ergative's reviews
925 reviews

 We bought this on the strength of Wulf's superb biography of Alexander Von Humboldt, and her very entertaining book about the passage of Venus. But this was disappointing. The subtitle promised a discussion of empire and colonialism, which did appear, a bit, at the end, but not really thoughtfully or in depth. The details about the plants themselves were lacking, teasing us with mentions of violent disagreements carried out in the Proceedings of the Royal Society but not actually laying out the nature of the botanical disagreements. Most of the book focused on the relationships of the plant-collectors themselves--and that was, to be fair, thoroughly researched and supported with lots of entertainingly spelled quotations from letters and reminiscences. But, overall, these bits of the focus just weren't interesting enough to hold our attention. We kept putting the book down for a week at a time, and I found myself trying to make the bits about Joseph Banks more interesting by remembering how Patrick O'Brian had him as the head of Britain's Napoleonic-era spy activities in the the Aubrey and Maturin books. But no hint of those pursuits enlivened this book, and in the end it was a well-researched slog.

 

Hmm. Oddly, I don't find Charles's occult books as interesting as the straightforward historicals. 

 Lots of fun! Costumes, twisty mystery that kept me guessing, lively plot. Didn't particularly love the whole ethnoessentialism that permeated everything to do with the Romani, but I'm hopeful that it's just the 'flavor' of this book, and will be abandoned for some other thing to flavor the next book 

 This was a very simple tale cloaked in a great deal of atmosphere and mood, a prosaic story filtered through the lens of fairy tale that turns it into something magical. A child shelters from a horrifying existence by viewing it through stories and fiction; and as an adult marries and engages with the world through a more educated version of the same lens. But of course, although fantasy can protect you in times of need, filtering the world through it can go too far, and disengaging from reality is a luxury that not everyone can indulge in safely. 

This is not an easy book. It is slow, thoughtful, full of observations about the nature of fairy tales, of privilege, of childhood and innocence. It weaves its own story around the framework of folklore, without ever stooping to something as predictable as a retelling. Specific tales are invoked, especially Melusine and Bluebeard, but the narrator's conscious awareness of his place in those tales means that even in invoking them he renders them inapplicable to his own situation. 

There are layers upon layers in this book. But, because unraveling those layers is work, and because the characters are filtered through moody atmospheric prose, it's difficult to fully care about them. Some gut-wrenching revelations (that I sort of predicted in nature, if not in detail), fall a bit a flat, and the eventual resolution is less satisfying than it might have been, because I didn't feel about the characters the way I needed to for the final pieces to land as they were intended to do. There is substance to this book, and there is style (a lot of style), but they have difficulty connecting to each other, in the same way the characters have difficulty connecting with the world through their protective filter of fairy tale. 

NB: I received this as a free advance copy from Netgalley. Inasmuch as I can be sure of such things, this has not affeccted the nature of this review.

Where Winter's Orbit was a glorious exercise in pitch-perfect command of romance tropes, this book shifted away from the primary-romance genre (although there is, of course, kissing), and instead presented  more straightforward space-opera political military thriller. But what made it striking was that it still structured itself around romance tropes. Chaos-muppet meets order-muppet, and shenanigans ensue. Fake-dating is reimagined in a way that fits the space-opera political military thriller vibe, but with undeniably recognizable roots. Pacing is good, too. The plot develops and thickens and expands in very satisfying ways, moving along at a good clip that introduces lively new developments at just the right moment, while still leaving time for introspection and Feelings as needed. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

 Fun, fluffy, nothing much to it, but I enjoyed the irreverent air and Lana's determination to make friends. Pity she had to become a delegate herself, though, and give up scribing. Given that this book is rather a celebration of the stoner non-serious approach to life, why does the stoner have to suddenly take on responsibilities and move up in the world? Why can't the stoner remain a stoner? Why can't the Dude just abide? (Well, in this book, because there are no dudes at all, whatsoever. But you get my point.) 

 A very competent piece of swords-and-sorcery fantasy with Asian flavouring instead of European default. I'd probably read the sequels in the series. I did get a bit annoyed by the lack of female characters among the Sien, though: only men take the exams, get to be apprentices, Handss, Voices, etc. The other conquered people and witches of the old magic have lots of badass ladies--that was clear from the beginning--so I'm pretty sure the author was being intentional about the gender roles in his worldbuilding, rather than relying on a male default. But I still would have liked that intentionality to be conveyed to the reader more explicitly, though, because it took until pg 360 or so for our narrator to say anything about 'Oh, yes, the Sien sure are some kneejerk misogynists, aren't they?' I recognize that a first person narrator can be blind to the culture around him, but that doesn't mean the author must therefore ignore the issues until the character has his revelation. There are ways of discussing/acknowledging/engaging with these issues that don't require the character narrator--yes, even 1st person!--to be conscious of them. 

[I read this a while ago, but am only reviewing now because of Reasons.]

 This collection was organized in such a way that I bounced off the first story or two pretty hard. The voice was abrasive in particular, and the violence seemed gratuitous. Once I realized that the whole point of the book was to set up a situation in which gruesome things happened--usually in the form of one person eating another, or one thing eating a person--I was able to settle back and get into it. Sort of oddly cathartic to know that all that I had to worry about with each new story was 'Is this character going to eat someone or get eaten himself?' The poetry is doggerel, though, and the author doesn't seem to realize that 'hath' is a singular verb, so you can't talk about 'a pie made of children who hath offended thee.' It's 'a pie made of children who have offended thee.' 

[I read this a while ago, but am only reviewing now because of Reasons.]

 I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did. I avoid climate apocalypse fascist dystopias as much as I can, given that there's plenty of that developing outside the pages of my books, and the moody introspection that characterizes the whole text is usually something I have little patience with. Much of the action, such as it is, involves walking in the woods and talking to people or sitting in a lab looking at GPS blips and making Deep Moral Decisions, interrupted by periods of Waiting and Worrying. And yet, somehow, I was utterly engrossed. Part of it might be because I've spent all summer doing a huge amount of Waiting and Worrying, so I could deeply empathize with our main character's state of mind, but I think my enjoyment was less about my own circumstances and much more about Wilson's skill as a writer. Definitely a well-deserved BFA nomination there.