octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

An enjoyable, thoughtful read, although I did find it a little dragged out in the endless running of Joanie and Scout, and I don't believe I find Joanie anywhere near as charming as the author does. Little Scout on the other hand was very well done. It's just unfortunate that I was far more interested in (and invested in) her barely explored relationship with her dad than all the time spent on her mother.

Joanie's very underlined irresponsibility did make the ending somewhat obvious, and took away from some of the potential emotional conflict, I think, but it didn't damage the basic readability of the book much.

A quick, easy read, notable for its attractively-practical protagonist. It's always nice to see a main character prioritise common sense over sentiment! I found the world-building a bit thin though - admittedly, this is a novella so there's only so much space to work with but still.

Cool idea, competently executed. I think my favourite part of it was the photos, though - the story began to feel like something I had to get through for the reward of them! I was fascinated to see by the author's note at the end that they were real photos, culled by collectors from a mass of common detritus.

As for the story... I don't mean to sound as if I thought there was something wrong with it. There wasn't. And to be perfectly honest I don't know exactly why I'm rating it as three stars instead of four. There's no reason I can put my finger on that it didn't grab me: I liked it but there wasn't enough there for me to really like it, if that makes any sense. Perhaps it was just too obviously a copy - albeit an old-fashioned one - of The X-Men, and Miss Peregrine is no Charles Xavier. Yes, that could be it. I know there's no originality left in creation and so forth, but one can still side-eye blatancy when one sees it.

Nicely written and evocative, if a bit purple in places. I liked the stories of the mermaids from all the different cultures, but the emphasis on the author's personal obsession was, I thought, overdone in places. It took away from the more scholarly work that was sort of half-apparent, if smothered by authorial meanderings about her tail. I get it: you want to be a mermaid, but could we go back to Sedda or the rusalka now please?

Well-written and enjoyable, but quite slow-paced and perhaps a little over-long for what it has to say. More of an advertisement for a lifestyle than anything else I think.

A collection of essays on various scientific subjects. Dr. Asimov was a chemist, I believe, and the first half of this book is devoted to chemical issues. I confess, chemistry is my most hated science. I stumbled through the pages very slowly, thinking this would probably be a two-star book (worthy but dull) and then chemistry ended and he started writing about maths and biology and history, all of which I find infinitely more tolerable than messing around with the structure of molecules. The maths section was the most enjoyable... it hauled the whole thing up a star.

This is such a classic that I almost feel guilty that my rating isn't higher. Make no mistake, there are parts of it that deserve a high rating. Alright, one part. The slow, thorough portrait of evil that is Claude Frollo is absolutely masterful. Rarely have I loathed a character so much.

However: the thing is just so damn long. I don't mind length if it's used well, but nearly the entire first half of the book is filler. It's meant to be atmospheric but it's just a painful, tedious bore and it's absolutely irrelevant to the rest of the story. I know that old French writers like to take their time to set a scene - I have struggled my way through ALL of Balzac's Human Comedy so I know what of I speak, and never did I think anyone could be as long-winded as him, but Hugo makes Balzac look like an amateur.

This book would have been improved immeasurably if the word count had been cut in half. And if Esmeralda had a brain in her tiny echoing head. But really, as a character she's just a cipher, an empty feminine shape that exists to wail "Phoebus!" continually and against all reason. Comparing her characterisation to Claude Frollo's is an exercise in utter disappointment. If only the Frollo level of skill had been applied to the rest of the text...

Better than Grant's other X-Files novel, the absolutely execrable "Whirlwind", but not by much. Grant only wrote the two novels for this fandom before Kevin J. Anderson (thankfully) took over, I believe, and in "Goblins" (like the follow-up) I'm never sure I'm reading about the same characters that are on the tv show. Mulder and Scully don't feel in-character to me - Scully in particular is under-used and seems to exist primarily as some sort of maternal babysitter for her partner.

And this is unrelated to the uninspired content, but: that cover is truly terrible. I don't know if you can quite see its awfulness as a thumbnail, but trust me. It's dire.

This is... not great. It's fairly superficial in all respects, I thought. There's also not much characterisation of our two heroes - honestly, I found Grant's depiction of Scully as, at times, barely recognisable.

I did enjoy the setting, though.

I tend to like Wyndham's novels better than his short fiction, but this was still an enjoyable read. The stand-out story was, I think, "Survival", which is deeply, utterly horrifying. The final image is one of the creepiest I've ever come across in science fiction. Runner-up was "Dumb Martian", which I enjoyed primarily because the nasty, abusive protagonist gets exactly what he deserves. The remaining stories are competent but unmemorable. Still, worth reading if only for "Survival".