thelostvoid's reviews
802 reviews

This was an absolutely beautiful and poignant collection of short stories, I am blown away by Ken Liu's talent and ability to execute on such varied and interesting ideas. It's truly impressive. 

My favourite stories I think were  The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species, The Waves, Mono No Aware and The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary. 

I am too scared to start reading The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson, so I decided to read this instead and what a delightful choice. Funny and cute but also super heartwarming as well - love these characters and their dynamics and this was great fun! It was neat to see Anya get to do some cool things and Twilight wearing sweaters and being domestic/'civilian' was perfection!

Oh my god consider me fucking GONE. BRANDON SANDERSON WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT??? FOR ANY OF THAT?? I knew this book had an insane ending/final chunk but nothing could have prepared me for all of that. What the fuck?? I am simply beyond comprehension my brain is blown open and I either need to read The Hero of Ages immediately or take like, a couple of weeks reading literally anything else because fuck me and FUCK YOU. Fuck it all!

This was so well written and crafted, and I had that sinking pit in my stomach when

Elend and Vin got married after Vin chose him and trust over Zane and power where I was like ... fuck I am so invested in these characters and I don't entirely know what will happen but it's not going to be good ahhhh.

. So yeah, loved this and am now both anticipating and fearing not only Hero of Ages but also the Stormlight Archive so much more hahA.

I will fully admit that I only bought this because of one line in the first episode of the Sandman, where Paul asks Alex if he's read Vile Bodies. It's one of the sound-bites that I don't think will ever leave my head. 

I watched the film adaptation fairly recently, which was helpful in keeping track of who was who and what was happening, but frankly that was about as enjoyable as it got. This story is fine, but really not for me I don't think. 

I'm not mad I listened to it, but my life is unchanged and it meant very little. 

This was an absolutely stunning book my god. The writing was so beautiful, the world building and characters so engaging and interesting. I cried at multiple points because goddamn Mehr and Amun are simply so precious to me and also to each other aahhhh.

I am thrilled that I loved this so much because Past Me did buy every book Tasha Suri has written and my god it would be awkward if I didn't like her writing haha. I greatly look forward to reading Realm of Ash soon, and then delving into the Burning Kingdom trilogy.

A quick and engaging read. I liked the world and the characters, and found it to be suitably tense and at times pretty ... zesty? Zesty. I do think things happened very quickly and without a lot of time for things to fully develop and for me to get super attached, and if this was like a hundred pages longer it would have been a better pace. But for what it is, it is good.

Objectively well written and with interesting world building, but I just don't care about any of the characters or what happens to them, or the city itself. A real shame, but I am glad to have given it a go and now know I don't really like reading revolutionary political fantasy. 

I was very hesitant to start reading this, both when I bought it and tried to read it last year (or whenever that was) and after drawing it from my TBR jar recently. It was difficult to understand the first few pages when I read them the first time, and I was unsure that it would be for me. Worried that I got overexcited buying books, and this wasn't meant to be. This was another mistake that I would regret in the long run.

Thankfully, I devoured this once I started reading. Although I can't really describe how I feel about it, I do know that there were many lines which made me pause and feel. I can see myself in the flaws and thoughts and humanity of Regan and Aldo, and even if this entire book is pretentious and strange I think it was beautiful. It is human. 

This was as emotionally devastating as I was expecting, and a really good audiobook. Absolutely heartbreaking and beautifully written, I think I will try and get a physical copy at some point. I will certainly be thinking about it for a long time. 

An absolutely delightful read, as I entirely expected. I did actually listen to the audiobook of this over a couple of days, instead of doing uni work, and I don't regret that for the world.

Once again Shannon Chakraborty has created such a vivid world and cast of characters, and I cannot wait to see what (mis)adventures Amina and her crew will get into in the future!