octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

On to the next book in my Pratchett reread, and he's really beginning to hit his stride. Wyrd Sisters is almost perfect - the witches have taken solid shape, though my one criticism (and this only comes from being familiar with later books) is that Granny doesn't seem to have quite settled yet - at one point she loses control and starts shrieking, essentially, and has to be slapped. This is not the Granny Weatherwax that exists in my mind's eye, and although I know it's unfair to dock points for that it's how I feel. Besides, this book has been reviewed so often and so well that my own distractions aren't going to matter to anyone but me.

It's based around the Shakespeare plays, of course, but the interesting thing for me is how far Pratchett's come since The Colour of Magic. It was based on other stuff too, but in comparison... there's no comparison, really. A quantum leap of difference.

Plus, the hedgehog song. I love it.

So, I've been seeing a lot of recommendations for Hardinge recently; thought I'd give her a go. Fly by Night is her first book, so I decided to start there (I prefer to read works in order).

I enjoyed it a lot. There's some beautiful imagery in there (that of the birdcages embedded in the church roofs is going to stay with me for a long time) and I love the main character. Mosca's a difficult little madam, but she's not perfect and Hardinge doesn't shy away from the repercussions of her poor decisions. There's a large cast of supporting characters, but of their relationships the two I liked most were a) Mosca with her violently psychotic goose, Saracen, and b) Mosca with the Cakes. Their pseudo-sisterly relationship was great. And the plot was fast-paced and interesting, even if I did pick Lady T.'s position as ultimate villain from that first carriage ride.

That being said, it wasn't perfect. There were three things that needed improvement, I thought.

1) Quillam needed to be thought about a bit more. He seems remarkably inconsistent. We're introduced to him giving Mosca a terrible name because of accuracy - the text makes a point of how much Quillam values accuracy - except we know, later in the book, that he doesn't believe in Good-people at all, so the accuracy point is moot (an accurate lie is still inaccurate). I get why it's done, but misdirection is one thing and misdirection at the expense of character cohesion is another. And for a man so wedded to freethought, Quillam retains a remarkable amount of sexism - it's a shame that he's got a daughter, he thinks, when he could have had a son to raise to scholarship. Granted, I'm an atheist myself and there are plenty of misogynists in this community, but still. My final problem is how much he keeps from Mosca. Granted she's just a child, but I rather suspect his late justification of, essentially, "I taught you to read so what else do you need?" is bollocks. It's not the great moment the text wants it to be, I think, because of course Quillam doesn't believe it himself. It's not enough to be able to read; one has to be able to think as well - and he knows this, because he spends his time writing subversive tracts for distribution in Mandelion. Reading does not always lead to thought, and a man familiar with the Stationers should know this in the marrow of his bones.

2) Captain Blythe. Great character - but is he caught in a different time stream? Maybe I missed something, but I was under the impression that Mosca's adventures in Mandelion covered a period of several weeks at most. And in this time, Clent writes the ballad, gets it published and sung, it spreads through the countryside, Blythe finds out and lives up to it, through village after village and finally he comes to Mandelion and is made de facto leader of the resistance. I'm sorry; I couldn't take it seriously.

3) The ending - that last long conversation between Mosca and Clent. And yeah, I know this is YA but still. It's about as subtle as a sledgehammer (do you see THE MESSAGE here?). I admit, when Lady T. found the fly in her face powder I groaned and began to gird myself for a too on-the-nose ending, and in it trotted. Slightly disappointing, considering the skill displayed in the rest of the text.

This review's getting too long now. I don't want to give the impression that the flaws were all I took away from this - they're small things, really, and even with them this book's better than most: highly imaginative, well-written, and with a truly wonderful heroine. For all my complaining, I'll definitely be reading everything else Hardinge has written.

An inter-connected collection of short stories set in the future Arctic, after climate change and plague have turned it into a sort of post-apocalyptic environment. Interesting premise, though some of the world-building prompted more questions than it answered.

With the best will in the world, I couldn't get into this. Asimov had a PhD in chemistry, as I recall, but chemistry has always been that branch of science that has left me absolutely cold, and even Asimov can't make it interesting - although things do improve once he starts relating it to biology.

As always, the most interesting parts of Asimov science books are the asides - the little pieces of strange history, the character sketches of scientists. I would have liked more, to leaven the deadly nature of the subject, but alas.

The included essays came from a popular science column Asimov did for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. This explains the bit of repetition, but as a science essayist/columnist, I think I'd still rather read Gould.

A bit dry, not perhaps as focused as it might have been.

It took me a while to get into this. I was looking for a biography of Schrodinger, and a lot of the first half of the book was context, more about people before and around him. I understand it's necessary to set the scientific scene, but I found it frustrating. I thought I was getting a bio, but it didn't read that way...

The second half improved somewhat - I got a better sense of the man as a person, even if the science was beyond me (it seems to require prior introductory reading, to be honest; I can't imagine lay readers making anything of this). I rather get the feeling that Gribbin's audience is historically-minded physicists rather than the average person.

For me at least, I know nothing about quantum physics so some of what he was talking about was absolutely incomprehensible (it gave me that fed-up, irritated feeling I get when wading through philosophy. "What is quantum physics? No, what is it really? How do we know we know?" *shudders*).

In sum, I finished this book none the wiser (and considerably less interested) in quantum physics. But Schrodinger himself seems interesting, so I'll probably go looking for a more accessible bio that talks more about him and less about everyone around him.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. One of my favourites of the early Discworld. I read it many years ago and have only just reread it - had forgotten how good it was! Though I remain more interested in the Assassin's Guild than the continuation of life in Djelibeybi.

The camel, You Bastard, is a terrific character. A shame it lives in the desert and will never meet a troll in its natural environment...

I don't write screenplays. Short stories and poetry are my thing, but I saw this in the library and picked it up on impulse because I'm interested in the way other writers work in other forms/genres.

Hauge's explanations are clear, and I appreciate that he goes into why something should be done such a way. It seems like an extremely useful, highly practical guide to writing screenplays - and some of it is very, very interesting. I'd never understood the three act structure before, but I do now and I find it fascinating.

This book scared me silly as a kid! I've just come across my old copy and read it again... it's got me remembering how I used to lie awake at night thinking about the fox-witch-doctor-woman, trembling in my bed. As an adult, I can read it and laugh (the science is particularly silly) but as a kid it had a real creep-factor.

There are some wonderful poems in here - I particularly liked "Swallow the Sky" and "We are the Haunted People". Some others do tend to be overwritten though, I think. The over-the-top writing that works so well for Peake in prose (his Gormenghast novels are some of my favourites) is, I feel, less successful in poems like "A Reverie of Bone".

An easy enjoyable read, if a bit repetitive. I realise that Plaidy is constrained somewhat by history, but a lot of this book felt like rinse and repeat: Margaret falls in love, loses all her sense, is promptly cheated on and wants revenge. And this happens, what? Three, four times? I mean it's well-written repetition, but I can only read the same sequence of events so many times before it becomes a little tiresome.