very much "throw everything at a wall and hopefully some of it will stick". One of those cases where less would have been more, I reckon. Then again, I prefer my comedy to be a bit blacker-tinged than this, so perhaps I'm not quite the target audience (I see other reviewers liked it a lot more).

I'm a bit torn on this one. I read it because I've liked a lot of Anderson's other work, though I'm only familiar with the basics of the Superman story. Mostly it was an easy read, fun if fairly shallow and tending by necessity to disaster porn. That said, to me the most interesting character by far was the younger brother, Zor-El, and I would have preferred more on him and less on his cripplingly naive (and frequently outstandingly stupid) brother.

The thing that solidified this as a two star for me was that old saw: in fantasy/sci-fi, everything changes but the status of women. Granted, this is based on an existing universe that was first created decades ago so perhaps Anderson is working off a fairly rigid set of characters, but for goodness sake. It's an advanced world - no poverty, little crime... and bar one token exception who's very soon killed off, there appear to be no women in government, or in any other position of power (military, scientific, etc...) for that matter. And when that government's gone, the replacement - formulated specifically in reaction to the old hidebound system - still has no women. I see a lot of younger brothers whining that it's their turn now, but apparently sisters (both older and younger) are essentially irrelevant. And then when that government's overthrown and a new council installed... still no women, and no indication, from text or author, that this is in any way strange.

Now you might say: but there are women! And they have large roles to play! And it's true, but those three roles are supporting in all senses of the word. Aethyr, who wants to explore and lose the shackles of social expectation, finds a great, lost city and promptly hands it and all its contents over to her lover so that he can decide what to do with it. Zor-El's wife Alura is supposedly a great healer/botanist, but all we see of her work is her nursing her husband and bandaging his scrapes. And the main female character, Lara, is an artist by trade - and the high point of her admittedly truncated artistic career is a portrait of her husband as the personification of genius. I'm just saying, a competent female character not defined by her relationship to the man she's there to prop up would have been very welcome. If the source material doesn't have one, spend less time on the endless series of disasters and add one.

I know that Kal-El survives. I hope that Zor-El does too. The rest of them I just don't care that much about.

I've never liked Pratchett's wizard books as much as his witch ones. They never feel as pithy to me - Sourcery's use of the Archchancellor's hat is never quite as incisive as Granny Weatherwax on the importance of a witch's hat, for instance. Nevertheless, there's a lot to like here. If the wizards haven't settled down into what will be their staple characters (Ridcully, the Bursar etc.) there's still lots of good stuff with the Librarian, and I'm always happy to see the Luggage.

Rincewind's something of a real hero, too. He's far from my favourite Discworld character but he is relatable, and he does do well here.

Oh, Storm. I've met people like you. I've argued with people like you. It never does any good; I might as well rant at a cinder block. But I get great pleasure in reading other people's rants at other people's cinder blocks, and this rant was very well done.

Death is one of the most entertaining Discworld characters. I always like reading about him, and this book is no exception. I do think, however, that the end is a bit abrupt, with shades of deus ex machina. Mort makes a hell of a mess of his new job, and Death and the Gods sort it out between paragraphs, essentially.

The best bit about this book is that, as I'm rereading it, I can look forward to Susan Sto Helit, who is Discworld Gold as far as I'm concerned. She's not in this outing, of course, but I know that she's coming...

I'm torn on this. Purdy's descriptions can be lovely - especially when describing gardens or clothes/jewels - although her imagery can be repetitious (for instance the many, many references to the doughy nature of a lover's body). But the main character is thoroughly unpleasant. Occasionally - and to my great surprise - she does or thinks something relatively decent, but even that is rarely without an ulterior motive. She's so very awful, at times, that it's hard to feel for her. The greatest question to me was to do with her longtime lover Remi. Although he only briefly appears and we never see anything from his point of view, he does come across as kind and clear-sighted about people. What he's doing with the main character is then anyone's guess - a genuinely kind and perceptive person would take one look at Purdy's Elizabeth Howard and run a mile.

Still, from the comments in the back of the book it's clear that the author is very aware of her protagonist's potentially off-putting nature. I've read a number of books where this authorial awareness is lacking, so the presentation of Elizabeth is clearly a deliberate choice on Purdy's part, if a double-edged one.

This is the first of Purdy's books that I've read, and I'll probably try another. I just hope her next choice of subject is a bit more likable...

A fictional biography of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, with magical realist overtones. The underlying relationship is that between Frida and her "godmother" Death, and this lends a fantastic touch to the text.

I've been a fan of Kahlo for years, ever since I saw a film about her, so I knew the bare bones of her biography. I haven't read any fiction about her before though, and this book is highly imaginative, well worth a read.

The writing's vivid and sensual, punctuated by Mexican recipes. Granted, many of them aren't for me (there's a bit too much pork and chicken for this vegetarian stomach) but some of the others - for instance the Pico de Gallo and the orange shortbread - I'll definitely be trying.

Part two of one of my favourite books of all time. Highlights are the battle with Shelob and the last march of the Ents...

It does take a while to get used to the clear divide between storylines - had LOTR been published today, I think it might have tended more to alternate chapters - but Tolkien's way has the advantage of not losing momentum within a storyline, I suppose. It does emphasise what is essentially Frodo and Sam's death march into Mordor - I don't know if the tension could be sustained if it was routinely interrupted.

I've got to admit, I had my doubts. I wasn't sure that a novel based around such a solitary figure would work well enough to hold my interest. But it does - because, contrary to expectations, Sarah's life isn't solitary at all, and the women around her understand this even when she doesn't.

A deceptively simple premise; both well-written and well worth reading. And that cover is gorgeous. (I'm sure my cat's been staring at it while I read...)

I think I'm getting better at this! Usually I'm pretty stupid at mysteries, but this time I got three of the answers before Henry did. ("The Fourth Homonym", "Sunset on the Water", and "The Alibi".)

This collection is, like the other Widower collections I've read, a fun and easy (if not spectacular) read. More and more, though, I find myself focusing on the menu rather than the puzzle - possibly because I'm stumped on the biggest puzzle of all: why Henry works as a waiter when he's clearly got evil genius potential.